After Dawn, What Came Next

She hated to let Paul and Steven go out into the world with nobody but Cat and Christian as guides. The four of them against the entire world, it didn’t seem like very good odds. They needed help and it wasn’t like she had any plans. Besides, she had another reason for wanting to go. Not that she was quite ready to admit it yet. “What the hell, why not? I’m in too.”

Chapter 97

Fallon filled the last of the cardboard boxes with the remnants of her uncle’s life. Aunt Alex simply hadn’t been able to step foot into the house and in the mean time someone had to do the things that needed done. Having a task to focus on kept her busy. She wasn’t alone in the house. Catcher had taken one glance at the loose shingles and sagging gutters and gotten to work.

Her mom wasn’t in any better shape than Alex. Fallon wanted the luxury of falling apart too. But, it just wasn’t her style to crawl up into a corner and let the world keep on spinning while she cried. This old house deserved better than what it was getting. These rooms should be filled with life and joy instead of sitting empty. There was so much history contained within these walls. Bits and pieces left behind of the generations of family who had called this place home. They were all gone now. Her uncle was the last link between the past and the present.

The truth was. Nobody wanted the house. The place was literally falling down. There were no relatives to call. Alex was the last branch on that particular tree and she would not be blossoming anytime soon. Fallon knew her mom, who had rights to the house after Alex, would not want to live here. Her mother’s life was with the pack. Fallon glanced up at the kitchen ceiling after hearing a loud boom from above and a sharp muttered curse from Catcher.

Fallon shook her head and blinked back a stray tear she refused to let fall. Her great uncle had been patching that roof together for decades out of bits and pieces of this and that he salvaged from the barn. There was probably more scrap and duct tape holding the whole house together than there were nails and boards. Catcher was good with his hands. He loved fixing things. And now that he had started the labor, Fallon didn’t have to guess that there’d be no stopping him until the task was finished.

She scrubbed harder at the tile on the floor. The linoleum in front of the stove was worn thin and brittle from the passing of so many feet over the years. The kitchen had been one of her great aunt’s favorite places. There had always been a pie or something so good and decadent baking in the oven. There was always a pot of freshly brewed coffee read. Treats left out to cool on the counter. And even on cloudy days, sunshine streamed through the red and white checked gingham curtains.

This house had been a home and it should be again. Hell, for a time as a rambunctious little girl, it had been her home. Fallon placed a hand to her flat stomach. There was no baby growing inside of her, but one day soon, there might be. Alex fretted over the house. She hadn’t said anything, but Fallon knew that the fact Alex could not fill these rooms with children deeply disturbed her. This house should be as it always had been. She was pack. But, the pack home wasn’t too far away. Fallon had her own set of worries. Primarily, how Catcher and she were supposed to start a life of their own with the past surrounding them.

Daniel wasn’t leaving. Fallon was glad for that. But, there was only so much salt you could rub in an old wound that might never completely heal. Daniel was congenial when they accidentally bumped into one another. The fact that what might have been and was never going to be was tearing the both of them apart. This old place needed a lot of work. But, that was the way with old houses. It already was what mattered the most. It was a home.

Catcher cursed and wadded the duct tape into a sticky ball in his fist. He could not stand to see anything in a state of disrepair. This old house had good bones. Most of the repairs needed to make the house solid again were superficial. The shingles on the roof were weather worn and in places duct taped down with layers and layers of tape. The windows were held in their frames in places with duct tape and peeling paint. Nothing he couldn’t fix though and definitely not as bad as the destruction he had sifted through after Eloise and the pack abandoned their Texas home.

He sucked his thumb and shook off the throbbing ache shooting through his nail bed. The only hammer he had been able to find was loose and rusty and he had smacked his thumb a good one while trying to piece the guttering back together. This wasn’t his house and he shouldn’t be so critical about its dilapidated state. But, he just couldn’t endure watching the shingles flapping in the breeze and the gutters dangling by a few loose screws another second.

