Burned (5 page)

"I know
that—believe it or not, that's a huge part of why we've chosen
to play things this way. The Bishops have been monarchists for a lot
longer than anyone suspects, but we've always been very careful not
to give off any hint of favoritism to either side in this conflict."

"That's a
lovely story, but if that's the truth why did the two of you decide
to break with tradition where you are concerned? Having you
constantly yelling about coming out openly against the Coun'hij has
to have made things difficult for your dad. Even if it helps in the
short term, it's going to lock you into something other than
neutrality once the pack is yours."

"We
changed things up because the Coun'hij has been ramping up the
pressure on my dad since even before I was born. We've looked back
through the archives and there aren't any signs that it's ever been
this bad before. It was bad even before your dad jumped into bed with
Puppeteer and the rest, and it's only gotten worse since he got on
board. We needed an insurance policy for my dad."

"Because
they know if anything happens to Ulrich it will mean the Chicago pack
will come out against them before his body is even cold."

"Yeah. For
the first time in centuries, the Coun'hij is doing everything it can
to keep the head of the Bishop line in power rather than trying to
arrange for an accident in the hopes that his replacement will prove
more malleable."

"Okay, I
buy that—in theory at least. I can even see most of the
advantages. The Coun'hij protects your dad, and he makes sure they
know he'll turn on them in a heartbeat if anything happens to you. I
get the feeling there's more to it though…"

"Yeah,
it's like I said before. In the time of my dad and his dad, we had to
actually be neutral or else risk our secret getting out. Dad doesn't
think that we can make it another three hundred years under the
current system. One way or another, our society is headed to a
massive rebellion. By framing me as the rebel of the family, it gives
us some latitude to make contact with 'divisive' elements without
worrying about leaks getting back to the Coun'hij."

"Because
when the leaks happen it's just you who's implicated rather than your
dad."

"Yeah.
That's the thing, Alec. We've been watching for the right chance to
throw our weight behind the rebellion, but haven't seen anyone come
along who had a snowflake's chance of succeeding—until you.
When I promised to come help you, I wasn't promising as Shawn the
no-account rebel. That operation had my dad's full approval. I was
going to bring the cream of our fighting strength down there to help
bust Agony out—everyone who we thought was trustworthy."

"Everyone
who was trustworthy, or everyone he figured he could disavow if
things went badly?"

"Both. Dad
has been quietly shuffling things around inside of the pack since I
manifested my hybrid form. He's got a lot of the paper tigers still
reporting to him, but most of the best, most dependable hybrids—the
ones who have an ax to grind with the Coun'hij—all report to me
in some form or fashion."

"You ever
wonder if your dad is just setting you up, Shawn? After all, it
wouldn't be the first time that an alpha decided to eliminate his
competition via external means."

"No, Alec,
the thought never even crosses my mind. My dad is many things, and he
can be a real bastard when the circumstances call for it, but I've
never doubted his loyalty to the crown or his love for me. This is
the real thing."

A spark of
anger started growing inside of me. Everything Shawn said was
seductive. It was powerfully convincing precisely because it was
exactly what I wanted to hear. Two years ago it would have worked on
me just like Shawn and Ulrich had planned, but I'd been through too
much—seen too many terrible things—since then.

I thought I had
the spark under control, but then my beast got behind the emotion and
pushed. The spark exploded into a bonfire and my claws punched into
the wall next to Shawn's head.

"Stop
lying to me, Shawn. If any of what you've just told me were true, you
wouldn't have left me hanging in the wind down in New Mexico. Agony
died because you weren't there to back my play."

I'd been
watching Dax and Vicki out of the corner of my eye. I'd expected them
to shift forms and come crashing toward me. When you really got down
to it, I'd been expecting Shawn to shift forms and do his best to rip
my throat out, but nobody was behaving like they should have.

