Trapped (17 page)

I
didn't even have to think about it.

"No.
We're in this together. The only way I'm leaving you is
if you tell me you don't want me around."

"Maybe
you should take some time and think about that."

"Ash,
I don't need to think about it. If you'll have me, I want
to stay with you. Anton being after us or not doesn't change
that."

I
was still skirting around the issue, still giving hints as to how I
felt without actually coming right out and saying it. I wanted to
just tell him that I had feelings for him, but that was scary. There
was no way to really tell how he'd respond to something like
that, but I kept thinking back to my dream, the one where just before
Anton had killed us, I'd said something stupid, something that
had caused Ash to back away from me.

It
didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what that had
probably been. I'd been halfway to the point of declaring my
interest in him that night before I'd gone to bed. As much as I
wanted to just come clean, I couldn't risk it.

I
stifled a yawn, and Ash pointed at a gas station. Fifteen minutes
later the SUV was topped off and we were back on the road with Ash in
the driver's seat. My last thought before I nodded off was that
Ash still looked incredibly troubled, conflicted even.

**

I
lost some hours in there at some point. When I finally woke up I felt
rested, and Ash didn't look too worse for the wear. In fact, he
greeted me with a smile that was very nearly how he'd looked
those first few days between when we got to his cabin and when Anton
had turned up.

"Do
you feel better?"

"Yeah.
How long did I sleep, where are we, and how are you feeling? Probably
not in that order."

Ash's
chuckle loosened up something inside of me that I hadn't
realized had been knotted up.

"I'm
not sure, more than twelve hours at least. We crossed over into Utah
about an hour ago, and everything has healed up nicely."

He
pulled up his shirt, showing off angry red lines that would probably
fade to thin white scars before the week was out, but I barely
noticed them despite the fact that they were welcome evidence he was
fully recovered.

Instead
I found my eyes travelling over the expanse of skin he'd just
exposed. It wasn't the first time I'd seen his chest, but
it still hit me like a bat. It seemed impossible for anyone to look
that tight, that shredded when he was relaxed like that.

I
found myself swallowing, trying to find my voice. On the second try I
finally succeeded.

"I'm
glad you're feeling better. What's the plan, where are we
headed?"

"Food
first. I don't know about you, but with my body still trying to
recover from having to put itself back together for the second time
in less than two weeks, I have to eat about every two hours."

"Now
that you mention it, I could do with something to eat. I know we
can't do a sit-down meal, but can we do something better than
junk food out of a gas station?"

Ash
nodded. "Sure. We've got plenty of options and it's
your turn to choose."

I'd
actually asked the question with the intention of getting a bit more
of a long-term plan than just what was happening in the next fifteen
minutes, but I
was
hungry, and I didn't want to push
just yet. We had time and I didn't want to ruffle Ash's
newly-regained calm.

Half
an hour later, my belly full of some kind of gourmet sandwich that
had been the best thing I'd tasted in roughly a week, I was
content, but still curious.

"So
you seem better. I don't mean healed up, I mean like you've
got some clarity around next steps."

I'd
been right to be wary of pushing. Ash looked at me out of the corner
of his eye, obviously concerned about where the conversation was
going to go. He waited for a second to see what else I was going to
say and then sighed.

"It's
kind of hard to explain."

"Try
me. Like I keep saying, we've got nothing but time."

"You
know that popular song I always turn off every time it comes up on
the radio?"

"The
anti-war one?"

"Yeah,
that's the one."

It
wasn't something he'd made a big deal about, but I could
tell he didn't like it. Beyond that I hadn't thought much
about it.

"What
about it?"

"I
guess it comes down to the fact that I don't believe in peace.
I mean it's not that I think every war is just and right, there
are plenty of examples in history where you can see that's not
the case. By the same stripe, though, just because a war is kicked
off doesn't mean it's automatically the wrong thing to
do."

He
stopped and looked expectantly at me and I felt myself blushing.

"I…ah,
it's not something that I've ever really thought about. I
should have, but I'm not even old enough to vote yet. I was
always worried more with getting into a good school so that I'd
have the ability to do what I wanted when I graduated. Sorry, I know
that makes me seem like a shallow idiot, but I hadn't ever
thought much beyond that."

Ash
shook his head. "No, not silly or stupid. Just fairly normal.
Most people do exactly that, but the big danger of focusing on your
ability to make a difference before you decide what you truly believe
is that you run the risk of selling your actual values down the river
without realizing it while you pursue your short-term goals."

It
made a kind of straightforward sense that left me wondering why
nobody else had ever pointed it out to me. Barring that, it was the
kind of thing I should have arrived at on my own.

"OK,
I agree. With me needing to decide what I believe regarding certain
things I mean. So how did you decide that war was an OK way to
resolve certain things?"

"Nobody
ever disputes the need for police officers. Sure, sometimes people
complain about tickets and the like, but most people understand that
there are real nutjobs out there and that we need a group of people
who will protect us from them. The place where it breaks down for a
lot of people is that they don't understand that deranged
people come in a lot of different shapes, sizes and socioeconomic
varieties. Sometimes they take over the police, sometimes they take
over entire nations."

What
he was saying was chilling. It was the kind of thing everyone knew at
some level, but I got the feeling that Ash had personal experience
with some of what he was talking about. I found myself opening my
mouth and adding to his narrative.

"So
if you do nothing and they aren't ambitious then you're
condemning their people to all kinds of suffering. If they are
ambitious then eventually it comes down to some kind of confrontation
between them and another country."

"Exactly.
Only keep in mind that the kind of person to take control of an
entire country, even a small one, isn't likely to be short on
ambition."

