After Dawn, What Came Next

Tom winced at the slam of the door and covered his head with a pillow. Smothering himself was a tempting thought. He grappled for the bottle of whiskey on the bedside table and dropped it, shattering the decanter on the floor. The spilled booze and shards of glass were just one more mess he had to clean up. Phoenix was right. He didn’t deserve her or Ray either. And she was right about something else. It was possible to love someone beyond what they were. Unfortunately, it was as impossible as it was possible.

Phoenix went to the only place a woman in her current temperament should go. The gym was a welcome retreat from the images plaguing her mind. Her lips burned from the kiss. If only the memory of it was as easily wiped away as the lingering taste of sweet whiskey on her lips. Tom was a bastard and her brother, a fucking idiot. And well, since she loved the both of them, what exactly did that make her? Screwed, of course, and not in a good way. She wished she had one tenth of her mom’s gentle nature. That she could see some good in this totally fucked up situation the three of them found themselves in. But, she was every bit, one hundred percent her father from his nasty temper to his need to pound someone into a bloody pulp when he got pissed off.

Her boots made a screeching sound against the wooden floor as she stopped gape mouthed and staring, burning in fury and rage at the scene in front of her. Carter held R.J. in his arms, smoothing his damp hair away from his temples and whispering softly to him. R.J. twitched and moaned in the vampire’s hold. The air was scented with the pungent aroma of sweat and sweet essence of vampire blood mingling with the splatters of her brother’s coppery scented blood dotting the mat. “You bastard! What did you do to my brother?”

R.J. twitched in Carter’s arms roused by the sound of Phoenix’s voice. R.J. lifted his head and groaned pitifully sounding like a wounded animal. The effects of his blood would pass. The images the one way link Carter had bored into R.J.’s mind would take somewhat longer. R.J. was seeing his life as he had lived it. And in that private motion picture show of his mind’s eye he saw things he would never forget. Out of reflex, Carter tightened his grip on R.J. and lifted his eyes to behold Phoenix. His firebird arisen from the ashes. She was the image of her mother. Her eyes glittering with rage and her fists tightening and loosening at her side, so much like her father, calculating how she could best get rid of him. He lifted a blond brow and eased R.J. onto the floor. “He wanted answers. I merely provided them.”

“What did you do, vampire?”

Carter raised one shoulder in a shrug. “Gave him the truth.”

“What truth is that?” Phoenix knew damn well she was no match for a master vampire. Otherwise, she would be over there pounding the undead shit out of him. Carter handled R.J. gently, carefully, as if he actually cared about her brother. And that was the only thing preventing her from any attempt to put a serious hurt on him at the moment.

“One he wasn’t prepared to know.”

Ray rolled onto his belly and pushed his weight up on his palms and knees. His limbs were trembling and his stomach rolling. His head reeled as he relived Carter’s life, all five hundred and sixty-three years of it in the space of five minutes. Sweat dripped into his eyes from the ends of his hair. It was a wonder the vampire wasn’t crazy as hell. To survive so much and still keep his sanity, Ray wasn’t certain he wasn’t going to lose his mind from viewing all the truths Carter had revealed in nothing more than a swallow of his blood. The worst part of this little trip to hell was seeing his mother and himself, a younger version not even out of diapers yet, through Carter’s eyes. Now Ray remembered…everything…why Carter had seemed like such a familiar stranger. It was because he wasn’t really a stranger to him at all.

Phoenix was frantic, pacing back and forth across the gym and bristling with aggression. Ray swallowed back the urge to vomit the contents of his stomach all over the floor. “Phoenix, I’m ok,” he rasped. Unable to hold his posture, he sank to the floor and pulled his knees up to his chest. “Get out of here. Just leave us alone, please Phoenix. Just. Go.”

Carter knelt beside R.J. and kept a wary eye on Phoenix. She had been just a baby the last time he had set eyes on her. He’d held her for a few minutes before returning her to her mother’s arms. But, he had never forgotten. “That might be for the best. I’ll return him to you in good condition, physically. As for his state of mind, that’s up to him to decide.”

Phoenix gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. Fucking vampire. “Ray-Ray are you sure you’re ok with him?” she asked in the gentlest voice possible. His color had improved slightly and at least now he could open his eyes and meet her stare. He managed a nod and eased his eyes closed. Resigned that Ray had chosen for himself, she glared at Carter in warning. “You harm one hair on his head and I’ll kill you.”

