Riven

by Dean Murray

  I suspected that he was using it as a way of getting people who were causing him problems out of his pack for a little while, but that was okay. Ulrich sometimes had to resort to bribery to deal with some of the more dangerous members of the Chicago pack but I didn't have that problem. I could safely stare down any of his people if push came to shove.

  I was however trying very hard these days not to have to use my power, which was where Grayson came in. Until I could get Jaclyn to join me, Grayson would continue to be my strongest weapon. Even after she joined there were still going to be instances where he was the better tool for a given job.

  With Grayson standing quietly on one side of the door my odds of having to use my power dropped drastically and he was an enormous force multiplier. Even if every new arrival were to attack us all at once, Grayson would be able to neutralize them for the few minutes Ash, Jasmin and Rebekka would need to kill everyone in the room.

  The first few delegations were a combination of new arrivals and individuals who'd fled when Kristin had warned that we were going to come under attack. We now had representatives from more than a dozen states, but everyone in this batch was jockeying for position, looking for an alliance rather than binding themselves to me like I needed them to.

  Ash announced the last of the new arrivals and I suppressed a sigh of relief as they approached the elevated dais where I was sitting. I only had to make it through another fifteen minutes of semi-useless ceremony and then I'd be able to get back to doing the things that I really needed to be doing.

  My relief lasted only until I got a good look at the blonde girl my age who trailed half a step behind the head of the delegation. She was gorgeous in a way that only few women ever achieved. I watched as the eye of every single male in the room gravitated towards her.

  I'd grown up around beautiful females, but there was something about this girl that put all others of her kind to shame. She gave me a smile that was somehow shy and assertive at the same time as she took two steps forward, putting herself at the front of her delegation.

  "We thank you for welcoming us into your pack's territory. We are prepared to uphold all of the traditional duties of a guest and I place myself at your service to answer any questions you might have."

  Something about the way she looked up at me from underneath dark lashes implied that she was eager to do more than just answer questions. An almost overwhelming wave of desire crashed through me, but the very strength of the emotion felt wrong. I loved Adri with all of my heart, but I knew what had gone into our relationship reaching the point it was currently at.

  We'd faced down certain death together, we'd spent countless hours talking, sharing things with each other that we'd never told anyone else. It was impossible for me to want anyone else as badly as I wanted Adri, not when I'd just met that someone else, not when I didn't even know her name.

  "I'm afraid that we haven't been introduced yet..."

  I was stalling for time. The very act of realizing that something felt wrong about my feelings towards this girl helped clear my head slightly, but I could only think of one route forward. I nodded as she told me that her name was Lori, but my attention was focused on taking the chains off of my ability.

  It was harder than I'd expected to get my power to activate, but I was pretty sure that the difficulties were all mental. A second later a tiny rift opened up and my eyes went wide as I was finally able to detect her power at work.

  It was so incredibly subtle that I almost couldn't believe that I'd managed to avoid being taken in by her. Delicate tendrils of power reached out from her to nearly every person in the room. They were burrowing into each of us and artificially creating the attraction that I'd felt.

  I opened the rift up more widely, just enough to make the tendrils between her and me disintegrate, and then looked back up to find that she'd closed the distance between us. Some of the tendrils that had been touching other people were drifting my way now. It meant that there was only a tendril or two touching the others, but it didn't seem to be making any difference. Everyone else in the room was firmly in her thrall.

  Lori was beautiful, that much hadn't been artificial. Even now, with exhaustion starting to show at the corners of her eyes, I was impressed with just how flawless she was physically. She didn't seem to know that I'd shaken off her power. Instead of pulling back and pretending nothing had happened, she was leaning in even closer, a sultry smile on her face as the additional tendrils she was sending my way momentarily grew fat with power before touching me and then disintegrating.

  She reached out and placed a hand on my chest, and for a moment the attraction was back. There was no subtlety this time, it was a tsunami of lust and the shock of the feelings was enough to make me open my rift far enough that she dropped to the ground in front of me.

  Her father manifested his hybrid form instantly and moved forward. I didn't know whether he was attacking me or merely trying to protect his daughter, but ultimately it didn't matter. I opened my ability even wider but kept it centered on the two of them. They were a powerful pair and I felt the other end of the conduit protest at the amount of power being funneled into it. I knew I was taking a risk, that the smart thing would be for me to let Grayson take over immobilizing the two of them, but it was past time to make a point to those watching me.

  Always before I'd simply relaxed my grip on my ability and it had done what needed doing. This time I reached out and pulled, channeling more and more of Lori and her father's power into the singularity.

  The absorption field started to wobble, but I kept it up by pure force of will as I pulled even harder. A tremor started in my legs, but I managed to prolong the situation for two more seconds before the rift collapsed.

  Lori was an unhealthy white, unmoving but for the rise and fall of her chest, but it was the sight of her father that had everyone in the room staring in shock. They hadn't seen me force Jaclyn back into her human form, but this was more even than that. The unnatural vitality of our kind had failed him. Instead of pulling himself back to his feet like the proud alpha he was, her father was still collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath as though the mere act of breathing was almost more than he could handle.

