Riven (2 page)

Mom looked at me
for several long seconds, and I could feel the decision balancing on
the edge of a knife. Mom hadn't ever been big on tears. Most of the
time she was too caught up inside of her head to let sorrow really
touch her. She'd only cried once or twice since the funeral. She was
crying now though and I was struggling not to join her.

"Okay. You
can stay, Adri. I hope you really know what you're getting into, but
if it turns out that you get in over your head then I want you to
know that you can always come home."

I made it from my
chair over to my mom's chair without realizing that I'd crossed the
intervening distance. She wrapped her arms around me and for a couple
of minutes I just sat in her lap like I'd done when I was little.

"I'm sorry,
usually I'm not such a baby. I must look terrible." Mom dabbed
futilely at her mascara and then looked around. "Is there a
bathroom nearby?"

Alec nodded and
stood as if to show her where it was but she waved him back down into
his seat. "Just point me in the right direction and I'll be
fine."

"It's back
out the direction you came in from, down the hall, take your first
left and it's the second door on the right."

Once Mom was gone
and it was just the three of us, I turned back to Russ and took a
deep breath. "What are you going to tell Mom? What have you
observed while you've been here?"

Russ leaned back
in his chair and gave me a measuring look. "I'm not entirely
sure I should be telling you any of that, especially not with Alec in
the room. Your mom's decision to let you stay here notwithstanding, I
suspect that we're not exactly playing on the same team."

"Please,
Russ. I need to know how much you've figured out because it will
impact just how much of a problem my mom is going to be in the
future."

"I've
noticed, I suspect, more than you'd like me to have noticed, but
there are still threads there that I can only begin to guess at."

I
hadn't told Alec about Russ' ability to read people and situations
because it hadn't really been my secret to give up, but he didn't
seem at all fazed by the direction of the discussion. Russ met my
gaze for several more seconds before finally shrugging.

"Alec
obviously isn't your run-of-the-mill billionaire. He's almost more
like royalty. Dominic was obviously serving as your bodyguard back in
New York, but there is a different feel to things here. It's sort of
like the Dark Ages. I don't get the feeling that Alec needs
protecting from most threats, but his house seems chock-full of
extremely dangerous teenagers. The best description I can give is
that Alec is the king and he's surrounded himself with dukes and
counts not because he fears any one man, but because he knows he'll
need an army at his back if he's to protect his realm."

Alec
gave Russ a nod of respect. "That's more insightful than most. I
won't insult you by offering you a job that you don't need, but if
you are ever in a position where you need a...diversion...I
can make it worth your while."

Russ'
chuckle gave the impression that he'd just filed away another piece
of information in a mental folder somewhere with Alec's name on it.

"Money
doesn't mean anything to you, but not because you're some spoiled
heir. It's a tool and nothing else, but I get the sense that you
just...expanded your reach somehow. With someone else I would
say that they'd come into a substantial increase in working capital,
but I have the feeling that isn't it. You've got some kind of new
tool in your back pocket though."

I
fought to keep my expression under control, but I was pretty sure
that I didn't succeed. Russ was keying into things that I never would
have expected him to catch. I was scared to find out what else he
suspected, but it was better to know than remain ignorant.

Russ
sighed and then uncrossed his legs and leaned slightly forward. "I
can tell that you are head over heels in love with each other, and
there is more to that bond than I would have expected. It's almost
like you've been through some kind of armed conflict together."

Alec
gave Russ another nod and a smile. "You could say that we've
been through our own little pocket of hell over the last few months."

"I
don't want to know about that. The less I know the less Nicole can
tease out of me at some point down the road. Understand this though,
Alec. I know firsthand that being in love with someone now doesn't
necessarily mean that you'll continue to keep her best interests at
heart. If you do something to hurt her—really hurt her, not some
stupid lovers' quarrel—then I will kill you. You can probably buy
and sell me several times over, but I won't stand by and watch Nicole
or Adri be hurt for no reason. You may be just as dangerous as you
appear to be, but that won't stop me from taking you out from a mile
away if that's the only way to make you pay for your sins."

