After Dawn, What Came Next

That thought gave him a new respect for Carter and the guardians and for the Great Father and the Sons, and even for the pack and the elders that led it. They already knew this truth he was just now beginning to realize. His dad had tried to explain it. His mom had stood back and allowed him to figure it out for himself. But, how was he going to get Cat and the other Brat Packers to understand it?

The truth would kill that fragile part of Cat he loved the most. But, there was no saving her from it. He wondered where Ray’s head was in the grand scheme of things. Did he also get it? With Ray, it was hard to tell. For now, the best course of action Tom could come up with was to keep his lip zipped and let the others figure it out for themselves too. That, and be there to pick up the pieces when they did.

Ray had little alpha in him, but enough to rouse Tom’s wolf into action. Unleashing the wilder part of himself, he made a mad dash to be first in the bathroom. Tom was on his heels, his wolf responding to the silent challenge of scent and flash of movement.

There was nothing a wolf liked better than sparring for top dog. Punching and growling, letting their wolves out to play for a few cherished minutes they made a fair mess out of the bedroom, scattering bedding and pillows and breaking one of the lamps on the dresser in the process. Ray let Tom win. As loser he had the job of setting the room to rights and trying like hell not to imagine Tom naked in the shower as he did so. He supposed that, doing what he had just done was what made them friends and kept them as such, his capacity to lose when he could have won and Tom’s ability to overlook it.













Chapter 39

Cat was the first one awake. She was bleary eyed and dog ass tired, but awake and fairly functional. Somewhere deep inside of her, not that she had found it yet, she was bristling with energy and eagerness to see what would happen next. Yawning and sitting up on the side of the bed, she ticked off her mental agenda for the day. Shower. Hair. Christian. Sometime in that list of hers she had to allot time to eat. She didn’t have the voracious appetite of the carnivores of the pack, but food wasn’t exactly what her body craved. She would need blood to sate her vampire side. She should have done it before she left home. Taken the wrist of some donor and gotten it over with, but she had been so excited to get going she had quite forgotten about her more primal needs.

She supposed she could ask one of her wolf sisters to donate a sip or two. They did smell good, of sunshiny meadows in bloom, fresh air, and of course, the musk of wolf. Who would she ask? Wolf blood was potent and full of the rush of life. Human blood was rich and vibrant with the coppery tang of immortality passed down from one generation to the next. But, for all its virtues there were side effects to drinking blood. She didn’t suffer the way her vampire brothers and sisters did when they took the vein. She saw glimpses and felt the tingle of emotion, luckily though she didn’t bond with her donors through the blood like a true vampire did.

Cat considered everyone in the Brat Pack her best friend. Whose mind did she want to take a trip through? Who did she want to know for just a brief minute or two better than she knew herself? Nobody, if she had to tell the truth about it. They were best friends because they had secrets. No man’s lands between them they did not breech. Some secrets were known, but not talked about and others were clandestine and hidden so deeply it was possible that the person who had them didn’t even realize they existed at all.

Unlike a true vampire she could sustain herself on vampire blood. True vampires had to have human blood or, not that any wolf would permit it unless the situation was dire, wolf blood straight from the tap. She had taken from her father’s vein. Despite her behavior, all of which he claimed was determined to send him to his grave for once and for all. She deeply respected the man she called dad. Through him, she knew what it was like to die and be reborn. She experienced his life through the bond between them. His birth, death, and rebirth, and everything that happened in between and after through his eyes. Her dad was cool on the exterior, but inside he burned hotter than any flame and his memories could consume a soul to ash.

Her mom’s was no cooler a flame, but one of a different flavor. Her mom was brave, relentless, and faithful to those she loved and there was nobody in the entire world she loved more than her family. Between those two bright flames, what choice did Cat have but to burn brighter and hotter or risk being burned out by their light and scorching heat? Nobody understood it, but her causes gave her flame the fuel it needed to burn and give off its own brand of heat and light.