  I let my 'guests' take in the extent of my power for nearly a full minute before I looked back at Jasmin and Ash. "Get two cages. They came here with the intention of using her ability on me. They violated guest right before they even arrived. Send them back to Del Rio in cages as an example of what happens to those who abuse my hospitality."

  Lori managed to roll over onto her back and look up at me. "Please don't do this. They'll tear us apart now that they know what I've been doing to them all this time."

  I didn't want to send her back. Looking at her lying helpless on the floor, it was all I could do to not to rescind the order. I would have blamed her ability, but I was confident that she was too exhausted to play those kinds of games right now.

  "You've left me no choice. I can't trust you here even if I was inclined to do so after what you've just done. Maybe it's time that you face justice for enslaving so many."

  I stood there for the fifteen minutes it took for the cages to arrive unoccupied and then disappear from the room with Lori and her father in them. Nobody said a word until I returned to my seat and sat down.

  Raynor was the first to speak up. "Do you have your temper back under control enough that you're willing to listen to reason?"

  It was all that I could do not to move around in my chair, and my beast felt the same way. He paced back and forth inside the corner of my mind where I normally kept him captive. In a way it was probably a good thing that Raynor chose to speak. It gave us both a target for the energy that was coursing through us.

  "I rarely refuse to listen to reason. I don't, however, remember giving you permission to address me in such a manner. You're my guest here and like it or not, I'm dominant to you. If you have something useful to say then say it, but mind your manner."

  Rayn
or looked up at me with the eyes of his beast showing through. "Do you really think that you can continue to insult us all? Since the day we arrived you've done nothing but put us off. At every turn you've refused to give us adequate time to discuss the business that brought us here."

  "I'm no different than you, Raynor. I have to prioritize my time where it will do the most good."

  "You've prioritized it towards weaklings like Rebekka and Louis. If you were anyone else I'd never have stood for your ridiculous choice to put those two above the rest of us. They bring nothing to the table while I bring the second largest pack in North America as a bargaining chip."

  Raynor had stalked towards me while he spoke. I could see that Grayson was on hair trigger, but I waved him back and instead stood and stepped forward until I was only inches away from Raynor.

  "I'm not looking to marry your daughter, Raynor. If you want to join me, then join me, but you're not going to get some kind of alliance of equals out of me, especially not by way of marriage."

  A growl bubbled up out of him, but my beast responded with a surge of power that caused a few of those watching to take a step back.

  "Rebekka and Louis can be depended upon. They bring loyalty to the table. I don't care what else you might bring to the table; until you've proven your loyalty to me, you'll always be less to me than they will."

  Raynor shook his head. "The strongest always have the place of honor."

  "I am the strongest here and I'll choose who I honor. The days of might being the sole criteria are over. Loyalty will always trump ability for me."

  "You're trying to turn all of us into mere subjects?"

  "There is no such thing as a 'mere' subject, not to me. Those who've sworn allegiance to me are the most important. I refuse to neglect those to whom I have a mutual bond of loyalty in order to chase after possibilities. You will either join me or you won't. I'm willing to let you make your own choices—do you really think that the Coun'hij will do the same? For them there have only ever been two kinds of people. Those who are with them, and those who aren't. Your 'neutrality' won't be worth anything when things actually start to heat up."

  Whatever Raynor might have said was preempted by Dominic's arrival.

  "Alec, come quick! It's Rachel, she's gone crazy."

  Chapter 10

  Adriana Paige

  Graves Estate

  Sanctuary, Utah

  Alec called me on his way to Rachel's room so I arrived there, with Carson hot on my heels, only a minute or so after he got there. Donovan, and Dominic were both there already and everyone looked just as upset as I felt. Rachel had seemed like she was fully back to normal for the last little while. It just didn't seem fair for her to be having problems now, not after everything she'd been through since Alec's power had first started manifesting.

  "I've called Dr. Samuels. I don't expect that he'll know what to do, but he can at least put us in touch with the relevant specialists."

  Alec nodded in response to Donovan but his gaze was fixed on Rachel, who was twirling about in the center of her room. It was a normal enough kind of scene until you took in the ruined pillows and the heaps of feathers strewn about on the carpet around her. As I watched, Rachel started jumping into the air, grabbing at something that wasn't actually there.

  I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times in an effort to say something comforting, but there wasn't anything that could make what we were seeing be anything other than terrible.

  Alec watched Rachel jump for several minutes before he walked over and gently guided her into her favorite chair, the one that faced the window. It meant that she was mostly turned away from us, but I had a suspicion that he'd done that on purpose.

  As Alec knelt down in front of Rachel she flinched back like she was afraid he was going to hit her. Her hands came up in front of her face and then she looked at Alec with squinting eyes.

  "Rachel, can you hear me?"

  She dropped her hands and looked at him with her head cocked to the side. Her lips moved silently for several seconds before she blinked rapidly and then nodded. "Of course you do, Alec."