“Harming him is not my intent. On that, you have my word.”

Phoenix snorted and stormed from the gym. Carter was noble, she supposed. Whatever he had done to Ray hadn’t been done against his will. She had to get out of this insane asylum. She missed the rugged woods and hilly flatlands of home. She missed Pack Master Nash’s cinnamon rolls and the smell that accompanied them. Here there was nothing but the stench of concrete baking in the autumn sun and people, so many people everywhere.

Barbara could put Janine to shame with her visa card. She had maxed out the card to its limit. Downtown was littered with little resale shops displaying various wares. This was so much fun, riffling through the racks of clothing and digging through the bins of this and that. Better than online shopping. So much of what she had found was just junk. Bits and pieces of this and that to add to her wardrobe, a new old floppy hat for Cat, a interesting looking trinket for Ray, and of course, a vintage t-shirt for Tom. She had dragged Danni with her on her voyage through the piles of gently used rubble and the two of them were headed to a local hot spot before calling it a night.

Danni rolled her eyes at Barbara’s constant chattering. Completely fulfilling the task of the dutiful friend, she helped Barbara cart the bags she had filled to the point of explosion down the streets. Danni didn’t like having her hands full. She wanted them free to grab the dagger hidden beneath her jacket or the butt of the gun stashed in a calf holster on her right leg. Trouble could be anywhere and it was headed right for them in the form of a very pissed off werewolf.

“Oh, hey Phoenix,” Barbara said jovially. “I got you a present.”

“I don’t want any damn present,” Phoenix grumbled. Things were just too fucking weird. The whole jumbled up mess with Tom and Ray and Cat and Christian. Whatever that was between Carter and Ray. And that kiss, that drunken, totally unexpected and utterly fucked up kiss. Now this? Barbara’s completely oblivious cheer pissed her off. And Danni carting an armload of shopping bags as if she were a butler and not a dangerous wolf on the prowl.

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Danni shot it right back at Phoenix. If anybody had a right to be testy, it should be her. Barbara had been shopping for hours and the experience had been the most completely useless waste of time and absolutely most boring thing Danni had ever been subjected to. She’d rather take an ice pick through the frontal lobe than go through it again.

Phoenix snapped her teeth at Danni and reached for one of the bags. Pawing through the mishmash of clothes and absolute crap, she questioned Barbara’s sanity. “Where are you guys headed?”

“There’s a bar down the street. We thought we’d go check out the nightlife,” Barbara answered. She snatched back her bag before Phoenix could chuck it in a trashcan.

Danni snorted. “Honey, we are the nightlife.”

Phoenix tested the air for danger. It was amazing how after such a short time in the city her sense of smell had been dulled. It took her a minute of sifting through the stench of the city to scent the vampire on their trail. Phoenix wrinkled her nose at the sweetness of the smell. “Vampire at two o’clock,” she whispered.

“Guardian?”

Phoenix shrugged. “Who else?” The three of them made their way to the bar and paid the exorbitant cover charge out of the stash Danni had in her pocket. They were safe in the heart of Guardian territory. They had no reason to suspect they weren’t as safe as they thought. They had never scented a rogue before. Had never encountered a true threat either. One was on their tails and had been for the last four city blocks and it wasn’t a rogue, but rather one of their own.





















































Chapter 57

Fallon thought she had been thoroughly kissed until Catcher held her in his arms and taught her differently. She shivered in his embrace. Her lips tingled from the pressure of his mouth on hers. She thought she knew the dizzying joy that came on the heels of feminine arousal and the promise of carnal delight. She didn’t know shit. Was she there with him? His question struck her as odd. She was there so there in fact that it was all she could do to keep from dragging him to her bed and giving him a very up close and personal tutorial of exactly how there she was.

Catcher was not unaffected. She could see the fire she had sparked to life burning golden and hot in his brown eyes. His broad, powerful frame blocked everything else from her view. There was nothing but him, his strength, his pure, unadulterated maleness, and the white hot burn of masculine lust. Fallon was leaning on him for support. Shivering and panting, her fingers clutching his shirt in a death grip, her body and mind battled to make sense of the situation. She loved Daniel, but she…how strange…after last night she had come to the realization that it was the best for the both of them that she let him go. Sex was supposed to bring a couple closer together, but it had torn them apart.

