by Dean Murray
"Tasha told me that your pack is remarkably tight-lipped about your power, but I know you don't have control of it. If you did, you'd have already wiped the floor with one of the challengers. Given that, there isn't any way you can stand against me."
"I thought we were here as allies."
"We are, and I intend for things to remain that way, but I find it's best just to get the dominance questions out in the open right away. I'll treat you with all of the respect due the alpha of another pack. As long as you can keep from digging your heels in over something stupid, I can pretty much guarantee that we won't have any problems."
It was a bold statement, but everything I'd seen so far backed her up on it. Packs functioned best when there was a clear line of command, and her ability to instantly drop any of her wolves had obviously allowed her to craft exactly the power structure she wanted inside her pack.
"Assuming you continue to be as reasonable as you've been so far, you won't have any problems from me, and I'll keep Isaac and the rest of my people in line."
I kept the mental wince that the promise caused off of my face, but I wasn't excited at the thought of having to keep Isaac on a leash. He was less and less the calm pillar he'd been in years past and he was especially unhappy today.
Jaclyn gave me a long look that seemed to indicate that she knew what that promise had cost me.
"I could always step in and ensure things go smoothly on both sides if you want."
It was the kind of offer that only a few hybrids living could have made. It was the ultimate symbol of just how powerful she was, and if I accepted it there wouldn't be any going back.
"I'll police my own pack."
"Alec, I hope you don't feel like I overstepped my bounds by offering. I know what kind of position that would put you in. It's not the kind of thing you could agree to unless you'd already decided that you want to accept our offer of alliance, but I thought I'd still offer. If you've decided to join us then there is no reason for you and your people to continue to tear into each other between now and when the agreement is formalized. If Isaac became combative I could drop him with a charge of power. It would take only seconds, it would expose me to almost no risk, and he'd be back up and able to help in little more than an hour."
Their proposal had been tempting to start out with, but it was growing more appealing by the minute. There was a part of me that was tired of it all, that wanted to just hand all of the responsibility over to someone else, but I knew that would be the coward's way out. If I agreed to a merger of our packs it had to be because I was confident it was the best thing for my friends and family. My exhaustion couldn't enter into the equation.
"I appreciate the offer, but I haven't made up my mind yet with regards to Tasha's proposal. Until then, I can't abdicate my responsibilities like that."
Tasha chuckled and shot her mother a satisfied look. "I told you he wouldn't go for it. He's too much like you said his father used to be for something like that to be acceptable."
Jaclyn nodded with a sad smile, obviously remembering better times.
"I respect your desire to keep faith with your people, Alec. If I didn't think you were capable of great things then we wouldn't be having this conversation. I've spent my entire life on two pursuits. I've fought and bled to make sure the lands to the north of us weren't washed away in a flood of corruption and violence, and I've tried to build a pack that was strong enough to protect those I love. I love Tasha, but my death will leave her ill-equipped to preserve our family's legacy."
Yet again I was astonished at her openness. Every word she'd said since we'd arrived had been the truth. She was operating from a position of such incredible superiority that she didn't need to lie or manipulate to accomplish her ends.
It made me think of some of the legends about Jaldul. He'd established the monarchy for two reasons. He'd been strong enough to enforce his will in his pack, but more than that, he'd been a man of such character that he'd won the allegiance of some of the most powerful hybrids of his day. With their backing, he'd ruled from a position of strength, but it had been a strength that had been tempered by goodness and justice.
Jaclyn continued on, ignorant of the compliment I was paying her inside the privacy of my own thoughts.
"You represent a chance for me to sidestep that outcome. I can buy you the time you need for your power to fully manifest, and then the two of you can rule and preserve the legacy I'm trying so hard to leave her."
"What if my power never manifests in the way you're describing? What if it always remains an undependable wild card?"
It wasn't an admission I'd have made to very many other people. The rest of my pack had a pretty good idea that I couldn't call my power at will, but even with them, I'd mostly made sure that the conversation was framed as one of 'when', rather than 'if'.
Jaclyn's smile was sad once again. "I have my own theories when it comes to the abilities we manifest. I remember when I first manifested mine. Tasha is the only other living person who knows this, but I manifested mine because I'd found something that was too important to allow me to roll over and die. I don't know why Tasha became a wolf and her sister remained a human. I don't know why some of us become hybrids and others don't, but I'm convinced that once a certain level of power is reached that it becomes more a matter of will than anything else. I have every confidence that you'll eventually master your power, Alec. It's just a matter of you needing more time and an even greater reason to do so than anything you've found yet."
The car pulled to a stop as Jaclyn finished talking. She gave me another wistful smile and exited the car before I could respond to her almost metaphysical discourse. I shook myself slightly and filed her words away for later examination. I had a pack to keep in check and a fight pending with some of the most dangerous creatures to walk the night. Neither of those tasks were something I could undertake while distracted with other concerns.
The second SUV pulled up only seconds after I got out of the limo. I walked over and opened the door for Jasmin, who'd been driving. She looked even worse than normal. Her skin had taken on a gray cast, and she almost looked like she was struggling not to shake. I leaned forward and pitched my voice low enough that nobody else should be able to overhear.
