Marked (41 page)

Alec
was on the altar, nailed to it with metal spikes through his arms and
legs along with a single larger spike that went through the right
side of his chest. The spikes had been shoved straight into the stone
of the altar and they widened at the top such that the only way Alec
would be able to free himself would be to lift himself up off of the
stone slab, ripping the thicker ends through his flesh in the
process.

There
was so much blood pooled on the stones around the altar that for a
second I thought Alec might really be dead despite his assertion that
he couldn't be killed inside of his own dream. I rushed forward and
used my sword to slice through the spike that was pinning his right
arm to the stone, cutting through it down next to the altar.

Alec
screamed as the spike shifted. It was a terrible sound, but it was
the first evidence that he was still alive—I hadn't even been
able to see his chest moving before then.

I
grabbed hold of the spike and pulled it out of his arm. "Hold
on, Alec. I just need a few seconds and I can cut them all."

He
weakly shook his head. "Just my arms and legs. I'll pull the one
in my chest out."

I
worked carefully, not wanting to accidentally cut Alec with my sword,
but even so it only took another twenty seconds for me to slice
through the remaining three spikes in his appendages. Once that was
done Alec didn't move for several seconds as though marshalling his
strength.

"Alec?"

His
only answer was to reach up to the last spike and rip it out of the
stone with a single herculean effort. He rolled off of the altar and
collapsed to the ground next to it, breathing heavily as though he'd
just finished a marathon. I made as if to go to him, but he stopped
me with a gesture and I was left to watch from several feet away as
he began pulling himself back together, bit by bit.

I'd
known that the physical torture was carried out solely as a way of
breaking Alec mentally and spiritually, but somehow I'd forgotten
that when faced with the sheer scope of his injuries. It wasn't until
I tried to take another step closer to him and he opened his eyes to
glare at me that what he'd been through really started to sink in.

It
wasn't Alec looking out at me through those eyes, it was someone
else—something else, something that had more in common with his
beast than the man that I'd grown to love. The thing that looked up
at me didn't view me as a friend, it viewed me as yet one more thing
that was going to try and hurt it.

I
watched as whatever was left of Alec tried to master the thing that
he'd turned to for strength when the torture had grown to be too
much, and I realized that there was no guarantee that Alec was going
to come out on top in this particular fight.

"I'm
so sorry that I didn't come sooner, Alec. Was it like that every
time? Did you have to tear yourself off the spikes each and every
time Dream Stealer left?"

He
nodded shakily as though just now remembering how to execute that
particular motion. I longed to run to him, to take him in my arms,
but I knew that now wasn't the right time, that I would be risking
pushing him further away if I did that.

I
watched as he closed his eyes and began shaking with the fine tremors
of a shape shifter trying not to transform. I needed something that
would remind him who he was…and then suddenly I had it.

"I
talked to Isaac. I think it was last night. It was probably a
mistake—that's how the Coun'hij was able to track us down to a
small enough area that they decided it would be worth it to throw up
road blocks on the interstate. I took his call though because I know
how much he means to you."

Alec's
eyes had popped back open and he was looking at me, but his eyes were
too pale. They were the eyes of his beast and he was looking at me
like I was going to be his next meal.

"I
told him that you'd gotten his message, that you accepted his
apology, that anything that needed to be forgiven was long since
buried, and that you were sorry you couldn't take his call yourself.
He's in trouble, Alec. He's in New Orleans and he called to see if
you would come down and depose the head of Ash's old pack. I told him
I could probably get some more hybrids and wolves down there to help
out, but he said this other guy—Onyx is his name—is just
too powerful for that."

I
could feel the tears starting to trickle down my cheeks, but I didn't
try and wipe them away. They were long past overdue.

"I
told him that we couldn't help him even though we could have. I lied
to him because I was scared of what would happen if Lori got her
hands on someone like Onyx without you being around to slap her down.
It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, Alec, and I'm still not
sure I did the right thing. The whole time I just kept wishing that
you were around to tell me what to do, that you were there for me to
lean on.