Dax started
forward, but Vicki grabbed his arm before he could take more than a
step. She didn't look happy about it, but she also hadn't attacked
me. Out of anyone there, she was the last one I'd been expecting to
pour oil on troubled waters.

Even odder,
Shawn hadn't shifted. He wasn't even looking at me. He was looking at
Vicki like she was his personal totem.

"You had a
leak, Alec. I don't know who it is, or why they sold you out, but the
Coun'hij knew that an operation was going down. You kept things
compartmentalized, so we didn't know that you had a second group down
there to help you. We thought our pulling back would be enough to
convince you to call off the rescue. If we'd known that you had an
entire other force in reserve, we would have shown up and helped
out."

"I didn't
have another force in reserve. That was all Dream Stealer—I
didn't even know that he was going to be there. We went forward
because we had access to a hybrid with an ability we figured would
let us carry the day. We were right—at least until Brandon
showed up. I wasn't compartmentalizing, I just didn't know what was
going on. That's our biggest problem, we aren't a unified force.
We're nothing more than a bunch of little fiefdoms who can't even
agree to work together half the time."

Shawn ran his
hand through his hair. "Yeah. I wish you'd told me about this
hybrid with the game-changing ability. Maybe that would have been
enough. You're right though. If we had one key leader who called all
of the shots then we'd stand a heck of a lot better chance of winning
this war."

I gave him a
sardonic grin. "Are you and your dad ready to subordinate
yourselves to someone else?"

"No—at
least not yet—which means that we're part of the problem."

I looked around
the room we were standing in, noting the thick carpet and expensive
leather upholstery. I'd seen more luxury in a few rooms back at the
estate, but not many. In some ways Shawn and I were practically the
same person, and in others we were as different as night and day.

We'd both grown
up groomed for leadership, both grown up with silver spoons in our
mouths and a knowledge that money was never going to be in short
supply. We both apparently wanted the Coun'hij overthrown, but that
was where the similarities ended.

Shawn had a
good relationship with his father, and had been trusted enough that
Ulrich had given him the cash necessary to buy one of the hottest
clubs in Chicago and outfit it in whatever style he wanted.

I'd had to
steal my billions, and if my father and I ever saw each other again,
one of us wouldn't walk away from the encounter. I took a deep breath
and realized that there was one more similarity.

"Neither
am I. I guess that means I'm part of the problem too."

Shawn looked
like he wasn't sure whether or not it was okay for him to agree with
me. He settled for just shrugging.

"What you
said earlier about coming back here and ripping my heart out if I was
trying to screw you over. That wasn't just an idle threat, was it?
You really thought that you had a chance of making good on your
promise."

The sudden
change of topics caught me off guard. I nodded before I'd had a
chance to think through my response.

"Yeah, I
wasn't just talking to hear the sound of my voice. Why?"

It was a risk.
I hadn't come right out and told him that I'd manifested an ability,
but the implication was there.

"I…I
can't tell you why I'm asking, Alec. All I can say is that the answer
is important."

He was…not
lying exactly, but definitely holding something important back. Any
thought I'd had about trusting him with my secret evaporated.

"Let's
just say that I now have access to…assets who you aren't
prepared to deal with. Assets who are willing to accept me as the
leader of the rebellion."

It was a lie
and we both knew it, but that was the point. I'd just sent exactly
the message I'd wanted to send to him. I'd told him that I had
someone
who made me a player, and I'd lied, so he knew that
there was
something
else going on, something that I wasn't
willing to share with him.

Shawn met my
gaze for several seconds and then nodded. "If that's really the
case, then maybe it's time I talk to my dad about changing our tune.
If you have the ability to get to me then maybe you really are the
best man for the job."

I kept the
smile I was feeling off of my face, but it was hard.

"You
didn't invite me here for a bunch of posturing, Shawn. You're either
a better liar than I think you are, or you're telling the truth. What
do you want?"

"It's the
Tucson pack, Alec. Jaclyn Annikov and all of her people aren't going
to last the week unless someone does something."

