Torn (6 page)

"They'll attack
her. Maybe not now, but Brandon can't allow anyone to stand up to
him and not punish them. Maybe not directly, but she's going to
suffer for having stood up to Cassi."

Jasmin and Isaac
looked up at me, obviously seeing where I was headed. They hadn't
thought things through to that point by themselves, but now they
could see the inevitable conclusion.

"I'm going to
offer her our protection. Brandon won't attack her as casually if I
bind her to us."

Jessica and James went
from disinterested to enraged in the briefest of moments.

James crossed the
distance between us and was in my face quicker than most humans were
able to blink.

"You'll get us
killed! She's not worth us bleeding over."

Isaac appeared behind
James and threw him back into the closest tree.

"You don't have
the right to challenge Alec until you've defeated me."

James' eyes were
already the yellow of his beast; Isaac had already crouched down into
a combat stance.

"Enough. As
pack leader I invoke my right to stand in Isaac's place."

It was an old rule,
one rarely invoked, but I was tired of Isaac bleeding to keep James
in line.

As soon as the words
were out of my mouth James sprung at me, but I rocked him backwards
with a punch to the stomach and then stepped back and let my beast
roar up to the surface in an explosion of power.

James rode his
transformation to his hulking hybrid form at the same time that mine
completed, and then we went at each other with claw and fang as the
rest of the pack fell back to serve as lookouts.

James was big, and
fast, but I was bigger, faster, and gifted with the blessings of the
royal line. He rushed me and I sidestepped him, slashing up his arm
with the semi-retractable claws on the end of each finger.

He spun around,
sinking his left hand into my side, but I was already moving forward.
I bowled him over, sinking my foot talons into his chest and right
arm at the same time that I immobilized him with one hand and wrapped
the other around his throat.

It was a killing
position. We both knew it, and my beast thrummed through me
demanding I close my right hand and rip his throat out.

He struggled, trying
to buck me off, and I lost a sliver of control. The claws pierced
his throat enough to increase the flow of blood, and he froze as even
his beast couldn't deny the imminence of death.

"Yield."

My voice was harsh and
distorted, coming as it did from a throat that hadn't really been
designed with language in mind, but the demand was unmistakable.

The fury in James'
eyes hadn't lessened, but he finally relaxed raising his head to
fully bare his throat in an unmistakable gesture of submission. I
released him and turned to take in the rest of the pack.

"Does anyone
else wish to dispute my decision to offer our protection to Adriana?"

One by one they all
dropped to their knees and raised their chins, exposing throats.
Jasmin was the last, unnecessarily courting punishment once again.

I felt a stab of pain
as I let my shape shrink back down to the one I'd been born with.
The wound in my chest wasn't immediately life threatening, but it was
bleeding fairly profusely. I looked around, found the wreckage of my
clothes and used what was left of my shirt to apply direct pressure.

James and I were both
clad in only ha'bits, our clothes shredded from the transformation to
hybrid.

"Jess, go get
your Escalade. We need a change of clothes."

When we arrived at the
estate, Donovan took in the gash in my side and shook his head. He
waited until Jess left to drop James off at his mother's cottage
before speaking.

"I trust it was
worth it, and that you came out the victor?"

"You were right.
I should never have made that promise to Rachel. Cassie used it to
set Rachel up for the beating of her life. If the new girl hadn't
bluffed Cassie into backing down, things would have gotten ugly."

Donovan steered me to
the examination table and started taping up James' handiwork.

"Rachel released
me from the promise as soon as James and I got done fighting, but I'm
worried about what Cassie and the others will do to Adriana if we
just leave her out on her own."

I got a nod as Donovan
taped a large patch of gauze to my side. "Hence the challenge
from James. You do realize his worries are not entirely without
merit. Unaided the Paige girl is doubtless going to regret her
involvement in facing Cassie down, but offering her your protection
brings its own set of risks."

