Dawn's First Light

He rapped Keene on the head with his knuckles and huffed in mild surprise. Yesterday, he would have sworn Keene's scalp was covered in reddish-orange stubble. It was as if the stuff had grown almost a half-inch over night. Nobody grew hair that fast. Not even humans. "Nobody's checking to make sure you're a natural redhead. Now will you move it and get inside?"

Keene growled at John Mark distain. It wasn't his state of undress that had him balking at shoving his big body into a tiny hole. He'd always hated tight, closed in spaces. And with four fully-grown men in the small space, they'd be crammed in there shoulder to shoulder. He wouldn't be able to breathe. There wouldn't be enough air.

Keene dropped his fangs in defense and braced his palms on either side of the narrow opening. Besides, he had no spirituality. He'd assumed that God didn't like his kind and there was no salvation or pearly gates waiting for him when he died. And he'd given up on such pretenses as prayer long ago. Couldn't he do whatever mumbo-jumbo the brothers required on the outside of the lodge instead of the inside?

Chance sensed John Mark was about to get his ass handed to him if he kept trying to stuff Keene in the hole. The fear flickering wildly in the man's eyes and the extended fangs should have been a pretty big hint not to press him much farther. Keene was claustrophobic. Everyone was afraid of something. And Chance didn't want to think about what had happened in Keene's past to cause his particular brand of terror.

On the exterior, Keene was one hundred percent, bad ass, and hard as stone. He appeared utterly invincible and afraid of nothing. But, on the inside, he was no different than anybody else. And the man was terrified of enclosed places.

The trials didn't have an official starting point, as Chance had learned the hard way. Often, the hardest challenge wasn't the physical but the mental and subtlest. He had no idea what Keene's trial was. Whether it was to overcome his fear or served some deeper purpose. Perhaps, the challenge wasn't meant for Keene at all, but for them. Chance reached up through the hole and extended his hand to the man. He didn't make a move to touch Keene. He simply stretched out his fingers and waited for Keene to decide. "Hey, we're all naked. Trust me, in a few months you won't think anything about it," he said.

Keene hovered in the doorway with the young male in front of him and John Mark behind him. Each of them waited to see what he would do. No one had ever extended him a hand to help before. He expected his presence in the compound to be tolerated by the brothers out of fear of retribution from their leader. He didn't expect anyone to willingly offer the gesture of friendship unless forced to do so.

In his statement, the boy had said more than just a summation of fact. In here, naked and exposed, there were no rogues and no brothers. No measure of any greater or lesser physique. Beneath this humid dome of earthen walls, there were only men as equals. Keene loosened his grip on the outer rim of the hole. Gathering what courage he could muster, he thrust his hand inside the entryway and locked onto the boy's wrist with his fingers.

Chance gently pulled Keene through the entryway. Crouched awkwardly in the tiny opening with no space to right his stooped posture, Keene stumbled and would have fallen flat on his face. Acting on pure reflex, Chance reached out and grabbed Keene by the right bicep, locking his fingers over the tattoo that Keene bore with such disdain. As if the marks made on him by his former master tainted him and made him less than what he was.

Keene looked down to the point on his bicep gripped by the boy's fingers and up to meet his eyes. There was too much said in that simple gesture of preventing a nasty face plant than words could say. By touching him and willingly lending a hand, without fear or hesitation, gripping the tattoo that identified him as his master's servant. The boy had shown kindness and acceptance. And today, he'd made a lifelong friend.

Will slid down the bench to make room for Keene. He was right when he told Candace their son was special. He was only beginning to realize exactly how special Chance was going to turn out to be. His son had done what none of the brothers had considered. In reaching out to help Keene, Chance had taught them all a valuable lesson in service and humility.

The Rogue Master's mark on Keene's bicep didn't change who he was on the inside. Only Chance saw that and behaved in the manner befitting a Son. Even Will was shamed by his own inaction and personal bias toward Keene. The trials were a global thing. They affected every brother in a unique and individual way. Help had two parts. Keene had to learn to accept it and the brothers had to learn to offer it. Their lives depended on their ability to function as part of the bigger whole. Humbled by the lesson his son taught him, he reached around Chance and offered Keene his hand in greeting.