A
flare of power roared out from Alec, and it dwarfed nearly anything
I'd ever felt out of him. It was so strong that even Russ seemed to
sense the fringes of it. I could almost see the wheels turning in his
head as he upped his evaluation of just how dangerous Alec was. Alec
got control of his beast with an almost visible effort of will and
then nodded at Russ.

"If
I proved myself so lost as to hurt Adri in the way you've described,
then I would truly deserve the bullet you've just threatened me with.
Be very careful though with regards to the threats you choose to
level at me. The consequences are likely beyond what you're
expecting."

The
silence in the room did a poor job of masking the fact that Russ and
Alec were sizing each other up with new eyes. Before things could
become further strained, Ash entered the room and leaned in so that
he could whisper to Alec. Another surge of power lashed out from
Alec, but this time it wasn't directed at anyone in the room. Alec
debated his course for a second before nodding to himself and then
turning back to Russ.

"Ash
has just informed me that we've got an unusually large group of cars
heading this way. It is likely nothing to be seriously worried about,
but given some recent developments, there is the chance that things
could get unpleasant. I leave it up to you whether or not you stay or
go, but know that if you stay Adri's mother may be exposed to things
that you'd rather not have her see."

"What
kinds of things?"

"Adri
tells me that you're a veteran of the conflicts in the Middle East.
The cars on their way here may be planning on bringing that kind of
violence here to my home. If you choose to stay I will do everything
in my power to protect you both, but there is a very real possibility
that I won't be able to keep you completely safe."

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Russ'
eyes had gotten bigger and his heart rate had sped up slightly when
I'd told him there was a possibility that he, Adri, and Nicole were
all in danger if they remained here, but it was the closest thing to
a nonresponse that I'd seen out of a human in a long time.

"Okay, I'll
do what I can to get Nicole out of here, but I think that Adri should
leave with us. She can come back once the danger has passed."

Adri interrupted
before I could get a response out. "I'm not going anywhere. I
really do know what I'm getting into, Russ. I'd appreciate it if you
could get my mom out of here, she doesn't need to see any of this,
but I'll be fine here."

Russ gave Adri a
long look, but in the end he nodded and then turned back to me. "Can
we take your jet back or do I need to make other arrangements?"

Right to the
point. I liked that. "Ash already has one of the planes prepping
for takeoff and a helicopter on the way here to take you back to the
airport."

"What are the
odds that we'll get ambushed at the airport?"

"I think that
they'll leave you alone. They won't want to cause big problems out
where there are a lot of witnesses. I'll send Dom, Jessica, and
Jasmin with you, but I'll need to keep the boys here in case the
helicopter doesn't make it back before our visitors arrive."

I could tell that
he didn't like that, but it was more than I should have been offering
him. My power seemed to be working just fine now, but if, for some
reason, it went dormant again then we were going to need every warm
body we had to try and stand off any kind of decent-sized attack.

"Okay. Do you
have a weapon I can borrow? Presumably you can keep the local
authorities from coming down too hard on me, so I'd rather not go
unarmed if things are as bad as you're indicating."

I shot Ash an
inquiring look and he nodded and pulled a pistol still in a pocket
holster out of his pants. Russ accepted the pistol with a low
whistle. "A Kimber .45. You don't skimp on your weapons."

Russ ejected the
magazine, checked that it was loaded, and then slammed it back home
and racked the slide. A second later the weapon vanished into Russ'
right front pocket as he heard Nicole approaching. Russ turned
towards her and met her with a frown.

"I'm sorry,
Nicole. I just got a call from Patrick. It sounds like there is a
situation developing with the property purchase we've spent the last
six months working on. I hate to tear you away from Adri so soon, but
I'm afraid things aren't going to be pretty if I'm not back in New
York within the next few hours."

