Burned

by Dean Murray

  She wasn't just a burden anymore—hadn't been for a while now.

  I went to sleep fully expecting to have Adri barge in and wake me up, but woke up feeling remarkably refreshed considering the metaphorical sword poised above our collective necks. Brindi's head was bobbing, so I moved off the couch and slid her onto it, putting a light blanket over her. I waited until she was asleep, and then went over and knocked on the bedroom door to let Vicki know she could take a bathroom break if she wanted to.

  Ten minutes later I locked the RV's doors behind me and headed towards Adri's motel room. It was less than a hundred yards, but I got stopped no fewer than five times by people who wanted advice, resolution to some conflict or another, or an updated set of orders.

  The last person to stop me was Taggart.

  "Alec, I think that Adri has put enough weight back on for us to take another run at Kaleb tonight."

  "You're sure? At this point I'd rather wait another day or two than rush things again and fail a second time."

  Taggart nodded. "It will depend on how she does with her calorie intake today, but she's on track to have added a couple extra pounds over what she was carrying when we went after him the last time. If you add in the fact that this time she'll be going to your dream rather than pulling you to hers, I'm fairly confident she'll be able to control the outcome. We can wait and see what she says when she gets back though. If she says she's not up to it, we'll give her more time."

  "She left?"

  "Yeah, as far as I know. Isaac said that he was sending her out with a wad of cash to buy groceries. There's a limit to how much food preparation we can realistically do here, but feeding our entire force by going out to eat for every meal would be both expensive and sabotage our efforts to keep a low profile."

  I instantly felt bad about not having thought about that particular issue. My people were all being taken care of with some of the funds I'd stolen from Kaleb, but I'd failed to make the same arrangements for Isaac's people. I knew that Taggart and Adri had netted a nice payday when they'd taken out that nest of vampires in Wyoming, but that money was hardly inexhaustible.

  "I'd like to help out there, Taggart. I've only got so much I can do without making another trip to bring physical cash across the border, but I was planning on having someone go purchase another RV. That will give us another stove so that we can give people some variety in their diet, but really it's not fair to expect you all to pay for your food out of your own pockets while you're down here helping me out. I'd like to provide a war chest to fund your half of the operation."

  I could smell Taggart's reluctance. I was a product of the current generation, but growing up with two- and three-hundred-year-old shape shifters had given me more insight than most guys my age into how things used to be. Taggart didn't want charity. He wanted to make his own way in the world, which I respected, but I suspected that the real reasons went even deeper than that.

  Once he accepted my money, it would be that much harder for him to refuse me if I asked for something he didn't want to do. He was worried about me tying strings to him, strings that could eventually become chains.

  "I…I think that the girls, Tristan and I are all okay for now, but you may want to float the idea past Isaac. I've been helping out a little there, but his people are probably the ones who are feeling the most pinch."

  I gave Taggart a smile that I hoped was understanding. "Perfect. I was headed over to talk to Adri, but since she's gone I'll go over to Isaac's room instead. That way the trip won't be a waste."

  We shook hands, and then I took a right turn into the main courtyard of the motel. Isaac's room was only four doors down from Adri's. I was headed past Adri's room when I suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of voices from inside.

  I nearly stumbled when I realized who I was hearing. It boggled the mind that they would be doing what they were doing inside a motel room with shape shifters all around, shape shifters for whom mere walls and windows did little to impede sound waves.

  There was a split second where I thought that I'd been mistaken, that I wasn't standing outside of Adri's room, that it wasn't her I could hear in there. Taggart had told me that she was gone, and he hadn't given off any of the usual signs of someone who was lying.

  I nearly had myself convinced until I heard her gasp and call out Tristan's name.

  My beast surged up with such force that it was all I could do to stop myself from transforming right there in broad daylight. I clamped down on the tsunami of power crashing through me. I managed to funnel it all into my right hand, which exploded outward with the deadly claws of a hybrid, but I had zero desire to do anything about the anger coursing through me.

  The rage coming from my beast was because he viewed Adri as his. He felt like she was his mate, and he didn't want anyone else claiming her. The human part of me knew that people weren't possessions, that Adri was perfectly free to choose someone else, but that didn't change the fact that she'd given me nothing but crap about Brindi.

  Time and time again she'd acted as if we were together. Time and time again she'd expressed her displeasure when it came to just about anything in my life that took precedence over her. I'd come over here intending on apologizing for being so curt and instead heard her cheating on me with the guy she'd claimed was nothing more than a friend.

  I put my hand through the door. It was every bit as sturdy as I would have expected from an exterior door to a place like this, but it still wasn't a match for the rage-fueled muscles of a shape shifter. I shattered the locking mechanism, and stalked forward on legs that were trembling with the need to shift.

  They were there, just like I'd imagined based on the sounds that had made it past the door. Tristan and Adri were lying together on her bed, his shirt already off and hers pulled up high enough that it was obvious it would be joining his on the floor in a matter of seconds.

