After Dawn, What Came Next

Christian cast a wary eye over the cluster of paranormals blinking in the darkness of the cliffs over the sheer side of the bluffs out of earshot of where anybody could possibly overhear them. Sneaking Barbara out from under her father’s watchful eye had been no small trick, but Tom had managed. Phoenix and Danni had practically had to drag Daniel along, but here he was. Ray was a begrudging participant, standing on the other side of the wide cave mouth from Tom. Ray feared his link to Carter would sink their collective shit, if Carter got so much as hint of what they were up to.

Nobody invaded this sacred space, not even her father dared to enter the holy ground without good reason. The ancient pictographs of things long forgotten that had been painted by a people older than time on the granite surface of the walls danced in the dim glow of a single flashlight. It wasn’t easy to be young in the shadow of such older beings as her father. To them, it was simply easier to dismiss her appeals as foolhardy and impulsive than to actually listen to her plea the case for the twins. Danni and Phoenix didn’t want the males dead and if they didn’t, why should anybody else? Cat knew her logic was sold as the rough stone beneath her feet. But, getting someone to listen to her was an exercise in futility.

Their meager seven members had grown into nine with the addition of Daniel and Christian. Nine people against the world weren’t very good odds. But, they were the only hope the twins had of making it out of here alive. There was no engineering an escape from the prison cell. The brothers had grown wise to that idea a long time ago and had taken very extreme measures to prevent any attempt at a breakout. There was no court appointed attorney for the twins and there sure as hell wouldn’t be any stay of execution. The plan the Brat Pack had come up with had more holes than Swiss cheese, but it was the best they could think of. A protest had worked once. Why not try it again?

Cat was not exactly on her father’s good side at the moment. Her dad tolerated Christian rather than risk her wrath. It embarrassed the hell out of her, but with one look at her he had known what she had been up to. Well, it didn’t matter what he or anybody else thought. This was her life and she was going to do with it what she wanted to. If she was born to change the world as everybody claimed. It was high time she grew a set and started doing it. “Everybody is in agreement then?”

Daniel rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. This was the best their collective minds could come up with? A protest? Waving a bunch of poster board signs was not going to stop the brotherhood for serving its purpose nor was it going to satisfy the pack’s craving for blood. If Cat’s head were any higher in the clouds she would drift into outer space. She was so damn idealistic and the others were so enamored by her they readily jumped on the bandwagon. This woman could move mountains with nothing more than a few words out of her beautiful mouth. Too bad she was not trying to move a mere mountain, but tilt the entire world on its axis.

The climb up into the cave had Barbara’s muscles screaming. Ignoring the burn, she set to work on the task of fishing out poster board and scraps of two-by-fours from the scrap pile stashed in the back of the cave. Being down here in the brotherhood’s stronghold felt a little like sacrilege. This was the holy of holys as far as the brothers and the pack went. The brat pack had used this sacred ground as a meeting place for years. There was a nervous ripple of tension in the air as if the universe was on the verge of revealing itself to them. Change was coming and no, Barbara didn’t need Alex’s cosmic gift of foresight to see it coming. Cat was finally grown up and her feet on the path of her future. It’d be a shame to watch her go off on her own direction. But, their paths were not destined to be the same.

Barbara wondered what would happen to the seven of them that were going to be left behind once Cat and Christian were gone. Their fates were a crapshoot. Barbara doubted if even Alex could predict the outcome. Cat had bigger ideas in her head than saving the lives of the twins. Rescuing the two brothers was more like tying up a loose end than forging bravely ahead. Almost dying had changed Barbara’s point of view on a number of things. She wanted a different life for herself than she had imagined even as recently as last week. Her place was here. Strange she hadn’t realized it until she had almost lost it.

She didn’t understand why nobody that mattered had taken stock in what the Brat Pack had to say. The pack and the brotherhood hadn’t been wronged. They had. The assault happened to them. They almost died. Shouldn’t justice be theirs? Once again, it was a case of the big fish protecting the little minnows. She had long since outgrown the need for an adult’s protection. All of them had. Waving a few signs wasn’t going to save anybody’s life. It never had. It was more of the case of getting the attention the brat pack needed to get somebody to listen.

