Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1) (2 page)

It looked like he was following his usual route and trying to bleed me out, but it took a lot to bleed out even a normal hybrid and although I hadn't manifested a power yet I still wasn't just a normal hybrid.

I charged forward with a sudden change in direction that Vincent wasn't entirely ready for, and raked my talons across his leg again in return for a shallow slice on the outside of my left arm. His blow was hard enough to nearly knock me into the boulder he was trying to drive me towards, but the bones that ran along the outside of the arm served their intended purpose and protected the muscles and veins that otherwise would have been shredded by the attack.

Vincent's next blow had even more force behind it, but he'd incorrectly assumed that I'd continue working his leg. Instead of dodging away or just trying to deflect the blow, I stepped inside of the attack and sank my talons eight inches into the left side of his chest. Collapsing a single lobe in one of his lungs wouldn't be enough to put him down immediately, but another strike or two like that and he'd start feeling the need to finish the fight up quickly before I just ran him into the ground.

It still wasn't any kind of guarantee that I'd win, but I was starting to set things up for the kind of sudden upset that had allowed me to beat him the last two times.

I deflected the next two attacks away so that they hit the rock he was so busy trying to back me into and sent a shower of sparks skittering away. Nathanial and Simon had quieted back down when I'd landed that blow to Vincent's chest, but they were vocally happy again now that it seemed as though Vincent had regained the initiative.

I caught flashes of movement out of the corner of my eye as Jasmin positioned herself to jump into the fight if either of the other two interfered, but most of my attention was on Vincent as he stepped forward to launch another attack. His left foot was forward this time, which was exactly the kind of opportunity I'd been waiting for. I pushed off against the rock behind me, and hit Vincent head-on with as much momentum as I could muster.

The collision had only a fraction of the forces that had been involved in the one at the start of the fight, but he wasn't expecting it this time, and his right leg was the one that I'd been savaging every chance I got. It was just too much for him, and I rode him down as he fell backwards to the ground.

Just taking him to the ground would have been a point in my favor, but I managed to immobilize both of his arms and I sank my fangs into the muscle alongside his neck so that he couldn't get his fangs into me.

That was all just a sideshow though. It was an important sideshow, but the real action was the way that I'd managed to sink the talons on my feet into both of his legs. If I could keep his arms out of commission for long enough then I'd shred his legs to the point that they were all but useless.

It was like trying to ride out an earthquake. The last time we'd fought I'd been slightly stronger than Vincent, but it was starting to look like my advantage there had evaporated over the last few weeks. Vincent was fighting smart now, using short, explosive movements that strained my ability to hold onto him to the very limit. I couldn't hope to control the situation anymore, all I could do was try to stay on top so that he couldn't reposition and kill me.

I was moderately successful for another couple of seconds and then Vincent broke his left arm free of my grasp and sank it into my side only a couple of inches from where he'd already wounded me. Part of my lung collapsed at the same time that a spray of hot liquid leaked down onto my left arm and hand which I'd stuck into Vincent's side only a split second after he'd stabbed me.

In theory I was still winning simply by the fact that he'd taken twice as much damage to his lungs as I had, but this was turning into the kind of slow-motion demolition derby that had always seemed to end up favoring Vincent in the past. I needed to break free, but as I moved to try and disengage Vincent locked his claws around my ribs and made a fist.

The pain as the two ribs he had ahold of started to fracture was still muted, but I had to fight the urge to panic. I tried to push away, but that was all that Vincent needed to free his right hand and now I was in even more serious trouble.

He had better positioning by virtue of the fact that his arms were on the inside. I could tear the outside of his arms into ribbons, but that wouldn't let me get to anything vital and my efforts to attack him anywhere else were being made ineffective as he moved his arms to deflect the worst of my blows away.

I tried again to push away from him, but his right arm was buried in my chest now too, and the pain was rising to the level of excruciating. I had to be getting close to bleeding out, I simply didn't have any more time, so I took the only route left open to me.