  I'd moved so quickly that they were only just separating from each other by the time I made it to the foot of the bed. Tristan was scared—the fear coming off of him was unmistakable—but that only egged my beast on. I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall with enough force to leave a body-shaped impression in the sheetrock.

  I used a lot less force than my beast wanted to, but Tristan still mewed in pain as his legs hit the wall.

  I turned to Adri and sneered at her.

  "After all the times you complained about Brindi—Brindi, who I've never kissed—you really thought I wouldn't mind if you made out with Tristan? You told me that you didn't want him, that you wanted him and Cindi to get together. You lied to my face and I believed you. You didn't just betray me, you betrayed Cindi too."

  Adri smirked at me. "You believed what I wanted you to believe. I don't care about Cindi any more than I care about you. She's treated me like trash over and over again—this is nothing more than she deserves. As for you, I got tired of waiting for you to give me access to the reins of power. I didn't go through everything I've been through in the last few months just so that I can hold your coat while you make all of the tough decisions."

  "That's what you were in this for? You're nothing like the person I thought you were. How could I—"

  "How could you be so wrong about me? Simple. You're an idiot. Every decision you've made since you left home has been one catastrophe after another. You're not fit to lead one pack, let alone the entire rebellion. The only reason you haven't died yet is because people like Jack and Carson continue to bail you out."

  I sagged back against the wall. It felt like she'd hit me. The urge to just give into the rage and hurt pouring through me was almost overpowering, but something didn't feel right. Try as I might, I couldn't get all of the pieces to fit together. Unless this wasn't about what she was claiming it was about.

  "Your parents. This is about your parents, isn't it? I told you I was sorry. I don't know what else to say."

  "How about that you're completely incompetent? I've been trying to pretend that everything was oka
y, but nothing's been okay since before I met you. Everything you touch wilts and dies, Alec. Get out of my room before I call for Isaac and the rest to come kick you out. They all feel the same way I do, they are just better at hiding it."

  My fist had tightened in step with my anger, and Tristan had stopped being able to breathe seconds ago. Killing him would have been the easiest thing in the world. I considered it for the briefest of moments. It might hurt Adri, but I doubted it. The monster sitting on that bed with her clothes halfway off didn't care about anyone, not really.

  More importantly, Tristan hadn't done anything worthy of death. He hadn't done anything but fall for someone who would use him up and spit him out. He'd done exactly the same thing I'd done. I dropped him on the bed and then turned and walked out of the room without looking back.

  Chapter 15

  Adriana Paige

  The Crazy Cactus Motel

  Tucson, Arizona

  My stomach felt like it was going to explode from all of the food I'd crammed into it while we were shopping. I didn't understand why Isaac had asked Cindi and me to go along on the shopping trip with Dominic and Heath, but I was incredibly grateful to have had a chance to get out of my room.

  Actually, I was more than a little surprised that Alec had been willing to have Heath leave our base, but maybe his new asset—the one he'd blown me off to go pick up—had made Heath redundant.

  I'd tried to convince Nellie to come along. Having another person with shape shifter strength along to help carry the heavier boxes and cans of food would have been welcome, but she'd bowed out. I expected to miss her while we were gone. For the last few weeks I'd never been more than a few dozen feet away from her, but it was actually refreshing to spend some time with other people—Dom especially.

  It made me feel bad for not having sought her out when we'd first arrived in Arizona. Dom had been the best friend I could have asked for, but somehow I'd let everything else that was going on distract me from spending time with her. As we pulled back into the motel parking lot, I promised myself that I was going to do better—and not just with regards to Dom.

  I'd been witchy towards nearly everyone in my life. Dom, Cindi, Taggart and Tristan all deserved apologies, but Alec deserved one most of all. I'd been impossible lately, but even before that I hadn't made things particularly easy for him.

  Before I'd blamed him about my parents, I'd been attacking him for not cutting Brindi loose. Even lately it had been all I could do to avoid bringing her up. I needed to just start trusting him. If he said that he and Brindi were just friends, then I needed to either accept that or move on. This weird, halfway state of existence wasn't fair to either of us.

  I helped unload the food we'd brought back, and then headed out to make my first apology, the hardest, most important one.

  The walk over to Alec's RV flew by too quickly, and I found myself standing outside of his command center without a clear idea of how I was going to open our conversation. The door was cracked, which surprised me—Alec usually kept doors closed as a way of helping the privacy boxes defeat eavesdroppers—but my surprise quickly turned to horror.

  The sounds coming from inside of the RV were unmistakable. I didn't need shape-shifter hearing to pick out the moans—not when I was this close to the door. I stood there for several seconds trying to tell myself that it was a mistake, that I couldn't be hearing Alec, but I knew that wasn't possible. Nobody from either group would have dared use Alec's RV for something like what was going on in there.

  Shape shifters were all possessive by nature, and Alec's beast would take something like that to be a demonstration of insubordination that would have to be punished. It was Alec in there, I knew that without a doubt, but that wasn't enough for me.