  Rachel turned and looked at the empty corners of the room and smiled. "You all do. I hope that you know how much it means to me."

  Alec slowly waved his hand in front of Rachel's face, but her stare didn't waver. If she hadn't responded to his question I would have said that we didn't even exist for her.

  Jess rushed into the room, skidding to a halt when she saw that Rachel had company. I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see who it was, but they disappeared around a corner before I could see anything other than the fact that they were big and male.

  Alec looked up at Jess with anger bubbling just under the surface of his eyes. "Where were you?"

  "Rachel was in her room working on wedding stuff. I figured since we were inside the house that it wasn't a big deal if I took a break."

  "You figured wrong. As long as we have visitors here who haven't sworn fealty to me I want Rachel, Adri, and my mother under a constant guard."

  "I deserve to have a life, Alec."

  Alec stood up and walked over to Jess as Rachel smiled at the way the sunlight was now hitting her face.

  "I'm not going to argue with you, Jess. Because you weren't here we don't know if this was a natural phenomenon or if Rachel was attacked by someone."

  Jess looked unsure of herself for the first time in days. It seemed to have finally sunk in for her that Rachel wasn't okay.

  "I'm sorry, Alec. I wasn't thinking."

  "You're right, you were being an idiot."

  Rachel stood back up and twirled around again, picking invisible things out of the air. "Hmm, he's so nice. Takes such good care of me..."

  Whatever she said trailed off into something much too quiet for me to hear but it was obvious that Alec heard it all. His fists tightened up until his knuckles were white and then he shook himself.

  "You know that we all love you right, Rach?"

  Rachel smiled, but I got the impression that she was smiling at the way that the light played on the seat she'd just vacated. Alec gently pulled her into a hug and then looked at Dominic and me. "Can you two watch her until I can make other arrangements?"

  We both nodded, which seemed to satisfy him. He squeezed Rachel's arm and started towards the door. Just before he left the room he turned back and looked at Rachel.

  "It's going to be okay; we'll figure out how to get through this."

  Rachel didn't seem to have heard. Alec sighed and then left with Donovan a couple of steps behind him. Jess looked at Rachel for nearly a minute. She looked a couple of times like she was going to say something, possibly an apology, but she ended up leaving with whatever it was still unsaid.

  Dominic gently turned Rachel around and lowered her to the ground. "Let's clean up these pillows, Rachel."

  Rachel complied with the order, slowly gathering up feathers and stuffing them into an empty pillowcase. I dropped down to help and between the three of us we made slow but steady progress.

  We'd been working for nearly fifteen minutes before Rachel suddenly looked up from her pile of feathers and smiled again. "That's highly unlikely. At least not soon. You have to know what you're up against first."

  It made no sense, but it somehow reminded me of the flash of movement that I'd seen with Jess.

  "Dom, do you know who was with Jess just now?"

  Dom nodded but the motion was hesitant. "It...it was Wyatt. They've been spending a lot of time together lately."

  I felt like my head was going to explode and rubbing my temples didn't help at all.

  "They were flirting with each other the other day too. I was kind of hoping that it was just my imagination or that it would blow over after a couple of days. Isaac is going to freak out."

  Rachel threw a handful of feathers into the air and then plucked them out of it one at a time before patting me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Adri. Gray is Isaac's
favorite color."

  Chapter 11

  Alec Graves

  Graves Estate

  Sanctuary, Utah

  "I'm telling you, Alec. There are at least half a dozen wolves there who would jump ship if given half a chance. We need to go down to New Orleans in force and get them out of there."

  Adri had communicated Ash's request several days ago, but apparently Ash had decided to ignore my gentle hints that now wasn't the time to address this. We were just about to start a briefing meeting which meant that Rebekka and Louis were already there as was Donovan. Jaclyn was supposed to be here within the next half an hour so I really needed to get things moving or we wouldn't be able to cover everything I wanted to talk about before she came strolling into the room.

  "I understand where you are coming from, Ash. Believe it or not, I really do, but I can't just go around destabilizing packs right now or I'm going to push anyone who's currently on the fence about joining us right into the opposing camp."

  "They want out, Alec. They deserve to get out of there but they won't be able to manage it on their own. That has to mean something to you."

  I was exhausted, more than exhausted really. Dr. Samuels had put us in contact with four different specialists, each of whom I'd flown out over the last couple of days, but none of them had any idea what was wrong with Rachel.

  Their answer had been to suggest a number of really powerful prescription medications, but I hadn't wanted to put Rachel on anything until I was sure that it wasn't some kind of attack, either by the Coun'hij or one of our guests. I needed to get Mallory back to the estate and have her give all of the new arrivals a once-over to see if they had an unreported power that they were using against Rach, but I hadn't been able to tear myself away from everything else yet to take another trip out to Mallory's cabin.

  "Okay, Ash, I'll tell you what. If anyone from that pack communicates with you and tells you that they want out, then I'll take action. It would be better if they called me up and told me directly, but I'll act even if they just talk to you. Until then my hands are tied."