Riven

by Dean Murray

  Alec pulled Rebekka to her feet and pointed at a spot behind the chair where he'd been sitting. "I understand if you have other business to attend to, but if you're planning on staying for the rest of the reception you're welcome to stand with Ash at my back."

  Even I could see that Alec was making a powerful statement with that invitation. Those who had refused to swear fealty to him were exiled to the edges of the room while those who bound themselves to him would stand close enough to advise him.

  Shawn shook himself and took a deep breath, almost like he hadn't breathed for several seconds while the oath had been said.

  "Complete conviction on both sides. Alec meant every word, as did Rebekka. This was the break that Alec was looking for."

  I wrote Shawn's words down verbatim on the back of the paper and then looked up in time to catch the very end of what Alec was telling Rebekka.

  "...appreciate the gesture, but Vivian is welcome here."

  Rebekka nodded as she took her place just behind Alec, and then the next few delegations were introduced. The alphas who followed Rebekka weren't any more willing to be pinned down than the first few had been, but there was a subtle change to the mood of those who were watching and that made each new arrival more cautious than the one before. The girls they'd brought to try and catch Alec's eye were less and less forward as time went on.

  If we'd struck pay dirt with Rebekka, we doubled down with the Las Cruces pack. Their leader swore fealty to Alec with even less hesitation than Rebekka had. Shawn confirmed that the oath had been binding on both sides as the Las Cruces alpha took up a position behind Alec.

  The last few arrivals all seemed to be from the dispossessed, which surprised me, but which Shawn didn't seem to think was out of the ordinary. What did surprise me was that the first two, scared-looking wolves who obviously weren't the least bit dominant, lied when they swore fealty to Alec.

  I watched as they both took position behind Alec and felt my stomach clench at the thought of them being within striking distance of him.

  "What is he going to do with them once he knows that they can't be trusted?"

  Shawn shrugged. "I'm not sure. His best bet would be to keep them busy with some task that's important but which they can't use to cause problems. Maybe hunting down werewolves. He might try using them to hold the border or to go after groups of vampires, but there's more risk there because they might tip off their prey and get other wolves killed."

  Shawn's lack of concern settled me down a little, but I was starting to realize just how deep the waters Alec was swimming in really were. Two more dispossessed came through one at a time to swear fealty and Shawn confirmed that they both meant it, although one of them was going to struggle to deliver on his promise.

  "He's got too much of a temper, that or just has too hard of a time controlling his beast. Either way he's going to be trouble at some point. Alec's best bet would be to get his beast to swear fealty too in a binding ritual of power."

  "Can Alec do that?

  "Alec can do it if anyone can. If this guy's original alpha could have gotten his beast to swear allegiance then he probably would have been a valuable member of the pack, but as it was he caused more problems than he was worth."

  "Is that why most wolves end up dispossessed?"

  Shawn tapped the desk in front of us for a couple of seconds before shaking his head. "There isn't really a 'normal' reason why someone ends up out on their own. Sometimes they are a submissive who just takes too much crap from their original pack so they figure out how to get away and just disappear. Sometimes they grow up never knowing their shape shifter parent so they don't start out in a pack. Sometimes they are too much trouble for their alpha to put up with. Sometimes they have the stuff to take over the pack but know that doing so would make the pack worse off so they leave."

  I let his explanation sink in for a minute and then cleared my throat. "But it's not something a wolf would choose lightly, right?"

  "Not generally, no. You come across the occasional antisocial moonborn, but for the most part we prefer the company of a pack to being alone. Just as important though is the fact that we all know just how dangerous it is out there. A pack provides a measure of protection from the vampires, werewolves, and other assorted creepy-crawlies."

  Whatever else Shawn was planning on saying next went by the wayside as the next set of visitors entered the room. Shawn sat up in his chair and zoomed in on the three newcomers. The printer started humming as he absently sent the screenshot to it, but it was obvious that he was focused on the leader.

