Darkest Before Dawn

The Native Dawn Series Book 2

Darkest Before Dawn

Live your life that the fear of death

can never enter your heart

Trouble no one about his religion...

Respect others in their views

and demand that they Respect yours...

Love your Life, Perfect your Life...

Beautify All things in your Life...

Seek to make your life long

and of service to your people...

Prepare a noble death song for the day

When you go over the great divide..

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting

or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place

Show respect to all people, but grovel to no one...

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light,

for your Life, for your Strength

Give Thanks for your Food and for the joy of Living...

If you see no reason to give thanks...

The Fault Lies in........Yourself.

Shawnee Warrior Tecumseh

Prologue

"Awaken Warrior." The feminine voice whispered in his ear. The melodic sound was as beautiful as the sounding of thousands of tinkling silver bells and as horrific as a thousand agonized screams. The warrior lifted his head from the hard packed dirt and groaned as a new wave of agony surged through his battle ravaged body in reward for the trouble.

Wave after wave of agony rippled along his flesh, tearing deep into his viscera with the icy bite of cold unlike anything he'd ever felt. The warrior stumbled to his feet, the limbs clumsy and as unruly as an infant's first steps. The warrior dropped to his knees, molars clenched against the scream building in his throat. He gripped his head with trembling fingers, trying to remember.

Each thought was scrambled and disjointed, colliding with one another with such randomness that he could not piece them together. The battle, yes, he remembered the battle. Harsh. Bitter. Bloody. Pain so much pain, he remembered now. Haphazard memories fell into place, faster and faster. The British...his allies...no, not his allies...not enemies...not there. Deserters! They left him...left him and his brothers...to die.

Dead! The bullet...he was hit...injured...dying. He was dead? I am dead! No, not dead. The scream, such an agonized wail, confirmed that. He wasn't dead. Yet, the death song, his death song echoed in his ears as if he'd already sung it. The words, they were such good words, worthy words, his words...words for the dead. His lips formed the words, his song, the song of his death. Dead? NOT. DEAD. Something else? He was...but, he was not....Dead...but, not dead.

The warrior's fingers traveled along the path of destruction. His clothing was torn, reeking with the stench of gunpowder. Should be dead. His clothing tattered...stiff with blood. His blood. Should be dead, yes. The flesh should have been destroyed, tattered like his clothing. But, it was whole, tainted by his blood. BLOOD! His death song died on his lips. The impulse slammed into him. Much like the bullet had torn through his flesh and lodged deep inside his body. The thought tore through his mind and buried itself there. Unshakable. Unstoppable. Undeniable. Blood.

Hunger racked his body. Infused every part of him. Hunger, so akin to his pain, agonizing hunger. The warrior's eyes snapped open and fixed on his prey. Agile as the panther, his namesake, he stalked across the camp. Every heartbeat sounded like a drum in his ears. Every breath, so cautious and measured, whispered like a breeze over his cheeks. Wide-eyed, the prey watched him creep closer. The prey twitched, body vibrating with terror, cornered like a rabbit, pinned by the horror of its upcoming death. The scent of fear mingled with the scent of blood roused the predator and peaked his hunger.

The Prophet stood his ground. The hunter was his brother. He'd seen visions of his death, shadowy images of a distant future, and this was not his time. The predator stalked closer on silent feet. Moving with such stealth and grace that the Prophet paused to admire each step. This was not the time of his death. But, a time for rebirth, delivered by his brother's kiss. "Brother."

The word "Brother" meant nothing to the predator. The warrior was gone. Dead, perhaps. This vessel was just an empty shell. Nothing of the warrior remained trapped inside. There was only the predator and the promise of blood, an end to his suffering. Muscles coiled, braced to attack, the hunter sized up his prey. Weak. Defenseless. An easy kill. The sound of the prey's blood filled with the promise of a lover's whisper in a desperate ear. Bliss. Yes. Bliss. The predator sprang on the prey. Trapping it beneath his powerful body. YES! This was love. This was life. This was...everything. Like his great cat, the predator dug his fangs deep into the fragile flesh and feasted.

The predator drank down the life pinned beneath him. Each gulp brought such bliss, such relief, such release. He'd never known bliss as this. The heartbeat once as loud as a drum weakened to a fleeting pulse. The blood of his prey, thick and sweet, tasted like honey on his tongue. He gnawed hungrily at the flesh, lapping and coaxing each sugared drop free. More. Need. More. There was no thought beyond that. Nothing beyond the bliss on the tip of his tongue and the empty void it filled.

