Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1) (26 page)

The three shape shifters who'd been in the back of the semi with the drugs had been slow to engage, but as I got a decent look at them for the first time I realized that all three were nearly half again as big as any of the other jaguars we were fighting. As Brandon started in on his third kill the three big cats split up with one heading towards us and the other two heading to the south side of the road.

James had somehow left my new opponent with a limp, which was going a long way to counteract the fact that he was obviously older than any of the cats I'd fought so far. The difference in speed and strength was noticeable, but I juked one direction and then waited until he was committed and threw myself forward with enough force that I managed to get both sets of claws on my cat before he could land and change directions.

We went rolling across the ground from the force of my spring, but I managed to keep superior positioning and as I dropped another lifeless body to the ground I looked up to see a trail of bodies between where the three bigger cats had been a few seconds before and where they were now.

Ancients. It finally made sense. They'd sprung the trap with a smaller number of cats because they'd figured that the sheer deadliness of their three most powerful cats would be more than enough to offset both Brandon's considerable gifts and any quantitative disadvantage they would be suffering under.

It was obvious that the two Ancients on the south side of the road had planned on engaging Brandon simultaneously, but they'd taken too long to identify him. Those precious few seconds had allowed Brandon to cut down the bulk of the cats that had been trying to swarm Vincent's team under and now Vincent and his guys had thrown themselves at one of the Ancients in the hope that they could keep it distracted long enough for Brandon to kill the one he was fighting and then turn around and save them.

There was no question in my mind but that Vincent's guys would need rescuing. They were keeping their opponent on the defensive by sheer weight of numbers, but even while on the defensive he was landing respectable blows that were taking a toll on the hybrids facing him.

The fight between Brandon and the other Ancient was nothing but a blur. I couldn't tell who was winning because I couldn't even follow what was happening in the fight. I had a second to hope that Brandon's supercharged strength and speed was enough to carry the day and then a hammer blow of force hit me between the shoulders.

I'd committed the cardinal sin and allowed myself to become so distracted that I lost track of what was going on in my immediate area. The mere fact that I wasn't dead by the time that I hit the ground told me that I hadn't been knocked over by one of the cats, and I rolled to my feet to see that Jasmin had thrown herself at me to keep the third Ancient from executing me on his way towards Juan.

I thought Juan was a dead man, but he flung himself to the side with speed I hadn't known he possessed, and his evasion was just enough that the Ancient couldn't fully compensate. Instead of a killing slash to the neck Juan took a set of claws to his shoulder, but the massive jaguar probably would have killed him a second later if not for the arrival of two of the wolves who had been out on the perimeter. Both wolves jumped the Ancient at the same time that James finished off his latest opponent and moved in to help them.

Jess and Jasmin were only a leap away and I was only a couple of seconds behind them, but the Ancient killed one of the wolves and savaged another before any of us could arrive to assist. It looked like James got a claw or two into the jaguar as it jumped back out of range of the gang converging on it, but it was hard to tell for sure and if he had, then he'd paid for the blow with a set of deep slashes to his chest.

Somehow we'd finished off all of the other cats who had made it over to engage us, and it looked as though the other team on the south side of the road finally had the upper hand in their fight. A couple of their people were already headed this way to help deal with the Ancient, but it was going to be too little too late.

The second wolf, the one who had been hurt so badly a few seconds ago, was back on her feet, but she was so punch-drunk that she staggered away from the rest of us before anyone could stop her. The Ancient only needed a few feet of separation to make his play to finish her off.

A black-furred glowing streak of light pounced on the injured wolf and the rest of us threw ourselves at the Ancient in an attempt to save her. It was like fighting a wraith. I slashed at the cat, but my claws found nothing but empty air and a second later lines of fire tore their way across my chest.

My ribs held and protected my heart from the vicious attack, but the force of the blow knocked me backwards. I saw Jasmin flung away with blood dripping down her side and Jess knocked into James so that he couldn't interfere with what came next.

There was a frozen heartbeat where I could see the Ancient as it gathered itself and sprang at me. I didn't have to be able to see the arc of its trajectory. I was stumbling and off balance, there was no way that something as deadly as this jaguar had already proved itself to be was going to miss such an easy kill. I got my claws up roughly where I thought it would hit me only it didn't hit me because a massive form had been interposed between the two of us.

The Ancient hit with enough force that it actually managed to knock Juan over. I experienced another of those odd instances when I could see exactly what was happening despite the jaguar's unnatural speed. Blood fountained away as the Ancient opened up multiple arteries all up and down the inside of Juan's arms and then I sank my claws into black fur and made a fist around a set of feline ribs.

After hundreds of years of life, after decades of being all but invincible on the battlefield, having someone bury their claws inside of their flesh like that must have been so inconceivable that the Ancient panicked. Instead of doing the right thing and attacking me, the Ancient jumped away in an effort to break my hold.

The effort was nearly successful. I was pulled off of my feet and it felt like my arm had nearly been dislocated, but I managed to keep ahold of the cat and dragging me like that meant that James was able to time the landing and rake long furrows down the jaguar's other side.

Jess was only a fraction of a second behind him and she managed to lock her jaws around a back leg high enough up that she was mostly safe from the raking attack of the other back leg.

The Ancient tried to make up for the lapse earlier and attacked me with a level of brutality that exceeded anything I'd ever experienced before. I tried to use my grip on its ribs to keep it away from me, but I simply wasn't strong enough. Despite my best efforts, incredibly powerful jaws closed on my upper arm and I felt the huge bone that was the next best thing to indestructible shatter from the pressure even as my inner arm was shredded by two sets of deadly claws.