I let go of the hold I had on his neck with my fangs and stopped pulling away from Vincent. Instead of resisting his efforts to pull me closer, I added my strength to his and slammed my forehead down against his face with every ounce of force I could muster.

The shock of the impact made Vincent loosen his grip and I rolled off of him just in time to block another slash that was aimed at my already-mangled chest.

As I desperately backed away in an attempt to give myself enough room to avoid another clinch, I saw what was probably going to be my last opportunity. Vincent's footwork had continued to deteriorate as a result of the damage I'd inflicted on his legs.

I dropped my arms slightly as though trying to provide extra protection over the places on my body where he'd already done so much damage, and that was all the opening he needed. He sprang forward in an attempt to close and finish the fight off. It was a masterful display of the raw aggression that usually won Vincent fights, but he was a fraction of a second slower than normal and I used that fact to step off to the side, grabbing his arm and using it to pull him off balance so that the force of his spring threw him headfirst into the boulder just behind me.

Vincent hit hard enough that I half expected him to have a broken neck, but I couldn't afford to just wait and see how badly he'd been hurt. I jumped on his back, pinning him to the ground as I stuck my talons in to his legs so that I could control them.

I savaged his sides and back, digging until I'd managed to open up several of the veins that were closer to the surface, and then realized that it was time to make my choice. I'd been serious about my willingness to kill him if he attacked Jasmin, but that didn't necessarily mean that I had to kill him now. There was a lot to be said for getting rid of him once and for all. Vincent was the kind of scum who reveled in other people's misery and the world would be better off with him gone, but there were other considerations.

Kaleb factored in there in a major way. He'd forbidden fights to the death years ago and he'd consistently come down in a spectacular manner on anyone who broke that rule. There was a chance that he'd let me live because of the potential for future power that I represented, but there was no guarantee and if he did kill me then I'd be leaving behind people who currently depended on me for protection.

I knew that the allure of oblivion was a siren call that needed to be resisted, but despite that knowledge I still found myself digging my claws deeper into Vincent as he tried to buck me off. He had his arms underneath him now and he was struggling furiously, but there was a reason that hybrids worked so hard during fights to deny their opponents access to their backs.

I already controlled his legs by virtue of the steel-like talons sunk into the muscles he was trying to contract, but now I repositioned the rest of my body, sinking my fangs deep into the muscle of his left shoulder as my right arm snaked around and latched onto his right arm.

I didn't have to control his arms, all I had to do was just impede his efforts for a few short seconds while I used my left arm to end him. The possibilities were many. I could go for the heart or the neck, or even bleed him out by opening the veins that ran along the inside of his left arm.

The temptation was so strong that I sank the tips of my claws into his arm. I was half convinced that I should just do it, and then I got hit by a figurative wrecking ball and the question of whether or not to kill Vincent was entirely out of my hands. I rolled to my feet and faced off against Brandon, who must have arrived on the scene during the very end of my fight with Vincent.

"What's your dad going to think when I tell him that you were going to kill Vincent?"

"Nothing, because you don't have any proof that I was about to kill him."

I took in the rest of my surroundings as Brandon shook his head mockingly. James and Jessica had arrived too and, unlike Brandon, they hadn't shifted forms yet, but it was obvious that they were only a step away from rushing to my defense if I needed them.

"Alec, you can't really think that you'll get away with lying to your father."

"I'm not lying. I hadn't decided whether or not to kill Vincent yet, and everything I did up to this point was nothing more or less than you'd expect out of a dominant who was trying to discourage a rival from contesting their supremacy in the future."

Brandon gave me a considering look. He could tell that I was telling the truth, but it was obvious to me that he was weighing the odds. Jasmin and Jessica would counter Simon and Nathanial, two wolves to two wolves. Vincent was out of the picture and in fact needed some first aid or he was going to bleed to death sometime in the next few minutes, which just left Brandon, James and me. James was a hybrid too, but like me, he hadn't manifested any kind of special ability, so he wasn't any more of a match for Brandon's unnatural speed and strength than I was. At least not by himself.