Brother...The thought moaned...it screamed...it shouted in the predator's head. The warrior loosed an agonized scream, piercing through the darkness. What had he done? He'd cheated death only to pay it back with his brother's life. His brother's eyes, so empty, drained of life, sparked with a fleeting hint of accusation. The Prophet was a heartbeat, maybe two, from the shores of the Great River. His brother promised him victory, promised him life. And in return he'd delivered him into the hands of death. "What have I done!"

Kokumthena ran her hands over the warrior's back. There was no birth without pain. No joy without suffering. And no life without death. It was the way her father, The Creator, had designed the universe. Absolute perfection. The Prophet would not die today. She'd given him a vision of his death only to give him strength in this moment. This was not his time to die. "Share your gift. Father your first child."

The Warrior had no idea what to do. Once death came there was no turning back. His brother was ice in his arms, so cold and lifeless. How could he give him life? The goddess asked what was not possible. He couldn't do it. Then... her words...how she'd delivered him from the flames of the pyre...he remembered. HE REMEMBERED EVERYTHING. He was no bringer of death, but a deliverer of life. He held the key no man should hold. It flowed through his veins. He had the power to snatch life out of death's icy embrace.

With a quick flash of fang against flesh, he held his wounded wrist to his brother's lips. "Drink and live." Not an option, a command. Air whooshed out of his lungs at the tug of his brother's mouth against his wrist. Life, beautiful life, flowed from his wrist and in between his brother's pale, lifeless lips.

When it was done, the warrior crouched on the ground. Weakened and dizzied from the sharing of his life, he watched his brother writhe in the throes of rebirth. Born of blood and of pain, his first Son was born.

Chapter 1

"Oh, thank God you're awake," the lilting voice of a female echoed in Patrick's ears. His skin flushed at the light brush of feminine fingertips across his forehead. He swallowed hard, struggling to resist the urge to burry his fangs into her willowy wrist. Sitting up to have a little look around, he shielded his eyes against the bright rays of sun managing to creep in through narrow cracks in the boarded windows.

The coolness of smooth, dingy, tile soaked through the tears in his jeans. Peeling chunks of plaster, stained with age and brownish water spots, dangling by thin remnants of paint, threatened to join the dusty mounds of fallen ceiling already scattered here and there in heaps on the floor. The constant, rhythmic drip of a faucet caked with lime and rust caused his head to throb. Decay and decades of misuse made for bleak surroundings. But, it was better than the box. Hopelessness surged through him. At least, there were probably rats here, if the smell was anything to gauge by. "Where are we?" he scowled.

Nikki grinned at him brightly and answered. "I'm not sure, exactly. But, if you listen closely, you can hear the noise of the interstate, not too far off. That means we're close to people, and where there's people, there's help." She trotted to the sink and turned the rusty tap. "Look running water," she said, splashing a handful in his direction.

To her, given the impenetrable darkness of the box, this was a step up in the world. She trotted to the left and kicked a door open. There was no way she was touching the filth-encrusted knob. "And a bathroom. Hey it's icky, and there's no toilet paper. But, a toilet is a toilet, right?" Smiling slyly, she tiptoed to the window in the far corner of the room and slid a board free. "If we're careful, they'll never know its' loose. Maybe if we try we can get some more boards free and climb out the window." Nikki plopped down next to Patrick. "This is definitely better. Don't you think?"

Patrick admired Nikki's tenacity and enthusiasm. But, he hardly shared it. He wasn't sure how much longer he could control his hunger. "Yeah, sure," he said, keeping his thoughts to himself. Let her have a little hope while she could. She'd become aware of the reality of their predicament all too soon.

Gently, she laid a hand on his shoulder. Patrick trembled in response to her touch, and her warmth. His fangs slid free just to remind him, in case he forgot, what a bastard he really was. "Hey," Nikki said softly, "Don't give up yet. As long as we're alive, there is hope."

Patrick slid away, detaching his shoulder from her hand. He moaned in response to the wave of hunger doubling him over. "You don't understand. Get away from me!" he hissed. He was hungry. Depleted from getting the shit beat out of him. The wall, or rather his head banging against it in frustration, distracted his thoughts for the moment. Why didn't the rogues just get it over with and kill him? Groaning, he closed his eyes. He knew why. They thought he was one of them. Or, would be once they got through with him.

