Riven (13 page)

Alec looked up at
Jess with anger bubbling just under the surface of his eyes. "Where
were you?"

"Rachel was
in her room working on wedding stuff. I figured since we were inside
the house that it wasn't a big deal if I took a break."

"You figured
wrong. As long as we have visitors here who haven't sworn fealty to
me I want Rachel, Adri, and my mother under a constant guard."

"I deserve to
have a life, Alec."

Alec stood up and
walked over to Jess as Rachel smiled at the way the sunlight was now
hitting her face.

"I'm not
going to argue with you, Jess. Because you weren't here we don't know
if this was a natural phenomenon or if Rachel was attacked by
someone."

Jess looked unsure
of herself for the first time in days. It seemed to have finally sunk
in for her that Rachel wasn't okay.

"I'm sorry,
Alec. I wasn't thinking."

"You're
right, you were being an idiot."

Rachel stood back
up and twirled around again, picking invisible things out of the air.
"Hmm, he's so nice. Takes such good care of me..."

Whatever she said
trailed off into something much too quiet for me to hear but it was
obvious that Alec heard it all. His fists tightened up until his
knuckles were white and then he shook himself.

"You know
that we all love you right, Rach?"

Rachel smiled, but
I got the impression that she was smiling at the way that the light
played on the seat she'd just vacated. Alec gently pulled her into a
hug and then looked at Dominic and me. "Can you two watch her
until I can make other arrangements?"

We both nodded,
which seemed to satisfy him. He squeezed Rachel's arm and started
towards the door. Just before he left the room he turned back and
looked at Rachel.

"It's going
to be okay; we'll figure out how to get through this."

Rachel didn't seem
to have heard. Alec sighed and then left with Donovan a couple of
steps behind him. Jess looked at Rachel for nearly a minute. She
looked a couple of times like she was going to say something,
possibly an apology, but she ended up leaving with whatever it was
still unsaid.

Dominic gently
turned Rachel around and lowered her to the ground. "Let's clean
up these pillows, Rachel."

Rachel complied
with the order, slowly gathering up feathers and stuffing them into
an empty pillowcase. I dropped down to help and between the three of
us we made slow but steady progress.

We'd been working
for nearly fifteen minutes before Rachel suddenly looked up from her
pile of feathers and smiled again. "That's highly unlikely. At
least not soon. You have to know what you're up against first."

It made no sense,
but it somehow reminded me of the flash of movement that I'd seen
with Jess.

"Dom, do you
know who was with Jess just now?"

Dom nodded but the
motion was hesitant. "It...it was Wyatt. They've been
spending a lot of time together lately."

I felt like my
head was going to explode and rubbing my temples didn't help at all.

"They were
flirting with each other the other day too. I was kind of hoping that
it was just my imagination or that it would blow over after a couple
of days. Isaac is going to freak out."

Rachel threw a
handful of feathers into the air and then plucked them out of it one
at a time before patting me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Adri.
Gray is Isaac's favorite color."

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

"I'm telling
you, Alec. There are at least half a dozen wolves there who would
jump ship if given half a chance. We need to go down to New Orleans
in force and get them out of there."

Adri had
communicated Ash's request several days ago, but apparently Ash had
decided to ignore my gentle hints that now wasn't the time to address
this. We were just about to start a briefing meeting which meant that
Rebekka and Louis were already there as was Donovan. Jaclyn was
supposed to be here within the next half an hour so I really needed
to get things moving or we wouldn't be able to cover everything I
wanted to talk about before she came strolling into the room.

"I understand
where you are coming from, Ash. Believe it or not, I really do, but I
can't just go around destabilizing packs right now or I'm going to
push anyone who's currently on the fence about joining us right into
the opposing camp."

"They want
out, Alec. They deserve to get out of there but they won't be able to
manage it on their own. That has to mean something to you."

I was exhausted,
more than exhausted really. Dr. Samuels had put us in contact with
four different specialists, each of whom I'd flown out over the last
couple of days, but none of them had any idea what was wrong with
Rachel.

Their answer had
been to suggest a number of really powerful prescription medications,
but I hadn't wanted to put Rachel on anything until I was sure that
it wasn't some kind of attack, either by the Coun'hij or one of our
guests. I needed to get Mallory back to the estate and have her give
all of the new arrivals a once-over to see if they had an unreported
power that they were using against Rach, but I hadn't been able to
tear myself away from everything else yet to take another trip out to
Mallory's cabin.

"Okay, Ash,
I'll tell you what. If anyone from that pack communicates with you
and tells you that they want out, then I'll take action. It would be
better if they called me up and told me directly, but I'll act even
if they just talk to you. Until then my hands are tied."

Ash was pacing
now. "That will never work. My sister hates your family with a
passion. She blames your ancestors for everything that happened to
our family. She'd rather die than ask you for help."

"If that's
really the case then there isn't anything I can do."

"Onyx is
scared, Alec. After what you did to his delegation it's only a matter
of time before he throws his lot in completely with the Coun'hij.
Once Puppeteer and the rest are keeping an eye on the area we may not
get another chance at this."

"I'm not
disagreeing with you, Ash, but I'm not the one you need to be trying
to convince. Get your sister or someone else in the pack to ask for
help and I'll send Grayson down there and we'll get as many of them
out as want to go, but you're going to want to make darn sure that
your sister is ready to come with us. We're only going to get one
shot and if she doesn't come with us when she has the chance then
things are going to get really, really bad for her once we are gone."

Ash didn't like my
position, but I gave him a look that said we were done talking about
the New Orleans pack right now and he finally took the hint and shut
up. I waited a second to make sure that he was really done and then
turned to Louis and Rebekka.

