Hidden Realms Read online

  Hopefully the rest of the class had either been focused on Adri or looking elsewhere as well.

  "Alec, her pulse seems okay, but you should get her to the school nurse."

  I gave Mrs. Alexander a nod of assent, and then started pushing my way through the crowd of other students. I was nearly to the door before I realized that Adriana had returned to consciousness.

  "Put me down, I mean please put me down."

  Her voice was a little breathy, and her heart rate was back up again. I looked down at her, trying to ascertain if she was about to go into convulsions or not, and felt myself pulled into a pair of the bluest eyes I'd ever seen outside of Jasmin or myself.

  I nearly stopped walking, had to shake my head slightly to clear it.

  "You need to see the nurse."

  "I'm fine. That wasn't anything; it didn't mean anything. Please put me down."

  The tone had changed. Even more amazing, her smell had changed. She'd tasted sick just a second before, and now seemed fine. I looked down to confirm what my other senses were telling me and found an emotionless mask looking up at me. It was as if there was an entirely different person behind those glowing features now, and all of her vitals were still too erratic for me to garner anything from them.

  "What do you mean you're fine? People don't just collapse with no warning. You seemed fine and then you were falling. You s…you seemed hurt."

  I almost bit my tongue. I'd nearly slipped up again, nearly told her she smelled hurt. I'd all but come to a complete stop now, completely outside of my realm of experience.

  "It was just the heat here. I'm not used to it. Now please put me down."

  She was actually fussing with her hair now, obviously afraid that it had been messed up. Suddenly I realized what had happened. People didn't just bounce back from the level of trauma I'd just witnessed. Not unless they'd somehow tricked their system into stuttering in the first place.

  I wanted to scream at her for having tricked me into nearly outing myself, but I took a deep breath and just barely managed to contain my growing rage.

  "It was all just a game for you, wasn't it?"

  Her response was the perfect study of the spoiled, self-centered child I'd initially thought her.

  "You bet. Think they bought it?"

  Unsure whether or not I'd manage to get away from her before I finally lost control, I loosened my grip and set her down. I was out of sight while she was still trying to decide which feminine wile to use on me.

  Chapter 3

  We'd had another night of peace, but nobody thought it was anything other than a temporary reprieve. Brandon was probably just worried tempers would run too high among his pack this close to the full moon. The last thing he could afford would be for one of his wolves to make a mistake and do something that couldn't be ignored, either by the rest of the moonborn at large, or by the Coun'hij itself.

  I should have awoken refreshed after just a couple of hours' sleep. None of the shape shifters required much in the way of rest, but I overslept by more than an hour and still felt exhausted when I finally arose.

  There was too much to be done for me to allow several hours of nightmares to slow me down. Donovan and I went through our once-monthly extended business meeting. He brought me up to speed on all of the things that hadn't been pressing enough to bring up in our nightly discussions, and then we identified additional ways the family capital could be put to work.

  Whoever Brandon had managing the tithe he was receiving from the pack was good. He hadn't managed to hit the kind of self-sustaining levels Donovan had achieved, but they were generating a hefty return. In fact, if Brandon hadn't been siphoning so much money off for bribes they'd probably have almost doubled their assets over the last two years.

  Once I finished up with Donovan, I ran Rachel into school, and then there was a full day's worth of homework to work my way through. Just because I was skipping school didn't mean that I could forgo the homework.

  I'd actually contemplated going to school, but my control had been so spotty the day before I just couldn't justify the risk. I didn't like the thought of Rachel being alone at school, but she was adamant about going, and not even Brandon would be stupid enough to attack her. The end result of that scenario wasn't pretty, but he'd lose most of his wolves before the dust settled.

  Rachel was as defenseless as any other human, but Jasmin, Dom, Isaac and I all loved her dearly. Besides, even if the others hadn't, I was dominant to everyone else in the pack. It wasn't the kind of thing I liked to use, but they knew what would happen to them if they let Rachel get hurt.

  Even with such an impressive amount on my to-do list, I managed to finish up my classwork and sneak in some painting time before Jasmin returned from Colorado. Predictably she wasn't happy. She stormed into my studio and almost knocked over my latest, still-drying piece.

  "I understand that you're not happy, Jas, but if you ruin one of my paintings you're going to be sorry."

  It wasn't often that I saw a repentant expression grace Jasmin's face. I didn't get very long to enjoy it.

  "I got the permits and property rights issues all straightened out. It was the secretary."

  Now that was a surprise. Brandon had certainly economized on his bribes there.

  "I burst into offices of half the city council and no less than three regulatory bureaucrats, but just wasn't getting anywhere with threats or bribes. They were all claiming innocence and didn't seem to be lying. It wasn't until I'd made my second round that I realized he was way more nervous than the situation called for."

  I nodded my thanks as I tried to figure out what the canvas wanted to become. I'd created a border, but was uncharacteristically stuck on where to go with it from there.

  "You did excellent work as always. I appreciate your going out there and handling things."

  Jasmin's anger was back, closer to the surface than before. Damn full moon. It was going to turn this into a much bigger deal than it had to be.

