Riven (22 page)

I'd
let go of her as soon as I'd realized I wasn't being attacked, but
suddenly I wasn't so sure. Rachel stepped into me with a hiss of
frustration. "You're not listening to me, Jas. I need you to
listen because you're important to me. This is important."

My
beast awakened with a flare of power. She knew Rach, but she'd been
acting up a lot lately and she apparently felt like Alec's little
sister was suddenly a big threat.

"Okay,
Rach. I'm listening."

"You
need to find someone named Geoffrey and you'll need to find him soon.
Ben doesn't have much longer."

"Wait,
this Geoffrey guy can help Ben?"

"Yes,
but you're not going to like it."

"How
do I find him?"

Her
odd smile was back, the one that usually meant that she was
inhabiting a different place or time than the rest of us.

"Don't worry about that, it will happen; you just need to be ready when he does."

It
was all I could do not to reach out and shake Rachel. There was no
reason to believe that she knew any more about how to save Ben than I
did, but I needed it to be true and I needed her to keep things
together long enough to tell me whatever it was that she knew.

"Mind
the smell, Jas. Mind the smell."

There
were footsteps behind us now, but I ignored them right up until
someone put a hand on my shoulder and started pulling me back away
from Rachel. Somehow I'd ended up with my hand back around her
throat.

"Just
let go of her, Jasmin."

It
was James and he was talking with unusual calm, but that didn't
matter.

"Tell
me what you know, Rachel!"

"I
can't tell you, I'd have to show you and if I did that you wouldn't
thank me, nobody would."

My
beast felt like she was being made fun of and she didn't like the
experience. She tried to break free and it was all I could do to keep
her from shedding my normal form in favor of the four-legged one.

I
was so caught up with aborting the transformation that I didn't
realize I was hurting Rachel until she cried out and James had thrown
me against one of the metal struts that supported the structure.

Tears
of pain were running down Rachel's face and she had vivid purple
bruises on her shoulder and neck, but she was laughing hysterically.
"That's the ticket, Jas. Give into the rage, use it. You're
going to need it, all of it, before this is all over."

Adriana Paige
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

I knew that I shouldn't be bothering Alec, not with everything else he
had going on right now, but that didn't stop me from walking to his
office. The wedding was just next week and the work involved in
getting ready for it was growing in step with the passage of time.
Kami was amazing, but a thousand things still went wrong every day.
It meant that we were in a perpetual firefighting mode as we tried to
come up with ways to compensate.

Things
would have been much easier if I hadn't tried to cram six months of
planning and work into such a short period of time, but it was still
starting to wear on me. Alec and I usually at least had breakfast and
dinner together each day, but today I was feeling the need for a
little more Alec time.

I
looked back at one of Rebekka's wolves, a quiet guy named Jed who was
currently serving as my bodyguard, and then shrugged. "I guess I
should just knock. It's not like he's going to turn me away."

Jed
smiled slightly. "I suspect he'll be as relieved to see you as
you will be to see him."

I
rolled my eyes and then knocked on the door. Alec answered it a
moment later with a frown on his face that turned to a smile as soon
as he saw that it was me who was interrupting his work.

"You
have no idea how good it is to see you right now."

"I
don't know, I think I'm feeling about the same way."

He
pulled me into a hug and then looked over at Jed. "You can go
ahead and take a break. I'll give you a call when Adri is ready to
leave."

"Yes,
sir."

Alec
pulled me into his office and swung the door shut. "You're never
going to guess who ditched her minder and snuck off the estate."

"When
you put it that way, it's not hard to figure it out. Your mom and
Rachel are the only two besides me who have constant bodyguards. Have
you found Rachel yet?"

I
wondered briefly if I should have been more worried, but Alec seemed
more annoyed than upset, so I figured that meant that they'd already
found her.

"Yeah,
but only because she went to the airstrip where our people were
assembling for the attack on the werewolves in Salt Lake. If she'd
just chosen to keep driving we might not have ever found her.
Tracking a vehicle is tough because it doesn't have a very
distinctive scent trail, and we've lost our satellite feeds for this
area."

I
rubbed my arms. "That sounds serious. Not just the Rachel thing,
but the satellite feeds. Do you think it's the precursor of an
attack?"

Alec's
frown told me that he'd already spent the odd hour or two worrying
about that very thing. "I don't know. We don't have our own
satellites, so we've relied on hacks into the NSA and others to get
the surveillance that we need. Every so often they scrub their
systems enough to deny us access, so this happens from time to time,
but frankly the timing isn't good. Especially not with how odd one of
our cyber consultants has been behaving lately."

"What
do you mean?"

"It's
hard to really pin these guys down sometimes, but he seems to be
racking up a lot of extra hours recently and he's been late delivering
his normal stuff, like he's working on something high priority for
someone else despite the fact that he's only supposed to be working
for me."

I
smiled as he pulled me down onto the loveseat next to him. "The
joys of running a multibillion-dollar empire that happens to be in
the middle of overthrowing the Coun'hij."

Alec
snorted and took my hand in his own. "At least Rachel is on her
way back here. She should be here within the next ten minutes or so."

"Traffic
permitting, of course."

I
got another eye roll and then Alec used his free hand to bring my
chin up ever so slightly.

"I've
missed you today."

"You
saw me just a few hours ago."

His
smile was sad. "I know, but somehow that feels like days ago. On
days like this it's the thought of seeing you at breakfast that
convinces me to push through the night and get the work done. I hate
having something unfinished hanging over my head when I'm trying to
enjoy your company."

"If
it helps any, I've missed you terribly tonight too. I'd give anything
to have all of this craziness behind us. I wish the wedding were
tomorrow, but if I really had less than twenty-four hours to pull
everything else together then I'd probably steal one of Ash's guns
and shoot myself."

