Handoff Read online

  "He can't win."

  "No, he can't fail."

  Adam turned back to the fight. Mr. X, Alec apparently, reeled away from the larger beast, large gashes bleeding profusely. The werewolf, moving almost faster than Adam could follow, lunged towards its fallen foe, but Alec almost seemed to flicker. One moment he was still on the ground, the next he'd somehow climbed onto the werewolf's back.

  The werewolf's arms seemed hinged wrong. It was struggling without much success to sink claws into Alec, who had fastened his fangs into the meat of its neck. Talons that Adam hadn't noticed previously on the tip of Alec's feet were scrabbling for purchase as the werewolf spun madly trying to dislodge its smaller foe.

  For a moment it seemed that Alec had done the impossible, and then the werewolf threw itself against the shipping container hard enough to rock the supports and the crane keeping it suspended.

  It seemed impossible for any flesh and blood creature to slam into metal with such force. It was even more unbelievable that Alec wasn't killed instantly, but even his unnatural vitality wasn't up to shaking off an impact of such magnitude.

  The werewolf picked itself up off the ground, and turned back to Alec. The terrible claws slashed downwards with only a little less than their previous speed, and Adam knew that there was nothing which could save Alec.

  Between one heartbeat and the next, one of Alec's men appeared before the werewolf. There was a sense of motion that indicated he hadn't somehow simply teleported there, but he simply moved too fast for Adam to follow.

  The descending claws struck with enough force that they brought the bodyguard to his knees, but he responded by firing his handgun into the creature's head, ending the fight once and for all.

  A quiet sound brought Adam's head back around. The girl was struggling now, trying to stand but obviously lacking the strength to gain her feet. She collapsed forward and began crawling towards Alec's crumpled form.

  A tiny, reflexive part of Adam noticed that the gunfire had stopped, but most of him was focused on the girl's struggles. Another of the guards was suddenly there, gun in one hand. While Adam was still trying to process events, the guard picked the girl up and carried her over to Alec. She curled around him, completely ignoring the blood staining her clothes.

  Adam thought for a moment she'd stopped breathing, but her voice cut through the darkness, surprising in its sudden strength.

  "Bring him; then get the others."

  "Alec will be ok. I've seen him take worse. Besides, we can't trust him."

  "Do as I say, he's hurt more than you realize."

  It had to be seen, a golden wisp of a girl ordering around some of the biggest men Adam had ever seen, but there was a sudden steel to her voice that demanded obedience. Adam found himself picked up easily and carried over to Alec.

  Somewhere between being slammed into the container and now, Alec had resumed his human form. He was naked from the waist up and covered in more blood than should fit in a human body. This close Adam could hear Alec's breathing, the wet, sucking sound of a lung wound. Adam started trying to remember his brief training as a field medic, but the girl stopped him before he could do more than start to apply direct pressure.

  "Just touch him. It will be enough for now."

  It made no sense, but Adam was suddenly too tired to argue.

  The last two guards appeared out of the darkness, guns in hand, which seemed to be some kind of signal. The first two started working levers on the container. Adam had just enough energy to crane his head around enough to see partway inside.

  He got vague impressions of bed's and a couch and then one of the bodyguards climbed inside, reappearing a few seconds later with a tiny, dark-haired girl that gasped when she saw Alec lying in the pool of blood that was quickly soaking into Adam's fatigues.

  A split second later the new girl was set down between Adam and the first girl. A second bodyguard dropped off another sickly-looking girl, and Adam idly wondered how many people were in the container. He thought about asking, but it was just too much work to open his mouth. Somewhere between wondering at the way his ankle had stopped throbbing and worrying about his rifle, the blackness overtook him.

  A gentle hand shook him awake.

  "I'm glad you were here. It was almost more than we could do to bring him back in time even with your help."

  It was the first girl, golden hair now caked with blood where she'd tucked it behind one ear, but still looking like she'd blow away in a strong wind. She smiled at Adam's look of confusion and pointed.

  Adam managed to turn enough to see Alec talking to one of his men. Other than the blood and torn pants, there was no evidence that he'd been on death's doorstep such a short time before. Nothing made sense, so Adam focused on the thing he'd been thinking of just before he'd blacked out.

