Riven (12 page)

Ten minutes later
we were inside the reception hall. Jasmin took a place at my back
with Ash standing next to her. Louis had been forced to fly back to
New Mexico for a few days, but Rebekka was there standing proudly in
a place of honor on the other side of Ash.

Grayson was
manning the main entrance with one of Ulrich's hybrids, a stocky
specimen who went by the handle of Ace, backing him up. Ulrich hadn't
technically sworn fealty to me, but he was in this up to his neck, so
he'd agreed to keep a few people here under my command as extra
guards.

I suspected that
he was using it as a way of getting people who were causing him
problems out of his pack for a little while, but that was okay.
Ulrich sometimes had to resort to bribery to deal with some of the
more dangerous members of the Chicago pack but I didn't have that
problem. I could safely stare down any of his people if push came to
shove.

I was however
trying very hard these days not to have to use my power, which was
where Grayson came in. Until I could get Jaclyn to join me, Grayson
would continue to be my strongest weapon. Even after she joined there
were still going to be instances where he was the better tool for a
given job.

With Grayson
standing quietly on one side of the door my odds of having to use my
power dropped drastically and he was an enormous force multiplier.
Even if every new arrival were to attack us all at once, Grayson
would be able to neutralize them for the few minutes Ash, Jasmin and
Rebekka would need to kill everyone in the room.

The first few
delegations were a combination of new arrivals and individuals who'd
fled when Kristin had warned that we were going to come under attack.
We now had representatives from more than a dozen states, but
everyone in this batch was jockeying for position, looking for an
alliance rather than binding themselves to me like I needed them to.

Ash announced the
last of the new arrivals and I suppressed a sigh of relief as they
approached the elevated dais where I was sitting. I only had to make
it through another fifteen minutes of semi-useless ceremony and then
I'd be able to get back to doing the things that I really needed to
be doing.

My relief lasted
only until I got a good look at the blonde girl my age who trailed
half a step behind the head of the delegation. She was gorgeous in a
way that only few women ever achieved. I watched as the eye of every
single male in the room gravitated towards her.

I'd grown up
around beautiful females, but there was something about this girl
that put all others of her kind to shame. She gave me a smile that
was somehow shy and assertive at the same time as she took two steps
forward, putting herself at the front of her delegation.

"We thank you
for welcoming us into your pack's territory. We are prepared to
uphold all of the traditional duties of a guest and I place myself at
your service to answer any questions you might have."

Something about
the way she looked up at me from underneath dark lashes implied that
she was eager to do more than just answer questions. An almost
overwhelming wave of desire crashed through me, but the very strength
of the emotion felt wrong. I loved Adri with all of my heart, but I
knew what had gone into our relationship reaching the point it was
currently at.

We'd faced down
certain death together, we'd spent countless hours talking, sharing
things with each other that we'd never told anyone else. It was
impossible for me to want anyone else as badly as I wanted Adri, not
when I'd just met that someone else, not when I didn't even know her
name.

"I'm afraid
that we haven't been introduced yet..."

I was stalling for
time. The very act of realizing that something felt wrong about my
feelings towards this girl helped clear my head slightly, but I could
only think of one route forward. I nodded as she told me that her
name was Lori, but my attention was focused on taking the chains off
of my ability.

It was harder than
I'd expected to get my power to activate, but I was pretty sure that
the difficulties were all mental. A second later a tiny rift opened
up and my eyes went wide as I was finally able to detect her power at
work.

It was so
incredibly subtle that I almost couldn't believe that I'd managed to
avoid being taken in by her. Delicate tendrils of power reached out
from her to nearly every person in the room. They were burrowing into
each of us and artificially creating the attraction that I'd felt.

I opened the rift
up more widely, just enough to make the tendrils between her and me
disintegrate, and then looked back up to find that she'd closed the
distance between us. Some of the tendrils that had been touching
other people were drifting my way now. It meant that there was only a
tendril or two touching the others, but it didn't seem to be making
any difference. Everyone else in the room was firmly in her thrall.

Lori was
beautiful, that much hadn't been artificial. Even now, with
exhaustion starting to show at the corners of her eyes, I was
impressed with just how flawless she was physically. She didn't seem
to know that I'd shaken off her power. Instead of pulling back and
pretending nothing had happened, she was leaning in even closer, a
sultry smile on her face as the additional tendrils she was sending
my way momentarily grew fat with power before touching me and then
disintegrating.

She reached out
and placed a hand on my chest, and for a moment the attraction was
back. There was no subtlety this time, it was a tsunami of lust and
the shock of the feelings was enough to make me open my rift far
enough that she dropped to the ground in front of me.

Her father
manifested his hybrid form instantly and moved forward. I didn't know
whether he was attacking me or merely trying to protect his daughter,
but ultimately it didn't matter. I opened my ability even wider but
kept it centered on the two of them. They were a powerful pair and I
felt the other end of the conduit protest at the amount of power
being funneled into it. I knew I was taking a risk, that the smart
thing would be for me to let Grayson take over immobilizing the two
of them, but it was past time to make a point to those watching me.

Always before I'd
simply relaxed my grip on my ability and it had done what needed
doing. This time I reached out and pulled, channeling more and more
of Lori and her father's power into the singularity.

The absorption
field started to wobble, but I kept it up by pure force of will as I
pulled even harder. A tremor started in my legs, but I managed to
prolong the situation for two more seconds before the rift collapsed.

Lori was an
unhealthy white, unmoving but for the rise and fall of her chest, but
it was the sight of her father that had everyone in the room staring
in shock. They hadn't seen me force Jaclyn back into her human form,
but this was more even than that. The unnatural vitality of our kind
had failed him. Instead of pulling himself back to his feet like the
proud alpha he was, her father was still collapsed on the floor,
gasping for breath as though the mere act of breathing was almost
more than he could handle.

