Bound Excerpt

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. I knew it as soon as the words hit the air. Jasmin probably knew it even before she opened her mouth, but that didn’t stop her from saying it.

“Oh, yeah? Well, better a second-rate wolf than a third-rate hybrid who exists solely to serve as Brandon’s whipping boy.”

It was exactly the opening that Vincent had been looking for. He’d been riding Jasmin for days trying to get enough of a rise out of her to justify putting her in her place, but she’d been unusually calm—at least right up until that point.

Jasmin and I had slipped out to nearly the outer reaches of the estate in an effort to get away from the constant dominance games that were an inherent part of pack life. We’d found a quiet spot out by the mountain that overlooked Graves Manor from the north and hunkered down to do some homework.

Once upon a time just getting away from the house would have been enough to guarantee ourselves some privacy, but ever since Brandon had manifested his full hybrid ability Kaleb, my father—although I didn’t like to think of him as such—had been giving him and his lackeys a much greater run of the estate.

Vincent backhanded Jasmin into a scrubby tree with enough force that she would have at the very least had a concussion if she’d been merely human. As it was she still hit hard enough to see stars, and her knees buckled as soon as her feet touched the ground, but she still managed to glare up at him from the ground.

“I’d tell you what I really think of you, you illiterate piece of crap, but I’d have to use words bigger than two syllables, which you wouldn’t understand. Not even your own mother could put up with you long enough to teach you basic manners.”

If Jasmin’s first comment had been the spark that started a fire, this was pouring gas on the flame. Vincent had the incident he’d been angling for, but her comment must have actually upset him. Rather than playing things cool and using the opportunity to abuse her without actually triggering a full challenge, instead he screamed and shifted.

Jasmin had to be at least a little unsteady on her feet, but she likewise changed forms in an explosion of clothing that left fragments of material fluttering in a circle around her. As Vincent stalked towards Jasmin in his hulking hybrid form my pulse sped up.

A hybrid has a head, two arms and two legs, but that’s about where the resemblance to a human being ends. Humans are tool users, hybrids are six-foot plus tall mountains of muscle and fur that were designed with only one purpose in mind.

Everything from the backwards-articulating knees, to the talons on their feet and the eight-inch semi-retractable claws at the end of each finger, spoke to the ability of a hybrid to explode into motion without warning and rend flesh as though it was nothing more than wet paper.

Jasmin hadn’t ever manifested a third shape. She was a wolf now, sleek, fast, and deadly in her own way, but she wasn’t a match for Vincent, not today, not as shaken up as she was after being thrown into a tree like that. There were things that were even bigger and nastier than a hybrid, but even if one of them had been close at hand it would have been just as likely to kill Jasmin as help her face down Vincent.

I knew Vincent wasn’t going to be satisfied with just roughing Jasmin up. He might even be far enough gone to kill her despite the hot water that it would get him into with Kaleb. It was one of those times where nearly every part of me was screaming that it was time to panic, but I’d learned that these kinds of situations are usually when it’s most important to take a second and calmly analyze my options.

The breeze played across my face and I took a deep breath, reveling for the briefest of moments in the smell of cedar trees and sage. There were a thousand other scents, some of them only just detectible to me in this form, but it was the cedar and sagebrush that formed the bulwark upon which all of the other scents rested.

I could hear Vincent’s heavy stride and Jasmin’s lighter, four-footed steps, but I tried to put that out of my mind as I let my eyes play over the landscape. The estate was situated around one of the area’s only artesian wells, which meant it was a relatively unique pocket of green in the otherwise dull brown and red southern Utah landscape. Zion National Park was just visible off in the distance and it had its share of foliage as well, but between here and there was little more than rocks, dust, and dying plant life.

I looked back at Jasmin and Vincent and suddenly knew how to stop him. “If you attack Jasmin, then I’ll kill you, Vincent.”

I’d been half afraid that he was too far gone to register my words, but he pulled up as though he’d run into something.

“That’s the prerogative of a pack alpha, Alec. If you’re creating your own little pack then there’s no need for me to stomp Jasmin into the ground because your dad will rip both of you into little pieces.”

“I’m not saying that you can’t challenge her, I’m just saying that once you are done fighting her I’ll challenge you myself.”

It was risky. Custom usually provided both parties to a challenge fight with a few days of immunity from dominance fights so long as they didn’t get in people’s faces over stupid stuff. We didn’t have much in the way of hard-and-fast rules, but we shape shifters tended to treasure the few we had. They were the only thing keeping us from devolving into the savage animals whose forms we assumed.

“You’ve got an overinflated sense of your own lethality, Alec. Even if you manage to beat me using such an underhanded tactic, you’ll still lose your own traditional period of immunity. There won’t be anything stopping Nathanial and Simon from ripping you apart once you’re done fighting me. You’ll have people lining up to take you down.”