Together James and I might have had a shot at beating Brandon, but there was no way to know for sure without actually fighting for real and if that happened, Kaleb would kill both of us for breaking his laws.

It was a moot point anyways. I was barely able to stand, let alone fight. I wouldn't be any kind of significant help for James and that meant that Brandon had the upper hand just like usual. He and his lackeys could kill us if they really wanted to, but unless they could goad us into starting the conflict then that would just mean that
they
would be the ones who Kaleb would make an example of.

It was a complicated, frustrating dance, but despite consistent rumors otherwise, it was all the two of us had been able to do for years now. We hated each other's guts, but as long as neither side messed up and did something to bring Kaleb down on the other side, there wasn't much we could do other than just insult each other.

"Maybe you're not lying, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get off scot free this time. I think it's time your dad really understood how much trouble you're causing inside of his pack."

I managed to keep my surprise off of my face, but I could tell by the way his grin widened that I hadn't managed to control all of the indications of my emotional state. I'd expected our two groups to posture a little more and then go our separate ways, but instead he was choosing to escalate things in a way he'd never done before.

It looked like I was about to find out whether or not the rumors were true. I was about to see just how much Kaleb was prepared to give Brandon in order to keep him happy.

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Brandon ordered Simon and Nathanial into human form so that they could tie scraps of cloth around the worst of Vincent's wounds. As much as I would have liked to just stand there and glare at Brandon the entire time, I knew that I wasn't a whole lot better off than Vincent was.

After a fight where we'd almost died, my beast was subdued enough that it was a small matter to push it back into a corner of my mind so that my form shrank back down. Changing back to human form kick started the healing process and stopped some of the bleeding, but I had a lot less blood to lose in this shape, so Jess started ripping long strips of cloth off of her shirt as I walked back to her, James and Jasmin.

As Jessica's shirt was quickly turned into bandages, the black, stretchy fabric of her ha'bit became visible, which made me look down to make sure that my ha'bit had survived the fight more or less intact enough to cover the important parts.

The ha'bits allowed us to switch forms without worrying about the complications that would have been part and parcel of dealing with casual nudity inside of the pack. They were one of Kaleb's inventions, one of the few good things he'd done for the pack back before he'd thrown in with the Coun'hij, the shape shifter ruling body.

Jasmin changed out of her wolf form with a cool rush of power and then joined us. "James, give me your shirt so I can help Jess."

"It figures. Rachel just bought this one for me and now it's going to be turned into sixty-dollar bandages."

Jasmin shook her head at him as she accepted the shirt from him. "It's not like Rachel won't buy you another next week."

"Yeah, I guess you're right there."

Brandon had shifted into his hybrid form to tear me off of Vincent, but unlike everyone else, he didn't shift back to human form once the immediate chance of confrontation had passed. It was always possible that he'd worn too many different shapes today and was risking a painful set of muscle cramps as a result, but I was pretty sure that Brandon just enjoyed being a hybrid, enjoyed lording over the rest of us that he was nearly untouchable in single combat.

Brandon waved for Simon and Nathanial to pick Vincent up, despite the fact that it would have been much easier for his hybrid body to carry Vincent's bulk, and then we started towards the house. It wasn't until we were nearly home that I realized that there was probably a secondary reason that Brandon had chosen not to resume his normal shape.

With the ever-improving march of technology, it was harder and harder to keep the existence of shape shifters like us a secret from the world at large. Kaleb hadn't gone quite so far as forbidding everyone from wearing anything other than our human shapes outside in broad daylight, but the message had been clear. Short of some kind of dominance fight that arose too quickly for it to be moved inside to the caverns under the manor house, we were all expected to present unremarkable, human faces to the outside world.