"Patrick," Nikki said cautiously, her voice lilted with panic, "Patrick, you okay?" The fangs were a little hard to miss, and a lot difficult for her to understand. There were things she'd gathered, bits and pieces of knowledge, gleaned over her short time in captivity. She felt a little like Alice in the rabbit hole. But, this guy and her captors were no rabbits and this was no rabbit hole. They were...hell, she couldn't even wrap her head around the logic of her thoughts. Despite what her mind wanted to or not to believe, she knew, she was in deep shit.

This guy had protected her. Or had at least tried to. She didn't remember much after the bastards threw her in the shipping container. But, she remembered Patrick's fight. How desperately he'd struggled to get free and to protect her. A guy who would fight like that for a stranger's life, for her life, couldn't be all bad, right?

Nikki reached out with a trembling hand meant to comfort him. Patrick crouched as far away from her as he could get. His back pressed against the crumbling plaster of the wall. Apparently, she had shit for survival instincts. She should be locked in the bathroom or huddled in some corner, well out of his reach, in the confines of their deluxe luxury suite in hell. Instead, like a dumb ass, she felt the need to protect him, to do something to comfort him.

Stupid. He just looked so young and defenseless. He couldn't be more than eighteen, maybe as old as twenty tops. It was just that this kid, and he was a kid, reminded her so much of her baby brother. They were so similar. They had the same gangly body type. Limbs trapped between manhood and boyhood, so awkward, all sinew and stringy muscle not fully filled out into a man's hardness. So much like her brother, right down to the mop of tousled hair, styled sloppily in a surfer cut, low over the eyes. Patrick's was that color most people called dirty dishwater blond. Where her brother's hair was infused with streaks of blond from countless hours in the sun. She couldn't help but try to do something to make this better. Protect him, the way she had her brother her entire life.

When Patrick's head snapped up. That's where the similarities ended. Green eyes, infused with a gold so intense they seemed to glow, sized her up. He had the body of a kid. But, his eyes were the eyes of an old man. Hardened and sharpened from decades of seeing too much, knowing too much. Nikki gasped as Patrick, in a move so fast she hadn't seen it, mercilessly gripped her wrist with cold, vice like fingers. She struggled to wrangle free from his hold to no avail. The harder she twisted and pulled, the tighter he gripped until she couldn't help the moan, equal parts shock and pain, that escaped her lips.

Patrick pulled, drawing her wrist closer to his mouth. He was so damned hungry. Depleted of his strength. Pangs of emptiness roared through his body. Bruised and battered, cuts reluctant to heal, stung and burned with each flex of his body. How long had it been since he felt this kind of pain? Human pain? She could ease his suffering. One drink. One long, slow, satisfying sip would do it. What chance did she have of getting out of here alive anyway? He'd be doing her a favor. The smell of her blood so near to the surface of her skin, coursing through her wrist, pressed to his nose was maddening. Timidly, his tongue snaked out to feel the bounding pulse just beneath the surface of her skin.

Nikki screamed at the sight of razor sharp fangs. In some insane way, she was relieved that she wasn't crazy after all. She really did see them. They were real. Not something she dreamed up. But, nonetheless, she screamed terrified by the thought of her own death. Did it hurt to die? She really, really did not want to find out. "Oh my god, what are you?" she whispered.

"Fuck!" Patrick muttered under his breath. Releasing Nikki's wrist as if the flesh had burned him. He watched her scramble for a far corner of the room. Never taking her eyes, round with terror and realization, off of him. The blue of her eyes, pupils dilated with fear, pierced through his heart, reminding him of what he truly was. He squeezed his lids shut and gulped back the ceaseless hunger.

Unlike his brothers, he was a killer. Born rogue and captured by The Sons. They saved him. Trained him to control his savage hunger. Through them, he learned the difference between merely being alive and truly living. Since the day of his escape from the darkness, he embraced their lifestyle, fighting at their side for the cause.

He'd never known why the Great Father spared his life. Never dared to ask his leader that one burning question, too afraid of the answer he'd get. He was a redeemed man with only a vague hope of repaying the blood shed for his salvation. Humbled and contrite, he never forgot the sins he committed and the lives he'd greedily taken. And he'd never stop trying to pay for each stone of the golden path on which he walked.

