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  I looked up and saw that Isaac was looking at me.

  "It was my mom, trying to extend the olive branch."

  He nodded understandingly. "You want to talk about it?"

  "Not really. I mean yes, but no all at the same time. She wanted to spring some new guy on me that she's dating. It's hard on so many levels. I want Mom to be happy, but it feels like she's betraying my dad. It's been a little while since I've felt so conflicted about something."

  I wanted to go on, but I stopped myself. Isaac had always seemed so sure of himself. There was zero chance that he was going to be able to relate to me when it came to this particular problem.

  Once again, it was almost like he was reading my mind. It had frustrated me beyond measure sometimes back in Sanctuary the way the pack had been able to do that, but at times like this it was nice the way it helped smooth over some of the bumps on the road.

  "It's hard when you can't decide how to feel about something, or when your feelings are all tangled up and headed in opposite directions. It makes me feel...well, there's a word in Italian that captures it, but nothing in English really feels adequate to the job."

  This was a different side of Isaac than I'd ever seen before.

  "How are you conflicted? Jess?"

  "Yeah, that one is at the top of the list. Before Oblivion wiped her memories away, I really loved her. I would have done almost anything to protect her, but I failed her when I let him hurt her."

  "There wasn't anything you could have done. Alec acted so fast that you were trapped pretty much as soon as it happened."

  Isaac shrugged. "Maybe. It's hard to say for sure. There were things that I could have done, they just might have ended badly for either Alec or for me. I think the hardest part is that I can still see so much of the Jess that I used to know in this new Jessica. I want what is best for her. I want her to be happy, but I want so badly for her to be happy with me. Sometimes it pushes me into bad decisions."

  I'd moved closer while he was talking and was sitting on the edge of the desk now. I reached out a hand and placed it on Isaac's shoulder. "Things will work out there eventually. One way or another, they'll work out."

  He took a deep breath and nodded. "I know. Intellectually I know that this will all eventually fade away into something that isn't so important, but it's hard sometimes still. The whole Alec thing doesn't help at all."

  He'd caught me completely by surprise, and hearing Alec's name threw me for an incredible loop. It might have been because of the emotional rollercoaster I'd been through while unpacking, or it might have just been that I'd used up my full allotment of willpower for the day already. In the end, the why didn't matter as much as the impact.

  My head spun and I nearly fell off the desk. Isaac steadied me, catching me before I could drop to the ground.

  "I'm sorry, Adri. I'll do a better job from here on out. I won't mention him anymore."

  I already knew from the panic attacks with Dad and Cindi that I had a brief period of immunity right after a spell struck me, so I shook my head and carefully sat back on the desk.

  "No, tell me what you meant. I'm okay for a few minutes."

  Isaac cleared his throat and then shrugged. "It's hard to describe exactly. I think the best way to put it is that there is a constant pressure on me to decide."

  "Decide what?"

  "How far I'll go for Alec, how loyal I am to him, how much he can depend on me."

  It was another sign that my departure hadn't had the effect that I'd been hoping it would.

  "He...Alec puts pressure on you?"

  Isaac shook his head. "No, actually he's been pretty careful not to push me too far for the most part lately. He hasn't made an issue out of it, at least not yet, but I still feel a need inside to figure out whose side I'm really on."

  "Does it really have to be like that? Do you have to be on someone's side?"

  The smile he gave me was bittersweet. "Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't necessarily see eye to eye with Alec on as many things as I used to, but he's right. Our world is too savage for an individual to survive unaided. There has to be a boss, and I either need to start backing him again like I used to, or I should get out of the way."

  "Are you sure that's the answer? Maybe you keeping yourself more in the role of an observer will help convince Alec that he's going too far."

  Isaac took a slow deep breath and then shook his head a final time. "Alec is convinced of what he's convinced of. He's not going to change a single bit of his beliefs. All that is left is for the rest of us to decide whether we stand with him or against him. There isn't a middle path."

  Chapter 4

  Alec Graves

  The 'Old Anderson Home'

  Sanctuary, Utah

  I'd debated the purchase for weeks before going through with it. The price had amounted to little more than petty cash, but I'd still almost not proceeded with the deal several times. It didn't seem like a very healthy thing to be doing, but I also couldn't help but provide one last bit of assistance to Adri and her mom.

  My purchasing their home at a slight premium over what they'd paid for it several months ago had allowed them to retire the loan to the bank and move on with life. Unfortunately, it left me with a unique piece of real estate that I didn't know what to do with.

  That wasn't quite fair; I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I just knew that it would be a very bad idea.

  I stood outside their door...my door now, for at least an hour before I finally fished the key out of my pocket and used it to let myself in.

  The bare wood floors and tired white walls seemed too small to have ever contained her, but there was no denying the scent that teased at my senses as soon as I entered the house. It was like coming home and torture all at once. My beast surged nearly to the surface as I fell to the ground, but I just barely managed to keep myself from transforming.