  "Shawn, who is that?"

  "His name is Grayson. He keeps a pretty low profile, but he's one of the dispossessed, at least I thought he was."

  "What do you mean you thought he was?"

  "He's got a rather unique power. Dad made him an offer to try and bring him into our pack as an asset, but Grayson said no. He turned down an absolutely obscene amount of money without batting an eye. Dad was pissed, but there wasn't anything he could do about it."

  I started to ask another question, but Shawn was fiddling with the volume on the audio feed so I shut up and just listened instead as Ash announced the newest arrivals.

  "Grayson, Wyatt, and Carson."

  Just from the expression on Shawn's face I could tell that it wasn't normal for three of the dispossessed to show up at one time like this. Alec and Ash's expressions didn't give that kind of information away, but a wave of trepidation washed through me as I realized that Shawn hadn't actually told me what Grayson's power was.

  "Greetings. May I ask why the three of you are here in my territory unannounced?"

  Grayson's face didn't give any more away than Alec's, but one of the two guys behind Grayson didn't look happy to be there.

  "My brothers and I are here to offer our service to your house."

  Alec nodded. "I've accepted oaths of fealty from a number of individuals today, I would welcome yours as well."

  Grayson shook his head and I suddenly realized just how big he was. He towered over Ash and the other people behind Alec. "You misunderstand me. Our oaths are not ours to give, but we would serve with your people for a time before returning to other responsibilities."

  Outwardly Alec gave no sign of it, but I knew he was running different mental scenarios as he tried to come up with the best possible response to this development.

  "Your offer poses some difficulties for me. I'll not expose my people to more danger by welcoming you into our territory and making you privy to my plans and then have you depart abruptly, possibly taking everything you've learned to my enemies."

  Grayson nodded his head fractionally. "I believe a compromise can be reached. We could promise to obey all of your commands for a set period of time and agree that we wouldn't reveal anything that could harm your operations, both during the period of service and after."

  Alec cocked his head slightly to the side. "Why would you possibly be interested in that kind of oath?"

  "Our reasons are our own, it only remains to be seen whether or not you'll accept our oath."

  Alec considered Grayson and the others for several seconds before nodding. "Very well, I'll accept your oaths for a minimum of two months and in return promise not to expose you to any risk that I wouldn't accept myself or set you to any task which I wouldn't be willing to do."

  Grayson bowed his head. "That would be acceptable, but there is one last thing before I can agree." Between one second and the next, Grayson's hybrid form ripped through his clothes and sprang towards Alec.

  I opened my mouth to scream and then felt it snap back shut as a wave of convulsions tore through my body. As my head flopped to one side I saw that Shawn's muscles had locked up too.

  My head whipped back around in an involuntary motion just in time for me to see Grayson crash into Alec, but Alec didn't even bother changing forms. Out of everyone in the room, he was the only one who wasn't fighting off convulsions.

  I was sure that it was Grayson
who had caused everyone's bodies to stop working, but it seemed to be causing him problems as well. His twitches weren't as severe as everyone else's but he was still struggling as he tried to bring his claws around to slash at Alec.

  Alec calmly stepped back away from Grayson and then suddenly the convulsions left me. As I scanned the monitor I realized that everyone behind Alec was now back to normal, but Grayson and everyone else in the room were still flailing about. Grayson gathered himself for another attack, but Alec gestured and Grayson went down like his strings had been cut. As soon as Grayson hit the floor everyone else's convulsions disappeared.

  "I could kill you right now. Are you satisfied with my prowess?"

  Grayson managed a tiny nod despite the draining effect of Alec's ability, and then Alec turned it off. I looked away, my face heating up, as Grayson changed back to human shape, but Shawn's gasp brought me back around. He'd frozen the largest monitor and zoomed in on Grayson's chest.

  The bulging muscles looked exactly like I expected them to with one exception. There was a ridge of raised skin in a perfect circle over his heart, forming a white 'O' across otherwise unmarred flesh.