"Oh my god! Oh my god!" Nikki sat with her knees protectively pulled up to her chest, staring at Patrick with wide-eyed disbelief. It was one thing to know, and quite another to KNOW. Patrick groaned and sat up, scooting further away from her until his back rested against the cold surface of a wall. "At first I doubted what I saw. I thought I was having some kind of a traumatic response reaction," Nikki babbled with a shaky tremulous voice. "But, now..., Oh my god!"

She felt around her neck and grasped a dainty chain that encircled it. Fumbling with the pendant, she tightened her fingers around the cross and flashed it in his direction. The thin rays that found their way through the cracks in the boards covering the window reflected off the gold in a rainbow of color. "Stay back!" she said triumphantly, "I've seen every vampire movie ever made. I know what this can do to you! Back Satan!"

Patrick slumped against the wall. Just what he needed, to be trapped in hell with a comedienne. This was funny, really funny. His shoulders quaked with sarcastic laughter. As if it were that easy to hold him off. He watched Nikki grasping the cross with such a look of hard determination splayed across her face. "Not that a little prayer wouldn't hurt right now, in fact, I'm all for it. But, if I wanted to harm you, that wouldn't stop me." He barred his fangs for emphasis. "You'd better pray harder, Little Girl."

Nikki's determination faded to desperation as she tucked the cross back into the collar of her shirt. Shit. "Sunlight?" she asked. Her eyes never left Patrick. She frowned at the sarcastic way he shook his head. "Stake through the heart? Holy water?"... she trailed off, thinking of all the ways to kill a vampire. She'd seen them all in movies and on TV and they always worked. Always.

"Nope." Patrick said, closing his eyes. Watching her stirred the hunger within him. He didn't want to kill her. He didn't want to go to that dark place where he was so long ago. This time, there would be no turning back.

"What would then?" Nikki asked in a small voice. Maybe, Patrick wasn't a vampire. Maybe, her mind was playing tricks on her. All the signs were there. The big pointy fangs, the way he looked at her like she was a juicy steak.

Patrick sighed and leaned his head against the wall. "Trust me, if I thought you could kill me with anything we have here, I'd tell you." Killing him would solve one problem, at least for him. For her, it would only create a slew more. She'd still have to get past the rogues in one piece. And that wasn't happening. "You'd be doing me a huge favor."

Nikki curled herself up in a tighter ball. Her knuckles turned white as she grasped her knees in a death grip. "You are what I think you are, aren't you?"

Patrick opened his eyes and stared at Nikki dispassionately. There was no point in hiding it. But, telling her would only scare the shit out of her. She was really a beautiful girl. Bright and shiny as a new penny with light brown hair, draping down over her shoulders in disheveled curls. Brilliant blue eyes as light as the cloudless sky that was so out of their grasp. And a petite, curvy frame that would make a lesser man quiver in temptation. The only thing that tempted him was her blood. He sighed, she was afraid of him, and with good reason. "And what would that be?"

Nikki hesitated to answer. She knew what she saw. And damn it, she wasn't crazy, not yet, anyway. In her mind she reviewed the irrefutable facts. "A vampire," she whispered as if saying it aloud would make it any truer than what it was.

Patrick lowered his eyes as he nodded his head. "I am what you would call a vampire." There was no denying it and no reason to withhold any secrets. In all likelihood they would both be dead soon anyway. His strength waned minute by minute; he was as defenseless against his captors as she was. The knowledge couldn't hurt her. And maybe, it would help, somehow.

"Can't you turn into a bat or something? Don't you have super strength or mind control, anything like that? If you're a vampire how come you can't get yourself out of this mess?" The tenor in Nikki's voice was one of frustration. "How come you can't get me out?" Her voice trailed of meekly weighted by the question.

Patrick glared at Nikki. He bared his fangs on the verge of losing self-control, again. Did humans really believe the stupid shit they saw in the movies or was she an exception? "It doesn't work that way. They're keeping me weak on purpose. And you, the fact that you're here with me, alive, doesn't do you any favors. Do you get what I mean?" He pounded his head against the wall in frustration, again at his own stupidity for being captured in the first place. He should have gotten himself killed. Would have been easier that way.