"I want to
start cycling your people through Sanctuary. I know we've done a
little bit of that, but I want to speed it up and get all of them
here at some point or another during the next two weeks."

Rebekka gave me a
funny look. "How come?"

"Your people
need to swear fealty so that we know we can trust them. It doesn't
have to be to me, I'm not trying to break your packs up necessarily,
but they need to swear to you or to someone else in your pack who has
sworn to you or to me."

Louis winced
slightly. I already knew that he was going to bleed to make that
happen, but it was important. I'd been serious about what I'd told
Raynor. I needed people I could trust just as badly as I needed
capable fighters and brilliant minds.

"I know it's
not going to be easy, but there is precedent. Thanatas and Jaldul
both enforced an oath of fealty among their supporters."

Rebekka frowned
like she was worried how I would respond, but after several seconds
she threw her two cents in as well.

"I don't
think you realize just how hard it's going to be to get some of our
people to swear fealty to anyone. A precedent that ancient isn't
going to help very much."

My beast was
acting up more than normal lately, but I forced it down. I had to
keep control of myself or my people would stop telling me what they
really thought.

"I'm not
going to force anyone to swear fealty to me or you. I do need to know
who we can depend on though. I think given enough time that people
will start choosing to join us of their own free will, but before
that can happen we're going to need some people already bound to us
so that everyone else can see the benefits our people are reaping."

Louis breathed a
sigh of relief. "You were serious about what you told Raynor
then?"

"Couldn't you
tell that I was telling the truth?"

Rebekka answered
this time. "I couldn't see any signs of a lie, but it seemed so
impossible."

"I meant
every word of it. Those of your people who swear fealty will be
brought into the inner circle. They won't necessarily sit in this
meeting with us, but they will be shown a level of trust that the
rest of your people won't be given."

"What about
your pack? Have they sworn fealty to you?"

Louis flinched a
little when he met my eyes but he didn't retract the question.

"I'm going to
have the same problems with some of them that you're going to have
with some of your people, but that is the long-term goal."

Donovan spoke up
for the first time since we'd all arrived. "I'll take the oath
right now if you wish, Master Alec."

"Thank you,
Donovan, but I'd like for it to be a public matter. You're welcome to
swear to me at the next formal reception."

Ash looked at me
defiantly. "I'm not swearing to you."

"I didn't
expect that you would, not yet. You still owe an obligation to your
sister. Once you've fulfilled that then maybe you'll be willing to
take the next step."

I could see a hot
retort on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it and stood as if
to go. I held up a hand. "I do trust you, Ash, and I want you in
my councils. Maybe you can come up with a lesser oath that you'd be
willing to swear in the meantime, but for today please stay."

I watched as Ash
returned to his seat and then opened my mouth to continue with the
meeting, but a knock on the door interrupted me.

Donovan opened the
door and I waved Jaclyn inside the room. She looked each of the
others over for several seconds and then turned back to me. She'd
wrapped her pride around herself, but even if the others couldn't see
it I could still see just how scared she was. I'd been there myself
within the last couple of months.

She'd spent her
life protecting her pack and while she'd no doubt made mistakes in
the past, they'd been her mistakes to deal with. Putting everything
you valued into the hands of another was a terrifying prospect, but
even before she opened her mouth I knew that she was going to submit
to me.

"I'm here to
take your damn oath, Alec."

"Believe it
or not, I know what it cost you to come here and say that, Jaclyn.
Please take a seat. The actual oath can wait for a couple of days
until the next reception, but I know you'll go through with it so I'd
like to bring you and everyone else here more fully into my plans."

Each of the
members of my inner circle leaned forward slightly. They all knew
bits and pieces, but this was their first chance to hear the master
plan straight from my lips.

"I want
Jaclyn and Louis to start preparing to move their people off of the
border. The Las Cruces pack will come here to Sanctuary to live for
the next few months while Jaclyn's pack will head to Tonopah. Don't
rush your preparations, be smart about arranging for protection for
your homes, but we need to make the move happen as soon as is
sensible. That will put pressure on the rest of the border packs and
the next tier of defenders."

Jaclyn knew this
was coming, but it was a complete surprise for Louis. "Some of
my people will refuse to go. Just knowing that they are going to be
thrown in with another pack will have some of them running scared."

"I know it
will, but you're going to need to do everything you can to convince
them. I don't want to lose anyone if we can find a way to avoid it.
Jaclyn will serve as my enforcer, at least initially, in Tonopah
while I'll keep order here in Sanctuary. The goal will be to
integrate the power structures of the pack with the minimal amount of
disruption possible. People can still challenge each other, but it
will happen at scheduled times and those challenges only change the
dominance pyramid of the pack to the extent that those involved
aren't under orders from me or someone in my power structure."

Jaclyn was nodding
now. "The dominants won't like that, but it's not that much more
artificial than what I've enforced in Tucson. You'll create an
incredible amount of goodwill with the submissives in all three
packs. Some of them will swear to you just to get out from under the
dominants who have been giving them grief."

"I suspect
you're right, but ultimately the goal is to get the dominants to
swear an oath as well so that things don't become too unbalanced.
Either way though we need to keep any excesses checked. We're going
to start running excursions into vampire country and doing werewolf
hunts to help keep everyone from losing their edge."

Rebekka looked
relieved. "That should prevent things from boiling over. Anytime
there is an external threat it goes a long ways towards keeping the
dominants from beating on the rest of the pack too much."

"Agreed. Is
that something that you can all live with?"

I waited until
everyone had nodded, and then handed them each a folder. "I wish
that was the only set of marching orders that I had for today. That
alone would be plenty to keep us all busy, but I also need you to
start working on this."