After Dawn, What Came Next

The kids would understand. At least, R.J. would. As for Phoenix, who knew? His baby girl was a wild card as unpredictable as her mother. Maybe, it was his brother’s return that was the catalyst. Catcher was finally getting to live the life he should have had from the very beginning. As twin omegas their lives had been dedicated to sacrifice. Tracker realized looking back how he had taken the easy way out. He hadn’t really lived for himself. He had merely transferred his inborn sense of duty from one woman to another. And he hadn’t not only cheated himself in the process, but Shayla as well.

The dissolution of his marriage hadn’t been as difficult as he would have anticipated. He pled his case. Nash listened and granted his request. Packing his bags and moving out of the bedroom he had shared with Shayla for the last twenty-five years had been difficult. Until things were settled with Phoenix, he was moving into the loft above the garage. It seemed he didn’t quite have Daniel’s mettle. He couldn’t share a home with a woman he had set free to find her heart’s desire.

He thought about writing a note to Shayla. But, what was there really to say that she didn’t already know? She was a woman of her word. She would stay married to him if for no other reason than she had given him her vow. That wasn’t the wife he wanted, one bound by duty and not by love. The two decades of happiness she had given him were his consolation prize for a game well played but eventually lost.

Carter had owned her heart long before Tracker came around. Tracker realized this. Not even the birth of their daughter had been enough to fully sway Shayla to him. Tracker was done living with half of what he should have. He didn’t hate Carter though he had every right to. He didn’t begrudge Shayla her chance for real happiness. Life was too long to spend it living with half of what you should have. Almost losing Phoenix had opened his eyes to that simple fact.

Ray stood at the doorway watching his dad collect his thoughts. “Dad, are you sure about this? I wish I could believe that you were doing this because you hated mom. But, you’re not. You’re doing this because you love her.”

“With all my heart, R.J.”

“What if she chooses you?”

“She won’t. I think we both know that. I love her and sometimes loving someone means letting them go.” Tracker flicked his eyes up to meet R.J.’s watery stare. “I had ample opportunities to kill Carter. Maybe, I should have. Damn vampire. But, do you know why I didn’t?”

“Why, dad?”

“Because I knew someday this day would come. In the end, I always knew he would win.”

“There’s nothing worse than wanting someone you can’t have,” Ray said.

“No, there isn’t.” Tracker looked up at his son. Had a man ever been as proud of his son as he was of R.J.? “I want you to remember something. You may be another man’s flesh and blood. There might be some of Carter in you. But, remember R.J., I am your dad and you will always be my son.”

“Always, dad.”

Shayla caught the gist of the conversation from the stairwell landing. Tracker was leaving. He had finally given up on her. Her heart pounded and her mind raced. She could go for the brass ring and have everything she had ever wanted. Tracker was setting her free. But, looking at the multitudes of family photographs lining the walls of the stairwell, despite the yearnings of her heart, she realized she already had everything she ever wanted and it was all right here. Carter was the lie, the illusion. She would always love him. But, the past belonged in the past and here within these walls and in that man so intent on granting her freedom was her future. “R.J., leave. Your dad and I to talk.”

Shayla waited till R.J. closed the door tightly behind him before she took a breath to speak. “I told Carter goodbye today. Whatever we once had, it is over. I’ve tortured you for years. I’ve held a part of myself back from you. It was wrong and I’m sorry for it. But, it’s you…it’s this…this ordinary life that I want. At one time, I thought I couldn’t live without him, but it is you I can’t live without.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, Tracker, you. Carter can’t love anybody until he gets over his love for himself. Carter is a professional martyr always so willing to bleed for a cause. He won’t bleed for me. Not this time. I won’t let him. What is more important, I won’t bleed for him anymore either and neither will you.

“You and I…we belong exactly where we are. Together. I realized how badly I’ve wronged you and how much I’ve cheated myself out of by clinging to the memory…the idea of him. Today on the bluffs I was ready to jump for him. But, then offering him one last kiss I realized I jumped a long time ago and where did I land? Exactly where I belong, here in your arms. We have a life together and it’s time we started living it.”