Adriana Paige
Rest Easy Hotel
Arcadia, Florida

I'd spent too
much time in bed over the last few days, but I couldn't seem to bring
myself to care—not even enough to get out of bed when I heard a
knock at my door. I didn't particularly care who was out there
waiting for me, but the fact that the door opened a second later told
me everything I needed to know about my visitor.

Nellie had been
with Isaac's group for months now. She'd been one of the wolves who'd
been working their way around the perimeter of the building while I'd
been in the center…while my parents had been killed.

She'd spent
days stuck inside the bunker in Wyoming with all of the rest of us,
but I hadn't gotten to know her very well until after the
big…fight…in Minnesota. Taggart, Cindi, Tristan and I
had split off from Isaac and his people within twenty-four hours of
defeating the vampires.

It had been a
necessity—keeping that many people hidden from the Coun'hij
while they were gathered together in one spot was the next best thing
to impossible—but it had been more than that. I hadn't wanted
to see anyone I didn't have to. Isaac, Heath, even Dominic, they had
all been reminders of the fact that we'd failed my mom and dad. I'd
brought all of my closest friends and we'd come loaded for bear, but
in the end it hadn't been enough.

We'd killed the
vampires—Alec had killed the vampires—but it hadn't been
enough to save the two people I owed everything to. If there'd been a
way to go off completely by myself—without Taggart, Cindi and
Tristan—I would have. Unfortunately there wasn't. Taggart was
the one who had all of the cash, and I'd already had a very brutal
crash course on just how dangerous the world actually was.

He was right to
refuse when I told him I wanted a hundred thousand dollars and time
by myself, but it didn't make it any easier to hear. Once I knew I
wasn't going to lose Taggart, I couldn't really refuse Cindi. She'd
lost just as much as I had.

Tristan just
never gave me a chance to tell him no. He'd just always been there
with his bags packed every time I was ready to leave. That was a
pretty big accomplishment for someone who was barely to the point of
getting around without a wheelchair, but it was more than that.

Tristan had
given up a lot to be there for Cindi and me. He was probably wanted
by the police back home, and it was a virtual certainty that his
parents had disowned him by now. He'd given up a billion-dollar
inheritance and a promising career in football because he knew that
we needed his help. He'd done it all without being asked.

I couldn't turn
him down—not even knowing that he was eventually going to break
Cindi's heart. From what little I'd seen, he'd been great to her ever
since Alec had rescued her from the vampires. He was attentive and
sensitive—perfect in every way but one.

He liked Cindi,
but he liked me a lot more. He was going to cause her problems down
the road, but I couldn't deal with the future right now. It was all I
could do to deal with the present. If Tristan could help Cindi pull
herself back together before he did something stupid that ruined
everything between them then I was on board. Call me short-sighted,
but it felt like the least of several evils.

Somehow in all
of the craziness of our departure from Minnesota, Nellie had managed
to attach herself to our group. Isaac ran a much more democratic
organization than most shape shifter alphas. He probably could have
gotten away with ordering Nellie to leave us alone, but he
wouldn't—not unless he was sure she was stepping over some kind
of boundary.

I would have
said she was violating my privacy, but nobody asked me and Taggart
was overjoyed to have someone else around who could help ride herd on
his three human charges. Nellie was just a wolf—and therefore
only a half-step up from a cocker spaniel in the preternatural
pecking order—but she was still faster, stronger and more
deadly than any human. Her presence meant that Taggart could feel
safe closing his eyes when he needed to sleep. She might not be able
to fight off all of the big bads out there, but she could at least
hold them off for the few seconds it would take for Taggart to wake
up and get into the fight.

It was almost
humorous to think of Taggart—the fearsome Dream Stealer—
babysitting three damaged humans and a submissive wolf. He'd gone his
own way for centuries, considered too violent to fit into any
conventional pack, but somehow that had all changed over the last few
months. He was the best protector anyone could have asked for.