"We
could try and push the date back a month or two if that would help."

I
shuddered in terror that was only half feigned. "I've seen the
guest list, Alec. We've invited three different state governors, six
senators and something like two dozen other people who plan out their
schedules four months in advance. Besides, changing the date at this
point would be a lot of work. Kami has shipments queued up to arrive
according to a very precise schedule every day between now and the
actual wedding. The only thing that a delay would actually do is give
us more time to get the park ready to go."

"If
all you're worried about at this point is the park then you can stop
worrying. I snuck out there yesterday and it is perfect. You guys
have created something that's almost too good to survive in this
world. The flowers are especially incredible. Carson has a true gift,
both for the visuals and for the scents."

I
shook my head. "I can't take any credit for the park. I haven't
actually done any work anywhere since this whole nightmare started."

I'd
looked down in unhappiness while we'd been talking, but Alec tipped
my chin back up so that I'd meet his eyes.

"In
some ways you and Kami have the hardest jobs of all. You have the
ultimate responsibility if things go wrong. Besides, you should give
yourself credit for agreeing to let Carson do the flowers. You
recognized talent and gave him his head. Not only that, I have it on
very good authority that you were the one who gave him the idea of
using Lagrimas so liberally throughout the park."

"I
don't know. That doesn't seem like a very big accomplishment.
Besides, if we're giving out credit for putting the right person in
the right time and place, you need a healthy dose of applause. Carson
has been perfect, and not just with the flowers. I didn't realize
just how much of an adjustment it was going to be to have a bodyguard
all of the time rather than just a few hours a day. I know it's only
been a couple of months, but Carson has almost become like an adopted
father."

I
knew Alec's sigh wasn't because of the bond Carson and I had
developed, but it took several seconds before he nodded and
elaborated on the gesture.

"I'm
glad that things have worked out so well there, but that's one more
bit of unfinished business. Carson and the other two are almost to
the end of their sworn period of service and I haven't managed to
tease anything important out of any of them. If I can't get through
to them soon they are going to disappear again and then I'll be
looking at trying to replace not only Carson as your bodyguard, but
Grayson as well."

"It
will leave us a lot weaker, won't it?"

"Yes.
It's not like it's the end of the world. We've got several packs that
have sworn to us now, so we've got more manpower than we had before,
but he's still going to leave a hole around here when he leaves."

I'd
nearly forgotten about the time limit on Carson's oath to Alec, and I
felt a sudden flare of sadness at the thought of him disappearing
from my life. "I'll do what I can to see if he'll open up to me.
I don't want him and the others to leave any more than you do."

I
opened my mouth to ask him how things were looking with some of the
packs that we hoped would swear to us next, but shut it when I
realized that the sliver of white that I could see under the corner
of Alec's desk was a note, and that it had my name on it.

"You're
leaving me notes in unlikely places now?"

Alec
followed my gaze and then shook his head as he walked over and picked
it up. "No, this isn't from me and it has my name on the other
side of the envelope."

"So
it's for both of us. Go ahead and open it—the suspense is killing
me."

Alec
tore the envelope open and scanned down the page. By the time he got
to the bottom of the note he was white. He pulled his cell phone out
as he tossed the note to me.

I
read it as he paced back and forth, muttering under his breath as he
waited for whoever he was calling to pick up.

Alec,
Adri,

I'm
sorry that you're going to find out like this, but I think it's best,
all things considered. Don't follow me, and don't be too hard on Rex,
there really isn't any way he could have seen this coming.

"Donovan,
I need you to call the police. Have them put out an APB for whatever
Rachel drove out to the hangar and whatever Rex used to go get her,
and then get in contact with our IT assets. I need satellite feeds from the
last two hours and I need them right now."

Speaking
of Rex, you should probably send someone to pick him up. He's on the
side of the road about ten minutes outside of town. I shot him up
with Etorphine, so if you give him some Revivon he'll be back on his
feet by the time you need him.

Jasmin
is going to be pissed when she gets back, but you need to go easy on
her. She's having a hard time of things right now, but you're going
to need her.

I
think it's past time to bring certain secrets, certain people, out
into the open, Alec. Adri, I'm sorry I haven't been able to help with
the wedding. You two take care of each other, the worst is still to
come.

By
the time I made it to the end of Rachel's note, Alec had hung up on
Donovan and was talking into one of the radios that was hooked into
the net the bodyguards were using.

"...no,
not everyone, we still have to make sure that we've got adequate
protection for everyone else here. Detach four guys in two cars. She
said that she'd leave Rex ten minutes outside of town, but she didn't
say on which side and there's no guarantee that things went according
to her plan. With any luck he overpowered her and his radio got
turned off in the struggle. No, I don't think it's likely either, but
I'd kill for a little bit of luck right now. Get ahold of Grayson for
me too. I don't want them to do anything stupid, but tell them we're
going to need them back here as soon as possible."

Alec
set the radio down and walked back over to me. I held out the note
and let him read it again.

"Do
you think she's really gone?"

"Probably.
There's always a chance that it's some kind of elaborate joke, but I
doubt it."

"What
do you think she meant about bringing secrets out into the open?"

"She's
talking about something that she can't possibly know about, something
that I should have done a long time ago."

I
would have asked him what he meant, but he'd already turned away,
absently pulling his phone back out of his pocket. He stared at it
for several seconds and then hit Donovan's speed dial.

"Can
you please let the police know to contact me directly with any
updates? The same with the cyber guys...no, no problems, I just
have another job for you to do. Hold on a sec, I need to tell Adri."