Torn (25 page)

"It was all just
a dream, and you don't have anything to be sorry about. I don't mind
you being here. I'm sorry I had to leave you alone for so long, it
was inexcusable."

If I'd had even a
shadow of my normal self control I could have spent the last few
hours with her instead of locked away where I couldn't hurt anyone.
I banished the thought and tried to make my words light.

"Actually, I owe
you another apology. When I returned and found you here I meant to
carry you to your room. I was only going to sit down for a second,
but apparently I was more exhausted than I realized. I hope you
don't think my actions are inappropriate."

She'd calmed down
completely now. If she'd been a cat she'd have been purring. I
wanted to stay with her pressed up against me, but didn't want to
give her another chance to reject me. I was already much too deeply
in her power. I warred with myself for several seconds and then
sighed.

"Well I suppose
I'd better get you off to bed."

Adri didn't respond
until I slid my arm out from underneath her and stood up, but then
she fell apart with all of the speed normally reserved for her panic
attacks. I heard her pulse skyrocket at the same time the rest of
her froze into immobility. I turned back towards her and found panic
written in every nuance of her expression and body language.

"You stopped
breathing. What's wrong?"

When she finally
pulled herself up onto her knees, tears were heavy in her eyes and
her voice was a shadow of its normal, confident tone.

"Please don't
send me there. Not after my dream."

It was like she'd
reached into my being and read the desires there. I wanted nothing
more than to spend every waking and even sleeping moment with her,
but there was a limit to how much of that she could be exposed to
without becoming addicted to my touch. I forced my face into
impassivity, praying it wouldn't give lie to my words.

"I'm not sure
that's the best idea."

She collapsed back
onto the bed, tears flowing freely even as she tried to crawl to the
edge despite the sobs wracking her body.

"You're right.
I'm so sorry to be such a bother."

Her desolation
destroyed my resolve and I reached out to her. She rolled away as my
hand touched her shoulder. She continued to try and flee me, but I
stopped her by pulling her around and carefully pulling her face up
so our eyes could meet.

"Adriana Page,
it isn't that I don't want to be with you. Point of fact that's what
I want more than anything else right now.
That's
why I'm not
sure it's such a good idea."

She was so beautiful
it was all I could do not to lean in and capture her lips in mine.
It was completely inappropriate but only a decade of practice denying
my wants allowed me to forgo the pleasure.

She finally nodded,
burying her face against my chest and letting the tears run their
course. Several minutes later she was able to speak once again.

"You're so ready
to send me away it's hard to believe sometimes that you really want
me here."

Her words took me by
complete surprise. She seemed so able to read me. It defied logic
that she wouldn't know exactly how I felt about her. Ignoring my
earlier worries about the Ja'tell bond, I reached out and touched the
side of her face.

"I really want
nothing as badly as I want you here. If I were to be completely
selfish, I'd never have even made the offer, but that wouldn't have
been fair to you."

She moved in closer to
me, leaning against my body.

"Well I just
want to log my vote for you to be more selfish."

Her gay tone was
completely at odds with her earlier hurt. It was amazing that
someone could be so mercurial. It was like she lived completely in
the moment.

"According to my
father, we shape shifters were created specifically for the purpose
of not being selfish, of watching out for the dayborn even at the
expense of our own desires."

Now she was serious
once again.

"You miss your
dad. I can tell it in your voice."

I shrugged, attempting
to hide how much hurt the thought of my father caused me.

"I do. I don't
really remember him, but I've read through his journals dozens of
times. It seems crazy to miss what you never really knew, but there
are days when I really wish he were still around to give me advice.
I think that's what I missed the most. That and his stories."

Adri's smile was at
odds with the pain scent she emitted as she talked about her father.

"That sounds
nice. We never really got stories at my house. Dad played with us
plenty, but bedtime was bedtime."

"Donovan said dad
used to tell me stories every night. After dad died, Donovan took over
telling them to both Rachel and I. It wasn't until after I grew up
that I found out they were legends about where we came from. That we
weren't normal like everyone else."

"Like
the...dayborn? What did you mean earlier?"

I shouldn't tell her.
Despite everything, a part of me was still convinced I'd eventually
send her away to protect her. Once that happened, the less she knew
the better off she'd be.

"That touches on
the things you shouldn't know."

"Please. It
will help me go to sleep. I need something else to think about."

I paused again, but
finally launched into the first Tale of Adjam and Inock. It was a
story I hadn't heard for years, but I was surprised at how easily it
rolled off of my tongue. It should have caused me pain, but instead
I found it relieved some of the conflict inside me.

By the time Adri
finally nodded off to sleep I wasn't worrying about the future. I
curled up next to her and fell asleep a short time later.

There'd been more
than one reason I'd told Rachel she had to take Dom on the shopping
trip. It was past time to see just exactly how far I could push
James, and I needed to do it when Dom wasn't around to calm him down.

The coming storm was
likely to be something I could keep just between Brandon and I, but
if it wasn't, if things were going to leak over onto the rest of the
pack, I needed to know the exact strength of the weapon I was taking
into battle.

I'd considered sending
Isaac with them, but if things went as badly south as I was afraid
they would, then I might need Isaac's help to restrain James without
killing him.

Jess was another
concern, but when it came right down to it she was the weakest
fighter in the pack. Her standing with us, or even against us
wouldn't make all that great of difference.