"Are you okay? I didn't realize it had gotten this bad. We can make an excuse and you can head back to the airport."
"I'm fine, Alec. I'm not showing weakness in front of your new best buds."
"Jas, I'm serious. This isn't a normal field trip. If you're off your game as much as it looks like you are, then you need to go back to the plane."
"I'm not screwing around either. All of the signs point to the fact that you're going to shack up with the Russian princess over there, and when that happens I'm not going to be doing myself any favors if I undermine my credibility right now. This is as much of a tryout for us as it is for them. Get back over there and act like a real alpha instead of sitting here holding my hand."
My beast took exception to her tone and power bubbled up from inside of me. It wasn't threatening a full transformation yet, but if she kept pushing I'd find it harder and harder not to kick her back to the plane. The safest bet right now was distance, so I turned and walked away, hoping the entire time that she could keep from getting herself killed in this fight.
Another map was out and resting across the hood of the limo. Peter was drawing lines on the streets closest to us. He waited until the four of us were close enough to see what he was doing before he launched into his update.
"It's definitely here. Male, middle-aged, and it smells like he's been running through some fields, because there's an undertone of fertilizer there as well. You'll probably be able to pick him out as we get closer. Nothing else seems the same as the last place I tracked them to, but it's a safe bet that the other two are around here somewhere."
Jaclyn nodded and took the pencil from Peter. "Okay, I'd recommend that we split into two groups. The Tucson pack will take the north stre
et here and move east so that we flush the things away from town if they decide to run. Remember, they are faster than a hybrid, but you should have a slight edge as a wolf. Be careful not to engage them by yourself. Three to one odds are acceptable. Four to one is better."
She paused and scanned the group, making sure everyone nodded before continuing. Isaac seemed to be operating under the same assumptions as Jasmin. He refused to acknowledge her stare until I called up power and thrust it in his direction hard enough to ignite an answering flare from him. It put him on notice that I wasn't in the mood for him to be difficult, but more importantly, it gave him a pretext for backing down that relied on the fact that I was dominant to him. It was a thin pretext, but it allowed him to avoid admitting that Jaclyn could wipe the floor with him any time she felt like it.
Satisfied that everyone had gotten her message loud and clear, Jaclyn drew another line.
"I'll take the southern road here with Tasha and the Sanctuary pack. If you see one vacuum, howl for help and pile on it. If you see two, then howl for help and stay away from them until the other group can arrive and pitch in."
Everyone nodded again and then we split up and started walking towards our respective routes. I looked back to confirm that Arnold seemed to have taken command of the other detachment and then turned to Jaclyn.
"You've done this before, so I'm happy to follow your lead."
She nodded, but it was obvious she and Tasha were both on high alert already. Feeling a bit like an amateur who had shown up unprepared to a pro game, I shut up and started paying more attention to our surroundings.
The buildings were reasonably well-maintained, but they had an air of disuse that indicated that the town had suffered in the recent economic contraction and was having a hard time attracting new businesses. This far outside of town there weren't any streetlights, but there were enough exterior lights and motion-activated security lights to provide plenty of illumination even in this form. My eyes were better than a human's still, but nowhere near as good as what I had as a wolf.
We'd been walking for several seconds before I realized what was bothering me about the night. There wasn't any ambient noise. I could hear an air conditioner kick on somewhere behind us, and it sounded like one of the buildings off to the right had some kind of slow leak in the plumbing somewhere, but the kind of organic sounds that you'd expect on the edge of the city were shockingly absent. There weren't any insects of any kind, and I hadn't heard a single dog bark since we'd arrived.
Tasha grabbed her mom's arm and pointed off to the right. It took me a second to see what had caught her eye. There were some flickering lights inside a building that had just come into view. I probably would have dismissed them as nothing more than a light that was nearly to the end of its useful life, but she was probably right. A werewolf's absorption ability always seemed to play havoc with the electrical grid.
Tasha already had her phone out and was sending a text to the other group. Jaclyn led us between two buildings and then she and Tasha both started pulling their clothes off. My cheeks started to heat up as I realized that the Tucson pack hadn't adopted my dad's innovation. We tended to go through a remarkable number of ha'bits in a given month, but avoiding the frequent nudity that most of the packs were forced to deal with paid for the stretchy garments several times over.
I'd known that Isaac seeing Dom naked or James seeing Jess would have ratcheted up all kinds of pressure inside of the pack. I hadn't stopped to consider the fact that without a ha'bit, you were more likely than not to see your future mother-in-law completely bare at some point or another.
Isaac, Jess, Jas and I stripped our own clothes off in smooth, economical motions, and then turned to find that both Tasha and her mom had transformed into wolves in a cool rush of power. It made sense. People were still probably going to comment on half a dozen abnormally large wolves this far inside the city, but it was less likely to cause a real stir than someone seeing our hybrid forms.
We followed suit and then all padded back out onto the street on four legs. Jaclyn led us closer to the building with the flickering lights as her pack caught up to us. I could hear them out there a few dozen yards away, close enough that they could support us, but far enough away to help ensure that we didn't have some kind of pissing match between the dominants.