He thought about how far he and Chance had come in the last year. They'd run full circle, from complete strangers to the best of friends, trusting and relying on one another. When Chance first met him, he refused to acknowledge that he was his father. It was a hard road for the both of them to get to where they were in their relationship as father and son, and as brothers.

Dane nodded to John Mark as he climbed in behind Keene and secured the door tightly closed. He regarded John Mark, his second in command, as both a friend and his brother. As a leader it was his job to remain impartial toward those he led. But, the relationship between his second and himself was filled with different dynamics than the one he had with the rest of the brothers for many reasons.

During the dark times, after the rogue attack and destruction of their home, John Mark stuck by him. Dane didn't want to be a leader and fought against taking command every step of the way. He was Lucien's second and as such, the job of leading the Sons fell to him. But, he'd deceived himself into thinking he'd never have to step up. He'd allowed his own grief to cloud his judgment and that mistake had almost shattered the brotherhood.

The brothers were barely keeping it together by the skin of their teeth. They were homeless and shattered by loss. It had taken John Mark to get him off his ass and on his feet. Show him what, as a leader, he was supposed to be. There were still plenty of challenges yet to face. And Dane no longer held any misconceptions about death. It came for everyone. And one day, it would come for him. And the torch would fall to John Mark to lead these men.

Luckily, Chris came along when she did. John Mark may have shown him who the brothers needed him to be. But, it was she, in that calm, quiet way of hers that showed him how to live and how to love. Chris's strength was not revealed in a flash of steel or bodily display of force, but in quieter ways. His wife knew how to rein him in when he got too close to the edge. And it seemed like she was constantly pulling him back. Dane could not imagine life or the brotherhood without her.

John Mark plopped down beside Dane and contemplated his new charge. Keene looked a bit like a raisin in a bowl of rice. Most of the brothers shared a common lineage through their Shawnee heritage. And Keene was as Celtic as they came. John Mark tried to imagine what Keene's life would have been if allowed to follow its natural course. And he did not want to think about what the man's life had been like in Roark's service. It was a wonder Keene had any thread of sanity left. He had to give the man credit for that. In all the things Keene might or might not be. He was a survivor.

He didn't know how Chance had managed to coax Keene into the lodge. But, somehow he'd done it. John Mark was testing Keene. He'd sensed the fear radiating off the man and pushed it to the limit. He wanted to see how far he could push Keene, if he could press him into attacking. And the man had been close. Fear had no place in the Sons. Fear got you and your brothers killed. And with the threat of Roark breathing down his neck, Keene had more reasons to fear than anybody.

Keene might not appreciate this particular lesson or fully understand why John Mark had insisted upon it. All the warriors had been where Keene was. And there was nothing quite like the exposure of having every part of you tested. Spirituality was about so much more than going to church every Sunday. That was religion. A person could be religious and never connect with a higher power. Spirituality operated on a completely different level. It was about who you were and how you related to the world, both the seen and the unseen. This little exercise was about so much more than Keene conquering his fear of enclosed places. This first test was about Keene seeing himself as something beyond Roark's henchman. John Mark was helping him to look deep within himself to the soul of the man who lived inside the house of flesh and bone.

The inside of the sweat lodge was more spacious than Keene perceived from the outside. There were seats for at least a dozen men. Not that the space wasn't tight and it wasn't like he was going to stretch out his legs. But, he could breathe and he wasn't sitting on top of anyone. Extremes in temperatures really weren't an issue for him. But, the smoky, damp humidity in the air clung to his skin and melded with the beads of sweat on his brow. And he began to understand why the brothers entered this place completely naked. Clothing would have been miserable.

He didn't quite know what to make of the brothers. In so many ways they were so similar to one another in their dark hair, eyes and bronzed skin. The boy, who had reached out his hand to steady him, had the slightest hint of Anglo-Saxon in his blood and was not as dark as the man who was obviously his father. Keene could hardly recall his father. The memories were lost in the recesses of his mind. Roark, for all intents and purposes, had been the only father he'd ever known.