"I
didn't even ask about Kristin and Ash. For all I know they're both
dead—Jasmin too. Jaclyn hasn't been picking up her phone and
Grayson is refusing to help me—I've basically single-handedly
destroyed everything you've built in just the last week or two."

The
tears were streaming down my face now, leaving warm, salty tracks,
that were for Alec and Isaac as much as they were for Jasmin and me.

"I'm
so sorry, Alec. I did the best I could. I promised Isaac that I would
avenge him, that I would put a bullet in Onyx, but it looks like I'm
not even going to manage that. I told Donovan though. He'll probably
make sure it happens just so he can keep Onyx out of Lori's hands.
There's that at least."

"How
long has it been?"

Alec's
voice still sounded rusty, like it hadn't been used for anything
other than screaming for many days, but he wasn't shaking anymore and
his eyes were back to the same clear blue that I'd fallen in love
with months ago.

"I'm
not sure. I didn't retreat inside of myself this time, but there was
just so much going on. A week maybe—not more than a week and a
half."

"It's
funny, but it feels like a lot longer than that to me. You said you
wouldn't come in here unless you didn't have any other choice, Adri."

"I
don't have any other choice, Alec. Your body is starting to shut
down. I figured that you only had another few days at most, so James
and I took you away from the convoy. I was hoping I could take you
some place quiet and then arrange things so that even if I failed
there would be some doubt as to what had really happened to you. I
thought maybe it would be enough to convince everyone that you were
still out there fighting for them."

Alec's
smile was only a shadow of his normal grin, but he was still smiling
and that, more than anything else, told me that he hadn't broken
under Dream Stealer's torture. It had obviously been a near thing and
he might bear the scars of what he'd been through for the rest of his
life, but he'd refused to give in. In the end, even Dream Stealer
hadn't been able to break Alec's indomitable will.

"I'll
bet Donovan wasn't happy about that."

"He
wasn't, but Rachel and I convinced James to back me, so there wasn't
anything Donovan or Addison could do about it. It was a good plan,
but a police officer recognized me when we stopped for gas and we had
to make a run for it."

"What
happened, Adri?"

The
concern in his voice told me that he already had a pretty good idea,
but I forced an answer out anyway. "I'm dying, Alec. You and I
are lying in the bed of an old pickup truck. I have broken ribs, a
punctured lung, and I've lost a dangerous amount of blood. Even if
the Coun'hij doesn't find us I'm still not going to make it. You see,
I had to try again—I'm not going to get another chance."

Alec
pulled me down into his arms and for the first time since he'd been
shot I felt well and truly safe. Being with Alec didn't change any of
the hard realities of life—I was still going to die, he was
still trapped inside Dream Stealer's nightmare—but being inside
the circle of his arms helped me see that there was more to life than
just living and dying.

'Until
death do us part' was never going to be enough for me—not when
it came to Alec. I didn't know what I believed when it came to the
afterlife, but Alec made me want to be more than I was, made me want
to be better than I would have been on my own. I wanted to be as good
as I could possibly be just so I would have a chance of being with
Alec if there really was some kind of afterlife.

If
for no other reason, Alec deserved to be king simply because he was
so good at getting the best out of people. I wanted to stay there in
his arms, but I didn't know how much time I had left.

I
pushed back from Alec and picked up my sword. "Come on, we need
to find Dream Stealer—I'm going to kill him before I run out of
time. Can you feel him? Is he here?"

Alec
shrugged uncertainly. "Things have changed since you were here
last. He's gotten stronger since then, better at masking his
presence, and this place is always more his now than it is mine. He
might be here right now, or we might have hours still before he comes
back."

The
tentative response made me angry, not at Alec, but at Dream Stealer
for having robbed Alec—even temporarily—of his normal,
effortless control in almost any circumstance. Alec stared at me
blankly for several seconds before shaking himself as though
surfacing from a long dive.

