Riven (10 page)

I was pretty sure
I'd won her over with that statement. It was too close to what she
was trying to accomplish inside of her own pack for it not to
resonate with her. I'd always had respect for Jaclyn's aims, it had
just been Tasha's callousness that had bothered me.

"I think that
I could live with that, Alec. It's not the position I would have
chosen for Tasha, but in some ways it might be better for her in the
long run than what I'd originally planned. She'd still have access to
the family wealth and finally be in a position to rise on her own
merits, despite never having manifested a hybrid form."

"Do we have a
deal then?"

"Not quite.
I'm concerned about your judgment in a few areas. Most important is
these dispossessed wolves you've accepted oaths from."

"All of them
or someone in particular?"

Jaclyn gave me a
grim smile. "What do you think?"

It was a test, but
I was going to face much worse before all was said and done. I
expressed silent thanks once again for Adri and Shawn as I walked
over to one of the two wall vaults behind Donovan's desk.

It was apparently
past time for me to get an office of my own, but up until now I'd
always made do with using Donovan's office anytime I needed to stash
something. I was the only one who knew the combination to this
particular lock and Donovan's office had always been the most secure
room in the estate.

I spun the massive
dial and listened to the complex mechanism and the clicking of the
tumblers. The design was my father's. Shape shifter hearing was so
good as to make normal combination locks questionable so he'd
designed a lock that had dozens of tumblers that dropped into place
at random intervals. With all of that noise it was almost impossible
to hear the real mechanism operate.

I fished Adri's
folder out of the top shelf and leafed through it until I found the
pictures of the two submissive wolves who had arrived a few minutes
before Grayson.

"These two
can't be trusted. They are very good liars, but they didn't mean a
word of the oath they swore to me last week. I'll be very careful to
keep them away from anything important, and as soon as I have a few
more like them I'll use the group for assignments that they can't
mess up, probably werewolf hunts, but I'm open to other ideas if
you've got any."

I pulled the
photos of Grayson, Wyatt and Carson out of the file and dropped them
on the desk where Jaclyn could get at them. "These three are a
mystery. They refused to swear an oath of fealty to me, but then
proceeded to swear something even more binding except that it's
time-bounded."

"The question
is whether or not you can believe their oath."

"I can trust
them. Only until the time limit they agreed to runs out, but I can
trust them."

Jaclyn shook her
head. "There's no way to really know that, Alec. I've seen some
exceptional liars in my time."

"I can't tell
you how I know, Jaclyn, but I do. I have a method for detecting lies
that involves something other than just listening to someone's heart
rate and detecting when their body temperature starts to fluctuate."

"You're
serious."

"Absolutely.
I can trust these three more than any of those idiots who are still
jockeying for position as they throw their daughters at me in the
hopes that I'll lose interest in Adri. No, there are plenty of
questions still around Grayson and his fellows, but I trust them to
do what they're told and not to leak our secrets."

"What
are
you worried about then?"

It was my turn to
test her. "Why don't you tell me what you think I should be
worried about with regards to them?"

"Fine. This
Grayson has always kept a low profile. I always assumed he was just
another dispossessed until I started hearing rumors that he had some
kind of superpower."

"He does. I
watched him send more than a dozen wolves into uncontrollable
convulsions. He completely neutralized some very powerful hybrids but
left his friends untouched."

Jaclyn went a
little white. It had to be hard on her to find out that there was yet
another person out there who could take her down before she could get
close enough for her ability to kick in.

"It's hard to
believe, but it's not any more powerful than what you just did to me.
He'd be able to kill whomever he pleases at any time."

I shrugged. "The
process seemed to take a lot out of him. He went into convulsions
himself, but they weren't as bad. I expect he could probably kill one
or two people before he exhausts himself and depletes his ability,
but I suspect that he'll really shine when he's got backup. In a
larger-scale fight he can drop the other side for a few critical
seconds while whoever is with him dispatches them all."

"You're sure
about that?"

"No, but when
he tested me I...got a feel, for lack of a better term, for his
power. I don't think it operates by blanketing an area. I think he
targets individuals, even individuals that he can't see. It actually
makes him more valuable in a fight than I am. I can't narrow my focus
down that far. I can drop an opposing force but I'd have to
personally kill everyone I'd dropped."

Jaclyn's eyes lit
up. "But his power is ineffective against you?"

"Correct.
Assuming he has the brains to match, he'd be the perfect lieutenant.
Incredibly deadly, but still submissive to me."

Jaclyn rubbed her
hands together slowly and then looked back up at me. "The
biggest question is who these three are already sworn to."

"Exactly.
It's the logical reason for their inability to swear to me and it
could be incredibly significant. There's a whole other power bloc out
there that none of the rest of us know about and whoever is in charge
is powerful enough that they're even more deadly than Grayson. If I
can bring them around to our side they could alter the whole balance
of power between us and the Coun'hij."

Tasha looked
uneasy, but she finally joined back in the conversation. "What
kind of group as powerful as these guys seem to be would just sit out
the last couple of hundred years given everything that the Coun'hij
has done recently?"

I pulled out the
last picture of Grayson, the one where Shawn had zoomed in on the
circle of scar tissue on his chest, and dropped it on the table next
to the others.

"I don't
know, but this is our first clue."

Adriana Paige
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Kami and Rachel
hit it off immediately. If the Graves family fortune ever evaporated
I was pretty sure that Rachel could make a very good living as a
wedding planner. Alec had mentioned hiring help with the wedding, but
I'd still been a little surprised when Kami had been ushered into the
main library by Donovan.

