by Noah Harris
He darted into the hallway that would take him outside. Another of the group appeared at the other end, stopping to glare. Adrian snorted, never hesitating as he continued to run forward. It was only when he heard footsteps pounding behind him that he realized they had hoped he would stop when he saw that one of them had caught up, so the one behind him might get the drop on him.
“Amateurs,” Adrian laughed lightly as he barreled into the door leading outside, shoulder first.
The sunlight blinded him but he remembered the path he was supposed to take as he squinted to see where he was going. Narrowly missing a crumbling concrete divider with a last-minute jump, he dashed across the parking lot. From the corner of his vision, he could see that one of them was coming through the parking lot from one of the other doors, gaining ground quickly. There was another couple of bangs of the door he exited and he knew that they were still hot on his tail.
Adrian measured the distance between the man on his left and those behind him. From the sounds of it, the men behind him were beginning to slowly close the distance, and the man to Adrian’s left was doing the same. Adrian preferred to escape from a situation before anyone ever knew he was there in the first place. That mentality had less to do with any philosophy of subtlety and more to do with the practical reality that maintaining speed for long distances wasn’t his expertise. Even in a fight, it was better for him to end it as quickly as possible, relying upon his quick movements and sharp wits to end the battle before he was pushed past the point of endurance. So it was in a chase. He would need to find a way to escape his pursuers, getting out of the open to more confined spaces that would allow him to play to his strengths.
He saw his opportunity in an alleyway between the rows of buildings and warehouses that made up the district. From the mental map he had in his head, he knew that it would take him deeper into the industrial city, nearer the river that cut through the middle. It would take him farther from his own pack’s territory, unless he had a mind to jump in the river.
“Quit wasting our time and just give up,” one of them barked from behind him.
Adrian snorted. “Yeah, because who the hell ever listened to that advice?”
Making up his mind, he feinted to the left, hearing the footsteps begin to shift behind him before leaping instead, to the right. He felt the breeze of a hand whiz past the back of his head, fingers brushing the collar of his shirt. It was all the advantage that he needed, giving an extra push to his steps as he made for the alley. The cool shade surrounded him as he heard the men behind him stumble, trying to rearrange themselves so that they could follow him. Adrian never looked back to see if they managed to collect themselves, focusing on trying to weave through the alleys in the attempt to shake them.
He wasn’t sure how long he ran, but the sounds of pursuit began to die out the longer he ran. Adrian considered himself lucky that the industrial district was so close to the one that Eli and his pack controlled, otherwise he would have been lost in the maze of alleys and delivery driveways. Eventually, he hurried out of an alley and along the river. It ran narrow where he exited the maze behind him, a tall canal dropped steeply down into the swiftly moving river.
Adrian finally gave himself a chance to catch his breath, bending over as his chest and shoulders heaved. It had been a little while since he’d had to run from active pursuit and he reminded himself to start running more mornings, and lay about hungover less. The stitch in his side that had gone unnoticed until he stopped was beginning to abate. Never was he more thankful for the healing abilities his inner wolf gave him than he was in small moments of discomfort and pain.
He stiffened when the sound of footsteps from somewhere behind him met his ears. Glancing around, he realized that he was stuck, the only entrance and exit besides the one that lay in the alley behind him was a tall gate leading out onto the street, chained tight. There were doors, large shutters that were perhaps once used for shipping, but they, too, were closed tight.
“Well, you led on us one hell of a chase, but this is as far as you go,” the gruff voice that he recognized as Stephan said from the shadows of the alley.
Adrian stepped away, edging toward the gate. “Is there. like, a playbook for you guys, with quotes and quips to throw out? Because seriously, every shady asshole I watch seems to say the same shit.”
Stephan stepped out into the light, green eyes flashing with annoyance. “I take it that you’re the one that Michael brought on board to play spy for him?”
Adrian cocked his head, the bells of recognition in his head playing even louder. “Me? I’m just a friendly face who walked into the wrong place. Next thing I know, I’ve got this pack of goons chasing me through all the dark alleys, and I gotta wonder, what’s up with that?”
“Aren’t you just the cleverest thing?”
“I’ve been told that a time a or two.”
Stephan peered more closely at him. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Adrian grinned. “Look, I know this whole lurking in the shadows thing gives me a really bad first impression, but you know, I don’t actually try to be buddy buddy with your sort. So I’m going to go with no, you don’t know me.”
Stephan’s dark green eyes narrowed, and he brushed at his sandy brown hair absently, “No, no. Subtract about a decade from your face, remove the abominable ink you’ve had etched into your skin, and yes. I should have realized it from the beginning, with that smart mouth of yours. Alexander, how good to see you once again after all this time.”
Adrian felt his stomach twist and clench in one motion at the sound of a name that he had left behind a long time ago. Now he understood why Stephan’s voice had sounded so familiar, why the cadence and rhythm of the man’s sentences had struck such an odd chord. It was only now, looking at Stephan, that he was able to see the young man that he had spoken to only a few times in the past, one who had been brighter eyed and even hopeful once.