The Brat Pack went to work making signs and whispering plans to one another. Tom avoided Ray and Ray avoided him. They worked for the greater good. The kiss that shouldn’t have happened was the white elephant in the room both of them refused to acknowledge. Tom worked furiously with a black marker. His statement was simple. He wanted to make people think not simply accept what was as what had to be. Too bad he couldn’t take his own advice. Ray deserved so much better than society’s convention. Maybe, at heart, Tom was simply a conformist. Maybe, he couldn’t see Ray as Ray saw him because he didn’t want to.

Glancing at the man, crouched over a scrap of neon poster board, Tom tried to see Ray, the real Ray. There was so much coiled strength in Ray’s lean muscles. Ray’s broad back and shoulders hunched over his work. Ray’s width tapered down into lean hips and powerful thighs. Tom considered himself. He wasn’t shit. It was him that didn’t deserve Ray. Tom had plenty of ego and self-confidence, enough to fool his psyche, enough to fool Ray, but not enough to fool himself.

Tom didn’t have Ray’s raw physical strength. Being half-human, Tom took after his mom a little too much. He was slight for a member of the pack, lacking his father’s powerful build. His hair wasn’t the jet black or rich walnut brown so common in the pack. His skin wasn’t russet or his cheekbones high. He was tan almost pale, his eyes hazel, not brown, and as common as any other guy in the world. He was a shallow human being. His wolf was smaller than the other males and too often lost in the pack. Tom had the gift, but not in its fullness, not like Ray.

Tom despised himself for his shallowness. It wasn’t that Ray wasn’t a beautiful male that held Tom back. It wasn’t that Ray was unlovable or even unlikable. It was that Ray was too much of what Tom knew he was not that kept him at bay. Tom could handle his father’s criticism. Tom could deal with his mom’s sympathetic understanding. His parents would love him no matter what he chose to do with his life. The marker in his fist squeaked across the poster board. He was so focused on Ray and contemplating things best not contemplated that he didn’t notice the smell of smoke drifting in from the mouth of the cave or the power rippling over his skin.

Cat shivered at the sudden shift of the energy in the air. Something had happened. Something bad. She was on her feet and out of the cave with the others on her heels. In her haste she forgot that she had left Christian behind and he being human could not navigate the steep cliffs by himself.

Well, this was fucking fantastic. Cat had bolted and everyone else along with her, leaving him alone with nothing but a flashlight and a marker clutched in his fist. Christian grumbled under his breath and snatched up the flashlight, cursing when the power cell died plunging him into complete darkness. The smell of wood smoke drifting in and filling the cave with its pungent scent was a concern. What if the woods were on fire and he was about to become the human version of a smoked ham? Asphyxiation was not on his top ten list of ways to die.

Sometimes, Cat was so flighty. She seemed to forget the differences between them. Important things like the fact that he was human and couldn’t see shit in the dark. Christian stumbled out of the cave. He followed a weak beam of moonlight to the steep edge of a sheer cliff. Climbing down was not an option. He could just sit here and wait for Cat to remember she had left him behind. Christian hated the idea of having to be rescued. He hated having to rely on Cat for such simple things as getting his own ass out of here. It was embarrassing enough that she had carted him up to the caves on her back in the first place.

Determined to prove his point and not to certain of his climbing abilities Christian shimmied out further onto the ledge. It was a long way down and an even longer climb up. Sitting here and waiting for her to remember him was his best option. But, he simply couldn’t play damsel in distress. Biting his bottom lip, he fumbled for a handhold and pulled himself down over the edge. He could do this. Show her he was with her because she was the woman she was and not because of what she was.

There had to be something about the two of them that made them equals. His feet slid on the loose shale sending a mini rockslide tumbling down the cliff. The rock bit into his belly as he grappled blindly for anything to slow his descent. The world tipped crazily as he spiraled down.

