Forsaken (2 page)

It
was a dangerous, short-term game to play, but it had been known to
happen. At some point though, word of their actions inevitably got
out, and when that happened, the dispossessed always banded together
and destroyed the offending pack.

There
was very little the dispossessed could agree on, but nearly all of
them held challenge law as sacrosanct. Their ongoing ability to
challenge for a place in a pack represented their only real hope of
leaving the solitary existence to which they'd been consigned.

I
noted Derrick's relative inexperience with actual challenges and then
motioned for Donovan to lead the way. There were traditions around
nearly every aspect of a challenge, and this was no different. The
weakest member of the pack led the way, then the challenger, then the
rest of the pack, starting with the other weaker members and ending
with the alpha. It minimized the risk to both the challenger and the
pack. The challenger could attack Donovan, but if he did
so, he'd quickly be swarmed under by the rest of the pack. It also
meant that there was a buffer of space between him and the pack's
hybrids, so he had at least a chance of being able to flee in the
event of deception on the part of the pack, as long as he didn't stop
to attack Donovan on his way out.

If
I'd had my choice, I would have put James' mother in Donovan's place.
Both of them were crippled from what the Coun'hij had done to them
decades ago, but Donovan ran the pack's financial affairs. More
importantly, to my mind at least, Donovan could be counted on to
support me, while Addison took every possible chance to
make my life difficult.

A
few minutes later, we arrived. The sandy square that we'd all taken
to calling Donovan's Zen Garden, was sheltered from observation by
trees, both above and to the sides, and offered a chance to use the
terrain to our advantage. It was a small chance, but our experience
fighting on the shifting medium was the closest thing we had to a
home court advantage.

The
challenge rules required all fights to take place outside so that
other dispossessed could watch from afar if they wanted to. The Zen
Garden met the requirement of being outside, but not the bit about
others being able to watch. It was another risk, but
that was one of the rules that had taken a beating over the last few
years. With modern technology it was getting harder and harder to
keep our existence a secret, so I felt relatively comfortable running
this particular risk. Still, only time would tell whether or not the
dispossessed at large would agree that secrecy trumped their need to
monitor challenges.

I
used the brief pause afforded by Derrick walking over to the other
side of the arena to look over the pack. Dominic, standing on the
other side of James, looked tired, but determined. She stepped
forward, planning on being the first to engage Derrick, but I waved
her back as Jasmin stepped forward. James gave me a considering look,
but I'd already moved on to Isaac.

Isaac
folded his arms and stared at me in a way that I knew meant he wasn't
going to back down. For more years than I cared to think about, Isaac
had been my strong right hand, but he'd started to lose some of his
trademark calm since Jess had lost her memories. I hadn't been able
to decide whether the stress of trying to
court Jess was getting to him, or if Jess had somehow been the source
of his serenity.

Whichever
it was, the loss was becoming a greater and greater problem. He'd
thrown nearly a James-style fit when Jess and Andrew had told him
that they wanted to go camping without him, and that hadn't been like
Isaac at all. The old Isaac would have understood that Andrew was his
biggest ally in the fight to win Jess' heart and would have welcomed
the sign that Jess was at least interested in reconnecting with her
father. The new Isaac fixated on the fact that Jess was actively
cutting him out of her life and tried to bully her into including
him.

I
tilted my head questioningly, and Isaac frowned.
It seemed like he was surprised at his own response, but he
shook his head slowly and then refused to meet my eyes. It wasn't
surprising to me, but it was no less frustrating for being what I'd
expected out of him. It would be Jasmin, James and me after all.

Derrick
reached the other side of the sand, turned around, and called up his
beast with a surge of power that was greater than I'd expected out of
our first challenger. One second, a fairly large man stood across
from us, and then in the next instant, we were faced with a tower of
muscle, fangs, and claws.

