by Dean Murray
"I should go check in on James. Which room is he in?"
"The one across from your room, but there's not much point stopping by right now. Like I said, he'll be out for at least another few hours. Your girls will be back to check in sometime around noon. Until then you really should just enjoy the hotel. There's a decent restaurant on the west end and they've got pretty good exercise facilities. Just don't come swimming—I'd like to get back to my meditation without having to listen to a lot of splashing around."
I nodded, but my mind was still caught up in the idea that there might be a much bigger groundswell of dissatisfaction with Kaleb than I'd ever realized.
"Do you know of anyone else who might be equally willing to work against the Coun'hij if they thought that there was a chance to improve things?"
"Kid, you've been out from under your dad's thumb all of what, two or three times in your entire life. Go enjoy some freedom."
"This is important."
"So is getting some downtime. You're going to see some terrible stuff down on the border. One of the first things you learn after being on a combat op or two is that you take every opportunity to decompress you get. You never know how long it will be before you get another chance."
"I saw bad things here."
"Not like what I suspect is going on down there. I wouldn't wish those memories on anyone, but there's not a damn thing you or I, either one, can do to prevent you from going down there."
I opened my mouth to persist, to try to get him to understand that we might not get another chance like this to sit down and plan, but he silenced me with a lash of power that exceeded anything I'd ever felt out of anyone before.
I'd thought that I was capable of producing a tornado of power, but it was nothing compared to what Jack hit me with. It was like trying to compare a ripple to a tidal wave. My beast wanted to send out a wash of power in response, but I forced it back into a corner of my mind and managed, by the slightest of margins, to avoid responding.
It went against every aggressive instinct in my body, but any response I provided would only highlight the fundamental difference in power between the two of us.
"I'm not going to talk about this anymore, kid. If I had a list of people inside my head who were ready to come out in open rebellion against Kaleb and the rest of the Coun'hij, it's not the kind of thing I'd be sharing with you. If you manifest some earth-shattering ability then you can come back to me and we'll talk, but until then we're done here."
My instincts told me to back slowly out of the pool area, but at least part of that was the natural effect of finding out just how much more dominant he was than I'd realized. The raw amount of power that someone's beast had access to didn't directly translate to being a better fighter, but it was a lot like Jack had said earlier. More power, even if it didn't result in manifesting some kind of unique ability, generally meant that you hit faster and harder and that you could take more of a beating before being put down for the count.
All by itself, even if I hadn't liked Jack, that would have been enough to give me pause, but I'd never felt that much power out of anyone else before. Even Kaleb and Brandon hadn't had access to that kind of white-hot torrent. I was pretty sure that it wasn't possible to be that powerful and not have it result in someone manifesting an ability.
"How long have you had an ability?"
"I don't, kid. I'm three centuries old and I've seen and done things that would blow your mind, but all of that power is just useless, flashy power. Like I said before, it helps me hit harder and take more damage, but I'd still go down like a house of cards against someone like Brandon."
"That's why you stay out here. If you slipped up and revealed your power level back in Sanctuary you'd almost certainly be pushed to challenge Kaleb for the top spot."
"Yeah, that's definitely part of it. Right now Kaleb feels pretty secure. He's more powerful and deadly than all of the older hybrids and the young guys like Brandon are all too inexperienced to have any prayer of holding the pack together if they took him down. If Kaleb knew how I've changed, he'd almost be forced to challenge me. Out here I can lose control occasionally without it immediately being front-page news back in Sanctuary."
Jack rubbed his eyes and then shrugged. "For a while there I thought that Mallory had been wrong. I thought that if I could just tap into my beast powerfully enough that I'd develop an ability, but it never happened. Aggression and need only go so far. They can raise you up higher than you'd be without them, but apparently I'm missing some key piece to my makeup that would allow me to take that final step and be a real player."
"I'll keep your secret. Nobody back home will find out from me."
"Thanks, kid. I'll do the same for you."
I stood up and turned to go, but Jack had one last thing to say.
"I really am sorry that you're going down to the border. I hope I'm wrong about what Kaleb is doing down there, but if I'm not wrong then just remember that it isn't your fault. You have only so many options that will let you live to fight another day."
It was about as cryptic of a warning as was possible, but I could tell that he didn't want to talk anymore and I wasn't about to start a fight with him over it. Even assuming I could beat him, which was doubtful, I'd have to torture him to get more information out of him and that was the last thing I'd do to someone who'd already helped me so much.
I left the pool area and headed to the weight room. Something told me that I was going to need to bulk up if I was going to keep up with Vincent and the rest down on the border.
Chapter 6
Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah
Mallory was waiting for us, for me really, at the airport as the plane landed. I thought about making some kind of wisecrack about there being no need for her to express her thanks quite so profusely, but one look at the expression on her face convinced me to keep my mouth shut. The simple black dress pants and a white blouse she was wearing indicated that she was off to work some kind of 'respectable' business deal for Kaleb, but somehow her attire didn't manage to make her any less menacing.
