Forsaken (12 page)

"So
this might make the difference?"

"Maybe.
There's only one way to know for sure."

Kristin
hissed something angry at the two of us but Ash quieted her with a
wave. "All of the considerations we talked about earlier today
haven't changed. If we can't establish a bit of depth to our lineup
then we're screwed. Even Tasha's proposal will need a little bit of
time before it will have a noticeable deterrent effect."

I
let my shape shrink back down to my human form, ejected the magazine,
racked the slide, and then handed the weapon back to Kristin as I
pocketed the magazine and spare round. She snatched the weapon out of
my hand and then leaned forward, talking quietly enough that her
voice wouldn't carry to Ash.

"If
you put him in the ring against the black hybrid and he dies then
I'll come after your mom and Rachel."

My
beast just about broke loose again, but I suppressed the
transformation with a grim determination. Ash was still on edge and I
couldn't afford to do anything that looked threatening. Instead I
leaned forward and whispered into Kristin's ear.

"What
is to stop me from killing you as soon as Ash falls? Be careful what
kind of threats you issue. You're not ready to play with those kinds
of stakes yet."

"You're
not a murderer, Alec. Not by nature or choice either one, not while
you have people who love you."

I
looked down at her and let my eyes bleed over to the ice blue of my
beast. "How can you be so sure of that?"

"I'm
sure of it because you're not that different than I am, and I won't
do those kinds of things as long as Ash is around to anchor me."

I
pushed past her and walked away, but anger still lapped at the edges
of my control even after the two of them were safely several corners
behind me. The last thing the pack needed right now was a willful
human throwing her hat into the power structure. It was all I could
do right now to keep the rest of the pack from killing each other. If
Ash didn't get Kristin back in check enough that she stopped
threatening noncombatants, there was going to be hell to pay.

I
debated lifting weights, but with as little defense in depth as we
had right now it was too risky. I just couldn't take the chance that
another challenger would show up while I was still exhausted from a
workout. Eventually my aimless feet brought me out to the gardens
behind the house.

Once
I stepped out into the cool winter air, I knew where I'd end up
eventually, but I just couldn't stop myself. The memories were
painful, but they hurt precisely because of how incredible they'd
been back when they'd happened. I couldn't help the fact that Adri's
leaving had poisoned them to a certain extent, but I knew that I
needed to start trying to move on.

Tasha's
appearance in Sanctuary today had driven that fact home, even if it
ultimately accomplished nothing else. Grief over Adri's departure was
causing me to make suboptimal decisions in almost every aspect of my
life, but even recognizing that fact hadn't halted the slow-motion
meltdown that was my life.

The
grotto was just like I'd remembered it. The slightly cooler December
temperatures were enough to send some of the vegetation on the rough
rock walls into a state of dormancy, but Andrew and Donovan had
carefully staggered the plant life such that there was something in
bloom at nearly any time of year.

The
potted rose bushes were something else that I'd been avoiding ever
since Adri had left. Lagrimas del Angel represented the culmination
of two generations of work. The full, white petals edged in purple
were so close to perfect that a casual observer could have been
forgiven for thinking that we'd actually managed to achieve
perfection, but the true beauty of the plant wasn't its visual
presence.

I
took a deep breath and let the scent of the few remaining buds float
into my lungs. Lagrimas somehow made everything around them smell
better, so today I was sampling the solid, unmoving smell of the
walls and the tiny trickle of water that made its way down the rock
face. It was a heavenly bouquet, but I knew it was a pale imitation
of what it could be.

Adri
had turned the grotto into something unearthly. The first time we'd
been together here had been in a shared dream. We'd been so lost in
our own heads that we hadn't realized there was anything unusual
about the experience.

Since
then it seemed as though most of our milestones had been here. It had
been here that she'd started to understand what I was for the first
time, but she'd bravely seen past the beast to the man behind it. The
night of Ashure Day Dance, Donovan and I had put floating lights into
the reflecting pool and carpeted the entire grotto with Lagrimas
petals.

