Ambushed Read online

  It wasn't a very reassuring position to be in. If something didn't change quickly I didn't expect us to last for long, but what we lacked in actual combat power was more than made up for by the symbol we represented.

  We'd bearded the lion in its own den. Kaleb was one of the most powerful members of the Coun'hij and the Sanctuary pack was the largest single group of shape shifters in all of North America. Even with Kaleb having detached so much of his strength away fighting the jaguars and the vampires, most people wouldn't have thought that four teenagers could steal away Kaleb's own daughter.

  Of course it had helped that Rachel had wanted to escape with us, but it had still been an incredible accomplishment. Even more amazing, I'd fought Brandon to a standstill in the process. I'd been armed with Kaleb's sword at the time, and Brandon had been seconds away from killing me, but that didn't change the fact that I'd come out on top in a fight against the single most dangerous hybrid in the world.

  That would count for a lot with the right people. Almost as much as the fact that Kaleb's own son had rebelled against him.

  That was where our real power rested. There was a chance that Jack and his people would just be the first rumbling in an avalanche of discontent. If I could continue to persuade others to come out against the Coun'hij then I could have an impact all out of proportion to what anyone was anticipating.

  It was a long shot, but it had just become even longer if Agony had really been captured. I was a symbol, but I was a relatively new, untested player. Agony was a symbol that had stood the test of time for decades. If he wasn't in the picture anymore, then there were some people who would be less willing to act against Kaleb and the rest.

  I'd been hoping that someone would be able to disprove Jack's news, but that hadn't stopped me from moving forward on the assumption that it was all true. James, Jasmin, Jess and I had started driving towards Chicago as soon as we'd been able to steal a clean car out of the parking garage where we'd ambushed the enforcers.

  Jack had wanted to come with us. It had taken a lot of convincing, but in the end he'd agreed to proceed with the original plan we'd formulated before I'd gotten on the plane to fly back from the Caymans.

  I didn't particularly trust Ulrich any more than Jack did, but I had debts to pay off. I couldn't afford to drag all of my people up to Chicago or I risked defaulting on the most important remaining obligation.

  The North American packs were a motley bunch. They ranged from Jaclyn in Tucson who was a hairsbreadth away from open rebellion at any given moment to Onyx in New Orleans who practically worshiped the ground Kaleb walked on.

  Between those two extremes there was a lot of room, but Ulrich was notable precisely because he was so good at walking the line between getting his people killed and becoming a vassal of the Coun'hij. It was a delicate balancing act at the best of times, but Ulrich had managed it with flying colors and he'd done so while controlling the second biggest pack in existence.

  Most packs were either for the Coun'hij or against it, and once you crossed over to one side it was as though every force in the world aligned to try and push you further towards the extreme. Even a small pack had a hard enough time remaining neutral simply because everyone else on 'their' side of the issue was constantly trying to cement relations in preparation for the day when the tensions broke out into outright hostilities.

  For a pack the size of Ulrich's it was all but impossible to remain neutral. Ulrich was effectively the biggest single unclaimed piece still on the board. If I had to guess, I would have said that him having remained neutral was the only thing that had stopped the Coun'hij from trying to destroy Jaclyn and the other more outspoken pack leaders. Kaleb and the rest were worried that if they attacked the more rebellious groups that it would result in Ulrich choosing against them.

  The smart money all seemed to think that the Coun'hij would still come out on top, even in a fight where Ulrich came down on the side of the radicals. It was hard to bet against people like Puppeteer and Brandon regardless of how many bodies you had to throw at them.

  Of course that wasn't the full story. Ulrich would have loved for his pack to look like a single monolithic structure, but in reality he was dealing with a balancing act inside of his pack that was nearly as tricky as what he was doing with the Coun'hij.

  Inside a pack as big as the Chicago pack even the factions had factions. The most outspoken group was headed by Ulrich's own son, Shawn Bishop. It added an interesting dynamic to things. Shawn wasn't the most powerful hybrid inside of the Chicago pack, but then again when it came to straight-up combat prowess neither was Ulrich.

  Ulrich kept control of his pack by way of a complex web of personal loyalty from some of the more dangerous hybrids in Chicago, playing off the various factions against each other, and heavy use of the Bishop fortune. If something were to happen to Ulrich then Shawn was perfectly positioned to take over his father's pack, except for the fact that Shawn wanted to destroy the Coun'hij and reinstate the monarchy, presumably with Shawn in the top spot.

  It meant that the Coun'hij had a vested interest in making sure that nothing happened to Ulrich, but by the same measure, Ulrich was fond of his only son. He'd made it very clear to Kaleb and the rest on more than one occasion that if Shawn was to suffer some kind of suspicious 'accident' the Chicago pack would all be on a first name basis with Jaclyn and the Tucson pack within hours.

  With Agony captured, the situation had become even more complex. The Coun'hij would have their eyes on anyone they thought might be inclined to break Agony out.

  Jaclyn and the other more militant packs would no doubt want to free Agony, but they would be the ones least in a position to actually do anything. I wanted Agony free, but the only way for that to happen would be if I could get help from a group of wolves and hybrids that the Coun'hij wasn't watching very closely.