Carter saw the boy fall. The orange glow of the pyre lit the night sky. The brothers had wasted no time sending Angelica to the spirit world. The ash drifting downward wasn’t that of burning logs but those of her body. He had moments to make a decision. The boy was unconscious and dying. God, he was so sick of death and of pyres and ashes on the wind. He wanted life and he could give it to this boy. This ground had claimed its last drop of blood. He wanted no more of death.

Carter studied the boy. Knocked unconscious, broken and bleeding, the boy had no time left to waste. Carter didn’t think about his actions or the consequences of them. He bit his wrist and fed his life to the boy. Cat might hate him for it. The Great Father might punish him for it. The boy might rather death, but Carter didn’t care. What good was he if he couldn’t master the death he had been cheated out of so long ago?

Cat blinked into the smoke from the pyre. Her father said not a word or offered any explanation. But, really what could he say? The thought of anyone dying sickened Cat. There had been other options, but this is what the little girl had chosen. There were so many choices in life. It made Cat’s mind whirl at the thought of them all. Fate was a thread that bound all living things. Standing there bathed in the smoke and stink of the pyre she began to understand the meaning of life and of death. All of them were victims of their own lives. Having all the choices in the world meant nothing if you didn’t choose anything at all.

For years she had lived, sheltered and suspended in her own inertia. The paranormal world existed along side the mortal world. In it, but never a part of it. Cat’s choices became clear. Christian was right. He didn’t belong in her world and she didn’t belong in his. They belonged in a world they built together.

The world she was born to change. Squaring her shoulders she looked up at her father. He knew the price of change. He had lived a human life in a fractured world born of blood and pain and he had died because of it. She was the daughter of a warrior. His blood flowed through her veins. He viewed the world that had come into being as his greatest failure. There were interstates and cities where once had stood thick woods and tourist attractions where the ground had once flowed red with the blood of those who had died in battle. There were monuments built to remember a past people had long since forgotten. Humanity had fallen asleep and it was time to wake them up again.

Cat clutched her stomach and doubled over in pain. Her link to Christian had been broken as easily as snapping a silken thread. Clenching her jaw, she lifted her head and scanned the bluffs. He wasn’t here. He hadn’t come out of the cave with her. Cursing her ADD and her stupidity, she remembered she had left him behind. Something wasn’t right. Christian’s consciousness should be snuggled up in her mind. Psychically, she should be able to reach out to him and feel him there. She couldn’t. “Christian!”

Drew watched his daughter bolt for the cliffs. He had sensed the minute Christian’s soul was set free and was then snatched back by the gift of the blood. There were times he wished he hadn’t had children and that the gift and the curse of igniting the spark of life had not been given to him. Cat had such a hard road ahead of her. As a father, he wanted to protect his little girl from as much a second’s worth of pain. But, he had sheltered her for far too long as it was. She was born to change the world. Change, even for the better, was a painful thing to endure.

Cat crouched beside Christian’s quivering body. He wouldn’t have chosen this. Wouldn’t have chosen to be like her. Carter had taken away that choice. Christian was healing, his body growing strong and whole as the transformation took place. Cat was grateful for this second chance with him, but also mournful that she would never carry his baby. Maybe, it was that the choice to become a mother or not had been taken away from her with Christian’s transformation had her thinking about things she had never considered before. “You saved his life.”

Carter dipped his head to Cat. He hadn’t saved anybody. He had condemned the boy in the sharing of his gift. Cat pressed a hand to her abdomen as if she were mourning the loss of what could have been. She didn’t know. An accident had taken Christian’s human life away from him, but not before he had given her something valuable and precious, the life growing inside of her. Carter knelt beside Cat. In her lap, she cradled Christian’s head and whispered soft, encouraging words to see him through the pain of being reborn. Carter stilled the hand she pressed to her belly. “I did nothing. The magic to live or to die was already within him. He chose life. He chose you and he chose the child growing inside of you.”

“Child?”

Carter smiled a sad smile at Cat and nodded. “Child.” He wrapped his long fingers around Cat’s delicate fingertips. “Congratulations, Cat. You’ve taken your first step toward changing the world.”

