Ambushed (40 page)

Tears
started to pool in the corners of my eyes. What he'd just said was
incredible. Maybe it wouldn't have been right for another girl, but
it was right for me. It was almost exactly how I felt about him.

That
was why my emotions were such a mess. A part of me had never doubted
him, had never believed he could be anything other than perfect, but
another part—a very big, vocal part of me—had been
convinced that someone like Alec could never want someone like me.

A
pair of tears broke free and started their slow-motion race down my
cheeks as I reached over and took hold of Alec's hand. I wasn't as
confident as Carson was that I couldn't be addicted to a shape
shifter's touch. Being dependent on anyone to that degree scared me
to death, but somehow in that instant it didn't matter. I needed to
touch him as much as he needed to touch me.

"I'd
really like that, Alec. I can't think of anything that I want more
than that right now, but Taggart needs me. He's all alone and he
doesn't have as much self-control as you do. He's going to need
someone to lean on and I'm the last person left that he trusts."

Alec
closed his eyes as if to deny me the heartache lapping up from the
depths of his being. It was still there, easily readable in the set
of his mouth and the defeat in his posture, but somehow he was right.
Seeing it in his eyes had been the worst part.

"You'll
sacrifice your happiness,
our
happiness, for your friend?"

"Yes.
He's not just any friend. He's saved my life twice already and he's
never asked me for anything other than friendship, but even if that
wasn't the case I'd still be going with him."

"I
respect your decision; I just wish I could understand."

I
reached up and guided Alec's face back towards me. He opened his eyes
and I gave him a sad smile of my own.

"You
already understand, you just don't realize it. What would you say if
I asked you to come with Taggart and me?"

"I'd
refuse. I have duties. To my sister, Rachel, to my friends and to
everyone who wants to overthrow my father and the others like him."

The
admission obviously cost him, but I already knew Alec well enough to
know that he wasn't going to lie to me, not about something this
important.

"See,
you understand perfectly. It's no different for me. I doubted our
fight for a while, but I'm every bit as committed to it as any of you
are. The resistance needs Taggart and it needs me. The two of us will
be infinitely more effective working together and by staying with him
I can serve as a bridge between the two of you. He's going to need to
learn to trust you if we're going to have any kind of chance of
winning."

I
raised the hand I'd been holding and turned it over. I looked at his
hand, a hand that had killed today, a hand that had saved lives, and
then I brought it up to cup my face. I kissed his palm and then I
stood and walked away without looking back.

I
almost expected him to stop me. Part of me wanted him to force me to
stay, but deep down I knew he wouldn't. Alec couldn't do that and
still be Alec.

Samantha Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Samantha was sitting in her waiting room, enjoying the sunlight on the back of
her neck while she played her piano, when it happened. Kaleb stormed
into her suite without waiting to be announced, without observing any
of the normal formalities that had come to dominate their
relationship over the nearly two decades that they'd been married.

Kaleb
picked up a potted rose, a miniaturized specimen that had been a gift
from him in happier times, and threw it through the large window
directly opposite the doorway from the main house. The pot was heavy
enough that a human would have had to exert themselves to get it
airborne.

There
was a casualness to Kaleb's motion that was belied by the fact that
the pot hit directly where four panes of glass met. The heavy
earthenware container shattered upon impact but not before it
destroyed the metal supporting all four panes of glass and caused a
deadly rain of razor-edged fragments.

Anyone
sitting underneath the glass would have been killed. The rose was
sliced into dozens of pieces. It was a small thing against everything
else that had just happened, but that miniature rose was one of only
two that had survived so many years. Samantha had never possessed
Kaleb's green thumb. Most of the roses he'd given her had long since
died.

The
nearest shard landed a mere four feet from where Samantha was
sitting, but that wasn't the terrifying part of the experience. The
really scary part was the fact that Kaleb seemed so controlled. He
was always the most dangerous when he was riding his rage rather than
letting it ride him.

"Agony's
convoy was attacked an hour and a half ago. By Alec."

Samantha
tried to keep her feelings off of her face, but it was so hard to
play these kinds of games with someone with the native advantages
that Kaleb enjoyed.

"You'll
be happy to know that Alec's people wiped out my men quite handily.
Their attack was well-executed and they seemed to have brought along
someone with a rather unique ability."

"Maybe,
or maybe Alec has finally manifested the power that you and Mallory
have been anticipating for so long."

Kaleb's
smile had a cruel edge to it. "I don't think so. If he had, he
would have used it when Brandon dropped a secondary force in his lap
and nearly killed him. I'm just sorry we didn't manage to get
Oblivion down there too. He and Brandon would have made an
unstoppable team."

Samantha
couldn't help but gasp, but it was a small gasp and in its own way it
served her purpose as well. It always paid off to make Kaleb think
she was weaker than she actually was. It was one of the few
advantages she had over him. He was conditioned to think of himself
as superior in every way. It meant he underestimated her, not
frequently, but often enough.

"It
was a trap."

"Of
course it was a trap. Do you really think I would have let you get
access to that information by accident or out of incompetence? I
worked very hard to make sure that you and Jack would think that the
intelligence I'd passed you was clean. It was Jack, wasn't it?"

This
time Samantha managed to keep her face even and her breathing
unchanged, but that just made Kaleb smile.

"I
had my suspicions when Alec was able to fight his way out of the
welcoming committee that I'd arranged for him when he flew back from
the Caymans. He couldn't have done that without help and he'd had
very limited opportunities to make the kind of contacts he would have
needed to pull off that kind of unexpected miracle. Brandon just
confirmed my suspicions. He saw several of Jack's people before he
was chased off. He didn't see Jack though. Pity, I'd hoped to kill my
old friend myself."

