After Dawn, What Came Next

“Depends,” Cole answered. He could see the kid’s mind changing gears. Christian no longer eyed the door or the window, but looked straight at him. Cole should have guessed eventually Christian would ask. He hadn’t thought about exactly how he would answer. The truth might sway Christian or it might put him head on a collision course to places he would rather Christian not go. “Ask.”

“Were you there the night my sister was murdered?”

Cole nodded and stared down at his hands as if he could still see her blood drying on his palm as it had that day. He saw her, pale and lifeless, exhaling her last breath and staring up at him with eyes, the color of a perfect, cloudless blue sky. “Yes.”

Christian exhaled the breath he had been holding and let it out nice and slow. Vampires were human, very human. Cole’s voice was haunted, his eyes staring down at his outstretched fingers seeing something that had happened twenty-five years ago as if it had happened only yesterday. Regret etched Cole’s features. He only looked twenty, but the darkness in his eyes aged him more than two and a half decades. “You weren’t a vampire then.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Cole coughed, clearing his throat of the tightness threatening to choke him. He lifted his eyes to meet Christian’s. The kid deserved to know the truth. It would hurt the both of them. Bring back pain Cole would rather forget. Stirring the echoes of the past would change Christian in ways he could never begin to fathom. Cole’s promise to Rachael hadn’t ended when Eric O’Sullivan had been brought to justice. His promise would never end as long as there was a human being left on the plant to protect and he had breath in his body to do it. He would spare Christian this pain, the agony of knowing the truth, if he could. “It’s a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Christian was certain he wanted to hear Cole’s version of what had happened that night. The newspapers, the cops, nobody had been able to piece together what had obviously been a very elaborate cover up. He shrugged as if the truth didn’t mater to him and settled in. Despite his full stomach, he grabbed for the pizza box and stuffed the last piece into his mouth. Chewing thoughtfully, he wondered what it would be like to be like to walk a mile in Cole’s shoes. To never eat, to never see the sunshine, and to never be able to forget, forever. “It doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere does it?”











Chapter 38

Ray was an early riser. Well, a late one, given that it was six o’clock in the evening and he was just rolling out of bed. The change in his sleep schedule from his usual nighttime habit to dozing in and out of wakefulness all day had played hell with him. He was groggy and a little foggy headed with his eyes dry and scratchy in their sockets. Now that dark had settled, the urge to curl back up and go to sleep hit him hard. He sat on the edge of the bed and blinked to clear his vision, forcing himself to stay awake. In the dim glow of the shadows from the emergency lighting he could just make out Tom’s vague outline beneath the covers in the bed across the room from him.

The guy was still out like a light. Maybe, it was Tom’s have human side that gave him the ability to sleep like a rock anywhere at anytime. Ray wasn’t completely sure, but he envied it. Tom mumbled something unintelligible, rolled over, farted, and fell into a rhythm of low and grunting snores. Not quite content with his position, Tom flopped onto his back and threw off the covers.

Tom wore nothing but boxer shorts and was sporting morning…well, evening wood. Thick and proud, his erection rose to greet the world, even if Tom wasn’t nearly as awake and ready to face the day. Ray sat transfixed by the sight of Tom’s erection and in a fit of conscience, forced his eyes away, chastising his own prick for rising to the occasion. He wondered if Tom had any idea of how deep his feelings went and quickly answered his own question. Of course he didn’t and he probably never would.

Tom had eyes for nobody but Cat. Ray snorted at the stupidity of Tom’s attraction for Cat. No male was ever going to get within ten feet of that girl and live to talk about it. Not with her father holding her leash anyway. It was a sad thing, he concluded, to be Cat and probably even worse to be Tom or any of the other legions of males so helplessly in love with her. Cat was so clueless of the effect she had on men in general, especially on this one sleeping like a log across the room from him. In so many ways, Cat was still a little girl. Her innocence and zeal to save the world only served not only to draw others to her, but held them there at her beck and call ready to follow here anywhere.