Christian’s eyes snapped open. The pain, the cold…the burning cold that surged through is limbs was indescribable. There was so much agony. The worst of his pain had subsided and there was little for him to do but concentrate on his breathing. His chest rose and fell with each breath…in and out. He should be dead. He was dead, but something had pulled him back by the roots of his hair into the land of the living. He ran the tip of his tongue over his canine teeth and wasn’t surprised to find the sharp points of fangs. His fear would have overrun him if not for Cat’s face smiling down at him and the words he had never ever considered he’d hear. He was going to be a dad and that was something worth living for.

“Your father…he is an old-fashioned man. Take it easy on him, Cat. Marry the boy.”

Chapter 92

Fallon stood behind Catcher and watched him as he flipped through the evidence on the computer screen. She had deleted the file, but not before she had made a backup copy. In the end she hadn’t been able to keep the secret. Catcher deserved to know.

“There should be some variance in your DNA. Even identical twins have subtle differences in their genetic makeup.” She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. It didn’t seem right not to tell him. The truth was not going to be easy for Catcher to digest. She was a doctor and she had told her share of unpleasant truths to patients over the years. Everyone deserved honesty. Fallon hadn’t breathed a word about the secrets she had discovered in Catcher and Tracker’s DNA to anyone. But, of course, there was one other person who knew the secret of the brothers and had held it guarded close to her chest for far too many years. Eloise knew the truth of her twin omegas. She ought to. She had created them.

Fallon’s worst fear was that Catcher would see only the truth on the computer screen and not bother to look beyond it. That somehow this carefully planned pattern of genetic materials…the proteins so neatly locked together…that they in their perfection and careful engineering would change his concept of the man he had always thought he was. To her, Catcher was still Catcher. She couldn’t look upon him any differently. DNA was only a blueprint. It took more than genetic sequencing to make a man who he truly was at the heart of himself.

The concept of the spark of life had always befuddled Fallon. Science could only explain so much. The vampires were fueled by something beyond the blood flowing in their veins. Each wolf generation carried something…more…into the future. That magic? There was no definition for it. No evidence of what it was that transformed this double helix from nothing but a strand of proteins into a human being. Would Catcher understand this? He had been so desperate for some proof. What would it do to him to realize the simple fact that he hadn’t been born at all? He had been created and transplanted into a womb. Been carried inside a woman’s body and delivered into the world. But, he…the flesh and bone that made up his body and the DNA within the walls of living material had been the result of nothing but science.

Fallon couldn’t bring herself to hate Eloise for what she had done to Catcher and Tracker. Without Eloise, they wouldn’t exist at all. Tracker wasn’t really Catcher’s brother. The two of them were exact copies of each other. Clones. Something that had never been before and never would be again. Genetically, there were exactly the same. It was that spark inside that was so different. Fallon closed her eyes and gripped Catcher’s trembling shoulder. Please, she prayed silently. Please, don’t let this change him. “Catcher, say something.”

Catcher shut the computer down. He sat at the desk in silence. The truth was as he had always suspected. He knew some of the facts surrounding his birth. He had no father. He simply hadn’t wanted to believe that he had no mother. He was a result of genetic material spliced together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. There had been a host subject, a female seen as nothing more than a vessel for the greater good of the pack, but she was truly not his mother. Hell, his brother wasn’t really his brother, but an exact copy of him. “What am I, Fallon?”

“Not what, but who. This genetic soup is you, but only the flesh and bone. Who you are in your heart hasn’t changed.”

“Does Tracker know?”

Fallon shook her head and willed Catcher to look up into her eyes. She had no idea what he was thinking. He sat with his head dipped low so that she could not read the expression on his face. His muscles were tense beneath her fingertips. She could sense his rage and confusion. All his life he had been told one thing and she was asking him to believe something different. He knew his purpose. Why he had been born. In all his years of struggling with the reason he was alive. He had only recently accepted that there was more than defense and a bitter painful end waiting for him. Tracker had already found himself. He had the ability to look beyond. For him, the genetic circumstances of his birth didn’t matter. He was who he was. “Do you think it would matter to Tracker?”