Just righting the few wrongs he had been able to with a handful of stray nails and the rusty hammer had made him feel useful again. He may have been born as a weapon, but in his heart of hearts, he suspected, if he had been able to choose his own path in life, he might have been a carpenter. He loved fixing things. The smell of freshly sawed lumber and working with his hands called to him on a level that was almost spiritual.

Catcher stood on the back porch and inhaled the fresh, smoky scent of falling leaves in the chilly autumn breeze. The land here was hilly and thick with woods and wild. Beyond the weathered fence, the pasture rose and fell like an ocean tide. There was a peacefulness to this place. Catcher hadn’t known Alexander and Leigh Gray or the Grays that had come before them, but he could understand why they had chosen to call this place home.

Catcher came in through the backdoor and deposited the wad of duct tape he had pried from the shingles into the trash. Fallon sat on her haunches in front of the stove and snickered at his apparent disdain for all things duct tape related. She probably couldn’t smell it with her half-human nose, but he could. The sweet scent of vanilla and sugar lingered in the air. It was a good smell one of hearth and home and of family.

With her hair pinned up in disarray, gritty and grimy and her shirt damp from the dirty water in the scrub bucket, she had never looked more beautiful. Catcher could see Fallon’s family in her. She had Alex’s wide smile and her great aunt’s button nose. She had her great uncle’s cleft chin and dotting of freckles across her cheeks. From her mother she had inherited the fullness to her lips and the traces of gold in her hair. There was plenty of her father in Fallon too, in the unusual shade of blue of her eyes and the grim determination in the set of her jaw. This was what it meant to have parents and heritage. To know exactly where it was you came from. Catcher felt a pang of the wanting for more. Of wanting someplace of his own, where he could start a family with her and seek out the traits he would pass down from himself to his children.

“That was where I sat at the kitchen table,” Fallon said to Catcher as he took a seat. “The dishes always went in those cabinets and the glasses in this one. The cookie jar was over there,” she said pointing to the vacant spot on the counter. She had already packed up the kitchen and the boxes were stacked in the living room ready for their final journey to charity. It had broken her heart to pack her great aunt’s things. It seemed somehow wrong to take them out of the house where they had always been.

“The house needs a lot of work,” Catcher said. “It’ll take time, but it can be done. I’m not sure if I’ll ever unearth all the duct tape your uncle used to hold this place together or not.”

Fallon snorted, “Uncle Alexander loved his duct tape.” She dropped her scrub brush into the soapy water with a wet splash. “You know, this house and the land it sits on has been in the Gray family since the early eighteen hundreds. This floor and the walls and the roof overhead are part of the original homestead. It seems a shame not to have one of the family living inside of them.”

Catcher pretended to be clueless. He didn’t care if he lived in a tent in the middle of the woods or under a rock, as long as she was happy and there with him. It was obvious she loved this house almost as much as she had loved the people who had called it home. “There’s only one bathroom and three bedrooms. It might get a little crowded.”

“Crowded?”

“I suppose we could build on though.”

“Wait a minute. I’m still stuck on the crowded thing.”

Catcher grinned and winked at Fallon. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. You’re the last of your family tree and I don’t have one of my own. You know, I think we ought to get started on adding some branches immediately.”

“How many branches, exactly?”

“I don’t know. Ten or so, maybe more.”

Fallon scrambled up off the floor. If Catcher thought she was going to birth ten kids into the world, he had another thing coming. One…maybe two, but ten, the man was insane. “Ah…”

Catcher snatched Fallon up and cradled her in his arms. Loving her was right. Loving her here in this house that was so much a part of her was absolutely perfect. This house was not a place of death, but one of life. He might not have known Leigh and Alexander, but he could sense that from wherever they were. Heaven. Paradise. Whatever name best fit the afterlife. They were smiling down on the two of them from up there. “Why don’t we start with just the two of us and see what happens from there?”

Chapter 98

Night had fallen. Alex took a deep breath and approached the pyre. Her dad had earned the right to a warrior’s funeral. The future waited for no one and it was time to lay him to rest. Threads of gold and sliver woven into his shroud glittered in the flames from her lit torch. All she had to do was toss the torch into the wood and give him over into the hands of the goddess. He was gone. It was his body there on the pyre about to be consumed by the flames. She closed her eyes and tried to remind herself of that simple fact. The body was just a shell nothing more. And if she ever wanted to visit him, needed to remember or to mourn, he had a grave, empty as it was, in the cemetery.