Lifting his eyes, Ray studied the lines of Tom’s body. He favored his mother with her fine bone structure and sandy highlights of blond hair. Wolf genetics being what they were had passed on his father’s height and lithe build, and of course, the gift of the wolf. Tom worked out everyday like a fiend and hadn’t quite managed to harness the potential of Grant’s wide, muscular bulk. He was wiry and thin where his father was a powerhouse of sheer muscle and strength. Sometimes, the combination of his human mother, Claire so slight and delicate and pale as a ray of sunshine and Grant, dark as fine leather, and huge as any wolf, made Tom seem almost emaciated due to the height he had inherited from his dad and the finer build he had inherited from his mom.

Ray could count Tom’s ribs with the rise and fall of his chest. The flat planes of Tom’s stomach sloped downward ending in the sharp jut of hipbones. Tom’s bare legs, the muscular calves and thighs were covered in a soft, wiry blanket of light brown fuzz that led up beneath the boxer shorts and stopped in a trail of stray hairs at his belly button. Ray wondered if the hairs cupping Tom’s sack, if those short, curly hairs were the same shade or darker.

Ray fantasized about Tom revealing himself to him, willingly coming to him and professing some hidden desire. Wasn’t going to happen. Ever. Tom was incurably straight or at the very least so embroiled with Cat that he would never see anybody else but her. Ray rubbed his chest at the thought of Tom and Cat together and squashed the jealousy causing the deep-seated ache.

Oddly enough, he was attracted to Cat too. In his opinion, labeling a person as straight or gay was shallow and discounted the very essence of love. Love came in many forms, some male and some female. The sex of a person didn’t matter as much as the who a person was. He was attracted to Cat’s innocence and zest for life. He was attracted to the gentler side of Tom, the part of him that was not so much wolf and so very human. On rare occasions and very lonely nights, he entertained himself with the very idea of the three of them together and quickly squashed the thought. He didn’t need that kind of conflict in his life. He could only love one person in that way at a time. And for the moment, the man asleep in the bed across the room from him held all his affections.

They were best friends and there were some lines you simply didn’t cross. As much as Ray wanted to climb into that bed, snuggle under the covers, and stroke Tom’s hair while he slept. He would never, ever dare to risk something as solid as a friendship for something as fleeting as what might be love or simple infatuation. He wouldn’t force Tom to make a choice between him and Cat or sacrifice their friendship. Worship from a far would have to suffice. That, and pray like hell someday, the right one did come along.

Ray got the sense that he was not the only one tied in knots by an impossible love. What of their stoic host? Carter was a cold one on the exterior. Emotionless and impossible to read, Carter gave nothing of his innermost feelings away. But, Ray had seen something in the way Carter’s cool expression had melted for a brief second before the mask slid back into place. Carter had taken one look at his mom and something inside him dissolved. Carter had that same expression, a glint of knowing in his eye and purse of his lips that was just shy of longing, when he looked at him too. Why?

That Ray knew of, Carter didn’t even know his mom. She had never spoken of him before. But, there was something there between the two of them. There was more than just the glint of recognition in his mom’s eyes when she had looked at Carter. There was something else…almost, but not quite regret and almost, but not quite, love.

He hadn’t missed the sudden flare of rage and jealousy from his dad either. His dad, not his father, but the dad he knew and had raised him, did not suffer the lightest of tread into what he considered his territory. Tracker was a protector. A kick ass and ask questions later man who had no tolerance for fools. There was something between the three of them, Carter, his mom, and his dad, a past, but what was it and what exactly did it have to do with him?

Cold as Carter was, he was at least tepid around him. Why? The vampire was a beautiful man, tall and lean, pale as an ice floe, stoic in his temperament, and cool in his countenance. Not the type Ray went for, pretty on the outside or not. At first, Ray had thought it was attraction on Carter’s part. Maybe, it was, but not the kind of lust that brought people together in the bed. This was something different. Something more. It was almost as if Carter knew him or had known him.

Ray would have remembered meeting Carter. The vampire was rather difficult to forget. Whether it was for good or bad, Carter tended to leave a lasting impression. There was something. Nothing Ray could pull out of his memory banks, but something about Carter that somehow seemed important for him to remember. He simply couldn’t.

For as long as he could remember, his entire life, there had been his mom and dad, the two of them together. Even when she spoke of his father, his real father, there was a distance to her words that spoke of facts and the past, tinged with affection, but not with love. She loved his dad. Ray was sure of it. But, if she had only loved two men in her life, his father and his dad, then what was the deal with Carter and why did she look at him the way she did and he look at her the way he did?