  "You were wrong you know. He failed. If it hadn't been for that other guy, your precious Alec would have been dead. You should have just given me my gun."

  "No, you're still confused. Alec didn't fail because we didn't fail. It doesn't make any difference whether I save him, James saves him, or he kills the werewolf himself. Can't you feel the kinship between us? You're one of us now, which means you're part of him."

  Adam opened his mouth to tell the girl to shut up, but something about the adoration in her eyes told him he'd be wasting his breath. He'd interacted with zealots before and hated them nearly beyond reason, only he couldn't seem to muster up the right degree of heat when it came to this girl. She felt somehow familiar, like an old friend, or maybe family.

  The sound of someone clearing their throat behind him should have brought Adam spinning around despite his ankle. With the unit gone, he was on his own in hostile territory, but somehow he knew it was Alec, and his subconscious refused to classify the other man as a threat. It would have been unsettling in the best of times, it was nearly terrifying after seeing Alec turn into some kind of monster.

  "How are you feeling?"

  Adam expected the question to be directed to the girl, but she was staring at him, so he turned around and met Alec's gaze.

  "Well, my unit was just torn to shreds, my rifle is probably ruined, and my ankle is shattered, but I'm still alive."

  "Actually, you'll find that your ankle is fine, and I don't expect we'll have any difficulties getting you a replacement rifle. As for your friends, I can only say I'm sorry. I never expected that we'd see such a large number of the twisted."

  Alec sat in silence for several moments before finally standing and picking the girl up. "Your comrades have been laid out on the west side of the container. When you've had a chance to say your goodbyes we'll burn the evidence and then set out. You'll be riding with me."

  "What makes you think I'm coming with you?"

  "I've seen many different men in the last few years, and I've come to realize that most of us don't really have a choice in what we do. You think you've got a choice, but all too often, there is only one path open to you which allows you to stay true to the person you think you are. When we leave you'll accompany us, and it won't be because I forced you to do so, you made that choice the moment I threw myself between you and that monster."

  Adam watched Alec carry the girl into the container. He probed his ankle; it actually didn't hurt. He pulled himself to his feet and collected his MP7. They couldn't stop him, not if he broke away now, but ultimately Alec was right. He'd saved Adam's life, and Adam was now his man.

  --THE END--

  Author's note:

  As always, I hope you've enjoyed Handoff. I'm incredibly excited to see the first of my 'Dark Reflections' stories go live. I think for most authors, there isn't anything else we love quite as much as getting another chance to play with our characters. Dark Reflections represents a way for me to take all of my favorite characters from Alec and Adri's world and put them in a whole new set of circumstances. If you have enjoyed Handoff, please let others know that you’ve made a new find.

  Reviews, blogs, even just a c
all to that old high school friend that always liked to read the same kind of stories that you did-it all adds up. I don't have a big marketing budget to get the word out, so the question of just how many of the stories currently rattling around inside of my head make it out for the rest of the world to enjoy depends almost entirely on you and others like you.

  Don't forget to check out some of my other work. If you liked Handoff, I very much think you'll like both Beginnings and Backlash.

  Just for fun, I've included an excerpt from my novel, Torn. Ultimately, Broken and Torn were where all of this started, and I hope you enjoy the excerpt enough to go out and buy Torn right away.

  Acknowledgments:

  Thanks need expressed to Obsidian Dawn, www.obsidiandawn.com, for brushes used in the creation of the cover for Handoff.

  About the Author:

  Dean started reading seriously in the second grade due to a competition and has spent most of the subsequent three decades lost in other people's worlds. After reading several local libraries more or less dry of sci-fi and fantasy, he started spending more time wandering around worlds of his own creation to avoid the boredom of the 'real' world.

  Things worsened, or improved depending on your point of view, when he first started experimenting with writing while finishing up his accounting degree. These days Dean has a wonderful wife and daughter to keep him rather more grounded, but the idea of bringing others along with him as he meets interesting new people in universes nobody else has ever seen tends to drag him back to his computer on a fairly regular basis.