  The Chicago pack fit the bill perfectly, assuming that I could convince Shawn to defy his father once and for all, that or convince him to help me talk his dad into finally picking a side. Both options were risky, but it was past time for the Coun'hij to be pulled down, even if the cost was a civil war.

  All of which explained how I ended up outside one of the hottest clubs in Chicago.

  Shawn was apparently quite the social butterfly. Now I just needed to find him. Getting in hadn't been too difficult, but it had required a bit of planning.

  There were only three ways to get into an exclusive club like this. Beauty, money or power. We opted to use all three.

  James was dressed as a bodyguard, right down to the dark, severe suit and the earpiece. Jasmin and Jess were dressed in typical club wear, meaning that they weren't wearing a whole lot, but that every male we passed and some of the females couldn't seem to pry their eyes off of them.

  All of which made it easy for me to blend in. Everyone saw me, but nobody really noticed me, they were too busy noticing the obvious trappings of wealth I was displaying so prominently. The night was cold enough that I could feel it through my jeans and tank top. I felt a little sorry for Jasmin and Jess, but at least they had our species' supercharged metabolism to offset the temperature. There were a lot of human girls standing in line who were wearing even less and they didn't have the same kind of genetic advantages.

  We didn't wait in line, because really rich people, even when they're slumming, don't wait in lines. I walked up to the door, Jess and Jasmin on my arms, James exactly three feet behind me, and handed the doorman two one-hundred-dollar bills.

  We were inside the club fifteen seconds later and navigating the hot press of bodies. The music and lights would have been an assault on the senses of normal humans; I couldn't even begin to understand why Shawn would choose to spend his free time in a place like this.

  It only took me a couple of seconds to identify the entrance to the club within the main club. These places all seemed to be the same. The regular people waited outside trying to get inside, but once you got inside then you found out that all of the reall
y important people were off in an area of their own.

  We worked our way over to the velvet ropes and the very large bouncer who was stationed in front of them. Jasmin and Jess both swayed in time to the music, but Jess was doing a much better job blending in. Jasmin still looked like she was on a mission and just pretending to be having fun.

  It still worked though. The expression on her face wasn't much different than what you might see from any other attractive woman who happened to be with someone solely because of his money. Some guys didn't care about the motivation of their companions, they just wanted someone attractive and submissive without having to worry too much about the reason the women were so compliant.

  I palmed another couple of bills, but the bouncer saw us coming and was already shaking his head at me.

  "The VIP club is already full, man."

  "I can make it worth your while."

  He snorted in amusement. "You and everyone else in here. Get lost."

  James was already stepping forward. The bouncer reached forward to shove him back away from the ropes, but James easily sidestepped the push and grabbed the other man's arm.

  A human would have put the bouncer in a wristlock or something else to apply their strength against their opponent's weakness. James didn't do that, he simply started squeezing.

  Our human bodies weren't anywhere near as strong as a hybrid, but we were still much stronger than any human of an equivalent size. The bouncer tried to resist, tried to get his other arm in play, tried to get his bodyweight shifted around so that he could back James into the wall, but it was all fruitless.

  James exerted such a crushing grip on the bouncer that the other man dropped down to one knee. It had to have been a humbling experience. A guy that big was used to dominating any physical confrontation, but he'd just been manhandled with ease by someone nearly an inch and a half shorter than him.

  "You don't talk to Mr. Murphy that way. Nobody does. I'm going to give you one more chance to make things right and let Mr. Murphy and his dates inside."

  "I could have you thrown out of the club in two seconds flat."

  The bouncer's free hand had already started moving up to his mouth to call for help, but James just clamped down even harder so that the bouncer dropped to both knees.

  "You could do that, but that would be a big mistake. Mr. Murphy is an upstanding citizen, he would never do anything to hurt you, but you can't say the same kind of thing about me. If you let us through then Mr. Murphy will hand you the two hundred dollars he approached you with a couple of seconds ago. If you get us kicked out of the club, then I'll follow you home one of these nights and the two of us will have a very unpleasant conversation."

  "Okay, okay, you guys can go inside."

  James just stood there for a second without letting go, driving home just how overmatched the bouncer had been.

  "Jerome, please let the nice man go. You're causing a scene."

  We hadn't actually come up with aliases for each other, but James let go of the bouncer without looking back at me.

  "Yes, Mr. Murphy. I'm sorry, Mr. Murphy. I believe he'll let us by now."

  I gave the bouncer my best apologetic smile, as if to say that there was only so much I could do to control a psychopath like Jerome, and then the girls and I followed James into the VIP area.

  I knew Shawn would be in here somewhere, but finding him was going to be harder than I'd expected.

  There was a very prominent bar just inside the door we'd entered by, and across the dance floor I could see a set of stairs that looked like they led up to some kind of private room for the club owner. I wasn't particularly eager to try and force my way past the two bouncers at the foot of the stairs—at least not until after we'd confirmed that Shawn wasn't in one of the huge private booths situated in long rows on either side of the dance floor.