  It wasn't the rage that I was used to feeling. Instead of being angry, my beast was more frantic, like he was desperate to get out so he could look for her. There was a tiredness to his efforts though. It shouldn't have been so hard to retain control, but I was exhausted, too. Not physically, at least not so much. It was more a mental and emotional weariness that was making it hard to retain my normal shape.

  I remained curled up on the floor for several minutes, but Donovan's call provided the distraction I needed. I forced myself back upright and answered my cell phone.

  "What is it, Donovan?"

  I knew I was being rude. Donovan had just pulled me out of a near breakdown, and even if he hadn't saved me he still would have deserved better than that. It was becoming a recurring theme. I was picking the more self-destructive option far too often lately. I knew I needed to pull it together, but I couldn't seem to quite bring myself to do so.

  "Master Alec, I'm sorry to disturb you, but I thought that you'd want to know that Ash has stabilized."

  Donovan might as well have slapped me. He was right to call. Part of the reason I'd fled the house after the challenge match was how close I'd come to getting Ash killed, but as soon as I'd arrived at Adri's house I'd forgotten about him as if he'd never existed.

  "Thank you, Donovan. I'm glad to know that he'll be okay."

  There was a lot more that could have been said. This fight had been particularly brutal. Jasmin hadn't been up to a repeat yet. She was walking around under her own power, but it would still be at least a couple of days before she'd be able to jump back in the ring against a hybrid. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like she was healing more slowly than I would have expected.

  With Jasmin out and Isaac in New York, the rotation had been Ash, James and then me. I could have thrown Dominic or Jess into the mix, but I figured that neither James nor Isaac would appreciate having their girlfriends put in danger like that. Not when neither of the girls was likely to be able to do more damage than Ash.

  Nothing in challenge law specifically forbade weapons, but that was more because a
wolf couldn't possibly use any kind of weapon while shifted rather than because anyone thought that weapons were an acceptable route to go down.

  Ash defied convention with his fighting style, just like he did with so many other things. He'd pulled his handgun out and gotten three shots off almost before our latest challenger even realized the fight had started. All three shots had landed. They were good, center-of-mass hits, but even a normal hybrid had a level of redundancy to his internal systems that made it hard to bring them down. Before Ash could get a fourth shot off, the hybrid had crossed the distance between them and opened up the entire left side of his chest.

  The only thing that saved Ash was the fact that James didn't hesitate even slightly. James hit the challenger only a split second after Ash went down and made it around behind him for a kill shot less than a minute into the fight. James had still taken a respectable amount of damage, but it meant that I hadn't had to get involved, and that should buy us the tiniest bit of breathing room. The next challenger would assume that he'd have to face Jasmin, at least, and maybe James or Isaac as well, before he'd have his shot at me.

  It sounded good on paper, but I already knew that I was grasping at straws. The deluge of challengers had only just started and there were hybrids out there who could take James apart in seconds. They were waiting still, letting others of the dispossessed feel us out, but it was only a matter of time. I could order Isaac back and it would help a little, but the fact of the matter was that we were too small of a pack to survive for very long now that we didn't have the deterrent of Brandon's pack. Nobody wanted to take over a pack that was a heartbeat away from being destroyed by another pack, but now that wasn't a worry anymore.

  There were smaller packs that weren't being cased out by the dispossessed, but each of them had an alpha who was really, really scary, and that was the crux of our problem. Without a power that I could call at will, we were just so much lovely bait. More likely than not, the only reason we hadn't seen more challengers so far was the fact that we'd held off Agony and his lot as well as we had. Everyone was still worried that we were going to produce some kind of secret weapon and nobody particularly wanted to be its next victim. That kind of deterrent only worked for so long before people decided you weren't using it because you couldn't use it.

  Donovan had waited while I followed my thoughts to their logical conclusion, but the silence had stretched out long enough that it was obvious to me that he had something else he wanted to say.

  "What is it, Donovan? I've known you long enough now to be able to tell when you have something to tell me that you don't think I'm going to like hearing."

  "It's more of an observation, or maybe a series of observations and a question."

  "Out with it, please. You're usually right when you get to the point that you think I need to hear one or more of your observations."

  "You haven't painted in weeks. Not since right after Agony and his men left."

  "I'm in my studio nearly every day, Donovan."

  Donovan cleared his throat, but he didn't let his reluctance stop him from calling my bluff. "If I may, sir, sitting in your studio is not the same thing as painting. It is important for you to continue to nurture your talents. Even in our current circumstances it is unwise to let the violent aspects of our nature consume too much of your time and attention. Without balance you risk becoming no better than one of the Coun'hij murderers."

  It was an unusually strong nudge from Donovan, but more importantly, it wasn't fair. I hadn't done any of the kinds of things that Abaddon or Marco would have done in my situation. Either of them would probably have killed at least one of the girls already as a way of trying to bring James and Isaac to heel. I knew that Donovan was trying to help, or failing that just as scared as the rest of the pack, but I could still feel my beast surge to the fore of my being as my fist clenched.

  "You said you had more than one observation."

  "Indeed. I'm sure it is no surprise when I tell you that we can't continue on the course we're currently on, not for long, not without suffering consequences that none in the pack really want to deal with."