His
hybrid form was at least six foot three and had to weigh in at
somewhere around three hundred and twenty pounds, but Jasmin didn't
even hesitate. Her wolf form exploded out and then she was in motion
towards him. Jasmin played the hothead, but when it came to a fight,
she was as calculating as just about anyone I knew. She moved towards
him to trigger motion on his part and then carefully gauged her speed
so that they met on our half of the field.

It
was a shrewd action that made sure James didn't have as far to run
when it came time for him to take her place, but it meant she had to
duck under Derrick's first attack. Jasmin didn't normally fight a
defensive game, and it put her off balance slightly. Only the fact
that Derrick didn't seem entirely comfortable fighting on the sand
saved Jas from a nasty slash across her side, but then she was past
him and spinning around to tear into his leg.

Jasmin
released him and rolled with the force of the backhand that he landed
on her, shaken but obviously not down yet. She couldn't kill him fast
from behind, but she didn't need to kill him, not with James waiting
in the wings. Instead, Jasmin fought aggressively but focused more on
bleeding him and tiring him out.

The fight was taking a toll on Jas; she had to be
bruised from one end to the other, and Derrick had landed a couple of
deep slashes on her left flank. She was taking a beating, but he was
moving more slowly now from the chunk she'd taken out of his right
leg, and he'd lost more blood than she had so far.

James leaned forward, anxious to join the fight. He knew
as well as I did that the best possible outcome would
be for Jasmin to win the fight, but he couldn't help himself. James
liked a good fight more than just about anything else.

Jasmin
was working the perimeter, burning up incredible reserves of energy
as she kept Derrick in motion. She wasn't as fast as she normally
was, but she still had an edge over any non-royal wolf, and it was
obvious Derrick was having a hard time adjusting to just how fast she
was. A sudden burst of speed caught Derrick off guard and he pushed
his leg too far as he tried to compensate.

Derrick's
injured leg collapsed underneath him, and Jasmin changed directions
instantly. My breath caught as she launched herself into the air and
then landed on Derrick with a hammer blow of force that spun him
around in a half circle as her fangs latched onto his shoulder.
Derrick let the momentum imparted by Jasmin's attack continue to spin
him around, and he converted it into a fall that very nearly crushed
her beneath him.

Jasmin
had already started jumping away by the time Derrick hit the ground,
but she landed awkwardly and a yelp of pain made it out of her before
she rolled back to her feet. There was a hitch to Jasmin's motions
now. I was pretty sure she'd broken a rib, but Derrick's right arm
hung limply at his side. She'd managed to savage the muscles of
his shoulder enough that he couldn't lift it, which meant
that even if Jasmin couldn't finish the fight James should easily
prevail. My shoulders relaxed slightly as I realized that
Isaac's unwillingness to fight would remain a secret.

It
was tempting to see if Jasmin could finish Derrick off, but she was
noticeably slower now. If she won it would buy us some more time
before the next challenger, but there was just too much risk that
Derrick would kill her. I opened my mouth and quietly said James'
name.

James
smiled and called his beast with an explosion of power. Before James
could move, two things happened that I hadn't been expecting.

Jasmin
felt James transform and took another calculated risk. She launched
herself at Derrick in an all-out bid to kill him. It made my stomach
drop slightly, but it was a smart risk to take. She knew that James
was on his way, so she had one last chance to finish the fight, and
even if she failed, there was a reasonable chance that Derrick
wouldn't be able to kill her in turn before James got to him.

Jasmin's
action was perfect. Addison's move made me want to kill her,
and it wasn't just my beast powering the fury that washed
over me.

Addison reached out and grabbed James' hand. She wasn't even
close to strong enough to stop him in his human form, let alone when
he was a hybrid, but he deferred to her with the force of nearly two
decades of habit and stopped in his tracks.

If
I'd had any questions about whether or not she realized what she was
doing, they were answered as she gave me a
self-satisfied smile. I had two courses open to me. I could force the
issue with James and Addison, or I could save Jasmin.

