Hidden Realms Read online

  Jasmin nodded as she wiped away the moisture at the corner of her eyes before it could become actual tears.

  "We'll get her out. Dom and I both love her too, and Isaac will do it just because it's the right thing to do."

  I nodded in gratitude and then pulled out my phone.

  "It's nearly time."

  "I know. I'll go get Dom and we'll get Adri out of her dress and into something that'll keep her from freezing."

  I sent a quick text to Isaac, and then went in search of Donovan. I found him in his office, a black and white movie playing on the TV.

  "Yes, Master Alec?"

  I waved him back into his seat and pulled the extra chair around so I could face him.

  "Donovan, I want you to go to her tonight."

  He shook his head, the perfect picture of a loyal retainer intent on going down with the ship.

  "I'm serious. There's still a chance that I can hurt Brandon badly enough that the rest of the pack can escape. If that happens they'll pick up Mom and Rachel and try to disappear. There won't be anything stopping you from doing what you've wanted to do all these years."

  Again a slight shake of the head, and then Donovan cleared his throat.

  "I'm too much of a prize these days to be allowed to disappear and you know it, Alec. Under your guidance the family fortunes have grown by an order of magnitude. Brandon, the Coun'hij, none of them can afford to let that kind of wealth get away from them."

  Donovan reached into his desk drawer and handed me a thin slip of paper with an address and a fifteen-digit code on it.

  "If anyone survives they should go here. I've been steadily siphoning off untraceable funds for most of the last decade. It's a paltry sum, but it should be more than enough for all seven of them to disappear for the rest of their lives."

  The thought of Donovan waiting patiently as Brandon arrived to capture him, of the torture that he'd be subject to so that Brandon could learn our financial secrets, was almost enough to bring me to my knees. Donovan misinterpreted the horror on my face and reached out to grip my arm.

  "I can hold out long enough for them to acquire the funds and disappear. I know that much already. He'll eventually get the rest of the family holdings, but not that piece. Your family will be taken care of no matter what happens."

  I shook my head. "That's not what I was contemplating. I'm sorry I let things come to a head. I should have done something different, should have bought us a few more months in the hope I'd manifest a power."

  Donovan tightened his grasp on my arm as he shook his head.

  "You have done nothing to be ashamed of. We all have our part to play and you've played yours better than most could have hoped. I'm proud of the man you've become, and I'll do my part now to protect those we love."

  He turned back to the movie and I stumbled out of the room at his polite dismissal. Isaac, Jess and James were waiting for me in the East Drawing Room. James looked up as I entered the room.

  "We're going to stay and fight no matter what happens. We won't let anything happen to Adri."

  I shook my head. "No, James. I appreciate the thought, but the packs will be too closely matched. Unless I manage to hurt Brandon much more than I expect I will, the odds will be against you all. Just get out of there. Take Adri if you can, but run back here, get Mom and Rach and then get out of town."

  Isaac looked for a moment like he would argue with me, but I pressed Donovan's paper into his hand.

  "Everyone needs to memorize that and then destroy it. Donovan's arranged for enough wealth to be secreted there to sustain you all for your entire lives if you make it out."

  I heard footsteps and turned to meet Jasmin, Dom and Adri with a smile. Adri was dressed in jeans and a white hoodie that emphasized the porcelain perfection of her skin. She managed a vague smile in my direction, but it was obvious she was still half asleep. I carefully picked her up and carried her out to the Hummer.

  Donovan had displayed incredible foresight in having copies made of the keys for both vehicles we were taking and distributing them to the entire pack. Jasmin slipped into the front seat of the Hummer as I set Adri inside and the other four joined Jess and Isaac in her Jeep.

  Despite a valiant effort to stay awake, Adri fell back asleep within moments of the engine turning over. She'd obviously been worried I'd be offended, but it was a silly fear. Spending time with her, awake or asleep, was divine. The pavement rolled away beneath us as I watched the rise and fall of her chest, the complete vulnerability of her face.