My heartbeat had slowed back down. It was debatable whether or not Vincent was close enough to hear my pulse, but I found myself hoping he could. When you’re up against people with superhuman senses it becomes very difficult to bluff. I’d found that it was just best not to even try. Instead I always tried to make sure that whomever I was up against understood exactly what I was prepared to do.

“I can take you down, and you know it, Vincent. I came out on top in both of our last fights and Jasmin is bound to do at least some damage to you no matter how badly you beat her in the end. It’s not a question of if I’ll kill you, it’s just a question of what happens after you’re gone. You may be right that Nathanial and Simon will jump in afterwards, but that’s not going to make any difference to you, not once you’re dead.”

“Your dad has forbidden the pack from killing each other. He’ll stick you in a box somewhere for a week while he decides whether or not to execute you.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Vincent. Either your friends are going to kill me or they aren’t. I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you. I don’t particularly care how I go at this point, I just want to make sure that I stop you from hurting Jasmin before I go down.”

“Maybe I should just kill you now and then I can do whatever the hell I want to Jasmin after you’re gone.”

“What about Kaleb?”

“Brandon will keep him off of my back. Your dad’s not going to risk pissing Brandon off, not for you, not when you still haven’t manifested that power that Mallory is so excited ab—.”

The transformation ripped through me in a flash as Vincent sprang at me.

Vincent had been talking to try and catch me by surprise, but I’d been expecting as much. I spent nearly every waking hour trying to keep my beast, the violent urges that separated me from a normal human, caged up, but I’d loosened the metaphysical chains on him as soon as I’d decided on this course of action.

I hadn’t manifested one of the unique powers that made some hybrids even more deadly than the norm, but I was still a hybrid and I was slightly bigger and stronger than Vincent now.

Vincent came in low and fast, but I knew it was a trap. With another hybrid I might have gone for it and tried to latch onto his back so that I had a killing hold, but Vincent was fast enough that it was almost impossible to use that particular opening against him.

Instead of going high and trying to dodge to the side I dropped down even lower and dug my talons and the claws on my left hand into the dirt. With so many anchor points to the ground I was capable of generating a lot of force, but even so I knew it wouldn’t be enough to let me straight-arm him away. Not even the awesome strength of a hybrid was equal to redirecting the force of two NFL linebackers at full run.

If Vincent was thinking clearly he would know that I was setting up to do something impossible, but I was counting on the fact that Vincent rarely thought things through in the middle of a fight.

I had only a split second between when I got myself set and when Vincent hit me and I did my very best to sell the idea that I was about to meet brute force with brute force.

Vincent came in moving even faster than I’d realized, but by then it was too late. I threw myself forward as hard as I could at the same time that the claws on my right arm sank into the front of his chest. The tendons and muscles in my arm screamed in pain, but my hybrid body didn’t feel pain the same way that my human one did. I knew that I’d just pulled a whole host of muscles up and down my arm and shoulder, but the pain was a distant thing that served only to inform rather than distract.

It was a very close thing, but I managed to get low enough and hold my arm straight enough that I redirected most of the energy of his attack upwards. The entire technique was tricky, but assuming that you were strong enough to keep your arm straight, then the most difficult part was figuring just exactly how much momentum to generate when you threw yourself forward at your opponent. Too much and you canceled each other out leaving the two of you more or less motionless but you at a disadvantage because your off hand was still out of position. Too little and you’d get bowled over and pinned to the ground under several hundred pounds of wickedly-clawed hybrid.

Things seemed to balance on the edge of a knife and then his momentum carried us backwards. I tried to convert the fall into a roll, but his right hand slashed downwards towards my head at the last second, and writhing out of the way of his attack forced me out of position.

Rather than me ending up on top it almost looked like I’d failed completely, but as we crashed into the ground I heard a meaty thud and Vincent relaxed his grip on me momentarily.

I shoved him off of me and rolled to my feet at the same time as he picked himself up off of the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the rock he’d banged his head on, but there wasn’t time to dwell on the sheer dumb luck that had saved me. Vincent still had an edge of grogginess to his movements so I charged in, raking the claws on my much-abused right arm across the outside of his leg.

My blow struck true and cut deep, but it was all I could do to dodge his follow-up strike to my head. The unsteadiness from hitting his head wasn’t entirely feigned or he wouldn’t have missed me, but it was obvious that he wasn’t as far gone as he’d wanted me to think.

Neither of us seemed to have any fancy tricks left, so the fight moved into the brutal, sudden savagery of a normal hybrid matchup. I hadn’t been lying when I’d said that I’d beaten him in both of our last two matchups, but those had been close fights and it was still too soon to tell who had the upper hand this time.

His next blow came at me too fast for me to completely dodge and hot trickles of blood started making their way down my chest as he tore a set of furrows in my flesh that were more than a foot long. Vincent was smiling now, his bestial lips pulled back to reveal long fangs. Nathanial and Simon had transformed into wolves and were yipping in excitement, but I’d sunk the talons on my left foot several inches into his leg as I’d tried to get away from his last attack.

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.

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