Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1)

Chapter 7

Alec Graves
Rio Rico Airport
Rio Rico, Arizona

Our plane touched down in Rio Rico a little before noon. We found 100-degree heat and a fearsome reception waiting for us. I'd expected our arrival to be fairly low-key. Rio Rico was a small town with less than twenty thousand people that hadn't even had an airport until Kaleb had decided to make it one of the centers for his war on the southerners.

Instead of the bored local holding a sign with our names on it, we found Brandon, Vincent, and half a dozen other shape shifters from our pack waiting for us. It was like something out of an action movie. The way that the hybrids were all facing outwards, prepared to respond to any kind of threat, gave me the distinct impression that we were in hostile territory.

Alison, one of the wolves who had been sent down to the southern front more than four months ago, stepped forward and pointed towards a line of black SUVs waiting less than fifty feet from the plane.

"The cats have attacked the airport several times over the last two months. The four of you aren't versed in our standard operating procedure, so Brandon has asked that you go take a seat in the cars while the rest of us keep an eye on the plane until it is refueled and begins taxiing."

My beast didn't particularly like being told what to do by a submissive, but I mentally sat on him to keep him from sending out a flare of power that might tip off Brandon or Vincent to the fact that I was more powerful now than the last time they'd seen me.

"You heard the lady, let's get over to the vehicles."

James shot me an unhappy look. Apparently his beast was likewise dissatisfied with the way the chain of command was working, but I was dominant to him, so unless he wanted to start a fight with me out here in broad daylight there wasn't much he could do but follow Jasmin and Jessica to the SUVs.

Once we were inside one of the air-conditioned bubbles of calm, James practically exploded. The surge of power he unleashed into the air around him made my ears pop.

"That was a calculated insult. Brandon should have been the one giving us orders rather than sending Alison to do it."

I locked gazes with James and refused to back down until he looked away. "I think you're probably right that Brandon was insulting us, but just because that was an insult doesn't mean that it was all that it was."

Jasmin looked up with curiosity written all over her face. "What do you mean?"

"Look at them." I pointed at the circle of men and women standing in a loose circle around the plane. "We see Brandon and Vincent back in Sanctuary on a pretty regular basis, but the rest of these guys are out here for months at a time. Even when Kaleb gives them some down time he doesn't usually let them come back to Sanctuary—instead he sends them in twos and threes off to someplace where they can blow off some steam without causing any waves back home. Do any of the people from our pack look the way you remember?"

Jess shook her head. "No, Alison was practically scared of her own shadow before. Now she looks like she could rip me in half without breaking a sweat."

I nodded, not just because Jess was right, but because that was exactly the same difference I'd noticed almost as soon as we landed. The old Alison never would have given me an order, no matter how politely worded and no matter whom she was representing. This new Alison had chopped her hair into a ragged bob and dyed a light-red streak through it. Everything from her clothes—black cargo pants and a tank top—up to her posture seemed to indicate that she'd been through hell during the last four months and that she was more than able to handle herself in any of the situations she was likely to run into.