I willed my fist not to relax, but it seemed somehow disconnected from my will and a fraction of a second later the Ancient was free and turning on Jess. The blood loss had created a sense of exhaustion inside of me and I wanted so badly to just close my eyes and go to sleep, but I forced them open long enough to see that the Ancient got only a single slash to the side of Jessica's face, thankfully missing her eye, before the two wolves from the other team arrived and helped James pin the jaguar down just in time for Brandon to show up and kill it with a single blow.

I looked down and realized that I'd transformed back to human form without intending to. It was a bad sign, but it was hard to be too worried considering that I should have been dead several minutes ago, that I would have certainly been dead if Juan hadn't thrown himself in front of me. I rolled over and found Juan. When the Ancient had leaped at me there at the end so that it could break my arm it must have pushed me back toward him because we were surprisingly close.

"Did we get it, Alec?"

"Yeah, it's dead. All three of them are."

Juan smiled. I'd never seen anyone look as pale as he did at that moment. It was obvious that his shift back to human form hadn't slowed the bleeding enough. I was probably going to die and I was only losing blood from one arm not two like he was.

"Why, Juan? You should have let him have me. I'm dead anyways."

"No, Alec. You're important. We aren't going to get very many more chances to save our people before the storm breaks over us."

I wanted to ask him what he'd meant, but it was no use. Juan was dead and I would be joining him in the next few seconds.

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

I'm not sure how I survived. I've tried to put together some of the pieces, but James, Jasmin and Jessica have all been extremely reluctant to talk about what happened and I haven't had any opportunity to talk to any of the independents down in Arizona.

The bits and pieces that I managed to tease out of my three friends didn't make me feel any better. One of our SUVs had been stocked with several units of blood, but there hadn't been enough blood to go around to everyone who needed it. The fact that I was alive almost certainly meant that someone else was dead who otherwise would have been saved. Considering the sheer amount of blood that I'd lost it was possible that saving me had cost more than one life.

James and the others were less reticent when it came to questions about what had happened once everyone got back to Rico Rio. Kaleb and Brandon were trying very hard to spin the operation as a smashing victory, both internally to everyone in Sanctuary and to the rest of the packs, but it had apparently been obvious to all three of my friends that the few independents who'd survived and even most of the Sanctuary people had felt like we'd had our heads handed to us.

I tended to agree. Killing twenty-one cats, three of which had been Ancients was an impressive feat, but it hadn't been worth losing nearly that many of our own people. The Brain Box and Brandon had been suckered and we'd committed to the wrong operation instead of biding our time and killing that many cats over the course of a few engagements where the odds were on our side and we could engage without losing most of our force.

Juan hadn't made it. When I'd first woken up in my bed in Sanctuary I'd thought that maybe his death had been some kind of terrible nightmare, but Jessica's face had told me otherwise. The scars were already fading, but I could clearly see where she'd taken a set of claws while trying to keep the Ancient pinned down enough for everyone else to pile on.

Jess had mistaken my expression for concern over her appearance and had hastened to reassure me that she was fine and that the scars would be gone within a few weeks, but she was trying to bandage the wrong metaphorical wound. Even her joke about not being able to wear a swimsuit at the pool now that we were back didn't tease much of a smile out of me.

Even back then, before I knew the full toll we'd paid to bring down the Ancients, I'd still known that it had been heavy and that Juan hadn't survived. I'd been sad, but I hadn't understood the full weight of that particular loss yet. That understanding didn't come until later when James and Jasmin arrived to check up on me.

Juan had been my connection to the independent packs. He'd had credibility with them that I didn't have, and might not ever have now that he was gone. Not only that, I'd doubtlessly alienated some of his friends when I'd made the scene at the briefing and refused to go on the assignment to Naco.

It had been James who had asked what we were going to do about the people Brandon had ordered killed in Naco. The four of us had decided to go on a short walk as a way of getting out of the house. Only seconds after we'd gone far enough that the house was no longer visible he'd brought up the single biggest unanswered question and I had been forced to tell him and the girls that I didn't know how to proceed.

Vincent had apparently survived as had more than half of his team, so one way or another it was virtually guaranteed that we'd be hearing about more incidents from the border where humans were killed by the southerners.

Despite his efforts to convince everyone that the operation had been a success, Kaleb had issued a slew of orders as soon as he received word of Brandon's losses. Several of the pack who'd been scheduled for downtime were ordered back down to Arizona along with a few members of the pack who had never been considered particularly suitable for pitched combat.

Most surprisingly of all, Kaleb had ordered Brandon to ship Jasmin, Jess, James and me back up to Sanctuary. It hadn't particularly made sense for Kaleb to pull four fighters out of Arizona considering all of the knots he was tying himself into so that he could get more fighters down there to reinforce Brandon, but the order had apparently been non-negotiable and one of the planes had arrived only an hour or so after we'd arrived back in Rio Rico.

I'd still been unconscious when James had carried me onto the plane and it had taken to the air. I'd remained unconscious for nearly forty-eight hours and as nearly as I could tell Kaleb hadn't asked after me a single time while I'd been out.

Mother had been a different matter altogether. She'd sent Donovan over several times to check up on me both before I woke up and since. I'd spent the last twenty-four hours ducking her. I wasn't ready to see her yet because I wasn't ready to discuss the things that she'd been keeping from me. There was a subsidiary benefit that my staying away from Mother would help convince Kaleb that I could finally be brought over to his side of things, but as much as I tried to tell myself that my evasions were part of a larger scheme, I knew the truth.

Once I talked to her there was a chance that I'd have to acknowledge the fact that I couldn't trust either of my parents.

The summons that came from Kaleb thirty minutes after my friends and I returned from our walk was hardly a surprise. He might not care enough to check in on me when there was still a possibility that I might not recover, but now that I was up and walking around he no doubt figured that it was time to put me to work.