He might never know the answer to that. His mom probably wouldn’t tell him. And trying to get anything out of Carter, well, he could forget it. The man never gave anything away. As for his dad, he wouldn’t bother asking. That flare of rage Ray had sensed radiating off his dad. It wasn’t worth invoking the wrath of such a pure fury. That level of hell fire would rain down on somebody and Ray would rather it wasn’t him.

He wasn’t scared of his dad. Oh, he had earned plenty of whippings and tongue lashings from his dad, but none that he didn’t deserve. Tracker was fair, if he was nothing else. But, there was a side to his father, a remnant from his past, that hinted at the life had lived, a brutality rippling within him, barely contained, beneath the surface. Ray would never ever do anything to bring up the past his dad tried so hard to conquer and to forget.

Ray wondered where Cat was. Carter had made it clear that the male and female members of the Brat Pack were not sharing quarters. What did the stodgy old vampire think they were going to do? Lust and attraction aside, the pack was not into that kind of thing. He supposed they could pair up, but hadn’t out of simple fear of breaking the fragile ties that bound them together. Besides, the females greatly out numbered the males and despite the boner in Tom’s shorts and his unfounded boasts. There were only so many females a male could service.

His little sister was pure as the driven snow and damn it, she was going to stay that way. He had made that point perfectly clear to Tom a number of times. Tom taunted him, teasing him about Phoenix, only once though. Amazing how a black eye and slightly crooked nose could deter a male’s sex drive. Phoenix had the eye for Tom. That was part of the reason he had come along on this little venture. Not only to protect the pack from whatever was out here in the real world, but to protect his little sister from Tom. Tom wasn’t serious about Phoenix, but she didn’t realize that. Ray worried that if Cat put Tom off long enough, eventually he would turn elsewhere to put an end to his frustration.

The thought of Tom with one of the females in the pack sent another sudden surge of jealousy rocketing through his core. Tom wasn’t his and never would be, but he wasn’t theirs either. Cat was the only female good enough for Tom and as for Phoenix, nobody, not even Tom, was good enough for her.

Tom’s senses came back on line. He had slept like a baby. The place was crawling with vampires and he had slept like a damn rock. Idiot. Maybe, it was just that he knew Ray was at his back that had allowed him to let his guard down enough to catch forty winks. Ray sat on the edge of the bed, looking like his usual disheveled self. Tom watched him, blinking into the dimness of the room with those weird pale blue ringed brown eyes of his.

Ray’s eyes took a little getting used to. The blue rings encircling the brown irises were unnerving as hell. Sometimes, Tom would swear Ray was looking straight through him and seeing something…beyond. He wondered where Ray had inherited the unusual feature. Ray’s parents, his real dad and his mom didn’t have blue eyes. The child of two parents genetically predestined to procreate, Ray was as pure from a genetic standpoint as it got. He had asked Ray, once, about his eyes and had earned a fat lip for asking. Sure, they had been kids at the time, and Ray had gotten his fair share of teasing from the other kids about the rings around his eyes. But, he had pummeled the hell out of him for asking an honest question. They had been best friends ever since.

Tom scratched his balls and stretched, sitting up on the edge of the bed. Things were a little different between the two of them now that they had grown up. Ray joked and teased about the females. The two of them had stayed up late on many a night contemplating Cat’s finer features. But, he knew Ray was a little different than most of the other males of the pack. And he knew Ray’s feelings toward him weren’t always platonic.

Unfortunately, Ray talked in his sleep and he had spilled his guts one night in the fits of a dream. Tom personally didn’t care what Ray’s preference was in terms of male and female. He simply didn’t share Ray’s inclinations. He hadn’t said a word about what he had overheard that night. There was no way he could without embarrassing the hell out of Ray and himself in the process. It was simply easier to pretend that he didn’t have a clue than sacrifice their friendship to call him out on it.