  I would have asked Shawn what it meant, but Kristin chose that instant to hurry into the reception hall. The meaning of Grayson's scar was going to have to wait. I didn't know Kristin very well still, but she was a tough cookie. There was only one thing that would make her interrupt Alec like that. She'd just had a dream and it wasn't good news.

  Chapter 7

  Alec Graves

  Graves Estate

  Sanctuary, Utah

  Kristin rubbed her temples and sighed. "I don't know, Alec. I just can't explain it."

  I held a hand up, trying to calm her down. "It's okay, Kristin, nobody is angry at you, I'm just trying to understand what's going on."

  Ash looked like he wanted to intervene but I stopped him with a look. I'd kept this discussion just between him, Kristin, Donovan, Louis, Rebekka, and me but it hadn't been easy. Kristin had been understandably rattled by her dream, but rushing into the reception and all but announcing that the Coun'hij was about to attack us hadn't been very prudent.

  Donovan cleared his throat, obviously uneasy in the presence of the alphas from Tonopah and Las Cruces. "Maybe if you were to just run through what you remember again, someone will think of something."

  Kristin took a deep breath and nodded. "I fell asleep while I was studying for my GED and I started dreaming about Sanctuary. It was like I was floating a hundred feet above the ground and then suddenly dozens of werewolves were running towards the estate."

  Louis' voice came out as a deep rumble. "Which direction were they attacking from?"

  "The south."

  "You're sure?"

  The follow-up question didn't seem to bother Kristin. "Yes. I remember thinking that I needed to orient myself. I looked for the biggest set of mountains and the werewolves were definitely coming at us from the south. Once I found the mountain range I even found that old highway that runs up from Arizona."

  Ash and I both leaned forward slightly. This was new. Kristin hadn't ever been wrong before, at least not when it came to the big picture, so when she'd told us that she'd seen an attack coming we'd just started working through contingency plans and put our visitors on high alert.

  Those who had just been here as guests rather than allies had mostly departed and then we'd all spent a tense three days expecting an attack at any point. The attack still hadn't materialized, which had some of my allies more jittery about my actions over the last few hours than they otherwise would have been.

  Ash looked at me as if to let me ask the question, but I nodded for him to go ahead. Kristin always responded better to Ash than to anyone else.

  "Were there vehicles on the road?"

  Kristin nodded, but now something new was bothering her. "There were a few cars, a SUV and some kind of cargo truck, but nobody freaked out so they must not have seen the werewolves."

  There was a pause and then Kristin shrugged, almost like she was putting whatever had been bothering her out of her mind, and then she continued. "Once the attackers arrived at the estate I only caught flashes of things. I saw Alec pulled down by a pair of them out in the garden and then everyone scattered. You put a bunch of rounds into one from the roof, Ash, but then it jumped up there with you and practically tore you in half."

  Reliving the memory was obviously hard on Kristin, but she managed to continue with only a slight catch to her voice. "James and Isaac tried to double-team one of the werewolves out by the garage, like they were trying to buy time for some kind of getaway, but they didn't last long either."

  It was my turn to ask the questions. "Did you see any of them inside the house, Kristin?"

  "No, I was still just kind of floating above everything while the fight was going on."

  "Did you see anyone else? Louis, Rebekka, Jasmin, Dominic?"

  "No, just you, Ash, James and Isaac."

  Donovan seemed to have figured out where I was headed. He was fumbling through a stack of papers on his desk.

  "Here it is. Demolition on the Adams Bridge was started the day before Kristin had her dream."

  I nodded. "That's what I thought I remembered from our discussion two weeks ago. You'll need to confirm when they had it torn down enough that it wasn't drivable, but I'd be very surprised if it was still navigable by the time Kristin fell asleep."

  Kristin was a quick study, but there was just too much she hadn't had a chance to learn yet. "What are you saying, Alec? That my gift isn't working anymore?"