Less than five
minutes after Kami handed me her elegant white business card, she and
Rachel were lost inside Rachel's wedding binders. It took half an
hour before the two of them surfaced enough to fill me in, but it
turned out that Kami wholeheartedly endorsed everything Rachel was
doing, she just thought we needed to change up our priorities
slightly.

An hour later we
were touring different parts of the estate looking for a suitable
location for the ceremony. It would have been impossible to cover the
kind of ground we needed to cross on foot, but luckily Alec and
Rachel's garage was stocked with a host of four-wheeled ATV's in
various shapes and sizes.

Rachel had gotten
a topographical map from Donovan and then we'd set off on our
scouting expedition. Only 'we' included way more than just Rachel,
Kami and I. Kristin's attack dream hadn't turned out to be a
legitimate precognitive warning, but had caused Alec to reassess
security around the estate. I now had at least one bodyguard with me
anytime we left the house.

Today it was two
and I was starting to feel more than a little claustrophobic. Jasmin
wasn't too bad, but I didn't know Carson very well so it felt awkward
to have him sitting next to me as Jasmin drove our ATV.

Rachel and Kami's
vehicle was being driven by Jess while Carson's friend, Wyatt, ranged
around us on a smaller ATV. I knew that Wyatt was trustworthy because
Shawn had vouched for the intentions behind the oath Wyatt had sworn
to Alec. Even so, it was hard to believe he was very reliable with
the way he was darting all over the place.

We came over a
small rise as Kami checked the map again and then as we reached the
bottom of a bowl-shaped depression she asked Jess to stop. Rachel
jumped out of the vehicle before it had completely stopped moving and
bounded over to me.

"What do you
think, Adri? There are a couple of other places that could work, but
I think this one has the most potential."

I looked around at
the brown, dying vegetation and the sharp rocks and shrugged. "It's
kind of desolate, isn't it?"

Kami smiled at me
as she made her way over at a slightly more sedate pace. "You're
right, as it is right now you wouldn't want to use it, but look more
at the underlying shape of the ground and try to think about what it
could look like. Here, let me show you."

I dutifully
followed as she took me on a guided tour of what she would do with
the bowl if 'money was no object.' At first it was really hard to see
the transformation she was talking about, but as time went on I
started to be able to see it.

The bowl would be
deepened slightly to create a natural amphitheater and then graded
and covered in sod. We'd transplant hedges up onto the rim of the
bowl to create a windbreak and shield the park we were creating from
outside view. There'd be a fountain on one end, just behind where
we'd stand for the ceremony, with flowerbeds interspersed throughout
the park full of whatever flowers I chose.

Kami and Rachel
were a matched pair. Ideas flowed out of them in a torrent that got
more overwhelming the longer I listened to it.

"I generally
try to make sure that any proposed locations can handle inclement
weather. Luckily that wouldn't be too difficult here. I think the
best bet would be some decorative arches or something else similar
that could be used to support some kind of canopy if the weather
turned bad."

Rachel was
literally bouncing up and down. Sometime over the last couple of days
she'd become even more energetic. It was like she was in danger of
starting on fire if she didn't stay in motion at all times. "That's
a great idea, but would you do one big canopy or lots of small ones?"

Kami looked at me
but I just shrugged. I was still a little shocked that I was actually
considering buying off on the idea in the first place. Alec was going
to be paying a small fortune to the local landscapers to have any
chance of pulling this off in two months.

"A single big
canopy would be the simplest, but it would require a very tall pole
in the center to work. My suggestion would be to set up a series of
smaller zones that are designed to be covered with smaller canopies.
The real difficulty is in making sure that the guests can move back
and forth between zones without getting drenched. Decorative arches
where the canopies meet would solve that problem nicely."

Rachel nodded in
double-time. "Then you just need to deal with the water running
off of the canopies. Maybe a system of tiny streams that mostly match
up with the zones?"

Kami nodded. "Yes,
I think that would be best. Possibly linked to the fountain in some
form or fashion. The streams wouldn't have to exactly match up with
the edges of the canopy, you just need the areas that the canopy is
covering to be elevated enough that the water will run off into the
channels rather than back at your guests."

I felt like my
mind was betraying me, but I could see it now. A series of tiny
streams crisscrossing the amphitheater with functional bridges
spanning them. The canopy idea wasn't bad either. I could even see
sections where a covered walkway would bridge the distance between
canopies.

"Remind me
again, dear, how many people are you planning on having attend?"

I looked at Rachel
because I had no idea. I already knew that there were going to be
more people than I would have invited, but I didn't know exactly how
big that number was likely to be.

"Mom and Dad
sent out six hundred invitations. Given Alec's recent rise
in...prominence...I expect you guys will be inviting
somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand guests."

I suddenly felt
like I needed to sit down. The thought of a thousand people watching
me stumble my way up to the altar was enough to make me sick. Rachel
saw my expression and gave me a reassuring smile as she distracted
Kami with questions about how we'd get a thousand guests out to this
part of the estate.

As the two of them
walked away, still talking, I picked out a large rock and sat down.
Wyatt watched them go and then shook his head. "Seems like an
awful lot of fuss for no reason."

Jess rolled her
eyes at him. "It's a girl thing, you've probably never even
thought about what your wedding would be like."

"Sure I have.
It's going to be a theme wedding. The ushers will be dressed like
vampires, we'll have werewolves on the cake and her family will all
have to come wearing cat costumes."

Jess looked at
Wyatt like he'd grown a second head for a second and then burst out
laughing. It was nice to see her so relaxed, but the two of them were
starting to give me a headache. Carson gave me a considering look and
then pointed at Rachel. "It's kind of hard for the two of you to
protect Rachel from all of the way over here."

Wyatt sighed and
then turned and started trudging off in Rachel's direction with Jess
only a couple of steps behind.