My beast didn't like
Donovan's words but I forced it down, he was just offering advice,
not challenging our dominance.

"I know. If she
becomes aware of what we are, Brandon won't have to play games with
the Coun'hij anymore, they'll have the exact excuse they need to come
in and wipe us out. Still, she stepped in and protected one of our
own when we couldn't do it. That obligates us to assume some risk to
protect her as well."

Donovan nodded
wordlessly and then left me to make my way back to my room.

I tiredly pulled out
another set of clothes, something similar to what I'd worn before the
fight, and then retrieved the excuse slip that Donovan had just
written out in my 'mother's' handwriting, and rejoined the others.

Jess looked just as
pissed as always. James was more subdued than normal-presumably he'd
just had his own 'debriefing' with his mother.

We made it back just
in time for me to slip by the office, hand over my excuse slip and
then rush off to Pre-calculus. Mrs. Campbell gave me an odd look
when she saw me, but I couldn't think of any reason for her to think
anything was out of the ordinary.

Once the last bell
rang, Jasmin intercepted me before I'd even made it back to my
locker.

"Alec, I know
you're the boss, but I'm worried about this Adri, girl. She doesn't
feel like a wolf, but she glows like a Fir'shan and she faced down
Cassi. I think you should consider the possibility she's not what
she appears."

I needed to get back
home and rest before I lost control. It was getting harder and
harder to override the most basic instincts of my kind. Dominance,
submission, fight, flight, it was all slowly slipping through my
grasp.

"I understand
your concern, Jas, but she risked more even than she knew standing up
to Cassi. I'm offering her some kind of limited protection at
least."

As soon as Jasmin
nodded in acceptance I set off looking for Adriana. It wasn't
difficult. I knew where her locker was; from there I just followed
the freshest scent trail.

I actually almost
collided with her as I came around the last corner before the tutor
lab. The abrupt motion as I stopped pulled at my side, tearing the
wound back open with a lance of pain.

She momentarily looked
shocked to see me, and then her usual mask slipped back into place.

"Adri, I wanted
to talk to you about what happened today."

There was the
slightest blip in her pulse and respiration as I used the shortened
form of her name. Interesting, it was the kind of response you
expected when you caused someone pain.

Exhaustion momentarily
sent me down a blind alley as I wondered why she'd reacted so oddly.
Her words struck me with the suddenness of a crowbar.

"You mean when
your sister nearly got beaten by that whore; and you not only didn't
do anything, you stopped your friends, from doing anything either."

I almost ripped her
head off. Not figuratively either. Shape shifters weren't always
completely safe to be around and apparently my control was even more
frayed than I'd realized. She continued before I'd even managed to
get myself fully back under control.

"The fact that
I, a little waif from out of town, could defuse the situation and
save Rachel no doubt sticks in your craw, which explains why you're
lurking around out here waiting to talk to me. Because only then can
you fabricate some reason for why everything had to go down the way
it did, and thereby save face!"

It was unimaginable
that this mere human had the guts to stand before me and verbally
whip me while my power arced back and forth between us. I had to
shut her up before she said something that pushed me over the edge.

"You don't
understand."

"Of course.
That's an easy comeback. I don't understand. You're right, I don't.
I would've done almost anything to protect my sister, but you didn't
even care that Rachel was going to get hurt."

I was trembling, which
was a bad sign. Even worse, my voice had changed subtly as my throat
lengthened and shifted inside of me. I acted without even thinking,
lunging forward and grabbing her by the shoulders with more strength
than was safe.

"I was going to
offer you my protection against Cassie and Brandon, and you throw
your supposed superiority in my face. Fine, but don't come crying
back to me when the mask comes off."

I'd torn my side
completely open now, I could feel a trickle of liquid making its way
past the gauze. I spun around and left, only just able to rein
myself in enough to avoid moving at unnatural speeds.