Fallon had always known loving Daniel was a fool’s errand. Daniel was a fire that consumed everything that got within range of the flames. She was singed, but not burned. Still a part of her wanted to cling to him, grab hold of the Fallon who dreamed and fantasized about the illusion of Daniel every night since the age of thirteen. That little girl was gone and the perfect version of Daniel she had concocted in her mind along with her.

Love was not enough to cloud all of Daniel’s imperfections from her conscious mind. Catcher was a fresh start. Someone new, someone who wanted the exact same things out of life that she did. With Daniel all she had was a past, a very lonely past. With Catcher she could have a future.

Catcher was persuasive in getting what he wanted and leading her body to come to that same conclusion. His fingertips were light as feathers brushing across her heated skin. Catcher’s hands stayed well within the boundaries of her safe zones, stroking over the curve of her hip and traveling up her spine to gently knead the knot of tension at the base of her neck. He knew what he was doing with his hands and fingers. Applying such a gentle pressure, he held her pressed to his body while at the same time giving her desperately needed space.

The closed bedroom door gave them a small measure of privacy. Around them the house was begging to settle in for the night. There was the pound of tiny footsteps across the floor as children scrabbled to steal a few moments of play before bed. The insistent voices of harried parents eager to corral their young. Dishes clanked as whoever was assigned to kitchen detail put them away.

Her room was a quiet haven in the chaos of such a large and busy household. The background noise of the house and the people in it added to the illusion of aloneness. The sheets on her bed were clean and fresh out of the laundry. She had scrubbed all traces of last night from her skin, but she could still feel Daniel’s lingering touch echoing beneath Catcher’s careful hands. Catcher deserved to know what she had been doing and whom she had been doing it with last night. Fallon was new to this game of man and woman and the things that went on under the cover of darkness. But, she could never lie. Gripping Catcher’s braid, she stilled the descent of his lips so intent on the curve of her collarbone. Her body pouted in protest to the abrupt withdrawal of such wonderful sensations. “Catcher, I…” Fallon licked her suddenly dry lips. “I mean…Daniel and I, last night.”

Catcher smiled at the flush of embarrassed heat reddening Fallon’s cheeks. She was adorable, so shy and self-conscious. He knew about Daniel. There was no mistaking the scent in the room or on her that she had so carefully tried to cover up with perfumes and sweet smelling air fresheners. Daniel was his best friend, but when it came to love and war, a man truly had no friends. He had his fair share of secrets, things done in dark rooms under the cover of night. Fallon didn’t have a thing to confess and certainly to be ashamed of. “I know about Daniel and it doesn’t matter.”

“But…last night.” Catcher’s finger on her lips stilled the words she tried so desperately to say. He laced his fingers through hers and led her to the edge of the bed. He sat, dragging her down with him, looking down and refusing to lift his eyes to meet hers. He drew a long, ragged breath and tightened his grip on her hand.

“Mistress Eloise was not the same woman then that she is now. I served as her omega…my brother and I both lived and breathed to service whatever need she required of us. I was created…not born. What I am is something that should not be. Genetically, I am the embodiment of perfection, but still so flawed. I knew not the comforts of a mother’s love or a woman’s gentle embrace. Mistress Eloise…Eloise was both mother and lover to my brother and I. She felt affection for us, but never love. Do you understand the difference, Fallon?

“What little affection she showed us was done so to bind us to her. Like letting the wolves sleep with the lambs so that they won’t eat them, I suppose. My brother was always the more content…the more accepting of the two of us. I was dangerous…unsettled and certainly not appeased by the scraps I gobbled from the mistress’s hand. When Eloise wanted certain things…she came to me and when she wanted other things…gentler things…she chose my brother. Sometimes, she had us both…together.”

Fallon listened to the truth in Catcher’s words and felt the sting of sympathy for him deep in her heart. His posture was tense, his shoulders rigid and his head hung low as he confessed his story. He toyed with her fingers, clutching and releasing them in his big palms. Fallon knew bits and pieces of Eloise’s past, but she had never considered them in any depth. Tracker had never spoken to her about his time as an omega. Perhaps, it was that the two of them weren’t close. Perhaps, it was that he’d rather forget. For Catcher though it wasn’t the past. It was his present and he was in danger of it clouding his future. She leaned closer into Catcher’s side, lending him support. “You mean?”