She could ask Carter, she supposed. His sense of duty to her father would have him extending his wrist to her. But, if there were any mind she didn’t want to spend as much as a split second analyzing, it was his. The man was a walking enigma. Secrets he kept. Debts he thought owed. Guilt he worked damned hard to foster. He was old. The oldest vampire she had ever met. His life was like the layers of an onion. Peel one layer away and another one hid beneath it.

He had no religion except for the one he had made for himself. There was no god or goddess in his temple. His was a temple of the past. One built with bricks of guilt and held together by the mortar of his own self-imposed torment of all the things he had done and wished he hadn’t. She knew the look a man got in his eyes when he had done and seen terrible things. When he had taken life out whether out of necessity or by accident. She saw it in the eyes of the brothers, in the old ones who had fought in the Rogue Wars and the wars that came before. She saw the glint of regret and of cold, hardness that came with killing in her father’s eyes and she saw it in Carter’s.

Death was a consequence of a vampire’s life. Death was how they were born and what they were designed for. Everyone thought she was nuts for doing what she did at the bluffs. For protesting a fight to the death for nothing more than a silly title. The wolves were not animals. They had their animal side, naturally, but they were also human and bore a too human soul inside their layer of fur and fragile skin. Nash had that look in his eyes too. He had killed for the right to lead the pack. It had been a long time ago and he still bore the scars of it, not in the marred flesh on his cheek, but down deep in his soul. He had been willing to die to pass the pack to the next generation. Her aunt had the look of grim determination that showed her reluctant willingness to kill to take the pack from him.

Nash was her grandpa too. Nobody really saw it that way, but she did. The pack viewed her as a vampire. The vampires looked upon her as one of theirs. But, she was also wolf, born of flesh and bone, just like everyone else in the pack. She could sprout fur and sharp canines with the best of them and did enjoy a good run through the woods on all fours. Her spirit wolf was one of great power and he spoke to her in the realm of dreams of things she couldn’t or didn’t want to understand.

Nobody really died. In the bigger picture of life and death, she at least had that small measure of consolation. In the realm of spirits there was no male or female, but just the purity of a soul departed from this world. Her dad called her wolf, brother. Not brother wolf, but brother. It hurt him to look upon her wolf and sense the echoing spirit of his brother trapped inside her body. She couldn’t help it. The spirit wolf chose you, not the other way around. Why the prophet, her uncle, had chosen her, she had no idea. Maybe though, it was him that wanted to change the world and she was nothing more than the means to make it happen.

She was her own entity. Her soul was her own and nobody else’s, but the wolf that lived inside of her had lived a human life and died a violent but necessary death. They merely shared the shell of her flesh and bone. She didn’t need to learn the ancient language. She had been born with the knowledge of it inside of her head. She didn’t want to dream about the things he showed her subconscious, but she did. She didn’t need his whispers echoing through her mind to tell her a thing about the past she hadn’t lived or the future she was going to live. She knew who her family was without him telling her. She knew her heritage without his stirrings of loyalty and pride ping-ponging around in her head. She was the driver of her own bus and he was simply along for the ride. But, she was not a complete idiot. She might do the driving, but her spirit wolf was the one who navigated down the bumpy road called life.

It was that way for all the wolves. Nature was efficient, but so was the shadowy world of the Goddess’s realm. Kokumthena was the ultimate recycler. Souls weren’t necessarily reincarnated, but they, the special few destined to become spirit wolves, had lived many, many lifetimes. It wasn’t an easy thing to hear the echoes of someone else’s past in your head. For the most part the spirit wolves were content to do what they had been designed to do. They guarded the borderland between the living and the dead and with good reason too. The Windingo had almost been the end of the vampires and of the world, as humanity knew it. The pack kept them where they belonged and any number of other baddies there too.

Ghosts were real, realer than most humans knew. Sometimes, a soul didn’t get to the shadowy never land between the living and the dead. Once they got there, the spirit wolves kept them there. But, not everybody was necessarily so willing to accept the fact that they were dead and stubbornly stayed put in the land of the living. Those souls neither here nor there weren’t capable of doing any real damage other than freaking people out and raising a few goose bumps.