She had been here before more times than she cared to count. Life ended, that was the only certainty. Sometimes she could still smell the smoke from Lucien’s pyre. Her fingers quivered around the torch. Unlike Lucien, her father had lived a good, happy, long life. Lucien had known happiness. The two of them had known such a brief time of happiness before he was stolen away from her. Chance had to share her with Lucien’s memory and now, he would share a piece of her soul with her father. Perhaps, it wasn’t fair to him, but that’s the way it was. His parents…her… she prayed he would never know the pain of losing someone you had loved so desperately.

Gathering her courage, encouraged by the presence of the brothers and so many people together to send her father off, she tossed the torch into the kindling. The flames went up in a blaze of orange and heat. Like her father would have wanted. Hungry tongues licked at the hem of his death shroud and eagerly consumed what the folds of fabric hid beneath. Here in this holy place, Alex could feel the presence of the goddess and those who had gone into her gentle embrace. She smiled at the gentle brush of her mother’s sprit brushing against hers. Her father’s was a stronger, almost tingling kind of energy. And Lucien’s, his was as warm and welcome as a ray of sunshine on a cold winter’s day. They were here with her and always would be until the day they were all finally reunited at long last. “Take care of each other,” Alex whispered.

Alex didn’t leave until the flames had consumed the last of the wood to ash and the dawn streaked across the sky. She sat, warmed by Lucien’s ethereal presence, cross-legged in the dewy summer dried grass. The funeral goers had left and given her privacy. The last of the chanting had gone with them. Even Chance, in that instinctive way of his knew she needed to be alone to say her final goodbyes.

Alex closed her eyes at the feel of warmth brushing across her lips and cheeks. It was as real as if Lucien had been standing in front of her in the flesh. She smiled and called the image of him forth from the corners of her mind. His likeness was not as clear as it once had been. There were details dulled by time that she had forgotten such as the exact shade of brown of his eyes and the way the light cast blue highlights in his dark hair. There were some things though she would never forget, such as the heat of his mouth against hers and the warm exhale of his breath across her cheeks.

She let the memory of his kiss sweep her away to another place and time. This is where they had said their last goodbye and he had stolen one final kiss. He was already gone and spirit then. He had told her to find love. She had. Yet, for all the love Chance had for her there was still an empty spot that only Lucien could fill. With him here with her now, the void was filled. Everything felt so right with the world and she wished she could simply drift away. She was earthbound. Held firmly in place by the laws of physics. The breeze ruffled her hair and played with the corners of her mouth. It was Lucien stealing one more kiss and telling her goodbye yet again.

One day there wouldn’t be any more goodbyes. It would be a long wait, a very long wait before she arrived at the place where Lucien was. Alex couldn’t imagine being left behind again, if Chance beat her there. But, she couldn’t imagine being spirit and shadow like Lucien and bound to Chance through the ties of love as Lucien was bound to her. “I love you,” she whispered to the open air. “I will always love you.”

Chapter 99

Daniel had agreed to accompany Cat. It wasn’t like he really had anything better to do besides brood over his own stupidity at losing Fallon. He wasn’t ready for love on the grand scale Fallon had asked of him. Maybe, someday he would be, but it was still a long time away. It was somewhat of a relief to hear that Fallon and Catcher were moving into the old house. Not only would Fallon be well taken care of but that old house would still remain standing. Daniel had never been the handyman that Catcher was. He was usually the one to smash things to bits rather than rebuild them.

Mouse and Tristen had talked him into going along with Cat for the ride. Apparently, his siblings thought he needed something constructive to do with his time. They weren’t asking him to leave. Just to give himself the space he needed to contemplate his place in the world.