“Yes. When you live the life of an omega. When you’re expected to lay down your life at any moment…or die at the whim of your master… you take what you can get in terms of kindness. When you’ve been trained for war and for defense even the slightest gentle touch. Even if it is given in selfishness, seems like a gift.” Catcher squeezed Fallon’s hands, clutching her fingers tightly in his fist. His confession of the soul took courage to tell. He had never spoken of his life as an omega with anyone before, but he wanted Fallon to know.

“Omegas are the lowest of the low. Born for one purpose and one purpose only…to defend or die trying. You have to understand how our world was then. It is far different from the world you know now. Eloise did what she did…out of guilt, out of a need to hold us to her…out of selfishness or perhaps, selflessness…I really don’t know. Only a fool would guess the true motives of a woman. I don’t blame her. At the time, she was a woman riding a razor’s sharp edge. With the outside world closing in on her, Seff breathing down her neck, and the burden of not only a lineage she wanted no part of but the lives of the pack on her shoulders…What ever she did, she did it for us all.”

Fallon wiggled her fingers in Catcher’s grip. He had been holding her hand so tightly that they were numb. His hold on her hand loosened, but he didn’t let go. She could see the decades of self-condemnation and loathing echoed in Catcher’s expression. He truly believed what he had always been told. That he was nothing and yet, oddly enough, everything. Eloise’s life was in his hands. The future of the entire pack hinged on his decision to put his life on the line for her. An Omega wasn’t a place of dishonor, but one of great responsibility. Unable to convince him to let go of her hand, she nuzzled his cheek in the way of the wolf. “I think you’re an honorable man, Catcher. Perhaps, one of the most honorable men I’ve ever had the privilege to meet.”

Catcher twisted his head out of Fallon’s reach and pinned her with a stare. Her breath, so warm and soft on his skin was as gentle as a caress. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t. She had grown up in the human world. What he was wouldn’t…it couldn’t truly sink in enough for her to make sense of it. “I am the bastard son of everyone and the child of no one. I, my brother and I, are the result of decades’ worth of genetic engineering. Bred not conceived…Fallon. Dozens…hell, maybe hundreds of fathers and mothers spliced together out of bits and pieces of desirable genetic material went into my creation. Yet, I was carried and birthed by one woman. I have a mother of flesh and blood, but Eloise was the only mother I have ever known.

“I’ve had sex, a lot of it, Fallon, but Eloise is the only lover I’ve ever known. A pack mistress would never sully herself with my seed. I’ve fucked. I’ve dominated and I’ve been dominated. I’ve given a woman release, but as for myself, I’ve never found release in the softness of a woman’s embrace. Eloise owned me, Fallon. Every part of me was under her complete control and it was for that one denial that, if I ever hated her, I hated her for. It makes a male aggressive…denial such as that and it is the teasing promise of orgasm that makes him so damned easily controlled.” Catcher released Fallon’s hands. Part in shame and partly because he felt so damned naked and exposed in admitting all the things he had admitted. He refused to look up and meet her eyes. He couldn’t stand it if he did and he saw pity reflected in them.

Fallon blew out a breath and resisted the urge to say something that Catcher might interpret as placating instead of intended to soothe. She wanted to cry out in outrage for what had been done to Catcher and Tracker. She wanted to storm down the stairs and beat the shit out of Eloise for what she had done to them. Fallon could not imagine being in Catcher’s shoes for five minutes. What it had been like for him to have walked in them…to bring someone else to pleasure…to feel it build and build inside of you and to never be able to release the intensity of such sweet, sweet relief and the emotions of pure joy and elation that came riding on an orgasm’s heels.

With a sharp scalpel and less than five minutes alone, Fallon could avenge the horrors Tracker and Catcher had suffered under Eloise’s rule. Eloise wouldn’t like it and probably neither would Nash, but Catcher and Tracker hadn’t liked what she had done to them much either. Her dad knew about the things Eloise had done to protect her pack. Her father was no saint, for that matter. He had done things…plenty of things to protect those he cared about.