Addison's power
play had taken the barest fraction of a second. Jasmin was still in
flight, but Derrick was already reacting. His good
hand was coming up to intercept her. It was going to be close, but
Jasmin had known that all along. She was counting on the pack to back
her play and I couldn't leave her out there unsupported, not even if
it was going to put all of us in a worse position in the long run.

I
tore open the cage that I used to keep my beast confined to one
corner of my being and launched myself towards Jasmin and Derrick as
my transformation completed. My hybrid form was several inches
taller than Derrick's and I had an incredible weight advantage on my
side, but even as I streaked towards the two combatants, I was
reaching inside myself trying to activate the power that had dropped
Brandon and his pack instantly. Even this late in the fight, if I was
able to manifest my power, it would cut off the stream of challengers
that we were otherwise going to have to face, but nothing responded
to my desperate efforts to trigger my ability.

Jasmin
hit Derrick and her mouth fastened closed on the side of his neck,
but the semi-retractable claws on his left hand had already found
purchase on her stomach. As his hand sank into her flesh, Jasmin let
go of Derrick and dropped towards the sand, but I collided with him
at the same time that she impacted on the ground.

I
tried to take his bad leg into account, but I had to make sure he
didn't have a chance to finish Jasmin off, so I ended up
overestimating the amount of force needed to bowl him over. Derrick
hit the ground with enough force to send sand spraying out all the
way to the far end of the square, and then our momentum sent us
rolling.

Derrick
got the talons on both of his feet into my legs, but I was focused on
controlling his left hand because it was the threat most able to end
the fight quickly. As we stopped rolling, I found myself on the
bottom with blood flowing freely from both of my legs. I was taking a
lot of damage, but I ignored the pain and brought my left leg up
against his chest, pushing as I kept ahold of his left hand.

I
felt his talons tear free as he flipped over my head and then I
rolled on top of him, savaging his legs and chest as I got into
position for a kill. A second later, I had my left hand around his
throat, but something stopped me from ending the fight. I knew that
later I'd come up with a host of reasons why I didn't kill him, but
in that instant I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Instead
of ripping his throat out, I sank my claws into his chest, puncturing
one of his lungs, and then broke his left arm. It was a brutal thing
to do to another person, but I couldn't leave him in a condition to
resume his attack, at least not until Jasmin and I both had a chance
to heal from the injuries that he'd inflicted on us.

I
pulled his face around so that the yellow eyes of his beast met my
blue eyes. "I'm leaving you alive so you can testify that we're
honoring the rules of challenge. Make sure the rest of the
dispossessed know that. You've had your shot at us. I won't spare
your life next time, so don't come back."

I
waited until Derrick nodded in understanding and then I backhanded
him with enough force to knock even a hybrid unconscious.

There
was silence as the rest of the pack watched me pull myself back to my
feet. Isaac and James both knew I would be within my rights to
challenge them this instant. Given the fight I'd just been through,
they could probably beat me, but that would just leave whoever won
the alpha of an even smaller pack and would do absolutely nothing to
stem the tide of dispossessed that they both knew were on their way.

I
pointed to Derrick. "James, Isaac, put him in one of the cages
and then load him into the cargo truck. Donovan will hire a driver to
get him several hundred miles away from here before he wakes up."

They
both nodded and then started towards Derrick, but I held my hand up.
"This isn't over, not even close."

I
didn't wait for their responses, instead limping over to Donovan and
Dominic, who were both desperately trying to slow Jasmin's bleeding.
I let my human form bubble up as I pushed my beast back into the
corner where I normally kept it locked up. Dominic kept pressure on
Jasmin's stomach as I bent down and picked her up.

The
journey back to the house took twice as long as normal, but Donovan
hurried on ahead of us and had a blood transfusion prepped by the
time we made it into the operating room. Rachel was there as well;
she pulled on a pair of gloves and started handing Donovan clamps and
suture thread as Dominic started taping up the worst of my injuries.