She wasn't the strongest or toughest hybrid in the pack and it had been ages since she'd been sent down to the border on any kind of active combat op, but Mallory was Kaleb's strong right hand and anyone who really pissed her off seemed to eventually find themselves in dire straits of some kind or another. Sometimes when Kaleb was extremely confident he could win he would challenge the subject of her ire himself, but usually he just paid one or more of the other dominants to beat on the poor soul who'd crossed her.
Ulrich Bishop in the Chicago pack had pretty much written the book on using fiscal incentives to keep a pack in line, but Kaleb had been forced to add a chapter or two of his own in the course of keeping the Sanctuary pack from shattering into half a dozen pieces.
"You're late."
The question wasn't actually directed at anyone in particular, but I was dominant to the other three so I answered.
"The pilot said he encountered stronger than expected winds which slowed us down quite a bit."
Mallory frowned. "I'll have to have a word with him about that. The planes are being scheduled too tightly to allow for this kind of slippage. Between the four of you missing your original transit window and Samantha's little joyride the schedules are all shot to hell."
I nodded and made a non-committal noise as I turned to go, but she pulled me up short by saying my name.
"I told you that you wouldn't be able to continue ducking me forever. Your friends can leave if they want to, but you and I are going to find a quiet room while the crew gets the plane refueled."
I motioned with my head towards the waiting car.
"You three go ahead. Heaven knows we've got little enough time before we've got to ship back out, the last thing you need is to be cooling your heels here waiting for me."
Mallory didn't wait to see if I would follow, she just turned around and headed back into t
he administrative building that she'd just come out of.
I shrugged at James and the others and followed Mallory inside. The staff inside the building practically fell all over each other in their eagerness to show Mallory to a private conference room. Kaleb was the single biggest patron of the airport. His fuel bill alone probably exceeded the revenues from the next three biggest customers and there were persistent rumors that Kaleb and Mallory were considering increasing the pack's fleet by at least another one or two planes.
It would have been a lot cheaper to fly commercial, but an awful lot of the pack's dominants didn't play very well with civilians. That, combined with the fact that Kaleb frequently needed to move around groups of relatively large people at short notice, meant that most of the pack's travel would probably continue to be via the private planes.
Once everyone else had cleared back out of the conference room, Mallory sat in one of the plush chairs and motioned for me to kneel down in front of her. I could have just as easily sat in a chair while she stood, but she liked to reinforce the fact that I was submissive to her at every turn. Apparently I waited too long to comply because she snapped her fingers at me and gestured again.
"I don't have all day, Alec. The plane will be refueled in the next few minutes, at which point I need to be on my way."
I reminded myself of all of the reasons that I hadn't mouthed off to her earlier and dropped down to my knees, suppressing an internal grimace as she placed her hands on each side of my head and sent a rush of power out.
My beast didn't like it, he responded with a surge of power of his own, but she was too focused on using her ability to notice and take umbrage. I was fairly sure that it was nothing more than my imagination, but I always came away after a session with Mallory feeling cold and clammy inside.
Nearly a minute passed before she released me and sat back in her chair with a considering look on her face.
"You're more powerful now than you were the last time I scanned you. What happened?"
Her statement took me completely by surprise. I'd known that her ability allowed her to see when another hybrid had an ability of their own as well as giving her some very specific information regarding what that ability was able to do, but I'd never known that she was able to sense general changes in the amount of power a given shape shifter possessed.
"I don't have to tell you that. Now that you've confirmed that I still haven't manifested an ability I'm going to go home."
"An increase in power level is useful all by itself, Alec. Surely you can't be as cavalier as you pretend regarding your ongoing inability to realize the potential I saw in you so many years ago when you were born. An ability would allow you to call your own shots, make your own way in the world…protect those you care about."
"Don't mistake my ability to differentiate between the things I can control and the things I can't as apathy."
"Ah, good, some fire finally. You're right, you have not manifested an ability despite the fact that your general power level has gone up noticeably."
I stood, but she waved me back to a seat. "I'm not going to force you to tell me what triggered your increase in power. Mostly I'm not pushing because I already have a pretty good idea. It's not uncommon for the first real dose of combat to trigger a power increase in someone, but you need to find a way to grow your power level even more. A lot rides on it."
I had to force myself not to laugh in her face. "I know that you're a level removed from most of the dominance posturing, but I've been in plenty of combat before now. It's a rare week when I don't end up tangling with someone."
Mallory waved my comment away. "It's not the same. Dominance fights do occasionally end with someone being killed but it's a rarity. Your father's rules help somewhat, but mostly it just comes down to our natural instinct. A beaten foe, one whom our beast is sure is inferior to us, is more valuable alive than dead. Alive they can help serve as a buffer, another opponent that someone else will have to challenge and beat before they can get at us. Dead, they serve no purpose at all. The only time we see a death from combat in Sanctuary tends to be when the two people involved really hate each other."