Keene had never seen a Son without their trademark black leather combat gear. He knew of their tattoos and that the marks identified them as brothers. But, he'd been too busy defending his master to consider them before. Roark, it seemed, hadn't taught him everything. The tattoos on their backs were unique from brother to brother. No two were exactly alike. Swirling in a mix of deeply pigmented indigo designs from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, down the spine, and ending at the right seventh rib, the most vulnerable place on a vampire's body. The boy's tattoo was sparse compared to Dane's, which was the most intricate.

If he passed the trials, he'd have the right to the brotherhood's signifying marks. His eyes trailed to the tattoo on his right upper arm. To him, they were the mark of his damnation-of Roark's ownership of him. Short of disarticulating his arm at the shoulder joint or ripping his flesh from the bone, there was no way to be rid of the tattoo. But, unlike the brothers he was not proud of the significance of them. The marks condemned him and offered him no salvation. The thing he wanted more than anything else was to belong to no man, except himself. And he had to question what his answer would be if the time came. Would he willingly accept the mark of another master? Or would he choose to belong to no one?

Dane led the chants, calling on the wisdom of the ancestors to guide their meditations. Pouring more water on the hot coals, the room quickly filled with dense steam and the pungent scent of sage and lemongrass. The spirits were with them whispering to their minds in a singular ethereal voice.

He could feel the prickling presence of the goddess rolling along his skin. Her power filled the air and permeated every pore on his body. He drew on her energy and cast it out to the brothers. What each man experienced in the sweat lodge was individual. No man could put it into words.

Dane opened his eyes and ran his gaze over the men. Chance sat with his eyes closed and his hands resting on his folded knees. John Mark, a little more awkwardly, with his eyes shut, breathed in and out, shivering from the goddess's presence on his skin. Eyes closed, Will cracked his neck and rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder before settling down into the rhythm of just being. And Keene, seeming so at odds with himself and the brothers, met Dane's stare. Dane could not imagine what the goddess had in store for the man or how her presence affected him. Dane contemplated that and held to the thought as Her power washed over him and swept him away.

Keene felt awkward and out of place. He followed suit, imitating the other men by closing his eyes. Waiting for something to happen. And he was certain something was supposed to happen. The brothers were so deeply under the influence of something that he could have killed them all right here and right now and they would have been completely oblivious to their own deaths. He was not his master's puppet any longer. And this line of thought was definitely Roark's.

Perhaps, he'd let the Rogue Master do his thinking for him too long. He'd only acted and carried out orders. Personal thoughts were too dangerous for anyone with a shred of conscience. And if he had to actually think about the atrocities he'd committed in Roark's name, he'd go insane. He was not crazy and he'd done only what he had to do to survive. Roark had no power over him. And in truth, if Keene would have realized it sooner, the man never had. Energy the likes of which he'd never felt before rushed over his body and infused into every fiber of his being.

His master used power to destroy. This energy surging through him was not destructive. It was a building and binding power that ran from brother to brother and created the magic that flowed between them. Yes, magic was the word that best described the life force that held the brothers together as one. And although he didn't understand how it worked, he found himself drawn in.

Keene heard echoing voices whispering in his mind. The voices of mocking doubt overshadowing the peace he might have found in the meditations belonged to him. He had discovered his greatest weakness in his inability to trust. Keene began to see the brothers as they truly were. They were individuals and had freewill. But, they were also an interdependent part of the same whole. Distrust and doubt had no place among them. To be a free man meant risk, meant that he had to be able to trust in his instincts and in the brothers he intended to join. If he couldn't find a way to defeat his doubts, he'd might as well turn himself over to Roark now and suffer the consequences. He'd rather die at the Rogue Master's hand as a free man than as a prisoner to his own doubt.

John Mark's eyes popped open and he stretched the best he could in the tight confines of the sweat lodge. Refreshed and energized, he was ready to mentor Keene through the trials. The goddess had a way of communicating with him in the recesses of his mind and he knew exactly what kind of challenges Keene needed to face to ready him for a life of service in the Sons. And he had some pretty fun surprises in store for the former second. He could be a little harder on Keene than he had been on Chance. Hell, a lot harder. Keene could take it.

