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  "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."

  Chapter 15

  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.

  "I've tried everything I can think of. He tore through a squad of experienced mercs a few days ago and only sheer, dumb luck kept him from killing the two of us as well. We're down to two options. We can either run until he gets around to killing us, or we can fight. He needs to be put down."

  Alec was trembling slightly now. I'd never seen anyone do anything like it, but now Ash and Alec both were doing it. It was obviously a wolf thing and I was very much reminded of a pair of dogs circling, a heartbeat away from leaping at each other.

  "So drop an anonymous tip to the Coun'hij. Run him smack-dab through the middle of one of the larger border packs. There are any number of options you could have picked to bring him down. Why us?"

  "You know that the Coun'hij is as unreliable as it gets. Odds are that they'd refuse to take him out directly. Instead they'd arrange to chase him or lead him into some small pack like yours. The last thing we need is for them to sic him on a pack that is large enough to rip him up a bit, but not large enough to really have a shot at taking him down.

  You know the kind of pack, one that's been acting up lately but which the Coun'hij hasn't yet found a pretext for wiping out themselves. Generally, those kinds of packs are pretty much destined for destruction sooner or later. Honestly, that's what I thought was going to happen to you guys, but instead you managed to bring down a much larger pack without a single casualty. All of the rumors are pretty garbled, but they are still definitive. You manifested a real doozy of a power, didn't you, Alec?"

  I never even saw Alec move. One instance he was still half a dozen feet away from us, the next he had Ash up against the wall with his hand transformed into something with claws that looked like they could take Ash's head off without even trying.

  I had my gun halfway out when the larger of the bodyguards grabbed my arm and squeezed hard enough that I dropped it.

  "You came to my territory knowing you had that kind of monster following you? Almost everyone I value in the world is here and they are now all at risk because of your actions. Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you now. He won't be able to track you if you're dead."r />
  "It wouldn't make any difference if you killed me, Alec. If you're really as powerful as everyone is saying, then you're the best bet for putting him down without a bunch of collateral damage. Let me help. Then you can get your pound of flesh."

  Alec dropped Ash, his hand slipping back to its normal size and shape as I watched. I looked up to see that I was the object of his attention.

  "You're not one of us."

  I shook my head. "No. I'm just a normal human."

  "How long have you been together?"

  "I'm not sure, a few weeks, I think."

  I looked over at Ash, silently apologizing for opening my mouth, but unsure how I was supposed to avoid a direct question from Alec. I looked back in time to see Alec cock his head to one side as his nostrils flared.

  "If we do this thing for you, Ash, there will be consequences."

  "I always assumed as much. What are your terms?"

  "I haven't instigated a tithe in my pack, but you will be subject to one, and if I suspect for one moment that you're not giving me a full ten percent of everything you earn, things will go bad very quickly."

  "I'm a man of my word. I have no issues with that. I can see to it that you are sent the proper amount in whatever form you desire on a yearly basis."

  Alec seemed fascinated with me, but he looked away long enough to shake his head at Ash.

  "No, you won't be roaming around. You'll become a full member of this pack, subject to my orders. I'll want you close at hand. Trustworthy or not, I can't afford for anyone to know who you are, or that I helped you out."

  Ash shook his head. "I'm not getting sucked into the same type of petty dominance games. I left for a reason and I refuse to live like that again."

  Alec was looking at me again.

  "You being a member of my pack is key to the agreement. If that's off the table then you can turn around and drive back the way you came while I debate whether or not to call the Coun'hij and tell them that the heir apparent to the Hunt line is currently running around the nation stirring up who knows what kind of trouble."

  Ash's fists went white. Considering all of the non-visual cues that everyone but me had to go off of it was a needless indication of just how pissed he was, but to me it was a very good indicator of just how much he was struggling to maintain his trademark calm.

  "There is no call for blackmail. If you want to get right down to it I can create a degree of problem for you. Let's keep this more or less civilized."

  Alec shrugged. "You know that I'm telling you the truth. You can choose to take it as a threat, but I'm simply warning you that I'm not entirely positive, given some of the pressures we are currently under, that I'd be able to continue to keep your existence a secret."

  "What's to stop you from just trading me in later? Those pressures aren't going away and I'll always be more valuable to you as a bargaining chip than as a soldier."

  The shake had vanished, at least on Alec's part, as they began negotiating and it had become evident that Alec had the upper hand. It was back but it was a lot worse. The end of his hands had started to slowly transform into the same wicked claws that I'd glimpsed earlier. As Alec turned back to Ash once again, I also noticed that his eyes had gone an unnaturally pale shade of blue.

  "I don't trade my people in. Even the ones who aren't loyal don't get bartered away for nothing."

  Ash looked at the furious pack leader, claws quivering with the need to rend, and never even batted an eye.

  "Looks like I struck a nerve."

  The two bodyguards looked like they were about to intercede, but Alec brought himself under control with what even I could tell was a supreme act of will.

  "You could say that I'm not entirely at peace with what happened the last time Agony swung by for a 'friendly' visit."

  Ash shrugged. "I'm sorry. That really does suck. I get it though, you have to protect the pack at large, not necessarily any one individual in the pack. That's part of what it means to be a leader."