"Just in case you've been asleep on the job, Vincent and I really hate each other. I've been in plenty of danger in the past without ever needing to square off against any vampires."
I got a cold smile from her. "I'm done talking about this, Alec. Every word you've said has been the truth, but I'm perfectly capable of discerning when someone is trying to deceive me by telling me only part of the truth. I've only continued the conversation for this long because it is vitally important that you understand the extreme importance attached to you manifesting an ability. You are quickly running out of time."
I kept the relief washing through me off of my face, and I was pretty sure that I'd done a decent job stopping it from bleeding over into my scent. She'd assumed that I was trying to put her off the trail of the truth, which I had been, but I'd been trying to keep her going down the path she'd already selected, not steer her off like she'd assumed I was.
"I'm already aware of just how many of Kaleb's plans hinge on me being able to serve as a counterweight to Brandon. I'll take your concerns under advisement, but I hardly expect that anything I could do in the next eighteen hours would allow me to manifest an ability that would make any kind of difference down on the border."
"I wasn't talking about your upcoming tour of duty. Trust me. If you don't manifest an ability soon you're going to look back at our conversation and bitterly wish that you'd moved heaven and earth to heed my warning."
I opened my mouth to ask her what she was trying to get at, but she stood and left the room in a single fluid motion that didn't give me a chance to get any words out. I hurried after her and caught up just outside of the building.
"What are you trying to tell me?"
I grabbed hold of her shoulder to turn her around and force her to acknowledge me, but she pivoted and hit me in the stomach with such blinding speed that I didn't have a chance to do anything more than tighten my stomach muscles to try and absorb some of the force of the blow.
My best efforts weren't enough, not taken by surprise like that, not against another hybrid. She hit me hard enough to knock the wind out of me, causing me to double over in pain as her knee came up and hit my face. A split second later I was looking up at her from my back.
"You don't put your hands on me, Alec. This time was a freebie. The next time you try to impose your will on me in any manner I will kill you and your father's plans can burn."
Mallory turned and walked away without waiting for a response from me. A few seconds later she was onboard the plane and one of the guys from the ground crew was asking me if I was okay.
"Yeah, I'll be fine."
I waved away his offer of a cloth for my nose and rolled back to my feet. My metabolism was already kicking in; the bleeding had nearly stopped and by the time we flew out tomorrow my nose probably wouldn't even be swollen any more.
There were usually at least a couple of cars from the pack at the airport at any given time and today was no exception. The dark blue Honda Civic and the black Nissan Pathfinder both had Kaleb's circular sigil affixed to their rear windows, so I used the standard code to unlock the Honda and a few minutes later I was on my way back to the house.
A few years back, two of the locals had figured out our standard unlock code and gone joyriding in one of the pack cars that Kaleb had purchased by the dozen. Kaleb had sent Brandon to teach them a lesson.
Neither guy had been able to walk unassisted for nearly two months. The police had investigated, but nothing had come of it. Actually that wasn't right—nothing had come of the investigation, but after that everyone in Sanctuary had realized that Kaleb had GPS transmitters on all of his cars and that they'd be idiots to touch his property.
Brandon had strutted around like a king after that and I'd realized just exactly how little influence my mother really had. She'd managed to anonymously pay
for the worst of the medical bills that Brandon had inflicted on the two guys, but she hadn't been able to do any more than that.
I'd wanted Brandon to end up in prison, or for some kind of civil case to be brought against Kaleb, but both had remained completely above the law, just like always.
I started my drive back to the estate in a bad mood and thinking about Brandon just made things worse. By the time I got home, I was angry enough that I probably would have done something stupid like challenging Brandon if I'd run into him in one of the halls.
Fortunately, he was down on the border and I didn't run into anyone else on my way to my room. I cleaned myself up and headed into the small training room that Kaleb had attached to my bedroom as a reward when I changed to a wolf for the first time.
I'd used it religiously for several years until I'd realized that it didn't matter how much I worked out I still wouldn't be able to match the unnatural strength of someone like Brandon or the supernatural healing that Kaleb routinely used to wear his opponents into the ground before finishing the fight in an abrupt explosion of violence.
The fact that Vincent was now stronger than me was proof that weight training did indeed pay dividends even for shape shifters, so that meant that I needed to squeeze regular training sessions into my schedule on top of the studying that I'd need to get my GED.
I was midway through my fourth set of curls when someone knocked on my bedroom door. Some of the anger that had started to die down while I'd been working out flared up and I stalked towards my door fully intending on giving somebody a piece of my mind. My beast was just as unhappy and waves of power preceded me, beating on the door in time with my steps. I flung open the door and then upon seeing that it was Donovan who was waiting for me, reined my anger in.