Adri's mother's
disappointment was obvious, but there was a hint of something that
felt like relief mixed with a little bit of guilt. I spared a moment
to wonder whether or not to tell Adri just how ill-equipped her mom
felt when it came to dealing with her teenage daughter, and then Nicole and
Adri were making their tearful goodbyes.

Ash had already
left, presumably to round up the girls so that Russ and Nicole had
their escort. Less than ten minutes after Ash had delivered news of
the inbound vehicles, Adri and I were watching her mom and Russ take
off.

Half an hour
later, Jasmin, Dominic and Jess all made it back just as the first of
the loose caravan of cars pulled up. There were six in total and Ash
had already informed me that they were spread out nearly half an hour
apart between the first and the last. It was an unlikely
configuration for an attack force, but nobody had called ahead to
tell us that they were sending a delegation, so we had to play it
safe.

Nobody really knew
just how much control Puppeteer could exercise over a werewolf, but
if he could stuff those cars even half-full of werewolves then we'd
all be dead within minutes of their arrival.

The pack had all
gathered out in front of the house. Even most of the non-combatants
were there with us. James and Isaac stood slightly behind and to
either side of me with Dominic and Jessica at their respective
flanks. Jasmin paced back and forth on Dominic's side of the arc
while Ash and Kristin anchored the other side of the group.

Rachel, Adri,
Donovan, and Andrew all stood on the front step, near enough they
could hear what was being said, but far enough away that they were
less likely to get pulled into the fringes of the fight if our
visitors were hostile. Addison was with my mother, which put her
safely out of the way. She'd still do her best to make life difficult
for me by putting a bug in James' ear but at least this way she
couldn't stir the pot directly.

The first person
to step out of a vehicle was a blond guy who was nearly as tall as
Isaac and who was actually a couple of inches wider through the
shoulders. He looked like he was in his early forties, which probably
put him nearly into his third century given how much slower we aged
than humans. The blond guy waited just long enough for two women to
get out of the SUV and then all three of them walked towards us.

The girls were
physically alike enough to each other that I was pretty sure they
were sisters. Both were blonde with the kind of stocky frame you'd
expect on female boxers. They didn't have any excess fat anywhere on
their bodies, but it was obvious that they weren't the kind of girls
to take a back seat to a bunch of boys when it came to any kind of
physical endeavor.

One of the girls
looked like she was about Rachel's age and the other looked like she
was in her early twenties. It was almost unheard of for shape
shifters to have children that close together. Something about our
physiology gave us lower birthrates than humans. It wasn't uncommon
for siblings to be a decade apart, more even for weaker shape
shifters.

If both of these
girls were our new arrival's daughters, then he was making a
statement about his probable level of power simply by bringing them
here. As the trio made their way over to us, the second vehicle, a
black Mercedes, pulled up.

A pair of brunette
women got out of the Mercedes. The older one looked like she was
getting into her third century, but she was still a powerful figure.
The presence of a single, jagged scar across her left cheek told me
that she'd had a run-in with Agony at some point. Her companion
looked like she was in her late twenties or early thirties, and the
two were related unless I was very mistaken.

The big blond guy
was nearly to us, so I turned my attention back to him as he stopped
in front of me and nodded. "My name is Raynor. I come from the
Durango Colorado pack to request guest right from you, Alec Graves."

"You're bold
to have come here without calling ahead to ask permission to pay us a
visit."

Raynor's smile was
challenging. "The rumors of your fight with Agony have already
shot across the land like wildfire. They are as varied as they are
incredible, but there are two things that they agree on. You killed
Agony in a display of power that makes you the equal of almost any of
the Coun'hij, and you declared war on the governing body over every
wolf in North America. One could say that you're setting yourself up
as our new king, Alec. If that's true then you'll remember that the
kings of centuries past always allowed their subjects to come and go
as they pleased."