“Jesus, Stephan really is your name,” Adrian murmured in sudden horrified realization.
Stephan smirked at that. “It was an easy enough name to adopt. No one this far east would even think that to question the name. All it required was a little money thrown at the right people to give me a false last name that served my purposes and that was that.”
Adrian snorted, taking another step backward. “And I bet you paid handsomely for it too. Anyone would take one look at you and know you were some backwater asshole who wouldn’t know a passport from an airport.”
“I see your attitude hasn’t changed in the slightest since we last saw each other,” Stephan said with a sneer.
Adrian wondered, not for the first time in his life, at the sense of humor of the universe. “And what a coincidence that you should find your way to the city I’m in just to find that out.”
Stephan’s face twisted into what probably should have been pleasure. “And it was too. I’ll be honest with you cousin, I never knew you were here. I had of course learned of different names, but since none of them were yours, Alexander, I never thought twice about it.”
“That isn’t my name,” Adrian barked at him.
“So, you abandoned your name as well as your family. Will you ever stop being an embarrassment?”
Stephan had once been a bright, precocious boy, nearly eight years Adrian’s junior who looked up to him. The years had changed him, bringing a new personality that Adrian wasn’t fond of. There was anger that hadn’t been there before, and the endless questions Adrian had faced from Stephan when they were young was replaced by a surety that could only be called arrogance. Adrian had spared the blond boy a thought every now and then through the years, wondering if he, too, would get away or be sucked into the world that Adrian had left behind.
“You should be glad that I changed my name. No one knows where I come from, what sept I’m from. I’ve wanted to be rid of your family as much as they wished to be rid of me,” Adrian shot back hotly.
“And now I get the pleasure of telling
them, once this is all said and done, that not only did I succeed in what I came to do, but I brought one of our strays down as well,” Stephan said cheerfully.
Adrian snorted. “Right, right. Your big plan. Bring down Michael, throw the city into chaos, then take advantage of that to bring down even more pack leaders. Prove you can do that here and it proves that you can do it anywhere. Just couldn’t stay on your mountains, picking your flowers and pretending you’re better than everyone else, could you?”
“We are better, and it’s time that the world remembers. The wolves of this city have long since forgotten their heritage, their duty to serve beyond their own interests. You all stay in these festering wounds of human cities and try to call them home. You have all abandoned nature, forsaken your heritage, and spit upon your history. It’s time that someone brought you to heel,” Stephan said, pride ringing in every syllable.
“And I’m sure you’ll be just the werewolf to do it,” Adrian sneered.
Stephan made a show of adjusting the hem of his jacket. “I have spent as much time as has been allowed studying the ways of humans and you city wolves. With that knowledge in hand, and the aid of those who understand my cause, I have already proven capable of bringing down one of the best leaders you have. You all are so clever, until someone comes along and plays your games a little differently.”
Adrian stepped to the side, motioning to himself grandly. “And yet, then there’s me.”
“You are a small inconvenience, one that I expected. Not you personally, but someone like you, a rat who would skulk in the shadows, listening to the conversations of your betters to repeat back to Michael. It’s almost shameful how long it’s taken him to assign someone to look into it,” Stephan said with a sniff.
“Yeah, and I’m sure he’ll be absolutely heartbroken when I tell him that he’s going to have to kill some snot from the backwoods, and a few traitors and upstart assholes, in order to make his troubles go away.”
Stephan’s eyes shifted to the gate near Adrian. “And you really think that you can get away before I get ahold of you? The others are already coming down the alley behind me and you will be outnumbered. There’s nothing you can do to fight your way through this, you’ve cornered yourself.”
Adrian snorted, shaking his head. “I was going to say the same thing to you, cousin.”
Before Stephan could say or do anything else, Adrian twisted and leapt over the railing that ran along the edge of the canal. The cold water rushed around him as he burst through the surface, caught immediately in the current. The force of the water swept Adrian away, bouncing him off the sloped walls of the canal. As he prayed to whoever or whatever might be listening and willing to help that he would make it through the rapids, he tried to glance up to see if anyone had followed him.
He glimpsed the Stephan’s furious eyes peering over the edge as the water took him around a bend. Adrian, still praying that he made it out in one piece, knew that he was going to have larger problems, namely a furious relative out for blood, once he pulled himself from the river.
Chapter 12
Adrian waited until the sleek, black car pulled up to the curb before he allowed himself to step out into the light of the afternoon. As he stepped forward, the back window slid down, revealing Michael’s handsome face, creased with what looked like annoyance. His blue eyes swept over Adrian’s dripping clothes, up to the strands of wet hair sticking to his forehead.
“You stink,” Michael said after a long moment.
Adrian wrinkled his nose, glad he had grown dead to the odor. “You try taking a dip in the polluted river and see how good you smell.”
“I thought you were trying to gather information, not go swimming,” Michael said dryly, though Adrian thought he heard humor in his voice.