  In any other setting Jasmin and Jess would have been terribly conspicuous, but here they blended right in with the rest of the half-naked bodies, male and female, out on the dance floor. I pulled the two of them closer so that they could hear me despite the thrumming music.

  "Go find Shawn for me, but try not to make it too obvious that you're looking for someone in particular. Pretend you're here looking for a sugar daddy."

  Jasmin shot me a nasty look, but they both nodded and then glided onto the dance floor. They would dance for a minute or two and then start working their way down the two sets of booths.

  I walked over to the bar and ordered a drink, not because alcohol actually did anything for shape shifters, but because it was the best way to blend in.

  The bartender saw me looking at the booths and leaned in close enough to be heard when he brought my drink over.

  "The booths with a red light are full. The booths with a green light are vacant or would welcome guests. If you decide to claim one of the booths, you'll find a call button inside. Push that and a waitress will come by and take your drink order."

  I nodded my thanks and slipped him another hundred to cover the price of the drink and the information.

  "Let's go find ourselves a booth, Jerome."

  I headed towards one of the green lights and smiled when I found it empty.

  "I don't think this place is anywhere near as full as our friend back at the rope tried to indicate it was."

  James shrugged, but didn't sit down next to me. "He was probably just hoping to get another hundred bucks out of you."

  I sighed and nodded. More than anything else, I suddenly wished we were back at the hotel where we'd left our luggage. I had half a dozen things that I needed to be doing. There were important plans that were sitting idle right now because I was here wasting time in a club, but all of the other things I was trying to accomplish might very well fall through if I couldn't find a way to save Agony.

  "I'd ask you to sit down, but that probably wouldn't be very much in keeping with your cover."

  "Yeah, I already thought of that." James paused for a second and then frowned. "There are two girls headed this direction, what do you want me to do with them?"

  "Send them away, politely."

  I hadn't scooted around all the way to the back of the booth, so I could still see out onto the dance floor.

  The girl on the left was a blonde, the one on the right was a redhead, but neither of them looked like that was their original hair color. They were both young, probably barely old enough to buy alcohol, fit, and wearing the same kind of outfits as the rest of the girls inside the club.

  James stepped forward to block the two of them, but rather than scaring them off, it backfired. The redhead took a quick, aggressive step forward, invading James' space. A real bodyguard, someone who was actually worried about the safety of his principal, would have straight-armed her.

  James wasn't worried about my safety, not from a couple of human girls. Their clothing wasn't substantial enough to conceal a weapon bigger than a one-inch blade and they weren't vampires, but just because they were unarmed didn't necessarily mean they were safe.

  There was a split-second pause as James started to straight-arm the redhead and then realized that he wasn't quite sure where to touch her. We shape shifters spent a lot of time trying to avoid casual skin-on-skin contact with humans, but the only parts of her that were covered were exactly the parts that polite society frowned on him touching.

  The stutter to James' movements was barely perceptible, but it was just enough for the redhead to slip her arms around his neck and lean forward as if to kiss him. No wild animal likes to be trapped and the fact that she wasn't actually strong enough to restrain James didn't matter to his beast.

  James reached up and pulled her arms apart, using his gentle but firm grip on her to push her back far enough that she wasn't rubbing up against him, but the damage was done. The skin-on-skin contact hadn't been enough to addict her to him, at least not unless she had a particularly addictive personality and the situation had been a lot more stressful for her than she'd let on, but she'd distracte
d James enough that her friend was able to slip into the booth with me.

  "Buy me a drink and I'll tell you a secret."

  There was a coy flirtatiousness to her tone that I hadn't had directed at me very often. The girls back home had been too scared of Kaleb and his plans for me to be that aggressive. It was intriguing, but that wasn't what made me wave James back.

  She was gorgeous in an oversexed-beyond-her-years-way. No rich young man would kick her to the curb without at least talking to her for a few minutes. I couldn't let James get rid of her without potentially blowing my cover.

  "Fine, I'll buy you a drink and you can tell me your secret, after which you should leave."

  I found the panel on the wall that controlled the lights, flipped the switch to occupied, and pushed the call button.

  "Oh, does that mean you're taken?"

  Lying didn't come second nature to me yet. Maybe it never would, but I was starting to think that I was going to have to get a lot better at it if I expected to survive the next couple of decades. It was a mistake, but I temporized.

  "Let's just say that there are a couple of very dangerous young ladies who aren't going to be happy to see you when they get back here."

  "That wasn't a yes. Besides, I'm not afraid of a little competition, your friends aren't the only ones around here who are dangerous."

  I was saved from answering by the arrival of our waitress. I slipped the waitress a pair of hundred-dollar bills and waved at my unwanted guest.

  "The first one is for her, please get her whatever she wants until that runs out. The other one is for you."

  The waitress flashed me a winning smile and then turned to the blonde.

  "Scotch, neat."

  Once we were alone again but for James, the girl turned back to me. "My name is Brindi."

  "Hello, Brindi, are you always this determined?"

  "Only when I see something I want."

  She said it looking up at me through her lashes. It was an alluring combination of shy and bold that finally made me realize what had been tickling the back of my mind ever since I'd first seen her.