  It was all I could do to keep my voice even. Donovan had been like a father to me, and he deserved a certain level of respect, but I was having a harder and harder time lately according him his due.

  "I'm aware of that, Donovan."

  "Indeed, Master Alec. The question is what you're going to do about it."

  "I don't have any answers right now, Donovan. I can't see a way out of what is coming towards us."

  "I know I'm exceeding my station, Master Alec, but with all due respect, you're the Kir'shan of the pack. You can't just passively wait for someone to hand you a solution. You need to come up with an answer and fast. That's not a responsibility you can shirk for much longer."

  "Be careful, Donovan. Mallory has already pushed me too far. Don't you pile on, too."

  I hung up on Donovan before I could say something that really couldn't be taken back and then looked up to find that I'd put my fist through the wall. I didn't remember doing so, but there was no arguing with the results of my rage.

  Donovan wasn't being fair, but that didn't mean there wasn't a kernel of truth to what he'd just said. I'd been avoiding the call that I knew I had to make next, but avoiding it wasn't going to make things any easier.

  I took a couple of calming breaths and dialed the number that I'd started seeing in my dreams.

  "Bishop residence, this is Shawn."

  "Hi, Shawn. It's Alec."

  The pause between my greeting and his response wasn't promising, but I waited him out.

  "Hey, Alec. It's been a while. I thought maybe I'd get a call from you after everything that went down with Agony, but you seem to be playing your cards even more close to your chest than normal."

  "Yeah, I probably should have given you a call. Agony's visit was even worse than I'd expected it to be. Right after he left...something else happened that threw me for a loop. I guess I haven't been myself lately."

  Calling another pack, even when I wasn't talking to the alpha, was always a bit of a verbal sparring match. Shawn was a good sort, but the formal communication between packs these days was so intermittent that everyone was reluctant to give up too much information. The Coun'hij tended to find ways to make all kinds of tidbits come back to bite people later on.

  "So what really happened when Agony visited? I've heard the rumors, just like everyone else. Agony's men came back looking like they'd been through a meat grinder, but you lost some people. That's not how I expected things to go down. I expected that either you'd unleash whatever you used to take Brandon down or Agony would pretty much wipe out your entire pack."

  That was the rub. If I was going to be able to recruit Shawn's help then I was going to have to come clean and risk the information getting out sooner rather than later.

  "The rumors are right; I manifested a power when I faced off against Brandon. Not before the challenge, literally in the middle of the fight. It was some kind of vortex. I pulled energy out of both packs and essentially leveled everyone there."

  Shawn let out a low whistle. "That's a big deal, Alec. Agony and Oblivion both have to touch someone to use their powers on them. This puts you in a class above them. You'd be up there nearly with Puppeteer."

  "Maybe not quite as high up there as you think. All of that power leveled me, too. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I was the first one to my feet afterwards."

  "Is that why you didn't use it to take Agony and the rest down?"

  I couldn't go back from here, but I needed Shawn's help. The pack couldn't continue on like it was.

  "No, I didn't use it because, so far, it isn't something that comes when I call it. Donovan thinks I just need more time for it to finish developing."

  I could almost hear the cogs spinning inside Shawn's mind.

  "You don't have much time left, Alec. Only losing three people when Agony came calling is probably holding some
of the dispossessed back from challenging, but you guys didn't make a very good showing on the first guy who came through."

  "I know. Agony's visit did a real number on us. I've got people who are one step away from cutting and running right now and it's all I can do to hold things together."

  "That's not a good situation for you guys to be in, not with everything else going on. The dispossessed are going to be lining up to take a shot at you. How many challenges have you had so far? Two? Three?"

  "Two so far, but you're right; they are just going to come faster and faster. Best-case scenario right now is that they'll wear us down. Worst-case scenario is that somebody really nasty comes through and rips through us sooner rather than later."

  Shawn sighed. "That about sums it up, but it doesn't explain why you're calling me."

  "We need help. You guys have the largest pack in North America right now. If you could loan me a couple of hybrids and a few wolves to help even things out as far as the power structure inside of our pack, it should go a long way towards deterring some of the challengers. I just need more time to get my power to finish manifesting."

  Another pause, this one long enough that I started to get uncomfortable. Shawn literally had the fate of my friends in his hands.

  "If my dad agreed to your request it would be tantamount to declaring that our two packs were allied against all comers."

  "I know."

  "Then you know that the only reason the Coun'hij has allowed us to get so big is that Dad has remained steadfastly apolitical ever since the dustup between them and your dad. If Dad throws his weight behind you, we'll have Agony here inside of a week, and he'll bring every spare enforcer they've got. At best we'll have a repeat of what you just went through, but on a larger scale. At worst we'll have a repeat of what they did to your dad."

  I'd known what Shawn's answer would be. That was part of why I'd waited so long to make the call, but I had to ask. If we didn't get some kind of help, we weren't going to make it very much longer.

  "I just need time, Shawn. If my power finishes manifesting we have a very real chance of breaking the Coun'hij once and for all."