  All too soon it was time to exit the vehicles. The last leg of our journey would be on foot. I grabbed the backpack Donovan had left on the floorboards and double-checked that everyone had secured their copies of the keys inside the tiny pocket sewn into their ha'bits. I cinched the backpack up tight against my shoulders, and then slipped my keys into Adri's pocket.

  Jasmin frowned at the action, but we all knew I wasn't going to survive the night. I'd give the fight my utter best, and I'd lose. No single, normal hybrid could hope to stand against Brandon.

  I waited while everyone shed their street clothes and shifted forms in a harmonious wash of power, and then I picked Adri up and followed them all off into the night.

  The pack ranged about Adri and me, careful to keep close enough to be able to support each other, while still watching for ambushes. Being in my human form slowed our progress somewhat, but I was loath to give up the feel of her against my human skin.

  Adri reawoke after we'd been walking for fifteen minutes. As she opened her eyes with the barest hint of a shiver, I realized she was cold and shifted her around slightly, wrapping my arms more fully around her in an effort to keep her warm.

  "We've still got nearly half an hour, you should get some more sleep if you can."

  She shook her head, but her eyes closed of their own accord despite her best efforts. A short while later we all caught the scent of the other pack. I nearly managed to get the flares out of the backpack without waking Adri. She stirred slightly as I handed Isaac and James each a pair, and then came fully awake as the first set of flares were ignited, bathing the clearing in green light.

  I felt Adri's quick intake of breath at the same time she clutched at me, but gently disengaged from her as Jasmin and Dom came up and flanked her.

  I stripped my clothes off in quick, economical motions, and then surveyed the pack. Isaac and James had calmly taken up station on the outside of the group, with me in the center, the girls slightly behind me. I chanced a quick glance at Adri and saw her attention completely focused on Vincent, a dark-furred figure who'd materialized in the center of the clearing almost as though he expected to be the one to face me.

  Just beyond Vincent was the ever-shifting clump of four-legged figures that was the rest of the pack. There was a nervousness to their movements that made me wonder what they expected to happen.

  Whatever threats Brandon had used over the last few days to motivate them were equal to the task and his entire pack turned towards us with a flood of power that surpassed anything they'd displayed previously.

  One by one we responded with answering surges of power, and in less than a second the air between the two packs seemed to hum with potential violence. They still outnumbered us slightly, but the arcing tendrils of energy told a story in which the advantage was slightly on our side.

  As always Brandon was the final piece that reduced the fight to one which we couldn't win. Brandon stepped into the circle formed by the two packs, and I felt the first surge of rage from my beast at his appearance.

  He didn't intend on being reasoned with. He'd only remained in human form because skin was a better canvas for the bloody symbol he'd drawn on his own chest. I was one of few living shape shifters who could have hoped to recognize the symbols of the four main royal lines, but I didn't need the hours I'd spent pouring over my father's journals to know he hadn't copied any of the recognized sigils.

  As bad as that would have been, this was utterly worse
. He wasn't claiming a royal lineage, he was declaring himself the creator of a new lineage, and the jagged, bold lines he'd chosen boded for a bloody, terror-filled reign if he wasn't slapped down by the Coun'hij.

  It was an insult to everything my family had ever stood for, and the chains with which I'd leashed my beast nearly weren't equal to the task of maintaining my composure. He looked at me with eyes that had finally began to show the depravity lurking in what remained of his soul and shook his head at me.

  "While I appreciate the sentiment, it really is far too late to secure absolution by bringing me the girl."

  I'd only thought his earlier gestures had tested my willpower. The thought of turning Adri over to him sparked a fire inside me that consumed the bindings I'd spent years erecting. Where before my beast had strained at my will, nearly tearing free, now there was simply nothing left between my two selves.

  Had it been necessary to override the instincts that were so often anachronistic and dangerous in the modern world, I would have utterly failed, but there was no such necessity. Animal and man were utterly unified in protecting the one thing we both valued at or above anything else.