“What about Carter?”

“Carter will take care of himself, just like he always does. As for us, we do what we’ve always done. We take care of each other.”

Tracker set his duffel bag on the bed. He said nothing as Shayla started unpacking the contents. She put his underwear in the drawer where they belonged. She straightened his wrinkled shirts and hung them in the closet. “I do love you.”

“I know. I’m a very lovable person.”

“Am I? Am I a lovable person too?”

“You are my reality. I’d rather live a life that’s real than one that’s fantasy. R.J. and Phoenix we raised them to be the people they are. Us. Maybe, someday when we’re dust in our graves and another millennium has come and gone. Carter will finally figure it out. Love is more than a feeling. Sometimes, love doesn’t start out as love, but grows and becomes what you make it.”

“And we made it?”

“Yes baby, we did.”

Chapter 90

Drew studied the little girl sitting so primly on the edge of her chair. She was such a tiny thing, petite and delicate as a china doll with her tangled blonde curls and cherubic face. Clad in tennis shoes and her legs crossed at the ankles, she swung her legs back and forth. So tiny was she the tips of her toes barely brushed the rug under the soles of her feet. The t-shirt she wore was two sizes too big and bagged on her slender frame.

She was just a child. She should be skipping and licking lollypops in the summer sunshine. She should not be down here in this place of darkness and shadow. What the hell was he going to do with her? On the outside she appeared as innocent and innocuously harmless as any other little girl. She wasn’t harmless and she wasn’t innocent. The guise of her outward features had probably served her well in terms of hunting her prey. No human being would ever suspect the killer that lurked beneath her bonnet of golden curls and the sweetness of her angelic face.

He had spoken to the twins at great length. Somehow, it was easier to condemn the males as guilty than it was this petite angel sitting so upright and properly in the chair before him. It befuddled the mind that someone could snatch such an innocent creature out of her bed in the middle of the night and transform her into this…thing that sat in front of him. There were so very few laws in the vampire world. Keep the secret. Do not kill indiscriminately. She…Angelica…what had been done to her….he hadn’t even thought there would ever be a need for a law to forbid what had been done to her.

The idea of it, that one of his kind could be so demented and desperate for a child, sickened him. Drew dragged his hand over his jaw and considered Angelica. Vampires did age. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, perhaps an hour or a day for every decade that passed. He was well over two hundred years old, but his body had changed very little since his death on the battlefield. This…this little girl…she would remain a child well into the next millennium. But, in her wide, innocent, blue eyes he saw the truth of her age.

Angelica frowned. She expected more from the legendary Great Father and his men. Drew puzzled her as if he couldn’t wrap his mind around what she truly was. Even the guards that had roused her from her holding cell and ushered her into his study had kept a careful distance. Damn it! Didn’t anybody see that she wasn’t a little girl? Justice wasn’t blind or impartial. Justice was slanted and judged her by her exterior features. It was true. She was a very pretty little girl and someday, she would grow up into a beautiful woman…eventually. She was a vampire and truly had nothing but time. Unfortunately, waiting for time to catch up with her had exhausted her. “You see me as a child.”

Drew blinked. “It’s difficult not to.” Angelica’s sweet voice grated his ears. She looked like a child. She sounded like a child. Her speech though was that of a grown woman’s. Angelica claimed the twins were innocent, mere victims in their mother’s vicious plot. She appealed for their lives and for her own. Not for the saving of her life, as he expected, but for the taking of it.

He understood. He did. He wished he could see past the golden curls and Angelica’s doll like exterior, but he couldn’t. He wished he had the strength to grant what she had asked of him without a moment’s worth of doubt. Killing left a stain on a warrior’s soul. Even if it was for a good cause, the memory of taking a life never left you. To this day, he could still recall the feel of the tomahawk’s wooden handle slick with blood in his fist. Who…which one of the brothers could he pass this burden on to? Were any of his ranks strong enough to do what she asked of him? Who could live with the blood of an eternal child on his hands?

“I would be nearly thirty years old, if I had been allowed to grow up. But, isn’t that the problem? I’ll never grow up. Would you look at me differently then? If I were a woman instead of this…this perpetual child that I am?”