I
let my mind drift back to that night, to the way it had felt to hold
her in my arms, and I found a quiet sliver of peace underneath all of
the pain that the memory triggered. Somewhere along the way I'd lost
Adri's trust and respect. There wasn't anything I could do about that
now but try to live up to the person that she thought I could be. It
was a formidable challenge given the inherent savagery of pack life.

I
lowered myself down to the floor of the grotto, and put my back
against the rock wall. As the minutes passed, something
tickled the back of my mind. It was almost like I was on the verge
of some kind of mental breakthrough. I could feel the thought,
whatever it was, working its way up from my subconscious.

A
split second before it seemed like I'd have my realization, my phone
rang. It was James.

"Alec,
we've got another car inbound. I think we'd be pushing our luck to
expect that this one isn't a challenger. Do you want Tasha there?"

I
took a deep breath and reminded myself that it wasn't James' fault
that my thoughts had just gone skittering away.

"Don't
make it a command, but please have Donovan stop by and extend an
invitation for her to be there if she'd like. You can handle rounding
up the rest of the pack?"

"Yeah,
we're all getting plenty of practice at this kind of thing."

A
few minutes later, I was back in Donovan's Zen Garden waiting for
the rest of the pack to arrive as a cool breeze caused the trees to
slowly sway back and forth. Tasha pulled me off to the side a few
seconds before Donovan and James arrived with the challenger.

"Alec,
I caught a look at your latest arrival. James agreed to have Donovan
lead him around the long way so I could brief you about whatever I
knew. This guy's name is Raphael and he's really bad news. Honestly,
I figured you had at least a few more weeks before this caliber of
challenger started showing up."

"It
had to happen sooner or later. What makes this guy so dangerous?"

"In
a word, he's Agony-lite. He can't do permanent injuries as quickly
as Agony can. It seems like he has to concentrate harder to make it
happen, but the effect is essentially the same."

I
nodded, my mind feverishly fitting the pieces together. "He's
here now because he figures he can intimidate the rest of the pack
into standing up to any future challengers. He doesn't just figure
he's a better fighter; he figures he's got the kind of deterrent
we're currently lacking."

Tasha
was pacing now, obviously following the same chain of logic I was.
"You're probably right. He's not the scariest dispossessed out
there, but he's got a chance of making it work. He could have been
part of the Coun'hij if he'd wanted to, but he turned them down
because he knew he'd always be playing second fiddle to Agony."

"Where
do you and your mom stand with regards to an alliance with the
Sanctuary pack if he were in charge of things?"

"Why,
are you thinking of stepping down?"

I
shrugged. "Possibly. It depends on a lot of factors. If there is
an option that preserves the pack and just requires that I become one
of the dispossessed that might be the lesser of all evils."

"The
Coun'hij would see you dead inside of a year. It wouldn't matter how
good of a job you did hiding; they'd find you and kill you once you
didn't have the protection of a pack."

"That
still might be the lesser evil."

Tasha
didn't look happy about my train of thought, but I knew that wouldn't
impact her answer. She'd been groomed to rule her pack since she'd
been able to walk. She knew all about hard decisions.

"I
wouldn't marry someone like Raphael. He'll keep people in line
through torture more even than by intimidation. I wouldn't bring that
into my pack and subject my friends and family to
dealing with him. We'd either find another way or we'd fail, but I
wouldn't consider him an option."

"Fair
enough. Sounds like it will be a fight then."

Raphael
had already shifted to his hybrid form by the time Donovan and the
others brought him back to Tasha and me. His words came out with the
deep, almost alien sound of a throat that hadn't been designed with
speech in mind.

"Are
you so scared of me that you wouldn't even greet me with your pack,
Graves?"

"Quite
to the contrary. I had other, more pressing business to attend to
than meeting one unimportant dispossessed challenger who will
probably be dead before the sun sets."

We
both knew it was all nothing more than blatant posturing, but I could
still see that my comment had angered him. He relied on his
reputation and someone claiming they didn't know who he was seemed to
drive him nearly into a killing rage.

"Come
face me and we'll see who lies dead at whose feet."