Tom fumbled at the foot of the bed for his shirt and pulled the wrinkled fabric over his head. He didn’t flaunt his body in front of Ray. It wasn’t fair. The morning wood poking out from beneath the waistband of his shorts was a little hard to hide though. He supposed it was just his proximity to Cat that had his cock doing calisthenics at seven o’clock in the evening. Could be just a reflex or that he had to take a piss, or maybe, his eight inches of joy simply had its wires crossed.

Ray’s unnerving eyes flickered up from Tom’s hard on and settled on the floor. Tom felt a flush of heat burn across his chest and cheeks at the knowledge that Ray had been checking him out. As Brat Packers the policy was they shared everything, but not that. Never that. Tom was just a little too human to participate in that aspect of community property. Sometimes, Tom wished he didn’t have a drop of human blood in his body. He loved his mom and hated, hated what was happening to her. The graying at her temples, the wrinkles marring her pale skin, and the fact that she was aging while his father, hell his dad looked as young as he did.

Their world was filled with unfairness and things that you wanted and simply couldn’t have. Ray wanted him. Tom couldn’t reciprocate. He wanted Cat. Cat was one hundred percent off limits and it had nothing to do with his half-human DNA. He didn’t want to watch his mom die, but she would. He was half-human and yet, could not be part of the human world, thanks to his wolfen side. He was a cosmic joke of fur and spirit, and yet of flesh and bone. He belonged and at the same time didn’t belong and he had no idea what that made him except for confused and too much like a square peg trying desperately to fit into a round hole.

Sometimes he contemplated if it was any easier for the one hundred percenters. The members of this little band of misfits that had teamed together to find their place in this abnormal world they considered normal. Ray, Phoenix, and Danni were one hundred percent pack with both parents being full-blooded wolf. Did they have it better than the fiftys? The ones like him who were half human and half wolf? Probably not, if anything they had it worse. They had the burden of their DNA and the duty of passing it down to the next generation. And as a consequence of that duty, Ray had it worse than the whole lot of them put together. Would Ray do it when push came to shove? Tom had to wonder.

Ray was capable, given the bulge he was trying to hide beneath his blanket. Tom quickly squashed the thought of what had given Ray the hard on and pulled his own blanket a little tighter around his midsection.

Tom gritted his teeth at that concept and refused to contemplate it any further. It would drive a guy to insanity trying to figure out this genetic stuff. He supposed Eloise covertly had it all calculated out. No doubt, Cat’s dad had thought of such things too. What would happen if she ended up with a guy like him, a half-breed, or if she took a human mate with no touch of the paranormal to him at all.

Maybe, that was why he always too such pains with his daughter. Most males wouldn’t dare to look at Cat’s bare toes and the crazy colors of nail polish she used to decorate her toenails let alone hazard a glance up that long, curvy body of hers. Cat was a powder keg of DNA set to explode. Half of two things, neither one of them human, Cat was a mix of vampire and wolf and nobody could predict in her children or in her either which side was most prevalent.

Tom was diplomatic. His wolf side wanted to hunt down that male and beat the shit out of him. Piss on the sidewalk and mark Cat as his. His human side was much of the same mind. That he knew of that kiss, that quick peck on the lips, was the first kiss Cat had ever received of a romantic nature. Bastard. Tom would rather she kiss Carter, that ice cube of a vampire, than kiss that human male again. What in the hell was he thinking? Classifying their target, downgrading him to ‘that human’ when he was half human himself?

It was a dangerous thing to think of himself as more than human or of humans as something lesser. They were both members of the human race. The pack, the vampires, the humans were all stuck on this mud ball of a planet and members of the living breathing organism that gave it life. He needed to get out more. Experience a truly human experience and remember where it was he had come from. In the very beginning each and every one of them, whether born into it or created by blood shared a common origin. Adam and Eve, maybe? Crawling on all fours from some primordial swamp? Evolving from apes? Who knew? But, all vampires and wolves owed their heritage to one man and that man had at one time been human, very, very human. He’d do well to remember that.

He was becoming more and more like Cat, dreamy, revolutionary, out to change the world, just like her. The truth was simple. He was from the world, but did not belong in it. Any children he bore would not belong in it. And that was the end of the story. He could not change the world. Cat could try, but in the end it would be a bitter lesson for her. The best he could do was to try his best to protect Cat, his family, and his friends from it and along with them, protect humanity from its worst enemy, themselves.