  Alec stared off into space for several seconds, unwilling to meet anyone's gaze while he reviewed some chain of events.

  "Not everyone would agree with that line of reasoning. Even for those that agree, at what point do the ongoing, acceptable losses become unacceptable? You're right to point out that I can't predict what will come, but I can promise that I won't throw you away for no value. You'll be just as much a part of the pack as any other member. I'll sacrifice whoever it makes the most sense to sacrifice rather than just defaulting to sacrificing you."

  The two bruisers didn't seem happy about that, not that I necessarily blamed them. Nobody liked to hear that they were little more than a chess piece. Ash, on the other hand, seemed to find the open acknowledgement of the possibility refreshing.

  "Fine, I can live with that. I don't want to be sucked into all of the dominance crap though."

  Alec shook his head. "That is a fundamental part of who we are as wolves, and I'm not going to put my neck on the line so you can shoot your mouth off to Isaac or James. What I will say though is that I'm willing to let all dominance fights include whatever weapons the combatants want to use."

  The bruisers, Isaac and James presumably, really didn't like that, but Ash was nodding again.

  "Fine. So they don't screw with me over unimportant crap because I just might get lucky and put one into their heads. I'm not one for dominance fights generally, but even if I were, I'm unlikely to give them unnecessary attitude because odds are better than even that they'd rip my head off."

  "Exactly. It introduces one more level of complexity to the pack dynamic, but I rather suspect that you're worth the bother."

  Ash held out his hand. "OK, if you help put this guy down we've got a deal."

  Alec shook his head. "There's one more thing. The girl, who you still haven't introduced, stays here and becomes a permanent member of the pack as well."

  **

  Ash got pissed. I'd just thought he was pissed when Alec had threatened to bring the Coun'hij into the picture. He was really pissed when Alec said that I had to become a permanent addition to the pack in order to get their help.

  Alec calmly watched Ash pace back and forth, fists clenching and unclenching, and then finally suggested that maybe Ash should see what I wanted to do.

  I'd nodded, not necessarily because I wanted to partake of the constant posturing and violence that pack life seemed to consist of. No, I agreed for two reasons and two reasons only. First, Ash seemed to think it best for us to help make sure Anton didn't continue to cause problems for the rest of the world and was willing to bargain pretty much anything to make sure that happened. Second, Ash had just agreed to stay with them and I was starting to get to the point where I had a hard time envisioning my life without him. It was irrational, silly even, but it was the way I felt.

  Alec pulled a phone from one of his pockets and summoned 'Rachel' and 'Dominic.' They turned out to be two girls roughly my age, although Rachel seemed like she might be a year or two younger.

  They were instructed to take care of me while Alec, Ash and the others went about planning Anton's demise. I felt myself bristling slightly at being dismissed so casually, but Ash shook his head slightly, cautioning me not to make waves, so I allowed myself to be led away.

  Dominic and Rachel both seemed nice. Dominic seemed content to let Rachel do most of the talking. The one or two words she did say were wrapped in a beautiful Spanish accent. Rachel kept up non-stop chatter the entire way to whichever wing of the house Alec had told them to take me to.

  It was the kind of non-threatening small talk that you answer without even thinking about, and it wasn't until we made it to our destination that I realized just how much more I'd said than I'd meant to say.

  I paused mid-reply and Rachel smiled. "Sorry, I don't mean to grill you. Sometimes it just helps to talk about the craziness. Dom's a shape shifter, but I'm a normal human. I understand just how hard it can be to deal."

  I wasn't sure her question
s had been quite as harmless as she wanted me to think they were, but calling her out on it didn't seem like the smart thing to do. Besides, I couldn't really blame her. Ash and I had put all of them in danger by coming here and it was only reasonable for her to try and find out anything she could about us.

  I looked around the bedroom and was struck by just how rich the furnishings were. It wasn't overdone, but everything about the room screamed refinement. It was the kind of room you'd expect from really old money. I'd known the pack was rich, the size of the house we were in would have told me that, but I hadn't realized that they were this kind of rich. It threw Ash's roots into focus for me. If his pack hadn't been decimated by the vampire attack he would have been living in circumstances very much like this.

  Rachel opened the closet and pointed to a section of clothes. "These are all Dom's old stuff. It won't be an exact fit, but it's the closest that we have. Where you've been on the run for days, I expect you'll want to take a shower and then change into something else."

  I nodded a bit numbly, and then watched as they both left the room. Rachel paused for just a second before disappearing down the hallway.

  "I'm glad you're here, Kristin. It's going to make a big difference. Not just for you, for Alec, for Ash, even for Adri."

  "Who's Adri?"

  Rachel looked at me oddly, as if I wasn't supposed to be asking about this 'Adri' person, but it was more than that. I almost got the feeling that she was trying to figure out how I'd heard Adri's name, but that was stupid. She'd just finished telling me my being here was going to help Adri. Rachel finally just shrugged. "Doesn't really matter who she is, she's gone now. Best you just don't talk about her. I don't think she's ever coming back."

  Chapter 16

  Ash knocked on my door a couple of minutes after I finished dressing. I was still toweling my hair dry as I answered the door.

  "I'm so glad it's you!"

  Ash's smile was tired, like he'd had to give up things today that he hadn't anticipated he'd have to give up.