Keene would undergo plenty of physical rigors. But, his most difficult and the ones he'd be most likely to fail were psychological. The man hid his scars well. But, the goddess had seen them. John Mark had no intention of exploiting Keene's past for the purposes of breaking him and deliberately causing his failure. A body part could not function if it were bound by the limitations of useless, inflexible tissues. All men were tortured by some dark part of their pasts. But, Keene's had been a living hell. And his biggest fault, the one thing that would cause him to fail was his own mind. John Mark's job was to open it, to cut through the bindings of the scars, and to show Keene that his past had no bearing on his future.

Keene opened his eyes when John Mark clapped him sharply on the shoulder. He could not describe where the meditations had taken him. To another place? Another time? He'd traveled long and far and had no idea how long he'd journeyed in a world that went so far beyond the physical. "You're ready," John Mark said to him.

"What happens now?" Keene asked.

"You eat and get some rest. I'll see you in the gym at daybreak," John Mark answered. He moved around Keene to get to the door. His shoulder length hair clung to his sweat dampened skin and the cooler air outside of the lodge caused him to shiver. He grabbed for a towel and rubbed the sticky layer of sweat from his torso.

Keene climbed out of the sweat lodge behind John Mark. Quickly snatching a towel, he wrapped it around his waist and cinched it tightly. He was used to stretching out his time between meals to the last possible moment. Roark wanted him a bit weak and would not allow him to feed freely enough to maintain his full strength. Hunger was a way of life for him. And dinner did sound good. But, he had to wonder who or what was on the menu. He cast John Mark a questioning look.

Chance pulled on his jeans and buttoned his fly. He was sweaty and the denim stuck to him. He flinched as Keene posed the unspoken question. Oh boy. Wasn't this an awkward moment. Rogues didn't exactly follow the same dietary restrictions as the Sons. And to his knowledge, Keene had not eaten since he arrived and the subject had never come up.

Some of the older vampires could go weeks in between meals. And Keene was no baby, but he wasn't an ancient either. Most of the brothers preferred to eat sooner rather than later to avoid accidents. Prolonged hunger was a sure way to have your beast snap his leash. John Mark stood, staring at Keene. And Keene stood, staring at John Mark. The non-verbal tension between the two men over the subject was thick enough to cut with a knife. Yeah, awkward. "Come on," Chance said, grabbing Keene by the elbow. "I know just the spot."

Chapter 8

Lori spent the day staring out into the hot, lazy sun drenched stretch of pavement in front of the shop. Business was slow today. The oppressive heat and relentless humidity kept almost everyone confined indoors. Things hadn't picked up much this afternoon either and she was bored, bored, bored. She thought about calling Robbie and just seeing if she could close up shop early. Today, Robbie spent more paying her one employee than she made in selling ice cream. So far, the take for the day was a whopping eight dollars and seventy-seven cents.

At least tomorrow, it would be Robbie's turn for a fun filled day of jimmies and vanilla soft serve. Robbie desperately needed to hire a second person to help at the shop. And Lori had considered telling Maggie to drop off an application. But, then she'd have to deal with her little sister even more than she did now. Not happening. Ever. Lori would rather work all day than put up with Maggie constantly shadowing her every move. And besides, the extra cash of being the only official 'What's the Scoop' girl was going to come in handy when she had to shell out the money for a full class load this fall.

Tomorrow, the forecast called for sunny skies and temperatures above the ninety- degree mark. A day to her self at the lake sounded like heaven. But, she had studying to do. And if she were going to land a scholarship after her two-year degree at the vo-tech was completed, she needed good grades. Otherwise, she was never getting out of this town. She was tired of being known as Ginger and Bob's little girl and Maggie's older sister.

Lori didn't have many friends left after high school graduation. She bumped into her old classmates now and then around town. The promises to call and get together never happened. Everyone was just too busy living their lives to hang out anymore. Mostly, she entertained herself with thoughts of getting out of this town for good. It wasn't a bad place to live. She supposed. But, it wasn't exactly a Mecca of the known universe either. Everything was always the same around here. Dull.