Our group circled the building and found a door that had been ripped off its hinges. I saw claw marks on the siding and made a mental note to have someone come out and obscure some of the evidence once we were done here.
We crept into the building and found a huge, mostly-empty industrial space. Jaclyn changed forms again, presumably judging us safe from casual observation, and I followed suit. I always felt more prepared for the unexpected as a hybrid. Isaac changed, too, and then we spread out slightly, flanking Jaclyn as the wolves took the outside edges of our formation.
I heard the other pack slip inside the building and felt flares of power as the three dominants completed their transformations. A second later all of the lights outside picked up the same kind of flicker Natasha had noticed earlier. It was darker inside than I would have liked and the loss of artificial light was making things worse. There were shadows deeper inside the building that even my hybrid eyes couldn't pierce.
Jaclyn slowly started moving forward and then I caught the edge of a smell that didn't belong here. Peter had a split second to catch the same scent and whine before we were attacked.
The wolf we'd been tracking stepped out of the darkness ahead of us and my chest got tight as I saw just how big he was. He looked like someone had taken a rough, unfinished hybrid and scaled it up to at least eight feet tall while making it proportionally wider than a normal hybrid. A split second later, two bulky wolves dropped through a skylight, falling more than forty feet before hitting the ground with enough force that they probably cracked the concrete.
Everything still felt like it was going more or less according to plan until a fourth werewolf came out of an office behind us.
We were surrounded, and every light for at least a block died completely in the same instant. Only the fact that they gave off the cool golden glow of a living organism to our vision saved us from fighting completely blind.
Jaclyn issued her orders without hesitation. "Alec, Isaac, with me. Arnold and Brutus on the one to the south. Alexei, Jane and Tasha will have to keep the one on the east distracted. The rest of you take the one to the west. We're outnumbered, so stay in motion and try to keep out of their reach."
As plans went it wasn't a bad idea, but we all knew it wouldn't survive the first few seconds of the fight. Our best bet would be for Jaclyn, Isaac and me to overwhelm our opponent quickly so we could turn and help with the others. If it took us too long then some of our allies were going to fall. It would only take one or two of us being cut down to shift the odds so far against us that our chances of making it out alive would be almost nonexistent.
I paced Jaclyn, staying on her left side as she rushed the gigantic werewolf that had lured us into the trap. I couldn't get over how much bigger he was even than I'd been told to expect. He waited until Jaclyn was almost to him and then sprang towards her with speed that wasn't much less than what Anton had demonstrated when we'd ambushed him to save Ash and Kristin.
Jaclyn dodged to the side, scoring a slash on the werewolf's arm as it tried to spin around to follow her. I saw my opportunity and lunged forward, trying to get in behind it, but the werewolf reacted faster than I was expecting. He spun around and backhanded me into one of the steel pillars that supported the roof.
Somewhere between when the werewolf had made his move and when Jaclyn had made hers, my senses expanded in a way that I couldn't explain. I could feel a vortex of energy sitting roughly in the center of our opponent's navel and there were three others not too far away, only calling it a vortex of energy wasn't quite right. It was more like a tiny black hole that was greedily sucking in power from everywhere around it. When Jaclyn had attacked, I'd felt
a flash of power that exactly mirrored the energy being pulled out of the electrical wires running all over the building.
Jaclyn had affirmed at the start of the fight that her ability wouldn't work on the werewolves, but it must have been so second nature to her to release a jolt of power simultaneous to a strike that she'd gone ahead and tried to zap it. The power arced from the tips of her claws into the werewolf and then disappear into the tiny singularity sitting inside of her opponent. The lights had flickered slightly, not the ones in the building, but lights somewhere further away, almost as though Jaclyn's ability had partially overwhelmed the werewolf's capacity to absorb energy.
It was an interesting piece of information, but it wouldn't help me right now. My thoughts had taken only a split second to register, and then I heard the splatter of blood hitting the concrete floor and got my third huge surprise since we'd engaged what I had to assume was the oldest werewolf in the group. His claws weren't just sharp on the inside edge, they were sharp on the outside edge, too. A backhand like he'd hit me with would have been a blunt blow coming from a hybrid, but he'd opened up a series of deep slashes along my chest with his attack.
Isaac danced in and slashed at the werewolf's arms before dancing back out. He'd been experimenting, trying to learn the style of fighting that Abaddon had used to best him when Agony had visited, but even so, he still almost wasn't fast enough. He ducked under a blow as Jaclyn landed a strike on the werewolf's leg.
My injury wasn't immediately concerning, so I was already rushing back into the fight, completing the third point of the triangle that we were using to try and keep the werewolf too busy to really go after one of us.
I got a glimpse of the battle around us just before I had to throw myself to one side to avoid another swipe of the werewolf's massive arms. Brutus and Arnold seemed to be working their opponent in much the same way we were, but they were even more on the defensive. The other two werewolves had retreated back to one wall and were close enough together that nobody was managing to get in close enough to do more than just feint at them.