Drew raised a brow at Angelica’s proclamation. To him, she would never be a woman and as such could not be judged as anything other than a child. How much of what she had done could be blamed on her? She knew no different life. Stolen from her home so innocent and impressionable and being turned so young. Did she truly know right from wrong? Was she accountable for the lives she had taken? Justice would judge her as guilty by her confession and the truth of her age. Angelica deserved the punishment of the full extent of the law. She deserved the execution she begged for so vehemently. He would never pass on this burden to carrying out her sentence to one of his men. He would have to execute her himself, if he could condemn her at all.

Angelica sighed and clung to the arms of the chair, digging her nails into the wood. “Someone has to pay for what happened to those wolves. You know that. I offer you the perfect solution, my life for the lives of my brothers in exchange. The pack will get the blood they demand. My brothers get to live. And, as for me, maybe on the other side of this life, I’ll finally get to grow up. I’m not a child as you see me. I have killed. I will kill again. I will keep on killing until I force your hand and you have no other choice. You will give me what I want…one way or another. I’m just trying to make it easy for you.”

“Angelica, you will grow up.”

“When! You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. To want the things every woman wants and to be trapped in this…this body of a child! My father, Sebastian, tried. He thought his blood could cure me. It did not. I can’t live like this another day let alone the centuries it will take me to finally become a woman. By your law you must do what needs to be done. You made the law, now carry out your justice. I demand it.”

“You truly want to die?” Drew studied the desperate, forlorn creature no longer perched so composed and primly on the edge of her seat. What right did he have to deny any vampire death? It wasn’t uncommon for the very old ones to appeal for their own end. Time was a cruel bitch to endure. Far too often immortals didn’t have the stomach for eternity. Life was a curse when the world around you changed and kept changing and you did not.

He could see the truth of Angelica’s desire in her eyes. She didn’t value her life. This wasn’t a temporary fixation with death as sometimes happened with vampires. For her, there was only one way out and in watching the quavering of her chin and the tears of rage and despair rolling down her cheeks he made his decision. “Fine. I’ll grant your request.”

Angelica settled back in her seat. Her heart pounded. She wanted death and he was going to deliver her into that gentle embrace. But, that didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid to die. His aim would be true and the blade sharp. She wouldn’t feel a thing. Killing her would be the mercy she longed for. She was a woman and would face her execution like a woman, bravely and without any hesitation. She would not beg in the end. Her last breaths would not be wasted on such a weakness. “Thank you.”

Drew was uncertain if taking one life, especially one not valued would sate the pack’s need for revenge and blood. If Angelica had offered her life in exchange for the lives of her brothers and truly felt the loss, perhaps then the pack would be satisfied. He could offer her no guarantees that the pack wouldn’t demand more blood to slake their needs. “Your brothers will have to be judged and sentenced. I can offer you no more than my word that they will receive a fair trial.”

Angelica nodded in understanding.

Carter leaned against the bookshelf watching the exchange between Drew and Angelica. He understood better than Drew that sometimes death was the better option to living. He had been there himself a time or two and sometimes still hovered on the brink. Drew had spared him when he should not have. Carter saw no salvation for this child only a slow bitter descent into insanity. It was better for Angelica to choose her own fate than to have it chosen for her. He saw the hesitation etched in Drew’s features. Drew didn’t want to execute a woman in a little girl’s disguise. The act would haunt him for the rest of his very long life. Drew valued life too much. Carter understood the mercy Angelica begged for. Carter’s hands were already stained so deeply by the blood he had spilled. There was no reason for Drew to stain his further. “She falls under Guardian jurisdiction. I will do it.”

Angelica tilted her chin and studied the stoic leader of the Guardians. There was a sympathy in Carter’s eyes she hadn’t expected to find. This was a man who knew the mercy of death and had perhaps, longed for it himself. Her outward appearance would make it difficult for any man to take her life. But, in Carter she saw no hesitation or reluctance, only the sweet merciful end she so longed for. She would take her own life and spare these two men the agony of killing her if she could. Vampires were hard to kill. A bullet to the brain would do the trick, but there was too much room for error and she wasn’t so certain she could pull the trigger.