I pulled my phone out
of my pocket and dialed Rachel as I headed towards my Porsche.
"We're leaving now. I'll pick you up outside the lab in thirty
seconds."

I made it home in
record time, only to be 'sent' to my bed as soon as we arrived.
Donovan was right about how badly I needed sleep, but it was all I
could do to put a leash on my anger and retire to my room.

Just seconds after I
collapsed into bed I was asleep and dreaming.

I found myself at the
top of the mountain which marked one edge of the estate. My vision
was keen enough to make out a multitude of tiny details on the valley
floor. I was looking out over the far side, so I couldn't see the
estate, but there was no shortage of local wildlife to watch. I
already knew I could spend hours doing just that. Equally enjoyable,
the cool, crisp air held a hundred thousand scents to savor. Even
the air tasted different than the stuff further down the mountain.
I'd idly wondered a hundred different times what the air would taste
like at the top of the world's truly tall peaks.

The mountain top had
been one of my favorite places to go when I was younger, after my
first transformation, but before the duties of the pack became too
oppressive. I hadn't been up to the top for months.

Visiting it, even in a
dream, felt like coming home. It was perfect in every detail except
for Adri's presence no more than a foot in front of me. Her being
here after my recent verbal humiliation at her hands was almost more
than I could stomach.

Things weren't made
any easier when she finally noticed me and responded with typical
harshness.

"Why did you
follow me here?"

It was just a dream.
I found myself suddenly relaxing.

"Actually, I
can't think of any place
I'd
rather not be. You seem to have
a gift for making my sanctuaries inhospitable, and rendering my rest
uneasy."

Even as my mouth
warned her away, the rest of me was drinking her in. She hadn't
become any less desirable. If anything the knowledge that she was
willing to stand up for Rachel, even against me, put her in a class
all by herself. I almost missed her next words.

"That should be
remedied quite shortly. I rather expect that even
my
mother
can't go on thinking she'll make a living for us down here after
we've been evicted. I'm sure you'll be relieved to be able to go
back to your stupid petty dominance games."

I was shocked awake as
suddenly as I'd fallen asleep. It made no sense, but it matched
completely with the feeling Brandon had been outmaneuvering me
somehow.

I flipped my phone
open, "Donovan, I think Brandon's moved against the Paige
family. What other information have we turned up about them?
Specifically about their home and the mortgage they took out to buy
it."

"Actually that's
one of the items I'd planned on mentioning to you tonight. I've
turned up a surprising dearth of hard information about either of them.
Under other circumstances I might have dismissed it, but for someone
who's moved into Sanctuary, it represents a possible concern."

"Because the
only way for them not to have left more tracks than that is if
someone has been hiding it."

"Correct, sir.
Unfortunately it's going to require additional time and resources to
determine who it was that turned them into ghosts as it were."

"Keep on it
please, Donovan. I'd bet it was Brandon, but I can't understand why
he'd do that. We need more information if we're to have any hope of
not getting buried when the tsunami he's crafting finally breaks over
us."

I pulled my phone out
and dialed the local bank president as I headed towards Jasmin's
room. I might not have any hard information, but eviction could only mean one thing.

“This is William Kard.”

“Mr. Kard, I've recently begun to entertain nagging suspicions that I'm not being kept fully in the loop.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Alec.”

“What's the status of the mortgage on the old Anderson home?”

“You can't seriously believe that I'm familiar with the circumstances surrounding a relatively minor loan among the several hundred in our portfolio? Even if I did happen to know its current standing I can't discuss that type of confidential information with you.”

His voice was the perfect combination of indignity and sincerity, and I didn't trust it for a heartbeat.

“You're prevaricating, which generally means you're lying. We've had a fairly amicable relationship up till now Mr. Kard, so I'm not going to press you to divulge anything you feel improper. Instead I'll make you a promise. For as long as you continue to co-operate with me, to act in our mutual best interest, our family will continue to use you as our primary banking resource.”