Dawn's Promise

Of course, corpses told no tales. And he was curious about what tales she had to tell. Maybe, she knew if there were more rogues. And if she did, he'd find out. There were those among the brothers who excelled in extracting information, in a variety of creative and painful ways. Something he personally didn't have the stomach for. "Tell me your name."

"C...C...Candace," she finally managed to stutter out. She weaved on her knees. With her hands and ankles bound she couldn't maintain her balance on her own. His hand rested firmly on her right shoulder, keeping her upright. He leaned closer, searching her with his hard eyes. Discerning as to if she told the truth or not.

"Mine is John Mark," he answered. Names had power and she'd turned hers over so readily. That had to count for something. He stood and grabbed her jacket. Tearing a swath of fabric from the hem, he covered her eyes. With her blindfolded she wouldn't be able to lead any one to the mines and once inside she wouldn't find her way out. He hefted her over his shoulder and carted her through the woods to the tunnels.

Rogues disgusted him. Feeding solely on humanity without regard or thought of the lives they consumed. He could smell it, nauseatingly sweet and thick in the air, rogues the stench of his enemy. "Split them up and blindfold them. Take them back and secure them. Two guards per rogue." He said the last word with a hint of repugnance. "Patrick, set up a team and scour the woods." He glared down at the men captured by his brothers. "Don't try anything stupid. I'd love to have an excuse to kill you."

Marcus was bound so tightly he couldn't move his fingers much less come to Candace's aid. He knew this was a bad idea. Knew it. But, there was no way to reason with her. No way to talk her out of coming back. No way to convince her to give up on her son.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he saw himself as her knight in shining armor. He'd swoop in and save the day, reunite her with her son and they'd ride off into the sunset. What a stupid thought. He couldn't even keep her alive. The minute their feet hit the bluffs they were over powered and captured. Trussed up like a hog ready for the spit. The best he could hope for was that they killed her quickly.

He twisted his neck, trying to evade the blindfold dragged over his eyes. And got a swift punch in the jaw for his trouble. He felt a strong pair of arms grip him underneath his armpits and haul him to his feet. Unlike Candace, his captors didn't have the courtesy to carry him. They dragged him along, stumbling blindly over the uneven ground. Tripping over every unseen object, he impeded their progress to wherever it was they were taking him. The blindfold provided a reprieve from the stinging light of the dawn and gave him time to think of ...something.

He knew people pretty well. Reading people was one of his special talents. These men weren't the bloodthirsty killers Kore made them out to be. The bitch had lied, big shocker there. Oh, they were killers. He knew a killer when he saw one. They just weren't the murders She said they were and they took no joy in carrying out punishments.

Marcus wasn't the sunshiny optimist that Candace was. The woman deceived herself on so many levels. It was almost nauseating to hear her Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm view on life. Perhaps, that was why he fought so vehemently to protect her. She was so innocent, clean, and untainted by the world. So unlike him. He'd grown up on the streets. He knew better. He saw the world for the filthy, unclean, piece of shit that it was.

Candace had probably already fooled herself in to believing there was a way out of this mess, and if she found one, good for her. He sure as hell couldn't think of one. Oh, there was one. But, he'd rather not explore that option. Death had such a ring of permanency to it. And he'd earned a one-way ticket to straight to hell long before any of this vampire shit happened to him. He'd rather put off dying as long as possible.

Neil didn't resist the bindings. He didn't fight the gag thrust in his mouth or the blindfold fitted tightly over his eyes. He did everything he could to make himself appear as harmless as possible. He was the runt of the litter and it'd been the way he'd been avoiding bullies his entire life. He did exactly what his captors wanted. He would have bent over and taken it with a smile and a thank you, if it would prolong his life.

Fucking Candace. Why had he ever agreed to tag along? He should have kept his ass planted in Vegas where it belonged. There he was king, because money talked and bullshit walked. And he had plenty of both. All he had to do was roll a few victims and wisely invest whatever he plucked from their pockets at the craps table. Lady Luck took care of the rest. Well, today she'd taken a big healthy shit right on top of his head. And right after Candace little Lady Luck was number two on his list of least favorite people. God, he couldn't believe he'd let Marcus talk him into this jacked up mess.

