Trapped (20 page)

I
didn't just like Ash, I respected his judgment, so I sat back
in my portable camp chair and thought. Outside of when he was
training me on some kind of survival skill, there was never any
pressure from Ash to make a snap decision, so I let my gaze rove over
the camp. The RV's were situated at the bottom of a cul-de-sac
canyon with walls that were at least a couple of hundred feet high.

I'd
been nervous at first, remembering Anton surviving a series of falls
from even further up, but Ash had sampled the prevailing breeze and
nodded. "He can come down the walls, but he won't be able
to sneak up on us from behind."

The
RV's had been parked against one side of the canyon so that
they formed a kind of elongated U. With their sun shades extended and
a few minutes' work with some off-white tarps anchored to the
nearby rock, the pack had created a fairly sizable area which wasn't
visibly accessible from above, and which you couldn't see from
the ground until after you'd driven past the RV's nearly
to the very end of the canyon, and looked back.

I
still wasn't sure how smart it was for us not to have a
secondary exit, but Ash and Alec seemed comfortable, so I hadn't
pushed the issue. At the very least, it was probably going to help
lure Anton in. He'd love the idea of the entire pack being
trapped down here so that he could come after all of us in one go.

The
survey of the camp had bought me enough time to think through some of
the implications of the pieces Ash had been so carefully laying out
for me over the last couple of days.

"Everything
about this is well-thought-out. It wouldn't surprise me if Alec
hadn't purchased or built this RV park in the last few years
just for the express purpose of having somewhere to stage an ambush
like this while leaving Donovan, Rachel and the rest safely in the
vault at the estate."

Ash
nodded. "Yes, I expect you're right there."

"And
for all of his other faults, I'm getting the vibe from you that
Alec is actually a very good pack leader, the type who sacrifices and
puts his own butt on the line for the good of the pack rather than
playing tin god and generally ruining everyone's lives just
because he can."

The
nod I got this time was slightly less sure, slightly more qualified.

"I
think that is Alec's nature, yes. He values his people and I
think it goes against everything he believes to sacrifice parts of
the pack even if it is required for the survival of the whole."

"So
what the crap is going on then, Ash? I don't have any
connections in the larger shape shifter community, I can't put
my ear to the ground, and everyone here is stonewalling me. All the
signs are that this should be a tightly-knit, healthy pack. Instead
we've got a collection of individuals who seem nearly ready to
fly apart at any instant."

Ash
sighed. "I'm not entirely sure. All I have to go on is
rumors and little bits that the pack lets drop without meaning to,
and the latter is so close to nothing that it's almost not even
worth mentioning."

Now
it was Ash's turn to stare off into the distance. We were on
watch, so I obediently focused on the nearly straight expanse of the
canyon and the rims above, giving him time to think, just like he'd
done for me.

He
spent several quiet minutes before finally clearing his throat.

"OK,
what I know as being absolute facts first. A year ago I wouldn't
have even considered coming here to ask Alec for help. At that time
Sanctuary was actually home to two packs and Alec's pack was
the smaller and marginally weaker pack. There was talk for years
about how it was only a matter of time until the pressure brought to
bear on Alec's pack would cause the pack to splinter. The smart
money seemed to be on it happening sooner rather than later, and the
Coun'hij was actually quite eager for it to happen."

"Right.
Alec's one of the heirs to the royal line, right? So anything
that weakens him helps secure the Coun'hij's power."

"Yes,
right in principle, but maybe wrong in degree. There are a few wolves
running around in different packs that have a bit of royal blood in
them, but Alec's family traces its roots back in a clear,
unbroken line. If the monarchy was a possibility still, Alec would be
the clear heir to the throne. Even worse, Alec's father came by
all accounts very close to putting himself back on a throne. He had
the largest pack since the Coun'hij came into power and it was
growing at a steady clip. If the Coun'hij hadn't killed
him when they did, he probably would have succeeded."