  "No, I'm saying that I don't think this was a precognitive dream, I think it was implanted inside your mind by an outside force."

  Rebekka and Louis were both nodding now, but it was Ash who gave Kristin the last piece. "Dream Stealer. It all makes sense when you factor him into the picture. Your point of view wasn't from the ground, which is what you're most familiar with, it was from above which he could experience for himself with a simple flyover."

  Kristin understood now. "Right, and I saw the four of you die because you are the four who in his mind are key to protecting the pack. I didn't see anyone else because Dream Stealer wouldn't have known that we're allied with Tonopah and Las Cruces."

  I waited while everyone settled back down and then started ticking off the key points. "This means that we'll have to take all of Kristin's precognitive warnings with a grain of salt. Even if the Coun'hij isn't ready to attack us, they'll do this kind of thing as a way of keeping us off balance and paralyzed, so we're going to have to be very careful about letting another such attempt delay us from doing stuff that we know is important."

  Rebekka nodded. "You're right. In hindsight, you were right to send that group out earlier today, even if you haven't been willing to tell us what it was for yet."

  I checked the clock on the wall and then sighed as I reached for the door. "Actually, they are past due to be back. I'd better make a call."

  The sound of angry footsteps out in the hall was unmistakable, but if any of us had been too slow to figure that out, Jaclyn's tone would have easily made the point.

  "Don't bother with a call, Alec. Instead tell me why you thought you could get away with sending eight of your people down into my area unannounced with an invitation to come here that was little more than a veiled threat."

  I pulled the door the rest of the way open and motioned Jaclyn and Tasha inside. James gave me a questioning look from a few feet behind them, but I waved him off. Donovan's office was already filled to capacity. We were going to need to go about getting a larger room ready for these kinds of councils. I made a mental note to ask Donovan what room my father had used and then turned back to Jaclyn.

  "The group I sent down was under instructions to extend an invitation, nothing more than that. I would have called ahead, but Tasha isn't exactly taking my phone calls these days. As to the size of the group, it didn't seem fair to bring you up here and leave your pack uncovered. I thought you
'd appreciate the four who remained down there to help protect your territory."

  There was a challenging look in her eye. "And the four who escorted me back here?"

  "Believe it or not, they were for your protection. You don't have anything to worry about from a normal opponent, but given the state of things right now, it's entirely possible that we'll see a rash of werewolves come through this little corner of the state before all is said and done."

  Jaclyn seemed a little mollified. She dropped down into the chair next to Tasha, who'd so far refused to meet my gaze. "Fine, your actions weren't quite as unreasonable as I initially thought, but I'm not one of your lackeys to just jump on a plane whenever you call."

  I sighed. Things were moving too quickly and I didn't have enough manpower to jump through all of the hoops that tradition stipulated. I'd hoped that our past history together, tenuous though it was, would stop Jaclyn from being quite so offended.

  "I truly am sorry for being so high-handed, Jaclyn. I would have just flown down to see you, but my hands are tied right now. I owe guest protection to a number of people and while I can't magically stop a horde of werewolves from decimating the estate, there is a very real possibility that my presence is the only thing keeping the Coun'hij from sending in twenty or thirty enforcers to level everything in the area."

  Jaclyn steepled her fingers and then looked at me over the top of them. "Okay, you're sorry and I'll overlook the offense this time. What do you want?"

  "Two things. Firstly I want to complete the joining we discussed last month."

  "I'm not sure Tasha will take you at this point, Alec. Besides, I've heard talk of an engagement to some human."

  Jaclyn was trying to rile me up, but she wasn't going to succeed. I held all of the cards right now and we both knew it.

  "While I have the highest respect for Tasha, you're right that a wedding is out of the question, but that's no longer a prerequisite for the kind of alliance that I'm after. Frankly, I'm not overly concerned with the form of the alliance. Within certain limits I'm game for just about anything you're interested in proposing, but I need the Tucson pack and you in particular."