It'd been early or late. Who the hell knew? A glittery whore like Las Vegas had her legs spread wide anytime, day or night, for the right price. They'd been standing at the floor to ceiling window in a luxury suite paid for by yours truly when Marcus laid it on him. Of course, Candace was tucked into her bed like a good little girl should be and Marcus and he were enjoying the life.

'Candace wants to go back,' he'd said. Go back to what? WHAT? Neil could have bought her anything her goodie-goodie heart desired. But no, she wasn't content with what his hard earned money could buy. She wanted to go back to this godforsaken place. And for what? Her son? Some snot nosed twenty year-old who probably didn't even notice dear old mom was gone.

The only reason that he'd agreed to make this useless trip back to the heartland was because of Marcus. The man had mad survival instincts and Neil had need of them. Marcus had an uncanny sense of smell when it came to trouble and how to avoid it. He bet Marcus hadn't seen this one coming. Or maybe he had and he'd let Candace drag him into it anyway. The bastard had no common sense when it came to that woman. Neil would have dumped her wholesome white bread ass a long time ago, if it'd been up to him.

Well fuck it, he'd anted up all his chips and there was nothing more to be done but wait to see where the dice landed. He always bet on the underdog. And there was no one more of an underdog than him. Scratching at the fleas behind his ear with his hind foot, sniffing his ass, and pissing in the flowerbeds. Woof. Woof. Luckily, he still had an ace up his sleeve. He'd just have to hold it and wait for the right time to play it.

Chapter 3

"Really, John Mark, did you have to be so rough?" Robbie chastised. The "rogue" as her husband sternly called the poor thing locked up in the makeshift holding cell wasn't going anywhere. Robbie tried to rein him in, just a little. But, he'd gone into warrior mode the minute the trio popped their heads over the side of the cliff. She was lucky she'd stopped him before he killed the woman and her two companions.

"They're rogues," John Mark replied through clinched teeth. "Do you remember what happened the last time we had a visit from their kind?" He would never forget Lucien's dead, sightless eyes. Or the heat of Lucien's blood as the rogue, without pity or mercy, cut him down. "They should be lucky I stopped to ask questions at all and didn't simply finish them off."

"Chris was a rouge too," Robbie gently reminded him.

"That doesn't count. She was an infant. Innocent." He sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose at the sickeningly sweet smell of rogue. "This one has killed. I can smell it on her. And on the other two as well."

"What about Patrick?" Robbie prodded. They didn't know the whole story about their mysterious visitors. If a rogue was content to keep killing why come to the only place that could get them killed? Out of all the places on earth to hide, why did they come here? Why turn themselves in?

"That's different. It couldn't be helped." John Mark remembered Patrick's captivity. Starving and tormented by the rogues in the worst way possible, Patrick had killed a human. But, he had no other choice. The girl knew she was going to die. She'd only chosen how. She'd given her life to save his. The situation was totally different. And besides, Patrick lived with the guilt of killing that girl everyday. John Mark doubted if the rogues felt any remorse over the lives they'd taken.

John Mark stared down at his wife amazed by the compassion she felt for the rogues. What had he ever done to deserve the love of such a beautiful creature as this woman? She'd been brutally attacked by the man who was responsible for the rogues being here in the first place. Either Kiros, or his demented sister, Kore, probably created those three to begin with. They were made to kill. Turned loose to murder his brothers.

Yet, Robbie still had it in her heart to forgive what they were and the man responsible for their creation. Kiros was wrong when he said his blood flowed through Robbie's veins. He claimed she was a descendant of his, the last of his mortal line. It simply wasn't possible. She was too good, too loving, to ever have had anything or any part of her originate from him. DNA be damned. John Mark didn't believe it.

"John Mark," Robbie hissed, elbowing him. "You don't know anything about them." Robbie was curious about their visitors and anxious to hear their story. Hopefully, it was a redeeming one.

"Robbie, neither do you," John Mark grumbled, pinning her with a meaningful look. He hoped she didn't get too attached, too hell bent on saving the rogues. Their outcome might not be a good one. As Second, John Mark had done his job. Everything else hinged on Dane's decision. If Dane felt the rogues were salvageable, they'd live. If he felt there was no redemption for them, they would die. Bitch of a way to spend a honeymoon, deciding the fate of three living beings. Rogues or not, John Mark didn't relish the thought of taking them out. But, if Dane ordered it, he would and he'd do it and do his damnedest to sleep at night afterwards.