I
found myself nodding. "So they really wanted Alec dead and the
other pack to succeed."

"Yes,
and I honestly thought that was how things were going to go. Alec
actually has quite a bit of quiet support out among the various
packs, especially the border packs that deal with almost constant
incursions by the cats, but the Coun'hij had invested a lot of
time and effort in making sure everyone was too scared to offer any
kind of assistance. When the dust settled Alec had somehow managed to
kill the rival pack leader and there was only one pack in Sanctuary."

"I'm
getting the feeling that you're almost more impressed with Alec
keeping his pack together for so many years than you are with him
killing the other Alpha."

"Brandon
wasn't any slouch, so it's hard to overplay how
impressive Alec killing him really was, but yes, holding together
like that for so many years, under that kind of duress is the sign of
a very strong, loyal pack. The pack out there right now doesn't
look like it would hold up for even a week against something like
that."

I
sighed. All of this doublethink was making my head hurt.

"I
agree, but they are out there, ready to tackle Anton, so either they
are trusting completely in Alec's mystery power, or there are
still some bonds of loyalty that aren't readily apparent to
us."

"Yes,
but we're now in the realm of speculation. The only other thing
I know for fact is that a little while back one of the Coun'hij
paid a visit to Sanctuary. None of them are really pleasant, but
given that they rely on terror to keep the rest of the wolves in
check, Agony tends to be the one that gets the most face time with
the other packs."

"Agony?"

"His
power is that of creating lasting scars. Shape shifter combat tends
to be brutal, but for the most part anything that doesn't kill
you tends to be something that you can heal. Agony essentially
removes our natural healing from the equation."

I
felt my insides do a flip flop. That perfectly explained Donovan,
Jess's father and Isaac's mother. Deliberately setting
out to cripple another person just to keep everyone scared of you
wasn't exactly a new concept, but that didn't stop me
from wishing that I could put a bullet into Agony's skull. Ash
paused for a second, but when I didn't comment he continued.

"The
Coun'hij is trumpeting the visit as a success. Agony came back
with all but one of his men, and Alec lost three of the weaker
members of his pack. The rest of the story is that the man Agony lost
was one of the old members of the other pack in Sanctuary, one of the
dominant hybrids, and the three that Alec lost were likewise part of
the other pack that he'd absorbed after killing Brandon."

"On
the face of things, that does sound like a victory for Agony, Ash."

"I
know, but the three that Alec lost weren't very powerful, and
the normal contingent of bruisers that Agony took with him came back
looking like they'd been through a shredder. I think Alec did
exactly what his father failed to do. He sacrificed part of the pack
in order to keep his real combat power intact. He may not have
realized that was what he was doing when it happened, but it was the
right answer."

"If
it was the right answer, then why do you sound so unhappy?"

"Because
it isn't the kind of thing you'd expect out of a Graves.
They always beat the odds somehow without sacrificing their values.
If Alec really is that pragmatic, he stands a fair chance of toppling
the Coun'hij if he can stay a step ahead of them long enough to
create a bigger powerbase. At the same time, the other packs aren't
going to be in a hurry to support someone that they think could
eventually turn out to be just as bad as the Coun'hij."

"So
even though he really stood the Coun'hij off, they may have
still beaten him because he won't be able to muster the kind of
support he would need to topple them?"

"Exactly.
This pack has been through hell twice, and assuming that we all
survive this confrontation with Anton, we're going to go
through an even worse time shortly."

On
day three Alec got a wild hair of some kind and decided to switch up
the guard schedules. It meant that Ash and I weren't together
now. Instead I was with Dominic, who continued to be incredibly nice
and not very talkative.

I
finally went back to girl-talk 101 and started asking her about
James, which opened her up better than I was even hoping. I'd
pegged James as one of those macho guys who treated his girlfriend
like crap. Dominic was painting a different picture altogether,
including the story of how she'd come to live in Sanctuary.