  "You didn't have to send me out there, Alec. Donovan could have handled things. Even Isaac could have handled this one."

  I shook my head as I finally gave up and started cleaning my brushes. "You're missing the point, Jas. There was no way to know at the outset just how sticky things were going to be, and aside from Donovan you're my best troubleshooter. Donovan has a number of other duties. I can't tear him away from those lightly, and if things had gotten dicey with Brandon's pack last night you would be missed less than Isaac."

  And there was the rub. Jasmin was as stubborn as any hybrid ever born, but when push came to shove she was still just a wolf. Granted her bloodline, the one we shared, gave her certain advantages, advantages which weren't discussed with those not of the same descent. Even so, she wasn't my second, and never would be.

  Jasmin looked for a moment as though she'd argue with me. "Okay, I get it. I'm not as valued as either of your muscle-bound hybrids. I'll try to keep that in mind. Do you want me to go get Rachel?"

  "No, you just got back. I'll go get her so you can get caught up."

  I was surprised when Jasmin indicated she wanted to go with me, but welcomed the company. A short time later we pulled up to the school.

  Rachel was waiting for us. Or rather she was outside where she usually waited for us. The two Sorensen boys were out with her. It took me several seconds to realize the dark item they were tossing back and forth was her math book.

  The rage that had been lapping at the borders of my control all day came within a sliver of breaking loose. I slammed the car into the closest parking spot and was out striding towards them before Jasmin even had a chance to get her seatbelt off.

  With my beast so close to the surface, my power flared up without any conscious effort, lashing out at the pair with enough force that they spun around. The math book fell forgotten to the ground as they turned and ran.

  Rachel retrieved her book and went to the car without speaking. I stood on the sidewalk for several seconds, fighting the
urge to run the boys down and tear them in half.

  Nobody spoke until we were back home, and then Rachel turned towards me with tear-filled eyes. "Alec, you have to stop doing that. I'm never going to have a normal life if you keep interfering every time someone teases me."

  "Rachel, they aren't your friends. People don't treat their friends like that."

  "You're missing the point. Right now I don't have a chance of even developing a friendship because everyone is so worried about how you'll react."

  "That's ridiculous. Nobody who really wants to be your friend would give me any reason to harm them."

  "Please. No guy in the entire town would even dream of asking me out. You'd totally freak."

  I wanted to deny her accusation, but I'd spent plenty of time around the boys her age. You didn't need especially acute senses to realize that they weren't worth the effort it would take to push them out of a speeding car.

  "See, you can't even argue with me."

  "They aren't worthy of you, Rach."

  "I don't want someone worthy of me. I'm not looking to get married right now, I just want to be able to spend some time with people who are normal, who are human."

  That was truly the underlying problem. It hadn't been as bad before everyone had made their first transformations, but since then Rachel had been on the outside looking into a life she couldn't have.

  "I'm sorry. I know this all hasn't been easy for you. I'll try not to be so menacing."

  "That's not good enough, Alec. I want your word as the leader of our pack that you won't take any action to interfere with all of the stuff that normally happens to someone my age."

  Jasmin stirred for the first time as I met Rachel's gaze and finally nodded.

  "I won't promise to forgo any action, but I won't interfere short of anything that will cause you lasting harm."

  I let my beast rise back up to the forefront of my being as Rachel invoked the ritual words.

  "This ye so swear, unto this you bind yourselves?"

  A wash of power surged through me as I opened my mouth. "This we so swear. That we won't interfere with your fellows unless lasting harm is offered, that we will use all resources at our command to avoid becoming forsworn. Unto this we bind ourselves."

  Jasmin completed the ritual in her own flare of power. "An oath sworn, a promise witnessed. We will stand in testimony."

  Rachel hugged me and then bolted from the car, smiling at Donovan as she disappeared inside the house.

  Donovan greeted me at the door, smiling until he felt the lingering traces of power. "You swore an oath. To Rachel, or Jasmin wouldn't have been able to witness it."

  I nodded and Donovan's mouth thinned to a disapproving line. "That was rash at the very least, Alec. What did you promise her?"

  My beast rose to the surface again, and I fought to keep from lashing out. Donovan had the best interest of the pack at heart. Not only that, he was right. I'd been unusually impulsive.

  "She's lonely, Donovan. Right or wrong, she's convinced she'll never have a chance at real friends until people can rely on the fact that the entire pack isn't going to jump all over them for looking sideways at her. I promised to stay out of all of the teasing, to avoid interfering unless it is something that will bring her lasting harm."

  "And you, Jasmin? I'd have thought you'd talk him out of such an ill-advised promise."

  Jasmin's chuckle was a dry, humorless thing. "Unless you've got superpowers hiding up your sleeve, Alec is still the boss. I've tried to talk him out of one stupid action after the other for the last two months and he's pretty much established that the only time he'll listen to me is if I'm supporting what he already wanted to do."

  Her parting comment was tossed over one shoulder as she disappeared around the corner. "If he'd asked me, I'd have said it was foolish to promise the entire might of the pack to ensure that any dweeb in the town can hassle Rachel. I wasn't asked though, so I'll leave you to clean up the mess, Mr. Wizard."