  A ripple of movement passed through both packs as Brandon's beast called forth a cyclone of power and there was no answering surge from me despite the obvious rage coursing through my system. It was a cause for worry.

  Brandon had long been more powerful than me, but a failure to respond, especially coming after a similar lack earlier, only tilted the balance further in his favor. Both packs were wondering how I could have even a chance of succeeding if I didn't have the native savagery of my beast supporting me.

  "Adri is here solely in the capacity of witness."

  He was grinning now at my perceived lack of power. I mirrored his actions of just a second before, stepping closer as his pack growled at me.

  "Ah, and here I'd thought you'd once again settled on a course of appeasement."

  "No. We've come for one purpose and one only. No more murdered hikers, no more convenient accidents. This ends tonight."

  Brandon's clap played to the observers from both packs, but it was a hollow gesture. He wasn't going to sway anyone tonight. Both sides were far too entrenched in their positions to change now.

  "Always observing the old forms, aren't you, Alec. Well now it's time for a whole new batch."

  His hybrid form exploded out from the center of his being even as he finished speaking. He was moving towards me in a further rush of power while most everyone else was still trying to process the fact he'd shifted.

  It was an impressive display but ultimately nothing more than posturing. He'd started too far away from me to have any hope of true surprise. I let my own form shift into something that had a prayer of standing against him and charged towards him.

  I heard a slight gasp from Adri and then my full attention was on Brandon. He was fast. It was almost more than I could do to block his attacks. Each blow landed with the force of a freight train, and my limbs smarted despite the unnatural vitality coursing through my system.

  I was the strongest I'd ever been. The strength training regime had yielded unexpectedly large gains, but simple flesh and bone could never hope to match Brandon's gift.

  I reeled away from the first exchange with blood showing on a number of places. Brandon was the ultimate bruiser, using his superior size and strength to hammer away at me like a tireless golem.

  A quick feint lured his leading hand out of position and I raked my claws up his arm but took a slash to my shoulder in return. He moved out of the way before I could capitalize and turn the opening into a clinch that would allow me to inflict true damage.

  A low, guttural growl answered my success and suddenly Brandon was driving me before him. I reeled away from blow after blow, only just avoiding giving him the opening he'd need to finish the fight instantly.

  Heat lightning lit up the area, and I used the momentary spots it left in his eyes to savage his side as I dodged past him back towards the center of the cleared area.

  The fight had already lasted longer than I'd expected. Most deadly violence wasn't the endless sparring enacted in movies. He was satisfied to bleed me out for now, but eventually I'd make a mistake and then it'd be up to the pack to get Adri out.

  The flares were dying down. The change was almost imperceptible but seemed to march in time to the increase in tempo Brandon was driving.

  I saw my opportunity as Brandon let one of his blindingly quick slashes travel too far. I charged him with all of the momentum of several hundred pounds of bone and muscle. In a flash I was inside his right arm, and I managed to grab his left and immobilize it as I slammed into him.

  Both feet were already clawing at his legs, tearing into them as I tried to immobilize his free hand so it couldn't cut at me. I'd executed the technique perfectly. It should have borne him to the ground, I'd used it on both Isaac and James in the past, but Brandon absorbed the impact and freed his left hand after less than a second of struggle.

  I found myself flying through the air, propelled by one hand that sliced all the way down to my ribs as I sailed away. By all rights he could have gone for a clinch and ended it there, but I'd had superior positioning with my feet and the win would have left him immobilized while my pack fled.

  Those thoughts flickered across my mind in the fraction of a second my flight lasted, but they were an insubstantial wraith in the face of what happened next. The ground reached up and slammed into me with bone-crushing force that sent bloody droplets flying as Adri screamed.

  Something inside me tore, and then suddenly the entire world seemed to be trying to force itself inside the void that'd opened up in my being. The amount of pain was incredible, and I opened my mouth to scream, but the metaphysical wind crashing into me drowned out any sound.