“If I was only going swimming, do you really think I would have called you to have someone come out and pick me up? I can’t get to my car right now,” Adrian said grumpily.
Michael opened the door and scooted across the seat. “I take it that circumstances would make it unsafe for you to be anywhere near your car?”
Adrian slid in, closing the door behind him. “If they haven’t found it yet, I don’t want to risk them seeing me searching for it. Being chased by a bunch of assholes who want to kill me is one of those things you try to make sure only happens once in a great while. That way, the spark of the moment never really wears off.”
Michael frowned at him. “Something is bothering you.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Adrian asked in annoyance.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you only seem to babble when something is bothering you,” Michael said calmly.
Adrian hesitated, paused, then clicked his tongue. “You’re wrong.”
Michael smiled, motioning to whoever was driving to take off. “And I’ll take that to mean that I’m correct.”
“Do you want to hear what I learned or do you want to talk about my feelings?” Adrian asked in annoyance.
Michael made a welcoming gesture. “By all means, tell me what was so important that I should drop everything to pick you up.”
“I said to send someone to get me, not come get me personally. Not for nothing. I would have liked a chance to shower and change my clothes before I saw you again,” Adrian grumbled.
Michael raised a brow “Is that you caring about how you present yourself when you’re around me?”
Adrian found himself hesitating again, a bit of warmth entering his cheeks at the insinuation. “Again, feelings, or facts?”
Michael chuckled. “Carry on then.”
Adrian contemplated strangling him but huffed instead. “Alright, so it looks like there’s a group of people who are trying to bring you down specifically because they think you’re one of the strongest pack leaders in the city.”
Michael frowned thoughtfully. “Not inaccurate. Depending on who you ask, I’m either the strongest or one of the strongest. In terms of income, I certainly am the most well-armed.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what’s made you a target in this case. They’re trying to bring you down in the hopes of proving that a whole city’s worth of packs can be brought down without a big war,” Adrian explained as he wiggled his feet out of his shoes.
“To what end?”
Adrian grimaced, more at what the question would lead to then at the wet sock he was fighting to pull off. “Anyone ever tell you that I was once a sept wolf?”
Michael nodded slowly. “I believe I heard a rumor in passing.”
Adrian tugged at his other sock, glad to avoid eye contact for the moment. “Yeah, well, it was more than a rumor. It was a long time ago, but I was born in one, raised in one, and I left one.”
“While that is no doubt interesting, and more than you’ve deigned to tell me about yourself before, what does that have to do with anything?”
“Because from the sounds of it, the people who are behind this whole stupid thing are from a sept. More specifically, at least one of them is from the sept that I came from out west.”
“Sept wolves are behind this?” Michael asked.
Adrian could hear the faint hope in his voice. He sighed, looking at Michael apologetically. “One of the people behind it is definitely from the sept, but it sounds like at least one of them knows you pretty well. I’m sorry, Michael, but it sounds like your worst fears might just be true.”
Michael’s expression soured for a moment before smoothing out once again. “No less than I expected. Please, continue to explain.”
Adrian waited to see if Michael might say more, but when it was obvious that he wouldn’t, he took a deep breath. “The guy who’s from the sept is— Well, he’s a cousin of mine. I’m not going to go into the whole family affair, but after a moment, I recognized him. And he’s got the full-on sept mentality to back him up while he’s here.”
“I know that the sept wolves aren’t terribly fond of us,” Michael said slowly.
Adrian snorted. “T
hat’s putting it mildly. I mean, some of the septs don’t really care about city wolves, but there’s more than enough of them out there who are like the sept I came from. They can’t stand that city wolves exist. They’ve got the oldest of old world views on things. They’re the type who think that since the werewolves came from nature, they should have stayed that way. Trust me, they don’t stay out in the middle of nowhere because it gives them tingles. They’re the old generation of werewolves, who grumble about kids these days. There have even been some who have gone out of their way to war on city wolves but not in the past couple of decades. The growth of the cities has made it hard for sept wolves to be effective in attacking city wolves. So instead of doing anything about it, they turn up their noses and pretend they’re doing the right thing.”
Michael frowned. “Which is by far one of the most ignorant and outdated viewpoints I have ever heard. What is the point of sticking with the old when the old is being left behind? We aren’t staying in cities because it makes our lives easier, but because that is where the world is headed. As much as so many of the city wolves will sneer at the sept wolves, I personally do not have an issue with them.”
“Yeah, well, they have an issue with you, and with the rest of us. Some of them see it as an affront to everything that they believe in that there are werewolves willing to live beside humans in the city. They hate everything about the cities and they’re not big fans of technology. They seem to think that anything that steps away from the natural is wrong,” Adrian said with a shrug.
“I suppose they never heard of the appeal to nature fallacy?” Michael asked wryly.
“To them, it’s not a fallacy. If it’s not natural, then it’s wrong. Some of them might be willing to put up with some technology, but my old sept? Shit, they would rather burn themselves alive than learn how a computer works.”