  Keep up to speed on Dean's latest projects at deanwrites.blogspot.com or follow me on Twitter @Writer_Dean

  Torn Excerpt

  The silvery light of a nearly-full moon should have been comforting. For most people it would've been peaceful even, but it pulled at my anger with surprising strength as I bounded across the arid Southern-Utah terrain.

  Darkly-furred, four-legged shapes ghosted through the darkness on either side of me as we slid between the softly-glowing pillars of trees. Jasmin, arguably the closest thing I had to a best friend, dove through a latticework of light and then it was my turn to feel the undergrowth grasping at my fur in an effort to slow my progress.

  The warm evening breeze carried a host of aromas too subtle for mere human noses to identify. In our four-footed forms each molecule was unconsciously sorted and cataloged, leaving us free to concentrate on the elusive scent of our prey.

  The other pack, a portion at least, was less than a mile away, far enough into our territory for it to be a killable offense if they were caught. They'd become increasingly arrogant over the last few months, but coming in close enough to threaten our families was a whole new level of provocation. Even their leader, Brandon, wasn't usually so bold.

  A stray eddy of wind played across my muzzle, and I knew they'd made their first mistake. I pressed into my second in command for a moment, conveying an order through posture and motion, and then nipped at Jasmin's heels, the two of us stretching out in a full sprint.

  Free from the others, Jasmin and I streaked through the night with a speed the rest of our pack couldn't have matched. Jasmin pressed at my flank, curious at my decision until she caught the scent, and then an answering growl made its way past her fangs.

  The trap was clever, but the other wolves didn't know the terrain well enough. I let my beast bubble up from the corner of my being where I usually kept it chained. Between one moment and the next, I went from running on four legs to two. As my transformation ended, a six-foot tower of muscle and claws sprang from the shadows. I ducked Vincent's first blow and retaliated with a gash that opened one side of his chest nearly down to the bone.

  A dark-furred form leaped at Jasmin, but the other wolf mistimed the spring. Most of the other pack didn't appreciate just how nimble she was. Jasmin dodged to one side and then the two of them were circling, looking for an opening.

  Vincent, the other hybrid, attacked with the strength and fury that'd earned him the position of second in his pack, but he hadn't been expecting to face me in this form. As a wolf I weighed in at a solid two hundred pounds, but would've still given up more than a hundred pounds to him.

  Now I had at least six inches and seventy-five pounds on my side of the equation, and he was the one pressed onto the defensive as the fight progressed.

  I caught flashes of action from the other fight as we circled each other. Jasmin sprang at her opponent, catching her behind the shoulders as Vincent reeled away from me in a shower of blood. I'd finally managed a deeper strike on his arm.

  The high-pitched scream of pain as Jasmin began trying to crush her opponent's spine was answered by rapidly-approaching howls. Vincent attacked with renewed strength at the promise of reinforcements.

  I was bleeding in a dozen places now, but the rage insulated me from pain and weakness. Both sides of my nature were united in hating Vincent. If I ever did manage to kill him, my questionable humanity wouldn't grieve. The world would be better for his absence.

  I could hear the other pack now, panting with exertion, our friends hot on their heels. Vincent overreached in his effort to claim the kill, and I sunk my teeth into the muscled flesh of his shoulder as I finally made it around behind him.

  My claws sank into his arms and legs as I repositioned to snap his neck, and then a hammer blow of weight struck me across the shoulders. Knocked loose from Vincent, I spun around in time to tear Simon from the air as he leaped at me again. It was the perfect opportunity to end a life nearly as evil as Vincent's, but one of the recent arrivals had bowled Jasmin over.

  Leveraging a frame that was more than capable of picking up a small car, I threw Simon into the whirling ball of flesh and fangs. He didn't hit hard enough to snap his neck, but he knocked the other wolf off of Jasmin, and then Vincent was back on his feet.

  The rest of the rival pack, save for Brandon their leader, came streaming past, but they didn't help their fellows swarm Jasmin and I over. None of them even slowed. Vincent took an angry swipe at the last, a small female, and then our pack burst from the trees. A second later, our enemies were in full rout.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Handoff

  Excerpt from Torn