*******

Will slunk back into the shadows of the darkened hallway as Robbie and John Mark walked past. They were so busy verbally sparring with one another they didn't notice him. He had seen them, dragging in a woman. Rather John Mark carried her and deposited her into a storeroom before locking the door and posting guards outside. Two males had been taken into custody as well. Locked down tightly someplace deep inside the tunnels.

Will could have cared less about the males. But, the female, she was familiar. Too familiar. In the confusion on the bluffs that night, he hadn't been one hundred percent certain. He'd recognized her then. And he'd recognized her now. Candace. She was supposed to be safe. Bad things weren't supposed to happen to her. But, they had.

Casually, he made his way to the guard post and zoomed the camera in on her face. Time had changed her. The wiry girl's body he remembered was replaced with soft, supple feminine curves. Her once long waves had been cut and styled into a neat chin length bob. Here and there strands of gray streaked through the rich brunette color of her hair.

He still couldn't get a good enough view of her face. He pressed a few buttons on the keyboard and zoomed in for a closer look. Thankfully, Toby insisted on color monitors and state of the art equipment. Her eyes were the same shade of green he saw every night when he closed his eyes. Vibrant like a spring meadow, but tinged with fear and uncertainty. Faint laugh lines webbed out from the corners of her mouth and her eyes. Beneath her woman's body, the laugh lines, and the faint strands of gray, he could still see the girl she'd been. And he was amazed by the woman she'd grown up to be. She was still just as beautiful now as she had been the day they met, twenty years ago.

Will shooed everyone out of the control room and fed her name into the computer's database. He skimmed the data flashing across the screen. Mundane stuff. Her address. Her phone number. Her employer. Then, a missing person's report popped up. The report was filed over a month ago, by Chance Anderson, her son. A son? Candy had a son?

He sat at the desk, perched over the monitor. His fingers impatiently tapping the keyboard as more information rolled across the screen. He ran his finger across the picture on the screen. Her driver's license photo didn't do her justice. She was forty now. To him, only moments had passed, time had come to a stand still. But to her, it had been two decades. Two decades since their last kiss. Since he had held her in his arms, felt the softness of her hair and the warmth of her skin. At the sound of footsteps behind him, he blanked out the computer screen.

********

Candace struggled against the steel bands biting into her wrists. Her wrists were sore and the flesh torn, healing and then ripped again as she wiggled her wrists to free herself. "Damn," she hissed. Coming here was a bad idea. She didn't know what had happened to Marcus and Neil. Were they dead all ready? Were they saving her for last? Or would she be the first one they came for? She scooted into a corner, resting her head against the hard, cold, concrete wall. Closing her eyes, she recited a prayer and waited. She didn't know if God answered prayers to those like her, but she prayed anyway. She prayed for Marcus and for Neil, and for her son. The last few words of her prayer were selfish. She prayed to see Chance, just one more time, before she died. Maybe, even if her captors did consider her a rogue, they'd grant her this last request.

*********

Marcus cursed as he surrendered to the confining bands that held his limbs fast. There was no escaping. His newfound strength was useless against the thick, cold, bands of steel. He should have fought, ignored Candace's pleas and fought. Killer, that's what they had called him. A killer. His blood chilled as he thought of the many ways he could be killed. He could out last a human in terms of longevity and what his body could take before it finally succumbed to death. And so could Candace. Though, if she truly believed she would never see her son again, she wouldn't last that long. She wouldn't want to.

Marcus looked around, appraising his surroundings. Bare concrete walls and floors and a droplight suspended from a single cord in the ceiling high above. Lacking finish work, he guessed his "cell" was still in the construction phase. The smell of new hit him as soon as his captors dragged him into wherever in the hell he was. They hadn't taken the blindfold off until they shoved him in this little room. He hoped Candace and Neil were faring slightly better than he was. For a plan of how to get out of this mess, he had jack shit.