Maybe psychics and mediums, channelers, and the like could communicate with the dead. For the most part though, there wasn’t any reason to. The dead weren’t any smarter than the living. They were shadows of the people they had been in life. Hauntings, cold spots in rooms and all the general creepiness that went along with ghosts was just their way of letting someone sensitive enough to sense their presence know they were still here hanging around.

Cat saw ghosts, here and there. Most people did. They just didn’t realize a ghost was what they were seeing. It was easier not to see them than to give in and acknowledge them, that the cold spot in the room, the eerie sensation of someone looking over your shoulder, or the glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of your eye was real. There were some doors that were best off left unopened. Her spirit wolf handled the shadow world just fine without any help from her.

Cat shook off the urge to climb back under the covers and take a short nap. She and the girls had stayed up way too late, till almost noon, talking and giggling. Christian had been the main topic of conversation. Inquiring minds wanted to know what it was like to kiss a human. It was nice, warm and soft, and tingly down to the tips of her toes. What more could she say about the kiss? She had no basis for comparison. Maybe, all kisses were like that? Nobody had ever kissed her before, except for her mom and dad and those certainly were not that kind of a kiss.

Boys were terrified of her dad and to a degree, of her mom, and of the brotherhood, and of the protective alpha males of the pack in general. A fair number of men were scared of her too. She was the most sheltered female in existence. Even if a male were interested in her, he wouldn’t dare lay a finger on her out of fear of getting his arm ripped off at the socket. Forced chastity really put a damper on any kind of social life she might hope for in regards to dating and boys.

Christian didn’t know her from Adam. He had no clue of who or what she really was. Beyond his adorable pale exterior and the attractiveness of his utter cluelessness, he was genuinely a likeable guy. He liked her too. She could smell his shifting emotions and the tinge of interest that went beyond platonic on his skin. Maybe, she shouldn’t have done it. But, she had seen an opportunity and seized the moment.

Sure, everyone had seen it. She could not, however, bring herself to regret the kiss. Quivering with nervous energy, Cat checked her cell phone to see if Christian had called. He hadn’t. It was odd, being totally in control of her own destiny without any regards or explanations owed anyone. This was the first time…ever, she had been out in the world without a guard posted over her shoulder.

She wanted to shout from the rooftops, run naked through the streets, kiss everyone and anyone she came across, and revel in this newly found freedom. She wouldn’t though. Her dad had engrained too much of himself in her. With freedom came responsibility. She couldn’t do just anything she wanted to. There were secrets, sleeping in the beds, living their lives under this roof and in the compound, and everywhere else in the world. Secrets she was not only duty bound to protect, but tied to with her own life.

She couldn’t tell Christian the truth about herself. She could pretend, for now to be an ordinary human girl, but she could never truly ever be one. The tingling in her fangs and the itchy sensation of her wolf prowling through her head reminded her enough of that. Cat wondered what it was like for humans to be one of nine billion, nothing more than just a drop of water in an endless ocean of humanity.

How did humans make their mark in the world? Most humans fell in the middle of the bell curve and did nothing of any great importance to stand out. Was it their own egos that compensated and made them feel special in the realm of ordinary? Was it the drive to constantly strive to be at either end of the spectrum of the everyday that gave them the strength to go on? What about Christian? He was definitely ordinary. Well, he was the most ordinary person she had ever met. What was it about him though that made him different than everybody else? She had seen plenty of men, but none of them had ever sparked more than a flicker of interest. Why him?

She had been born special and sometimes, she didn’t like it much. There were plenty of times she wished to be less than what she was and others where she relished her uniqueness. Did Christian see her as special or unique? He had certainly enjoyed the kiss. But, maybe he just enjoyed kissing girls in general. Maybe, he would have had the same reaction if Danni or Claire had engaged him in a lip lock. She simply didn’t know. What had drawn her mom and dad together? What drew any two people together and what kept them together?