  My beast screamed his own defiance at what was happening, but all our rage couldn't stop anything. The wild, bestial power of each of the shape shifters in the clearing had somehow become focused on me and the hole inside me gobbled the energy up, channeling it and sending it elsewhere a split second before it would have consumed me.

  Even over the pain I could feel the different signatures of each of the moonborn, and for the first time I realized how unique each of them felt. I felt the barest taste of Adri, the power willingly offering itself before James' energy moved to the fore of the torrent. There was a wariness there, but it was nothing compared to the hatred that flowed in from Vincent.

  Channeling the power from my pack mates was relatively easy, it was the others who caused me to burn up my own strength in ensuring their hatred didn't consume me. Each pain-etched second seemed to stretch out into infinity as I waged a war on the unseen plane.

  I should have been worried that Brandon would kill me while I was incapacitated, but I could feel him. Somehow I knew he'd collapsed to the ground only just after I'd stopped rolling.

  They were all arrayed motionless around me, and a detached portion of my mind spent an eternity contemplating the scene. I was drinking down a painful collage of each of them. Each was familiar and yet new at the same time. I was surprised to find the depth of Jasmin's feelings, the range of James' suffering over his torn loyalties, and the utter profundity of Isaac's calm control.

  The need inside me was far too powerful to ever be satisfied, but with an abruptness that was all the more amazing in contrast to the frozen eternity of my pain, suddenly there was nothing left to feed it.

  Left with nothing else to draw inside me, the splintered pieces of my soul snapped back into place.

  I didn't want to move, feared in fact that I wasn't capable of motion. It seemed impossible that what I'd just been through could have left anything but a charred wreck in place of my body, but I felt compelled to do something. In the sudden silence I could hear the heartbeats of all those gathered around me, and there was something subtly wrong with one of them, a pulse that was oddly more important to me than even the pain I would doubtless endure on its behalf.r />
  I opened my eyes, took in the last of the harsh light of the flares, and was surprised to find that I could still see.

  I was too weak to stand, but I began crawling. Movement hurt nearly as bad as I'd feared, but I couldn't remain still. The acrid tang of the flares permeated everything, but under that cacophony was a sickly melody of blood. Mostly mine, although Brandon's was nearly as pervasive, but neither of those was what compelled me to move.

  I could have happily stayed in one spot and bled to death, but the smell of Adri's blood was as unmistakable as it was alarming, and my whole world narrowed down to the pale, only barely breathing, mound.

  Chapter 32

  More than once I'd thought we were going to lose Adri, but as impossible as it seemed, we all survived.

  I'd planned on bypassing Brandon, utterly focused on getting Adri's bleeding stopped, but as I'd neared him he'd began moving again, and my beast had suddenly roared back to life. We still shared a common purpose, but once again we had different priorities when it came to carrying that purpose out.

  The thought of Adri bleeding out while I was busy ensuring Brandon never threatened her again should have compelled me to leave him until after I'd tended to her, but in this my beast refused to be tamed. I struggled to bring my limbs back under my control, but the efforts bounced off a will that at least for that moment was stronger than even my need to save Adri.

  Only after Brandon was finally still was I able to tear my clumsy limbs away from what was left of him and totter the rest of the way to Adri.

  My discarded shirt served as a barely adequate pressure bandage, and I'd packed it into her wound as I prayed that we'd be able to get her to safety.

  Brandon's wolves had streamed away in ones and twos as soon as they were able to move, and I'd ordered Isaac and James not to give pursuit when they'd finally been capable of standing and fighting.

  We had them outnumbered, but saving Adri was the first priority and there was nothing to stop Vincent from reassembling them and swinging back to kill us in detail if we split up. Even days later I remained convinced he would've pressed the attack when he regained consciousness if not for the fact that most of his fellows had already disappeared into the darkness.