  Donovan sighed disapprovingly at Jasmin and then turned back to me. "I must discuss this with Rachel. Once she understands the gravity of what you've promised I'm sure she can be convinced to release you from the promise."

  My beast rose to the surface in a hissing display of power. The promise hadn't been binding on just me. The 'we' in the ritual had included my beast, and it had a very black and white view of a promise. The beast would casually kill for food or to eliminate a rival, but once it had committed to something all other options ceased to exist. The gray areas where humans went when they needed to justify something were anathema to it.

  My beast wouldn't allow me to bring pressure to bear against Rachel to get her to release us from the promise. Since Donovan was one of my submissives, letting him do the talking wasn't any different than me doing it myself.

  "You get three minutes, Donovan, and there won't be any blackmail or emotional overtones. You can make your case this one time, and that's it. If she says no and I later find out that you've been trying to bully her into recanting, I won't be able to help myself."

  Donovan looked as though he'd have liked to take offense at my calling his normal, well-reasoned arguments bullying, but this close to the full moon he knew better than to push any of us very far.

  "I'm very aware of the effects of the binding ritual, Alec. I'll be ready at your convenience."

  Feeling more exhausted by the minute, I followed Donovan to Rachel's room, where his efforts were exactly as effective as we'd both known they would be. Rachel wasn't swayed in the slightest.

  Donovan reached the end of his three minutes, bowed ever so correctly, and departed. I had one more duty before I could finally surrender to my bed.

  The alpha of the Chicago pack hasn't ever believed in cell phones. It made contacting him somewhat tricky, but the antiquated landline he'd finally had installed a few years before usually worked sooner or later.

  This time the phone cut off on the second ring. "Yes?"

  "Is Ulrich available?"

  Calling another pack leader was always risky business. There were dozens of different ways to offend someone, and the situation with the Chicago pack was even more touchy than most. "No. This is Shawn, though. Is that you, Alec?"

  I felt a brief surge of relief. Shawn was Ulrich's son. We were approximately the same age, and he was decidedly modern American as opposed to his father's Old World upbringing. The odds of me putting my foot wrong with Shawn were much less than with his father.

  "Yeah, it's me. I've got a situation developing over here. Brandon's insinuating the Coun'hij's decided to take a blind eye where he's concerned. It seems pretty far-fetched, but I thought maybe I'd better check and see if anyone else had any clues how the wind was blowing."

  Shawn was quiet for several seconds, digesting my revelation and fitting it with everything else he knew before responding. "That's bad news. Agony made a surprise visit yesterday morning. Dad figured it for just another expedition to dish out some hurt for him having been friends with your dad. I'm betting it was at least partially designed as a message."

  "And a nasty one at that. I'm sorry that you guys are bleeding again because of what happened with our pack."

  "Nothing to be done about it now. History isn't going to remake itself. Just be careful, none of us are looking to have it repeat."

  The conversation stayed with me even after I'd retired to bed. Shawn had touched, however obliquely, on the events that had destroyed my father's pack, and resulted in the murder of more than a dozen innocents.

  My father's legacy should have been the dawn of a new age among the moonborn. Instead he'd left a pair of shattered, unhealthy packs and nothing else.

  Contemplating the past didn't solve anything. There weren't any new insights to be offered after so many years of analysis, but it at least distracted me from the more pressing concerns of what to do about Brandon when the Coun'hij had all but signed my death sentence. He was little more than a jumped-up thug, but I couldn't avoid the fe
eling I was being carefully outmaneuvered on nearly every front.

  When sleep finally found me, it was only a brief respite. Dreams hadn't been a place of innocence for nearly as long as I could remember. It was one more thing they'd taken away from us.

  This dream seemed innocuous. I found myself in the grotto, the heart of the garden that Donovan and Andrew spent so much time maintaining.

  It was evening, the time when the garden was the most peaceful. Night-blooming flowers and the tranquility pool mixed their scents with the myriad aromas that rose from the desert just to the edge of the family holdings.

  As enchanting as the unseen choir was, the visual experience was even better. Tendrils of ivy, glowing with life, partially concealed the rock walls from which the grotto had been cut. An errant breeze carried with it another host of scents, and I turned and found my latest creation.

  The potted rose still didn't have a name. I'd held off selecting one first because I'd wanted to see how hardy the cross was, and then because nothing had seemed quite appropriate. It was a different kind of art, a different manner of creation, but this was something I shared with Father.

  It had been Donovan's gentle hands that had guided me, had taught me the breeder's art, but it was on Dad's foundation that we built. The most promising fruit was a white rose, edged in purple. It was thornless, with full, velvety petals, and a scent that seemed to magnify and enrich everything around it.

  The parent plant had been gorgeous but almost completely scentless. The cross we'd brought in six years ago had changed all that. Humans would have found the aroma attractive, without realizing just how unique it was. Now, after decades of work across two generations, we had something that was beautiful and disease-resistant without destroying the characteristic scent.

  I hadn't been giving the roses the attention they deserved lately. Donovan would wordlessly ensure that they were still cared for, but it was one more sign of failure, one more way in which I wasn't measuring up.