Burned (4 page)

I'd been moving
with the enhanced speed so natural to a shape shifter, so all of that
happened while everyone else was still fumbling for their phones. As
my hand found the doorknob, the first of the lights from the phones
started to appear, but they were oddly muted, as though being seen
through a thick film of smoke.

The hissing had
been fog machines kicking on full bore. They probably hadn't been
cool for at least a decade, but they'd served their purpose. It was
still too dark for anyone to see me and I slipped inside the door as
the DJ cut the music and started yelling for everyone to stay calm
and hold still.

"It's just
a temporary outage—we'll have the lights back on momentarily.
Please hold still so that nobody gets hurt."

The door closed
with a click that was much too loud. I heard an
electronically-controlled deadbolt slam home a fraction of a second
later, and my muscles tensed up.

Carson had been
right—I'd been too caught up in the raw power of my ability. I
hadn't spent enough time thinking about how I would have circumvented
it if I'd been going up with someone with the same ability. I'd never
even considered the fact that Shawn could poison the air inside the
club.

He hadn't, but
that didn't necessarily mean that I was safe. I was alone in darkness
as complete as anything I'd ever experienced before. I stepped to one
side, silently shifting position so that I wasn't standing exactly
where they would expect me to be if they had something nasty in
store.

I scanned
through the darkness, trying to pierce the veil in front of me, but
it was all to no avail. In wolf or hybrid form I would have been able
to pick out the light from living things from quite a ways off, but
in human form I'd have to practically be on top of someone to know
they were there unless they were an extremely powerful hybrid.

I couldn't move
forward—not without knowing what was waiting for me—and I
couldn't go backwards unless I was prepared to try to batter down the
door behind me. Based on the way it had moved, it was reinforced
steel.

Chills of
unease worked their way up and down my spine. It had been too long. I
didn't want to shift prematurely and appear jumpy, but if this was
all just part of an over-complicated scheme to get me into the
owner's suite without being seen then Shawn would have been here—by
himself—waiting for me.

I shrugged out
of my jacket—the only thing strong enough to give me problems
during a transformation—and let my beast out of the cage where
I usually kept it confined. I shifted forms to the sound of ripping
cloth and then moved forward and to the other side, trying to make it
hard for anyone who might be tracking me by the sound of my
transformation.

I was now only
a few inches off of seven feet tall, and I was more than a hundred
pounds heavier than I'd been—all of it preternaturally strong
muscle and dense bone. Hybrids weren't the very top of the
supernatural food chain, but they were close. In this form I was a
lot harder to kill, and my razor-sharp semi-retractable claws, foot
talons and fangs meant that I was capable of bringing down any
natural predator in seconds.

I was still
scanning the darkness, looking for the cool, golden light of living
organisms, but there wasn't so much as a cockroach wandering around
out there. I started forward, crouched with my claws up to protect my
head and torso, but before I could take my third step the sound of a
door opening pulled me up short.

"Alec,
it's me. We're having a problem getting the lights back on—somebody
threw the wrong switch upstairs. Just stay there for a second until
we can get the lights in the club back on—I don't want you to
fall down the stairs."

His voice
sounded like it was coming from ahead and below me, but that was the
only evidence I had that he was telling me the truth.

"This
isn't what we agreed to, Shawn. If I pulled something like this on
you I'd never hear the end of it, and I'm not the one who backed out
of a rescue operation that then went to crap under suspicious
circumstances. I didn't even bring a phone because you were worried
it might be tracked. Tell me why I should think that this is anything
other than a trap? I have half a mind to rip your expensive door off
its hinges and take my chances in your club."

"There are
something like a hundred and eighty people out there, Alec. If you
are in your hybrid form when the lights come on there's going to be
no way to keep this quiet. The Coun'hij will send in teams to clean
up the mess, but even Oblivion won't be able to wipe away all of the
evidence."

"I'm
already out of favor with the powers that be, Shawn. I'm not sure why
I should care about creating more work for Oblivion or any of the
rest of them."

"Then
don't do it for them, do it for the innocent people you'll be forcing
them to kill. If we have a breach of that magnitude they'll take
drastic measures."

I wanted to
shrug off his concerns—they were exactly what he would have
said if this was all just so he could get me off by myself where it
would be easy to kill me—but there was something in his voice
that made me think he was telling the truth.

It was enough
to stop me from really turning the screws, but not enough to make me
back down completely.

"I'm still
waiting for a reason, Shawn. You've got exactly five seconds before I
rip your door off of its hinges."

"The
Coun'hij is fully capable of manufacturing a crisis to bury something
like this, Alec. If you do this they'll set off a dirty bomb in
downtown Chicago, or stage a massive train crash, or one of a dozen
other things that will result in tens of thousands of deaths. They
will do anything to bury your headline so far down nobody will even
remember seeing a hybrid stroll through my club."

"Maybe, or
maybe they won't do anything to anyone but you. You've gone to a lot
of trouble to make sure that nobody else knew I was here. If I'm seen
leaving your suite, you and your dad are going to have to answer some
tough questions—questions that you might not survive
answering."

I cocked my arm
back, ready to slam my claws home into the reinforced steel of the
door, and for the first time Shawn sounded desperate.

"Alec!
Stop! You can't do this. Of course I'm worried about the Coun'hij
finding out that you were here. Hell, I'm almost as worried about my
dad finding out I invited you here. That's all true, but that doesn't
change the fact that I didn't lure you here so that I could ambush
you."

"Prove it.
Turn on the damn lights or we're done here."

"I
can't—they're out in the entire club. I've been on the phone
with my people trying to walk them through getting them turned back
on—that's the reason I didn't come out to talk to you before
now."

"Then get
your phone out here and use it as a flashlight."