"I
was so incredibly scared when I came over that hill and Alec's
pack was there waiting for me. All I knew about wolves was that they
had pushed into Central and South America and killed hundreds of
cats. I expected them to kill me, but Alec made everyone hear me out,
and it was James that convinced Jasmin that Alec wasn't out of
his mind when he offered to help me. We faced down my father and I've
been here ever since."

My
mind was spinning. Ash had mentioned that Dominic was a cat rather
than a wolf, but I'd still almost freaked out the first time I
saw her shift forms. Now I was not only getting comfortable with her,
I was realizing that there was a whole other world out there that Ash
hadn't ever exposed me to. Ash had been mostly concerned with
the results of the snake pit that the cats had created. Dominic, on
the other hand, had lived there and when she talked I could almost
understand how hard it must be not to turn into something like Anton
if you lived there for very long.

"Is
that why James hasn't given Alec a harder time over this? I
mean, it's a bit of a replay of history."

Dominic
shrugged uncomfortably. "I think it has more to do with the
fact that he doesn't want to push Alec any harder than he has
to right now. Don't get me wrong, James is nervous. We're
all nervous. Anton sounds like someone we'd be better off not
picking a fight with, but Alec is determined that we're going
to take him down, and James knows that life will get much worse for
his mother if the pack falls apart."

"I
guess that makes sense. Most packs would welcome a strong hybrid, but
then he'll always have to worry about someone going after her
or you as a way to get to him. I guess Alec does a pretty good job
keeping that kind of thing to a minimum?"

Dom
nodded sadly. "Yes, he has been a very good leader in the past
and I have some hope that he'll be a good leader again someday
soon."

It
was the best opportunity I'd had yet, so I decided to take it.

"Dom,
what happened? Why did Alec change?"

"I…I'm
not supposed to talk about certain things. I know how hard it must be
for you though, having just joined the pack and seeing Alec as he is
now rather than as he used to be. Possibly I can draw an analogy."

She
paused for several seconds before looking over to where Ash was
working on a laptop, 'minding the financial store' as he
called it.

"Ash…well,
he feels very strongly for you. It's obvious to any of us that
can read his scent and hear his heartbeat."

I
felt myself blushing. I knew that he liked me now, at least I mostly
knew that he liked me, but the idea of everyone else knowing made me
uncomfortable. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that they'd
all known before I'd known and still had a better feeling for
just exactly how strong his feelings were.

"I'm
glad, by the way, that you're not denying his feelings,
Kristin. For some reason that always seems to be the hardest part for
us all, admitting that there is something worthwhile inside of us
enough that someone could actually like us. Given that Ash feels so
strongly for you, and given what he is capable of, what do you think
he would do if he lost you?"

Now
she'd thrown me for a loop, and it wasn't just her words,
which were a bit hard to process all by themselves, it was the way
she was saying them as well.

"What
do you mean? I know Ash is dangerous in a way most people aren't,
but he's also been coldly rational about every decision I've
seen him make so far. If something happened to me then he'd
move on. I mean, I know he likes me and all, but you make it sound
like he would go on some kind of bloody rampage. That simply isn't
Ash. He'd cut his losses because it would be the smart thing to
do. He'd move on."

I
wasn't entirely comfortable with what I was saying. Not because
I thought it wasn't the truth, it's just always hard for
us girls to admit that while the guy we like does indeed like us, he
isn't as head over heels for us as maybe you see in the
fairytales.

Dominic
paused for several seconds, long enough that I thought maybe I'd
offended her somehow. She was just so fragile.

"I'm
sorry, Dom. I didn't mean to just dismiss your opinion like
that, I've always been too outspoken for my own good."

Dominic
cocked her head at me.

"I'm
not offended, Kristin, more like confused. Alec only recounted the
barest details of how you got here. Anton tried to abduct you, Ash
saved you, the two of you have been on the run ever since, and Anton
is one of those rare shape shifters with the ability to track through
non-physical means. Is that all correct?"