I let my 'guests'
take in the extent of my power for nearly a full minute before I
looked back at Jasmin and Ash. "Get two cages. They came here
with the intention of using her ability on me. They violated guest
right before they even arrived. Send them back to Del Rio in cages as
an example of what happens to those who abuse my hospitality."

Lori managed to
roll over onto her back and look up at me. "Please don't do
this. They'll tear us apart now that they know what I've been doing
to them all this time."

I didn't want to
send her back. Looking at her lying helpless on the floor, it was all
I could do to not to rescind the order. I would have blamed her
ability, but I was confident that she was too exhausted to play those
kinds of games right now.

"You've left
me no choice. I can't trust you here even if I was inclined to do so
after what you've just done. Maybe it's time that you face justice
for enslaving so many."

I stood there for
the fifteen minutes it took for the cages to arrive unoccupied and
then disappear from the room with Lori and her father in them. Nobody
said a word until I returned to my seat and sat down.

Raynor was the
first to speak up. "Do you have your temper back under control
enough that you're willing to listen to reason?"

It was all that I
could do not to move around in my chair, and my beast felt the same
way. He paced back and forth inside the corner of my mind where I
normally kept him captive. In a way it was probably a good thing that
Raynor chose to speak. It gave us both a target for the energy that
was coursing through us.

"I rarely
refuse to listen to reason. I don't, however, remember giving you
permission to address me in such a manner. You're my guest here and
like it or not, I'm dominant to you. If you have something useful to
say then say it, but mind your manner."

Raynor looked up
at me with the eyes of his beast showing through. "Do you really
think that you can continue to insult us all? Since the day we
arrived you've done nothing but put us off. At every turn you've
refused to give us adequate time to discuss the business that brought
us here."

"I'm no
different than you, Raynor. I have to prioritize my time where it
will do the most good."

"You've
prioritized it towards weaklings like Rebekka and Louis. If you were
anyone else I'd never have stood for your ridiculous choice to put
those two above the rest of us. They bring nothing to the table while
I bring the second largest pack in North America as a bargaining
chip."

Raynor had stalked
towards me while he spoke. I could see that Grayson was on hair
trigger, but I waved him back and instead stood and stepped forward
until I was only inches away from Raynor.

"I'm not
looking to marry your daughter, Raynor. If you want to join me, then
join me, but you're not going to get some kind of alliance of equals
out of me, especially not by way of marriage."

A growl bubbled up
out of him, but my beast responded with a surge of power that caused
a few of those watching to take a step back.

"Rebekka and
Louis can be depended upon. They bring loyalty to the table. I don't
care what else you might bring to the table; until you've proven your
loyalty to me, you'll always be less to me than they will."

Raynor shook his
head. "The strongest always have the place of honor."

"I am the
strongest here and I'll choose who I honor. The days of might being
the sole criteria are over. Loyalty will always trump ability for
me."

"You're
trying to turn all of us into mere subjects?"

"There is no
such thing as a 'mere' subject, not to me. Those who've sworn
allegiance to me are the most important. I refuse to neglect those to
whom I have a mutual bond of loyalty in order to chase after
possibilities. You will either join me or you won't. I'm willing to
let you make your own choices—do you really think that the Coun'hij
will do the same? For them there have only ever been two kinds of
people. Those who are with them, and those who aren't. Your
'neutrality' won't be worth anything when things actually start to
heat up."

Whatever Raynor
might have said was preempted by Dominic's arrival.

"Alec, come
quick! It's Rachel, she's gone crazy."

Adriana Paige
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Alec called me on
his way to Rachel's room so I arrived there, with Carson hot on my
heels, only a minute or so after he got there. Donovan, and Dominic
were both there already and everyone looked just as upset as I felt.
Rachel had seemed like she was fully back to normal for the last
little while. It just didn't seem fair for her to be having problems
now, not after everything she'd been through since Alec's power had
first started manifesting.

"I've called
Dr. Samuels. I don't expect that he'll know what to do, but he can at
least put us in touch with the relevant specialists."

Alec nodded in
response to Donovan but his gaze was fixed on Rachel, who was
twirling about in the center of her room. It was a normal enough kind
of scene until you took in the ruined pillows and the heaps of
feathers strewn about on the carpet around her. As I watched, Rachel
started jumping into the air, grabbing at something that wasn't
actually there.

I opened and
closed my mouth a couple of times in an effort to say something
comforting, but there wasn't anything that could make what we were
seeing be anything other than terrible.

Alec watched
Rachel jump for several minutes before he walked over and gently
guided her into her favorite chair, the one that faced the window. It
meant that she was mostly turned away from us, but I had a suspicion
that he'd done that on purpose.

As Alec knelt down
in front of Rachel she flinched back like she was afraid he was going
to hit her. Her hands came up in front of her face and then she
looked at Alec with squinting eyes.

"Rachel, can
you hear me?"

She dropped her
hands and looked at him with her head cocked to the side. Her lips
moved silently for several seconds before she blinked rapidly and
then nodded. "Of course you do, Alec."

Rachel turned and
looked at the empty corners of the room and smiled. "You all do.
I hope that you know how much it means to me."

Alec slowly waved
his hand in front of Rachel's face, but her stare didn't waver. If
she hadn't responded to his question I would have said that we didn't
even exist for her.

Jess rushed into
the room, skidding to a halt when she saw that Rachel had company. I
caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to
see who it was, but they disappeared around a corner before I could
see anything other than the fact that they were big and male.