Samantha
waited. Kaleb invariably let more drop when she just let him talk
than when she tried to get information out of him with leading
questions.

"The
most interesting thing out of all of this is that you knew it was a
trap, but you didn't tell Jack or Alec that. I made every effort to
convince you that you'd stumbled upon the kind of intelligence
windfall that the resistance needed and yet you still knew what I was
really planning and arranged to have a second group there to bail
Alec out when Brandon tried to shut the jaws of the trap."

"Maybe
I just wanted to protect Alec. Maybe I didn't know it was a trap but
I couldn't help but make every arrangement I could in order to try
and protect my only son."

Kaleb's
laugh was a biting, caustic thing. "We've known each other for
too long for those kinds of ploys to work on me,
dearest
.
You're much too experienced a manipulator to let something like
sentiment get in the way of your larger goals. You wanted to weaken
me, both in real terms and with regards to my position on the
Coun'hij.

"Just
remember, I'm not the worst thing you need to fear. There are forces
out there that are much less
understanding
than I am, but they aren't any more dangerous than me. Even when I
lose, I still win. How likely is Dream Stealer to trust you next time
you provide him with a tasty bit of information? For that matter, how
much confidence are you going to have the next time you think you've
ferreted out some piece that I don't want you to know about?

"All
roads lead to me, Samantha. It's only a matter of time before you
figure that out. It was obvious that Alec needed more motivation to
manifest his power than I'd managed to provide him while he was part
of my pack. I think that's all about to change though."

Kaleb
turned and left without another word. Samantha rose and picked her
way across the shards of glass. She managed to hold off the tremors
until she got the door closed and made it into her bedroom. Once she
was safe, she couldn't keep from shaking. The fit didn't stop for
more than an hour.

Shawn Bishop
The Bishop Compound
The Outskirts of Chicago, Illinois

Shawn
and his dad were in his dad's office when the text arrived. Shawn
looked at his phone and then slid it across his father's desk.

"Alec
pulled it off. I don't have any idea how he managed it, but another
group showed up and bailed him out at the last minute."

Ulrich
read the text and set Shawn's phone down with the same impassive face
that he usually displayed to the rest of the world. Shawn had heard
whispers inside the pack to the effect that Ulrich only felt two
emotions. Anger and a mildly-interested clinical detachment. Both
emotions were potentially dangerous to those around him.

"You're
angry."

"Yeah,
but to be fair, I'm not really mad at you. This was as much my
decision as it was yours, I'm just pissed off at the situation. If
Vicki and I had gone down there like we'd originally planned we could
have prevented some of the losses that Alec took and maybe we could
have even killed Brandon."

Ulrich
nodded. "I know. Believe it or not, I feel the same way. Alec
Graves didn't save my life, but he saved yours, which counts for a
lot with me. It was just too dangerous. Someone leaked Alec's plan to
the Coun'hij, which meant that there wasn't going to be any hope of
keeping your involvement a secret.

"If
Kaleb and the others ever realize that we're actively working against
them they'll risk everything in a bid to wipe out us and every other
pack that's ever even looked at them sideways. Even repaying Alec
Graves for your life isn't worth that."

Shawn
dropped his head down so that his face was resting in his hands. "I
know, I'm not trying to say that you don't appreciate what he did,
it's…oh, I don't know. It's more than just his actions that
made me want to trust him. He's the real deal, Dad.

"I
think he's what Jaldul or Thanatas must have been like. I practically
wanted to kneel down and swear fealty to him. I didn't of course, but
the desire was there."

"He's
not going to make it much longer, Shawn. You're right, his heart is
in the right place, but he's in over his head, even more than he
realizes he is. Kaleb and the others will eventually crush him, it's
only a matter of time."

"Do
you really think we can change things?"

Ulrich
shrugged. "We're up against some of the best, Shawn. Kaleb has
been manipulating people since before you were born and he graduated
to the major leagues pretty early on. The fact that there are two of
us gives us more options than I used to have, and the fact that our
pack is so large gives us leverage, but when you get right down to it
we're just treading water."

"I
know. You explained the plan to me when I was twelve. I understand it
and I agree with it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

Ulrich
reached one massive arm across the desk and rested it on his son's
shoulder. "It's going to happen eventually. No repressive
government can stay strong indefinitely. Eventually they'll misstep
or some young hybrid will manifest a game-changing ability. When that
happens we'll be ready to throw our weight behind the resistance and
make the overthrow much less bloody than it otherwise would have
been."

"I
sure hope so, but I worry every day that we're going to wait too long
to act and find ourselves boxed into a corner we can't fight our way
out of."

—The Story Continues in
Shattered
—

Curious how all of the pieces of the Reflection Universe fit
together? Check out
the
Reflections Reading Order Diagram
on
my blog.

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Acknowledgments:

Being an author is one of the more solitary professions out there, but the process doesn't stop once the words are on the screen, and this book never would have seen the light of day without the help of numerous people.

My editors, RJ Locksley and Amy Jirsa-Smith did great work fixing my usual run of mixed metaphors and misplaced words. It took me a long time to find editors that I was completely happy with, and I'm glad they continue to work with me.

My advanced readers are a great bunch, many of whom do even more than simply reading my new releases looking for the spattering of errors I always end up introducing into the text while going through the editing process. I'd like to express a big thank you to my Mom & Dad, Mark, Shalese, Matthew, Mimi, Kim, Heather Tucker, Jenine Anderson and Janelle Gordinier.