The whole thing was a mystery to her and to the rest of her BFFs too. Embroiled in discussion, the topic had kept them up way too late into the day. Nobody had any answers, only speculation based on the examples they had seen in real life and in the fiction of books and movies. The only conclusion they had managed to come up with was that if you had a chance for true love you’d better grab it and hang on tight for all you were worth.

Claire was a dreamer, misty eyed and somewhat tight lipped on the subject of love. Danni fierce in her proclamations that if she ever ran across someone worthy of her she was going to tie him up before he managed to get away. Barbara in that all too human way of hers snorted at the idea of some magical, all encompassing ‘true love’ and ticked off an impossible list of qualities she insisted upon in a potential mate. To her, a man either had it or he didn’t. Phoenix was conflicted on the subject of true love. She wanted to believe, but had seen enough to cling to the idea that beyond the realm of physical attraction it took more than magic and a fair measure of dumb luck to bind a couple together. Cat didn’t know what to think on the subject. She agreed with some part of what each of her friends had said. It did take luck, attraction, sometimes force of either will or the physical, the qualities and substance a man either possessed or didn’t, and no small bit of magic to make a couple a couple. But, what exactly beyond that did it take?

Cat wondered what the guys thought about the subject of true love. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Ray and Tom talking about anything beyond what might be loosely termed as guy stuff. Ray had his fair share of secrets Tom pretended to know nothing about. The rest of the Brat Pack pretended too. Maybe, the subjects of women, love, and all the physical stuff were off limits to them for a more practical and comfortable reasons. If the truth were ever spoken aloud, it might destroy the fragile bonds of friendship. And nothing absolutely nothing meant more than the friendship the seven of them shared.

Cat worried that as they grew up and got older and the hormones riding them so hard became more and more demanding their group would break apart. Odds were that eventually two of them would couple up together and start a family or someone would fall in love and leave the group all together. Eventually, their seven members would drop to six then five, and dwindle down to where there was only one left. They would try to embrace outsiders brought into the fold by marriage, but it wouldn’t work. They would always be friends. A mate and the subsequent children that would follow had to come first though.

Tom struggled with it. Cat could tell. The urge to pick a mate rode him harder than the rest. His human side tamped down on his wolf’s clamoring to spread his DNA to the next generation, but he wouldn’t be able to stave off nature forever. None of them would for that matter. Cat was well aware of the heat that would eventually come and take the females down a path from which there was no return. Drugs helped, held the heat at bay for a time, but there was only one way to cure that urge when it set upon a female. From what she had heard and the slight bit she had experienced for herself. The heat was a week of hell on earth and it was just a matter of time before nature took the first of them under siege.

There were lines you didn’t cross. The Brat Pack had promised one another they would never cross them, but it was a delicate balance. She worried that eventually two of the members would cross the line. Tom and Claire? Tom and one of them? Ray and Tom? Ray and somebody else? They were so close to each other, too close. Attraction or not, someday two of them would fall into bed together and that would most likely be the end of the legendary Brat Pack.

She wasn’t an idiot. She really wasn’t. She knew she couldn’t change the world and she could not change Mother Nature. It was pointless to try. Cat didn’t want to change the whole world. The world could take care of itself, but it was this little corner that belonged to the world of the paranormals, she would change, if she could. She would keep her best friends exactly as they were now, unattached and utterly devoted to one another, forever. But, as her dad was always telling her, forever was a very long time.

Change had to happen, but did it have to happen so soon? She could feel the draw of it pulling on the cords deep inside of her and see it, slowly drawing the others along its threads. They had been sent here to finish the task of growing up. Damn it, she didn’t want to grow up…well, she did, but not at the cost of losing that delicate piece of herself that was still held a child’s wonder and certainly not at the cost of sacrificing her friends in the process.

Cat had always been the kind of person to peek at the end of the book before starting the first paragraph. She was content to read the book of her life, turning page after page as it was written. She didn’t want to come to the final chapters of her childhood. She simply didn’t want to admit that it was over and turn the page. Not to only read the paragraphs that would record her adult life, but be completely and irrevocably responsible for the words written on the pages.