When Candace first told him of her idea to come back here, he thought she was crazy. Go back? Go back to what? He was a forty-five year-old bachelor with a crummy job, a dingy postage stamp sized apartment, and no family to speak of. He was on the fast track to nowhere. For god's sake, he made minimum wage working as a grill cook in the grungiest diner in town. Not even he would have eaten the food that came out of that dump. He smoked like a freight train and spent a good half-hour every morning hacking for his trouble. Hell, he didn't even have looks going for him. He was too ordinary, too Joe Schmo Nobody to stand out much to anybody.

When he met Candace, he thought his luck had changed. Finally for once, getting even better instead of worse and worse. She was the only thing that kept him sane when the bad time came and grabbed him by the balls. If not for her, he would have gone insane from the hunger that never left and the nightmare that never, ever ended.

Reflexively, out of habit, he stretched his fingers far enough to reach the hip pocket of his jeans for a cigarette and a light. Funny, he'd been trying to quit for years. Seemed like dying took care of that little problem. Not that he had to worry about cancer killing him. The Sons were going to do the job quite nicely and probably just as agonizingly.

Neil hit it on the head that last night in Vegas, when he called him pussy whipped. He was. It was all about Candace and trying to make her happy. Not that they'd ever gone there. They were too busy trying to survive from one day to the next to think about sex. Maybe, he should have tried harder to get a little sack time with her. But, after a few sessions with the "mistress" and her special brand of loving, the damned thing had practically crawled up inside of him, like a turtle in its shell and refused to come out of hiding.

Talk about psychological scars. He might never get over the things the "mistress" had done to him and made him do. Candace had saved him then too. Held him. Made him feel whole again after the "mistress" had damaged him so severely. Thank God, Candace had never asked him about what happened on those nights when the "mistress" summoned him into her chambers.

Marcus came back because of Candace. He would have followed her into the depths of hell, if it were where she wanted to go. She'd done her best to protect him. And he thought he could return the favor and protect her. Yeah, he was doing a bang up job of that wasn't he. It seemed his luck hadn't changed one bit.

*******

Neil rested his chin on his knees, sitting with his back to the wall, watching the door. Waiting for something, anything to happen. He was the youngest, barely twenty-three. It was so unfair to have his life taken away from him so young. Now, he was going to die. He pounded his head against the wall and cursed the day he listened to Marcus and followed Candace and he back to this damned hellhole. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

********

Dane scowled throwing a towel across his bare skin and padded across the carpet. Something was wrong. He could sense it. He heard it in the hushed voices that echoed down the corridors. He felt it through the psychic connection he had with his brothers. They were trying to handle it, trying to keep it from him. "Chris, I'm sorry," he said, pulling on a pair of jeans. He'd just take a quick check of things and then be right back to bed to his eager and willing bride.

Chris sighed and pulled the covers over her head. She had spent the better part of the morning in the perfect bliss of love making with her new husband. But, she wanted more. "They promised us twenty- four hours," she groaned. Dane's instincts were never wrong about these things. If he sensed something was off, it was. She peeked over the covers and watched as Dane bent over to tie his bootlaces, admiring the view.

Dane bent over to land a kiss on her forehead. They were married. But, he still couldn't believe the woman in his bed, curled up on his sheets, was his. All his. "I promise I'll be back ASAP."

Reluctantly, Chris got out of bed too and grabbed the sweats hanging on the back of her chair. "Hang on, I'll come with you."

*****

"You've done what!" Chris couldn't believe what she heard coming out of John Mark's mouth as he gave Dane the low down. Yeah, things were off, way off. "Dane, you've got to do something! You can't leave people tied up like that! It's inhumane!" Chris crossed her arms, ignoring John Mark's disapproving scowl.

"They're not human! They're not people!" John Mark roared. He had already gotten an ass chewing from Robbie. He didn't need one from Chris. No disrespect to Dane's bride, but between Robbie and her, this bunch of bleeding hearts was going to get them killed. What was he supposed to do, whip out the good china and serve them tea and crumpets? He winced at the warning hiss escaping Dane's lips and the flash of white fang. John Mark took a breath and toned down his voice a notch. "Chris, you don't know what it was like. What they did. You didn't see it. You weren't there."