"There
is so much that I need to tell you, Adri. I'm so sorry to have pulled
you into my world. If not for me you could have lived a long, full
life somewhere safe."

I
shook my head. "I'm not sorry that I fell in love with you,
Alec. I don't even wish that I was sorry. I'm not excited about the
fact that I'm going to die, but everything that has happened has been
because I love you. It's okay—you don't need to say anything.
If we end up having time after Dream Stealer is dead then we can
talk, but I want my last moments to be dedicated to giving you that
gift."

Alec
closed his eyes for several seconds, visibly forcing his emotions
back into a tiny corner of his mind, and then he opened his eyes and
gave me a crooked smile. "What's your plan?"

"The
only thing I can think of is for us to go back to the bars that lead
outside. Since we don't know how to find Dream Stealer we might as
well hack them to pieces so that you'll still be able to get out even
if I fail. More importantly though, last time when I touched them
something happened to me. I could see everything, including the
golden threads that Dream Stealer is using to steal power from you so
that he can create this place. If my vision changes again when I
touch the bars then I'll be able to find Dream Stealer, if he's
here."

"If
that's what you want to do then we should get started—I'm
pretty sure Dream Stealer isn't here though, he's not the type…"

Whatever
Alec had been about to say was interrupted by an earthshaking impact
as a figure made out of black fire dropped down from the top of the
pyramid.

"Please
don't go—I'd really like to know more about these visions that
you're having."

My
blood turned to ice water inside of my veins. I would have said that
nothing could have been more terrifying than Dream Stealer had been
when I'd last faced off against him, but apparently I would have been
wrong.

He
was bigger now than he'd been before, and he gave off a sense of
wrongness that spoke to the primitive part of my brain that wanted to
run screaming out of the room anytime I saw a spider. I could have
sworn that he was getting bigger as he slowly moved towards us
too—even the massive stones that made up the foundation of the
pyramid seemed to groan and crack as he moved across them, but I
couldn't tell whether that was a function of his size or if it was
because he was too much of an abomination for even this place to
bear.

Dream
Stealer looked like some kind of evil pagan god and a tiny part of me
was screaming that I should be bowing down before him and begging for
mercy. His presence was so overwhelming that I might have even done
it if not for the fact that I could feel Alec at my side and see the
pure white light radiating out of him. If Dream Stealer was a dark,
unholy demigod then Alec was an angel made out of an unquenchable
fire.

Alec
shifted to his hybrid form and was suddenly a hundred times more
impressive, but he was still such a small, frail figure to match
itself against the four-armed monstrosity that was nearly close
enough now to attack us.

"Spread
out, Adri. We're going to have to come at him from opposite sides if
we're going to have any kind of chance of beating him now."

I
nodded without taking my eyes off of Dream Stealer, and then held my
sword out to Alec. "Take this. Don't let it get in your way or
anything, but it's sharper than your claws."

"It
may be sharper than my claws in the real world, but it's not sharper
than my claws in this place, Adri."

There
was a hint of laughter in Alec's tone that was almost enough to
convince me that we might have a chance. Then again, even if we
didn't have a chance there was still something about fighting with
Alec at my side. This was something that could never happen in the
real world—I was simply too outclassed there—but I found
that I was looking forward to it now that it was about to happen.

I
expected some kind of threat out of Dream Stealer before he attacked,
but he simply waited for us to circle around so that we were on
opposite sides of him and then threw himself at Alec with such
blinding speed that I almost wasn't able to follow their exchanges.

Alec
threw himself to the side, ducking the longer upper arm on Dream
Stealer's right side, and then knocking the smaller arm to one side
as he sliced long gouges into Dream Stealer's side. My heart felt
like it was going to burst with pride at the fact that Alec had
managed to draw first blood against such a terrifying foe, but I
didn't let that slow me down as I darted in and took a slash at Dream
Stealer's upper left arm.