"I
don't fight the trash. You can challenge as per your right, but we'll
have to verify that you're worth my time before you'll get a shot at
me."

"I
think you'll find that your pack is even less willing to fight me
than most. I promise you all now that anyone who stands against me
today will pay for their actions once I've taken over this sorry
excuse of a pack."

I
confidently turned my back to him, knowing that Donovan, and probably
Tasha would remain facing him and that they'd give warning with
plenty of time if he moved towards us. James, Jasmin, Dominic, Jess
and Ash all gathered around me. I pulled out my phone and loaded up
the special app I'd had commissioned more than a year before.

I
drew a circle and then started moving the names of each member of the
pack around into the positions where I wanted them. Everyone nodded,
and then it was time to lay out the order of who would go when.

I
started putting the list together just like Ash and I had discussed,
and then paused as I looked at the diagram I'd put together. Ash was
in the center of the arc I'd drawn, and for some reason Rachel's
words came back to me.

Dominic
wasn't ready to go up against a hybrid—she wasn't even in a
position to go up against a regular wolf—but I couldn't get
what Rachel had said out of my mind. My finger moved, almost of its
own accord, and I found myself putting Dominic at the top of the
list, followed by James, Jasmin, and then me.

James
hissed in displeasure when he saw the list, but Dominic put a hand on
his arm and nodded slowly to me. A few seconds later we were all
spreading out around the square of sand and then Dominic sprang
towards Raphael.

My
heart jumped up to my throat as I saw just how slow she was. She
never even had a chance. Raphael sidestepped her attack and sank a
claw into her side, pinning her to the ground.

James
started towards the two of them, but Raphael held up a hand. "Stop,
or I'll kill her."

It
was the one threat guaranteed to immobilize James, but it worked
equally well on the rest of us. Raphael repositioned, keeping Dominic
pinned to the ground, as he brought his right hand up to her face and
slowly sliced her left cheek down to the bone. The slow, measured
motion left no doubt in my mind but that he was using his power on
her. The wound was going to scar, and there wasn't anything any of us
could do about it.

Raphael
stood up, Dominic dangling from his arm. "She stood against me,
and now she's felt the very first taste of the retribution I'll be
visiting upon her once I kill Alec. The rest of you would be best off
standing down and letting me kill him now."

Dominic
hung limply from Raphael's left hand. She was heart-wrenchingly still
and I started to worry that he'd hit something critical when he'd
sunk his claws into her chest. Raphael dropped Dominic into the sand
as he slowly turned in a half circle, taking in the rest of the pack.

James
stepped forward, obviously intent on vengeance for what had just been
done to Dom, but then things happened almost too fast even for me to
follow. Dom rolled back to her feet and sprang onto Raphael's back,
all four sets of claws scrabbling for purchase.

Raphael
spun around, trying desperately to knock Dominic off his back, but
she had too good of a grip and hybrid arms weren't hinged in such a
way as to let them get at anything behind them. It boggled the mind
that Dom had been able to hang motionless in Raphael's claws,
pretending to be unconscious despite the pain, but she'd managed it
and sprung the ultimate ambush.

Dominic
mewled in pain as Raphael threw himself backward, slamming her into
the ground, but she didn't let go. She clung to his back as he rolled
away and then regained his feet. I could tell that Dom was taking a
beating, but she gamely held on to Raphael's back until she saw her
chance and then she took it.

One
moment she was clawing frantically to try and keep her perch and then
suddenly her jaws fastened around the back of Raphael's neck. There
were still another several minutes of desperate motion, but in that
instant Dominic had secured her victory.

As
soon as Raphael hit the ground, the rest of the pack swarmed around
her, congratulating her. Relief that Dom had survived washed through
me, and then sorrow that she'd been scarred, but most of all I found
myself thinking of the respite she'd just secured us. Raphael, a
powerful, dangerous hybrid, had just been killed by one of the
weakest members of our pack. With Tasha here to report on the events,
word should spread quickly enough to deter at least some of the
dispossessed currently lined up to take a shot at us. I looked over
at Tasha and saw the same thought in her eyes.