I spent the morning
with Donovan and then with my books. We covered nearly every aspect
of the family business and discussed Brandon's probable responses to
everything that'd happened, both economic and otherwise, but he never
brought anything up that could account for the level of concern he'd
evidenced the day before. I briefly contemplated forcing the issue,
but Donovan sometimes knew me even better than I knew myself. He
probably had a good reason for not saying anything yet. He'd tell me
if I demanded an answer, but doing so would be devaluing his
judgment.

I'd been deeply
involved in working through a chemistry assignment when Addison's
knock had pulled me out of the world of covalent bonds, moles, and
periodic tables.

The idea of Addison
seeking me out was so foreign that I nearly did a double take.

"To what do I
owe this pleasure?"

"Don't push
James today, Alec."

"I beg your
pardon?"

Addison's smirk was
one of the most infuriating things about her. She tended to think
she knew much more than she actually did, which was made even worse
by the way she acted when she was right.

"With everything
that's happened you've got to be worried about what's coming down the
pipeline with the Coun'hij. You sent Dominic away because you want
to see if James will stand with you when you really push him. It's
exactly the kind of thing Donovan's been teaching you all these
years."

I leaned back in my
desk and studied the woman who'd had the greatest influence into
shaping James into the willful, obstinate man he was becoming. She'd
fought me on almost everything for as long as I could remember.

"Assuming you're
right about what I'm planning, why should I listen to you? You're
hardly without ulterior motives."

Addison shrugged, a
painful movement that demonstrated just how much she'd lost the night
her husband had been killed.

"I'm not going
to pretend I like you, Alec. You've held my boy back. He could have
led his own pack, but you favor even Jasmin over him. Your father
never would have allowed that kind of imbalance in power to exist
inside his pack."

"You could have
left at any time, Addison."

"I thought about
it, but I swore an oath to your father, and thereby your mother.
I'm not abandoning her. Once she dies I'll have James gone so fast
you'll never even see it coming, but until then he and I will defend
her even if it means defending your worthless hide."

"Again, why
should I listen to you?"

"Because young
Dominic's convinced me that your primary motivation in helping the
girl was selfless. For the first time since you were born you're
actually living up to your father's legacy rather than Donovan's
cowardly fears. I'll make sure James stands with you, but if you
bully him right now you'll just reinforce everything I've told him
about you."

I stared at the spot
where Addison's wheelchair had sat for several minutes after she
left. Believe what she might, she'd done more to contribute to
James' unhappiness than any other factor. She'd made him a dominant
by encouraging willfulness and a misplaced sense of entitlement.

In the end though I
decided to follow her advice. She might or might not be lying, but
it all boiled down to the fact that James was my friend, and if there
was a reason not to bully him I'd take it.

The afternoon found
James, Jess, Isaac and I up in the north end of the valley. It was
always a bit of a risk to let any shape shifter lock with another.
Even what was supposed to be nothing more than a sparring match could
easily turn bloody and lethal if the wolves involved lost control of
their beasts.

We started with Isaac
and Jess and then worked our way up to the rest of us. As always
Isaac's incredible control was a godsend. It was almost impossible
to make him lose control, which meant I could concentrate on holding
James off until he calmed down instead of jumping between two
full-grown hybrids who both wanted to tear into each other.

By the time the sun
started setting and it was time to call it a night we were all bloody
and exhausted. We ran a quick circuit of our territory, returning to
the house a few minutes after the girls returned from shopping.

I'd helped Donovan
transport Adri's portion of the day's haul to the Lilac room and then
joined everyone for a late dinner. Between the nine of us we
polished off an incredible amount of food and then it was time to go
to bed. It had seemed as though Adri wasn't finished eating, so I'd
planned on returning to conduct her back to the Lilac Room, but she
followed me to my room and quietly asked if she could sleep with me
again.

Once again I couldn't
deny her. It should have been a restless night. Sleeping next to
another person was hardly the kind of thing that engendered
uninterrupted rest, but it was as if her presence calmed me on levels
I hadn't known were anxious.

All of us shape
shifters woke several hours before either Rachel or Adri, so I
gathered everyone together and informed them we needed to come up
with a revised set of schedules for everyone that would allow us to
have someone from the pack with Rachel and Adri at all times.

I half expected
arguments from Jess and James with some muttered protestations from
Jasmin, but everyone had simply nodded like they'd been expecting my
announcement and sat down to figure out how best to make it happen.

Donovan provided us
with a complete class listing and makeup for each teacher in the
school, doubtlessly hacked from the school's mainframe, and a
relatively short time later we were finished.

I was unaccountably
anxious to be there when Adri awoke, but I detoured past the Lilac
Room on my way back and retrieved most of the clothes they'd bought
in Vegas.

I made it back just in
time to see her awake and tease her into a semblance of normality.
It was apparent she didn't really believe me when I told her we'd
need to rearrange everyone's class schedules to provide her and
Rachel with bodyguards. I half thought she was going to gasp when we
all filed into the office half an hour before school started.

I asked Mrs. Pendely
to speak to Principal Gossil and was conducted into his office in
short order.

I received a frown as
I entered the office and pulled the blinds closed, but apparently
Principal Gossil was still smarting from our last confrontation.

"What do you
want Graves? You can't just show up here every time you have your
eye on some skirt that hasn't become immediately overwhelmed by your
family's wealth."

He was fishing. He
thought he had something on me now, but he was about to face a rather
rude awakening.

"I assure you
I'm no more anxious to continue our conversations than you are,
Principal Gossil. Unfortunately I'm going to need your approval with
regards to some class changes."

I thought for a second
the vein in his forehead was going to explode. It was petty, but I
took some satisfaction in seeing his blood pressure rise.