“Do you want time to say goodbye to your brothers?” Drew asked.

“No. It would only frighten them. I’m ready now.” With Drew’s stoic nod of permission, Angelica strode to the door and opened it. She didn’t expect to see what she saw on the other side. The brotherhood down on bent knee with their heads dipped in reverence to her to bid her farewell. Her knees trembled as she took the first steps down the long hallway that led to the end of her life. She thrust her quivering chin up and called upon her faith in heaven to give her the strength to put one tiny foot in front of the other.

It was moonrise on the bluffs and the start to a crisp, clear autumn night. Bile rose in Nash’s throat at the thought of why he along with Mouse had been summoned to the bluffs. The brotherhood required witnesses to the execution. The child vampire, the little girl, had appealed for her life in exchange for her brothers’ lives. Pack justice was a harsh and terrible thing. There was no version of jail for the pack. Death was preferable to confinement for a wolf. Mouse grabbed his hand and held on tightly. For her perhaps this was more difficult. The child vampire, while not a child at all, was still a little girl in appearance and about the same age as her daughters and though her head knew the difference, her heart did not.

Mouse stood beside her grandfather and watched the Great White Wolf and Carter lead the little girl onto the bluffs. She was so brave, this woman child, holding her chin up stoically and taking each step so resolutely. Hers was the blood the pack demanded. Mouse would make sure that this one sacrifice was the only sacrifice that would be made. Blood for blood and flesh for flesh was the pack’s version of justice. Blood had been spilled and blood would be repaid. The pack craved the blood of the twins. Mouse honestly didn’t know what would happen to the men. Perhaps, Carter would take them into the Guardian’s fold. Perhaps, they would serve the brotherhood. But, one thing was certain. Nobody else would die for what had happened.

Phoenix and Danni were absolutely fine. Nobody needed to die at all. The little girl had chosen death. Mouse supposed the woman-child had her reasons. After all, Mouse had been a child once herself and knew the crazy desperation and the endless wait she had endured to finally grow up into an adult. She couldn’t imagine being trapped and never getting the chance to become a woman. What this woman had endured was a kind of living hell and the sacrifice, her willing sacrifice of her life, was a release from that torture.

Angelica’s steps wavered. The men had brought her into a wide clearing and guided her into a stop. The night was beautiful. She had never seen so many stars glittering in an absolutely perfect velvet sky. Angelica wondered when it would happen. She heard nothing but the night song of lazy crickets clinging to summer’s farewell and the wind rustling in the autumn dried leaves. She waited for the sound of a blade sliding free of a sheath and the swoosh of steel gliding through the air. She stood absolutely still with her face lifted up and her eyes focused on the stars, measuring each breath she took and waiting for the last one to swell her lungs. There was nothing and then there was something. A brilliance of white light surrounding her and the bliss of eternity stretched out before her. Such a peaceful place was death.

Carter dropped the blade onto the ground. He had given Angelica no warning. He had done what he had come here to do and it was done. She died with a smile on her face and the glimpse of eternity shining in her eyes. He had given her release and mercy. He hoped wherever she was she had gotten what she most wanted and on the other side she was a woman and a child no longer.

He could not contemplate the blood that stained his hands or the lives he had taken in his almost six hundred years on the planet. One day, maybe soon, maybe not, it would be his turn and he prayed the same mercy would be granted him as he had granted Angelica. He left Drew with the body and the wolves with the blood they demanded. Any vampire who actually believed he was immortal was a damn fool. Everyone died. It was just a matter of when and how.

Steven lifted his eyes to meet his brother’s. Paul was resolute that their fates would be the same as Angelica’s had been. Through their blood ties they knew she was dead. That she had chosen this end. Maybe, in death she had found the peace she could not find in life. He hoped so, for all of their sakes.

Chapter 91

Cat did a head count and then counted again for good measure. The members of the Brat Pack had grown since their last meeting of the minds almost two weeks ago. Daniel stood to the side with his arms crossed over his chest as if it was against his better judgment to be here, but here he was anyway.