  Alec and I were through, but I had to know who he was with. My bet was that it was Brindi, that my suspicions had been right all along, but it could have been anyone. Jasmin, Jess, even Nellie. Even before Alec had manifested his power he'd been one of the single most eligible bachelors in the shape shifter world. Now that he had a top-tier ability at his beck and call, he was capable of protecting his future children from anything up to and including the Coun'hij. He was the perfect mate.

  Almost as though working without any input from my brain, my fingers slowly pulled the door to the RV open. It was ludicrous to believe that Alec wouldn't hear me coming, but I didn't care about that. He could pull away from whoever he was with, but that wouldn't change the fact that I knew what they'd been doing.

  It was going to infuriate him that I'd come inside of his RV, but I just had to know who he'd cheated on me with. I needed to know who I was going to hate as much as I hated him.

  I stepped into the RV and saw the two of them. It was Brindi. Her shirt was off, showing a lacy black bra, and her pants were unbuttoned, showing the top of a matching set of underwear. Alec's shirt was off, but for once I couldn't appreciate his impressive muscles.

  Brindi was on top. She spun around when she heard me, but any hope that she'd been the aggressor, that she'd somehow forced Alec into a compromising situation, evaporated when Alec reached up and pulled her back down against him. He met my eyes without shame.

  "Don't look at me like that, Adri. You can't have really expected me to continue waiting around for you, not given the way that you were beating me over the head with the death of your parents."

  I ignored him. I wanted to explode into a screaming, clawing mess, but instead I just looked at Brindi calmly.

  "You have to know that this is wrong. I was told that you were starting to get over your addiction to him—this isn't because you don't have any other choice."

  She was obviously uncomfortable, but I watched her push past that, watched her settle down against Alec's chest.

  "You've treated Alec like garbage for as long as I've known him. He's right, you should have been thanking him for saving your life. He went in to save Cindi fully planning on dying, but you've been so stuck on yourself that you couldn't see what an amazing catch you had."

  I shook my head. "That's nothing more than a justification. You know this is wrong. If he did this to me, then he'll do it to you too—it's just a matter of time."

  Brindi's lips were quivering as she wiped away a tear. "He told me that the two of you were through."

  Alec nodded. "We are. I told Adri that things weren't going to work out—it's not my fault that she's having a hard time coming to grips with it. Are you going to believe her, or are you going to believe me?"

  She didn't respond. She just turned away from me, burying her head in Alec's chest, and I knew that she was too far gone to recognize that she'd just become the other woman.

  I turned and left the RV without saying another word. Tears were streaming down my face, but I still somehow managed to make it across the blurry landscape that separated the RVs from the motel. Taggart intercepted me before I made it to my room.

  "Adri, what's going on?"

  "It's Alec. He…he isn't the guy I thought he was. It was just like you warned me—I caught him with Brindi. He's been lying to me for weeks, saying that he wasn't interested in her."

  Taggart went stiff. "I don't understand. I didn't get any of that from him—not once in all of the times we've talked to each other. How could he have concealed that from everyone?"

  "I don't know—go over there yourself if you don't believe me. You'd better hurry though, based on the way they were acting when I left, it won't be very long before they'll both be naked. I just don't understand why he would do that now of all times."

  "I'm so sorry, Adri. I told him that you were gone. He was over here just a little while ago. He asked about you and I told him that you'd left to pick up food. He told me that he was going to talk to Isaac, but he didn't."

  I laughed bitterly. "Of course not. Instead he headed right back to his RV so he could screw that slut."

  I pushed away from Taggart and walked into my room. Tristan was sitting on my bed, looking like his entire world ha
d just been turned upside down.

  "Adri…I'm sorry about Alec. I know I'm not supposed to say anything, but I just feel so bad about everything…"

  I'd never seen Tristan struggle to get words out—come to think of it, I'd never seen him conflicted about anything before this. Tristan had always just gone after whatever he wanted.

  I followed his gaze over to the dent in the wall and then turned around and re-examined the door that I'd just walked past. It was obvious to me what had happened.

  "You saw Alec earlier, didn't you, Tristan? He was here, wasn't he?"

  Tristan looked miserable, but that was exactly what I would have expected out of someone who'd been threatened by the most dangerous person within a thousand miles. Tristan was the one person in my life who hadn't been taken in by Alec. He'd never been vocal about his dislike, and I'd always put it down to simple jealousy, but I'd been wrong. Tristan had seen through Alec's ruse, and Alec had obviously come by and told Tristan not to say anything to me.

  I'd never given Tristan's opinion where Alec was concerned enough weight, and now I was paying the price. Tristan slowly nodded, and then opened his mouth, but I cut him off.

  "I don't need to hear anything else—I know exactly what happened. I don't want you to ever speak of it again."

  Taggart was looking back and forth between the door and Tristan, but he looked up when I started throwing clothes into my suitcase.

  "Where are you going, Adri?"

  "I can't stay here, Taggart, not as long as Alec is going to be here. I know it's dangerous, but I've got to go. As long as I can manage to get a couple hundred miles away from here, I'll probably be okay. Kaleb and the rest are probably so focused on this little corner of the country that they won't even be keeping an eye out for me anywhere else."