It truly was an awesome task to be trusted with guarding the future of both races. Truth be told, he was more than a little nervous about it. It wasn’t only the protecting of Cat that had him on edge. Carter was also coming along. Apparently, if Cat was going to introduce the humans to the paranormal world, it was best for everyone if the humans met the things that went bump in the night in their entirety. Daniel wondered if his sister wouldn’t be a better choice to represent the pack than either Phoenix or himself. Mouse was a diplomat. She was so polished and he and Phoenix, well, they were more than a little rough around the edges.

Daniel checked his weaponry one last time and tucked it into the various holsters strapped to his body. Evan had been strangely absent. If he knew what was going to happen, he sure as hell wasn’t saying. Sometimes Evan’s visions failed him. Something, Evan liked to chalk up to freewill. Anyone could change their mind and therefore, their future. Nice theory, that, but Daniel wondered if Evan was just as clueless as the rest of them. This was such a mishmash of the paranormal going to see Cat into her bid to change the world. Christian, Carter, Megan, Phoenix, Barbara, much to her father’s disagreement, the twins, and him. What a mess this little dysfunctional representation of the paranormal world was.

His battered duffel bag was packed. His weapons locked and loaded and the group was heading out. He closed the door to his bedroom behind him and didn’t bother glancing down the hall at the empty room that had at one time been his and then had been occupied by Fallon. At such a premium, someone would soon claim the space. Daniel knew he would be back. At least, he had decided something. This was and would always be his home.

There was the usual band of well wishers gathered around the SUV to see them off. Daniel received a shy hug from Mouse and a clap on the back from Tristen. His father was more direct and went for the one armed man hug. Gina gave him a soft peck on the cheek and made him promise to call at least ten times a day. Daniel shook the hand of the little sister he barely knew and made a promise to himself right then and there that when he returned he would be the big brother to Claire that he ought to have been all along.

He was surprised to see Fallon standing in the second story window looking out at him. She pressed a hand to the glass and waved down at him. Her eyes were dry and there weren’t any tears, not this time. But, her smile held just a hint of sadness. They had been here before, twenty some years ago. But, this was a different goodbye than that one had been. She lifted her fingertips to her lips and blew him a kiss. This wasn’t the desperate kiss of a love struck teenager or of a woman whose passion would never be unleashed. This was the kiss of a friend and not a lover. Daniel pretended to capture the kiss in his palm and pressed his fist to his heart before tucking the pretend kiss into his pocket for safekeeping.

Cat climbed into the backseat, batting her dad’s hands away as he checked the seatbelt. “Dad, I’m going to be fine.”

Drew had no doubt that his daughter would indeed be fine, but that had never stopped a father from worrying about his little girl. He couldn’t tell her how to make her way in the world or that she even needed to do it in the first place. All birds had to leave the nest if they were going to fly and it was time for his baby girl to soar high up into the sky.

Tala rested a hand on Drew’s bicep and gently guided him away from the SUV. If she hadn’t, the group would be sitting here all day waiting for him to find the strength to let Cat go. She too wanted to grab hold of Cat and never let her go, but children turned into adults and truly a parent had no choice. She could remember the day she set out from the only home the pack had ever known and trekked across the country to come here. Her father hadn’t wanted to go, but if she hadn’t so many things that had happened, both the good and the bad, wouldn’t have happened.

She would have married eventually. Probably a man she didn’t love out of her sense of duty to the pack. She wouldn’t have met Drew and fallen in love. She wouldn’t have given birth to Cat. Her entire life and the lives of so many others would have taken a different course if she hadn’t made that first brave journey. Standing to the side and letting Cat go off on her own road hurt, but it was a good kind of pain. Who knew where Cat’s journey would take her. The only thing Tala knew was that the road would lead her to the rest of her life and that while it might be a bumpy road. It was going to be a road worth traveling.

She and Drew were not the only misty eyed parents in the crowd and not the only ones reluctant to let their little ones leave the nest. Everyone hovered, surrounding the SUV as the minutes ticked by. Nobody wanted to say goodbye, but were unsure of what to say instead. Someone was going to have to take the lead. Otherwise these kids were never going to get on the road. Tala urged Drew up the steps and onto the wide front porch just to get everybody else moving too.