Even as I
spoke, I raked my claws across the metal of the door, testing the
thickness of the steel by cutting deep furrows in it. Shawn swore
again, and I heard him fumbling in his pocket, and then right as I
started my hand forward a dim light peeled back the darkness.

"Sorry. I
should have thought of that before now. I was worried about anyone
seeing light under my door and knowing that you'd just come down
here."

I took careful
stock of my surroundings. I was standing at the top of a long
stairwell that doubled back halfway down. The light was enough for me
to be able to see the steps, but not enough for me to be sure that
there wasn't some kind of tripwire or other nasty surprise waiting
for me partway down.

"I want
more light. You've got people there with you—some of them have
phones. Get them."

Apparently I'd
just given Shawn one order too many. I felt a flare of power slam
into me, but my beast was long past being docile today. My answering
flare of power was a bare-knuckled assault on Shawn and everyone else
down there with him.

There had been
a time where I'd tried to hide the full extent of the energy
crackling around inside of my beast, but that time was past. I had a
bigger secret to keep now, so anything that made Shawn back down
before I had to uncork the miniature black hole inside of me, was a
good thing.

Someone down
there gasped in astonishment at the sheer power I'd just unleashed,
but it wasn't Shawn and that meant it didn't matter. When Shawn spoke
again I could hear his beast straining against his control.

"I know I
was the one to reach out to you this time, Alec. I also know how
things must look to you right now, but you don't get to come into my
house and tell me what to do. Calm down or I'll have my people calm
you down."

"No,
Shawn, you won't. If you don't get me some additional light I'm going
to go through this door regardless of how much trouble it might get
you and your dad in with Kaleb and the rest. Then I'm going to watch
the resulting fireworks, and when everything settles down I'm going
to pay you a visit and rip your heart out of your chest, and nothing
you—or your people—can do will stop me."

It was my beast
talking. This was why most of the communication between packs took
place via phone or video conference. It was entirely possible that
Shawn and I really did want the same thing right now, but things had
escalated and now neither of us could back down without losing face.

Under other
circumstances I would never have even dreamed of issuing an ultimatum
like that to someone with Shawn's level of power and influence, but
that didn't stop me from meaning it in that moment. I heard a growl
from somewhere below me, but contrary to what I'd expected, the growl
didn't come from Shawn.

He should have
been tearing up the stairs in his effort to get to me and settle the
question of who was dominant to whom once and for all. I'd actually
viewed that as a benefit because it would mean that I'd have proof
that the stairs were safe.

His lack of
response sent chills up my spine. He was either acting completely out
of character, or he was refusing to rise to my challenge because he
knew that the stairs were a death sentence. Before I could spin back
around and rip the door in half, Shawn spoke back up.

"Say that
again, Alec."

"Now who's
the one giving orders?"

"Please,
say it again. The promise you just made—can you repeat it?"

"Word for
word? Probably not, but it basically boiled down to the fact that if
you don't stop jerking me around I'm going to come back here and rip
your heart out of your chest."

Shawn cursed
again—too softly for a human to hear. "Vicki, get your
phone out—we need to create enough light for Alec to feel safe
traversing the stairs."

Her
subvocalized response was too quiet even for me to make out, but a
second later another point source was added to the light coming up
the stairwell. I was debating as to whether or not that was enough
light to make the journey safe, when a third phone was added to the
mix.

I moved to the
railing and confirmed that Shawn was standing down there by
himself—still in human form. The stairs looked safe, but I
suddenly had an idea of how to bypass them completely.

"You might
want to back up a little, Shawn."

He obeyed
without question, and I hopped over the railing and fell straight
down for more than forty feet. It was far enough to shatter bones for
humans. Even we shape shifters couldn't guarantee that we'd come out
unscathed from that kind of drop in human form, but my massive hybrid
legs absorbed the impact without any sign that they'd been stressed
despite the crash as my feet hit the concrete.

"I guess
that means we're good?"

"I don't
know—it will depend on what you brought me here to say. I
haven't forgotten about the fact that you and your dad hung me out to
dry just a few weeks ago."

Shawn winced.
"I know that I deserve that, but please hear me out anyway."

I nodded and
followed him through the door. Despite everything else that had
happened, part of me still half expected to find his bodyguards
waiting on either side of the door to put me down. What I saw instead
was completely at odds with anything I'd expected.

Shawn's
bodyguards were clear on the other side of the room, and neither of
them looked happy about it. He was standing less than five feet away
from me—still in human form, and his best hope of beating me if
things got physical were much too far away to get to him in time if I
decided I wanted him dead.

"Does your
dad know that you don't always let your minders do their jobs?"

Shawn's grin
was remarkably similar to the one on the face of the bigger of his
two bodyguards—the guy. The girl on the other hand looked
anything but amused. I recognized Vicki from the last time I'd been
in Chicago; she hadn't been any more welcoming then—even after
I'd helped save Shawn's life. Apparently she didn't like being called
a glorified babysitter.

"Dad
stopped being surprised by anything I do a long time ago. He knows
that I make life hard on Vicki and Dax. He doesn't like it, but he
also knows that I have to be somewhat…flexible…in order
to carry out my function."

The lights came
on with a flicker, but I didn't let that distract me.

"And what
exactly is your function?"

"I keep
the Coun'hij guessing as to where our true loyalties lie."

I pulled his
words in and rolled them around inside of my mind, sucking all of the
meaning out of them before I responded.

"Ulrich's
loyalties have always rested squarely with Ulrich and only Ulrich.
The fact that you're lumping the two of you together doesn't inspire
any confidence in me—exactly the opposite, in fact. I came here
primarily because you've been so publically against your dad's policy
of strict neutrality."