Intrusion

Intrusion

by Dean Murray

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 by Dean
Murray

I hadn't felt quite right for a
couple of days now. Then again, my memory was something measured in
days rather than months and years like it should have been. What
did I really know when it came to 'normal'? Ever since I'd lost my
memory, I'd felt out of place, like I didn't really belong with
Isaac and the others. The feeling had gotten worse as time had gone
on, rather than wearing away like everyone had been telling me it
would. It was starting to make me worried.

It finally got bad enough that I decided to
brave Alec's presence to ask if I could go into town. I found him
in his studio, surrounded by empty canvases, a brush in his hand,
apparently unable to bring himself to start on his next painting.
He looked up as I walked into the studio, and he even mustered a
smile, but it left me feeling like the effort had cost him more
than it should have. It was like it had pulled on a wound that
wasn't healing quite right, one that had started bleeding again
just because I'd been selfish enough to pierce his
sanctuary.

He didn't say anything, so I cleared my throat,
gave him a second or two to tell me to get lost, and then launched
into my petition.

"Sorry, Alec. I know you've said I
still have a lot to learn, but I'd really like to go into town.
Just for a couple of hours. Everyone has been cooped up at the
estate ever since Adr…I mean for days."

He flinched a bit when I almost let
her name slip out, but nodded. "That's fine--Dom tells me that
you're doing much better with regards to your control. As long as
Isaac is fine taking you into town, I have no issues."

There it was again. "I'd really like to go by
myself. I mean I don't want to bother Isaac. He shouldn't have to
take me everywhere like I'm some kind of kid who needs babysat all
of the time."

Alec set his brush down. "I don't think that
Isaac views accompanying you as a chore, and I really don't think
that you're ready to be out without someone around to help make
sure that you don't let your true nature slip out into the
open."

My nature. It made it sound like a curse, but
that actually wasn't too far off of how it felt most of the time.
Every adolescent boy in the world would have loved to be able to do
what I could do, what we could do, but so far the downsides were
outnumbering the cool bits by about eighty to one.

"I--I'm happy to go with someone,
I'd just rather it not be Isaac right now."

Actually I didn't want to go with anyone. I was
the very bottom of the pack, which meant that no matter who I was
with, I'd pretty much have to jump on command. Everyone meant well
for the most part, but our beasts made life hell in a lot of ways.
Only having a very strictly defined hierarchy kept us from dealing
with constant dominance fights.

It still made for plenty of posturing, but it
helped a little. Frankly I'd have been much worse off if it wasn't
for Isaac. Although James and Jasmin seemed to trade up positions
on an almost hourly basis, Isaac was clearly the most powerful wolf
after Alec, and he'd made it clear to everyone, Alec included, that
there would be no subjecting me to the kind of crap most packs
routinely dished out to their submissives.

It rankled a little bit to know that Isaac was
the only reason my life wasn't even worse than it already was.
Knowing he had that kind of control over me, that he could revoke
his protection at any moment if he felt so inclined, was hard to
deal with. Even harder was the way that he looked at me when he
thought I wouldn't notice. He was in love with me still. Only I
wasn't that person anymore. Which meant he wasn't really in love
with me; he was in love with a memory.

"Okay, if you can find another
member of the pack who's willing to go with you, who's willing to
risk Isaac's displeasure when he finds out that you left without
him, I'm not going to interfere."

I nodded and retreated out of Alec's
studio.

Going to Rachel probably could have been
construed as cheating. She was part of the pack, there was no
doubting that, but she was a normal human, so in theory she was
even lower on the food chain than I was. Only the fact that Alec
was quite literally willing to kill to protect his sister allowed
her to be something more than an errand girl.

"Hi, Jess. How are things?"

"Honestly? I think I might go
frickin stir crazy if I have to stay cooped up at the estate much
longer. I just talked to Alec and he said if I could find someone
willing to go with me, that I could go into town. Are you up for
it?"

"Careful, neither Donovan nor your dad would be
thrilled to hear you saying that kind of stuff."

The response was habit, habit and an attempt to
buy some time to think. Rachel was younger than the rest of us, but
she wasn't a dummy. She'd had plenty of time to get a handle on the
politics and positioning that were an inherent part of pack
life.

Those two things would have made her cautious
all by themselves, but she also had a firm understanding of just
how much Alec had stuck his neck out on her behalf. It made her
very careful not to do things that would cause him
trouble.

"Please. It's not like I'm really saying
anything for them to get excited about." James had taught me pseudo
swear words as a way to nettle Isaac. I knew it, and I knew I
shouldn't be using them just to spite Isaac, but sometimes I
couldn't help myself. He was so proper, and there really were
occasions that called for expressions that had a bit more oomph to
them than the dry, proper stuff that Donovan, Rachel and Alec's
butler and surrogate father, was so fond of.

Rachel rocked back slightly on her
heels and then looked up and met my eyes. "You're not planning on
telling Isaac, are you?"

I'd thought about not telling her
the truth, but I had few enough allies in this crazy house. I
couldn't afford to piss one of them off.

"Not if I can avoid it. If I tell him I'm
leaving he'll come along, but it's him I need to get away from the
most."