I
could see where he was going.

"So
you view justified war as nothing more than a police action?"

"At
its root, yes. The biggest problem is that often it's much less
black and white than you'd expect. Is a given leader gathering
forces to attack their neighbor, or are they just trying to ensure
their people are protected? The decision on when to strike becomes
one that is fraught with all kinds of risks."

We
sat in silence for several minutes as I processed everything he'd
said. Finally I looked back over at him and shrugged.

"I
can't argue with anything you've said, but I don't
exactly see how that ties into where we're headed now."

"Sometimes
we like to think that it's someone else's job to bring
down the bad guys. The police usually. But that depends on there
being a dedicated group who can stop them. In my world there isn't
really anyone to stop the bad guys, no organized force dedicated to
the greater good. It's just a bloody barbaric free-for-all. How
can I expect anything to get better if I'm not willing to act
to try and help?"

I
nodded. "It's a bit like the story you told about your
ancestors. Everyone just kind of went their different ways and that
was what provided that other group an opportunity to take over
everything."

"Indeed.
The parallels aren't lost on me either. In fact ironically,
we're currently headed to the heir apparent of that same royal
line that my ancestors refused to support so many centuries ago. It
will be very interesting to see whether he still holds a grudge after
all of these years."

Ash
hadn't exactly put my mind at ease. After the picture he'd
painted previously with regards to pack life, there wasn't
really anything he could have done to calm me down. He probably
settled for the best route when he told me to just stay close and try
not to say anything.

It
wasn't until we pulled to a stop in front of one of the largest
houses I'd ever seen that I realized my keeping my mouth shut
wasn't exactly going to hide the fact that I was terrified the
entire time. Stupid shape shifters and their ability to smell my
stress.

I
followed Ash up to the front door, which was answered by a
dignified-looking older gentleman, maybe in his early fifties. He
took in our obvious hardware without blinking, which made me wonder
what kind of pack we were dealing with. Ash had indicated that most
shape shifters didn't have anything to do with firearms, but I
was starting to wonder if the other explanation wasn't worse.
He didn't care that we were packing because everyone in the
pack was so badass that they didn't need to be afraid of a few
puny bullets.

It
kind of made sense though. If Ash was going to finally choose to go
to a wolf pack to ask for help taking down Anton, it made sense to
pick the baddest, most powerful bunch he could find.

"We're
here to see Graves. He's not expecting us, but he's going
to want to meet with me."

"Who
may I say is calling on him?"

"Hunt.
The one who's supposed to have been dead for the last five
years."

"Indeed."

The…butler
led us inside and seated us in a room that looked like it had been
decorated in Victorian England. Less than ten minutes later 'Graves'
arrived and I actually felt him coming before I could see or hear
him.

It
was odd, right up to the point of terrifying, but I could feel a
tingly wave of power precede him, and when he finally stalked into
the room, flanked by two guys almost as big as he was, him in the
flesh wasn't disappointing in the least.

He
was slightly taller than Ash, who'd stood to receive him, but
broader, more muscled. Ash spent his care and money on his weapons.
Clothes tended to be an afterthought for him, and only his sheer
charisma allowed him to look so good in whatever he wore.

This
new guy looked like he spent nearly as much time on his attire as Ash
did caring for his knives. It wasn't just that he looked good,
he looked good in an absentminded, I-just-threw-on-any-old-thing way
that you only got when you were prepared to spend obscene amounts of
money on your appearance.

Ash
and the new guy sized each other up for several seconds before Ash
pointed at the two bruisers still standing to either side of Graves.

"What
I need to say should be said just between you and me, Alec. You can
lose the bodyguards."

"I'm
afraid not. Are you planning on sending her away? No? I didn't
think so. You're here in my territory unannounced, in breach of
every protocol new and old. Tell me why I shouldn't just throw
you back out of my house."

I
saw Ash's jaw clench. Ash wasn't overly proud, but he
knew his worth and I could tell it rankled to have come here, all but
begging.

"I
have a proposition for you."

"Really?
I have a hard time imagining anything that you might have to offer me
that would possibly compensate for the kind of inconveniences your
presence is likely to drive. You ran out on your sister, leaving her
alone in that hell hole. Hardly the kind of behavior one would expect
out of one of the most powerful bloodlines. For that alone I'd
be unlikely to help you. The fact that doing so would bring your
entire old pack down on us is just added deterrent."

Ash
picked up a fine tremble at the mention of his sister, and for the
first time since I'd met him, I felt the barest trace of the
same kind of power that Alec was still radiating.

"There's
no reason for anyone else to know I'm even here. If your people
can keep their mouths shut nothing will ever get back to Onyx or the
rest. As for my sister, you haven't earned the right to
criticize me there. I've stayed very much in the loop on this
little childish war you and Worthingfield had going on for the last
few years. Take all of the hell that you all went through, boil it
down to the space of just a month and you'll have just the
barest glimmer of what our lives were like."

One
of the bruisers, the smaller one, stepped forward like he was going
to rip Ash's head off but Alec put a hand on his chest without
even looking back at him.

"You've
been here less than half an hour and you're already unbalancing
our dynamic, Hunt."

"It's
Ash now. I don't want to be here anymore than you want me to be
here. We crossed one of the southerners a few weeks back. I've
put more bullets into him since then than I care to think about, but
he just keeps coming. My best bet is that he's somewhere above
three centuries and uncommonly powerful even for that. We shook him
off our trail, I know he'd lost us, but he turned up at my
cabin out of nowhere."

I
could see that Ash had Alec's attention now. Even the two
bruisers were leaning forward, intrigued by the story.