Rachel's sigh was a heavy thing. "I know this
is tough for you, Jess, but Isaac really is a great guy. He's just
trying to look out for you."

"I know. Part of me is thankful that he's
running interference with Jasmin and the rest, but it's just too
creepy to see him looking at me all of the time."

"Okay. I'll go with you, but we're
only going to Sanctuary. It's safe enough even though the shopping
utterly sucks. Oh, also I'm bringing my homework."

I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth.
Rachel had the kind of cheery, bright personality that you couldn't
help but respond to in kind.

A few minutes later we were in my
SUV, headed at a leisurely pace into the biggest city I remembered
ever actually being in. The thought just begged to be
asked.

"Hey, Rach. Have I ever been to a real
city?"

"Depends on what you call real.
We've been to Vegas a few times. As far as shopping goes, it's
about as good as anywhere else you're going to find in the
States."

"Never a really big city though? New York, DC,
LA?"

I caught her headshake out of the
corner of my eye. "No. At least not the first two. Everything east
of the Mississippi is off limits, so I know you've never been to
either of those two. You might have been to LA, but if so it was
one of the pseudo-secret missions. Alec occasionally sends people
off to manage some deal or another, and usually I don't know much
more than that they were gone for a few days."

Hmm, that was something new. My world had been
limited to the estate and one trip into town ever since I could
remember. With everything being off limits, I'd never actually
stopped to think about there being different levels of
forbidden.

"What's the deal with the east?"

Rachel paused for a second, waiting until I'd
finished pulling into the parking spot across from the
park.

"It's a combination of two things really. The
east has the highest population density in the entire country. When
you put that many people into such a small area vampires are a
natural byproduct."

"Wait. Vampires? Like
suck-your-blood, cheesy, fanged guys with bad hair?"

Rachel shook her head. "No, like immortal
parasites who we've managed so far to mostly keep unaware of our
existence."

It was a lot to process, but based on the way
that Rachel was avoiding meeting my eyes now, I was pretty sure
that wasn't the end of it.

"Okay, Rach. Spill it."

"So the vampires are bad enough, but
the other reason we aren't allowed out to the East Coast is the
Coun'hij."

I felt a shudder work its way from
my center out to my shoulders. It had been the Coun'hij, one of
them at least, who had taken away my memories. All I remembered
from that night was waking up in the cavern below the estate
surrounded by the pack, all of whom were bruised and
bloodied.

That didn't count, of course, the
three pack members who had been killed that night. Part of me
wasn't interested in pursuing this particular topic with Rachel,
but the rest of me was absolutely driven to know everything I
possibly could about my tormentors.

"Okay so I get the vampires bit.
They don't know about us so they don't come after us, which is
probably a good thing since if they are anything like the popular
culture version they could reproduce at some pretty alarming rates.
Why does the Coun'hij care though?"

Rachel's shrug was almost an
apology. "I'm not really sure. There are a few theories running
around. The Coun'hij isn't exactly popular with the various packs,
so it's entirely possible that they are just trying to keep their
base of operations secret."

"Right, except they don't need to
feel threatened by the rest of us. The guy who ripped my memories
out of my head isn't even very high up their ranks. What could the
other packs possibly do to a group that powerful?"

"Don't overestimate them, Jess. They're the
scariest thing our people have had to deal with in several
centuries, but that doesn't make them unbeatable. Half of their
advantage is that they always get to pick the timing of every
confrontation. All it takes is one or two hybrids manifesting a
truly powerful ability and deciding not to throw their lots in with
the Coun'hij. That and the ability to pick our own time and
place."

"Is that what Alec was planning on
doing?"

I was definitely into forbidden
topics now. Looking in as an outsider, more or less, it was easy to
see the scars in the pack dynamic that our decade-long standoff
with the neighboring pack had left. Everything I'd been able to
tease out of Isaac or the others sounded pretty bleak.

The rival alpha,
Brandon,
 
had
 
manifested a really uber ability, and all of the smart money
had us ending up as goners sooner rather than later since nobody on
our side was even remotely in that class. We'd been outnumbered,
and outmuscled.

That had all changed the night that
Alec had been backed into a challenge match with Brandon. Out of
nowhere Alec had finally manifested an ability, and it had been a
game-changer. Draining your opponent's energy from several yards
away didn't sound like anything to get that excited about, but the
visual Isaac had described flat gave me chills.

Both packs had collapsed to the
ground, the next best thing to lifeless corpses waiting to be dealt
with. The effect had been temporary, and once Alec stopped sucking
everyone dry it was only a matter of time before our natural
vitality took over and people started moving around again. Still,
the whole pack had been convinced that we had it made. The next
time we got into trouble, we'd just expected Alec to flip the
switch on his pocket nuke. Game over.

Only it hadn't worked out that way. Instead it
hadn't come when called, and the pack had paid the price of not
giving the Coun'hij what they wanted.

I debated trying to probe a little
more, but it wasn't worth the potential trouble. Alec wasn't
telling anyone much of anything where his power was concerned.
Nobody was talking about it, but it was an open secret among the
pack that once the rest of the world decided that we didn't have a
magic bullet anymore, things were going to get rough.