After Dawn, What Came Next

The list of things Tom didn’t want to think about was growing exponentially. Maybe, he should focus on the basics. Easy things like putting one foot in front of the other, making it to the bathroom and taking a piss or puking his guts out, or both. What was he going to say to Ray? Did it even fucking matter? He had been a complete shit to Ray and if Ray didn’t want to be his friend anymore he sure as hell had it coming.

The door burst open and Ray bolted through. Tom gripped his pounding head against the noise. He whimpered when Ray turned on the overhead light and began riffling through the dresser drawers. Ray was dressed, but not his neatly groomed immaculate self. His clothes were wrinkled as if he had slept in them and his jaw rough with dark stubble. His hair was rumpled and stuck up at all kinds of crazy angles. Tom glanced at the twin-sized bed across the room. The bed was made up with military precision. Where had Ray spent the night? And from the disheveled look of him, what had he been doing? “Do you mind having a little respect here?”

Ray slammed the dresser drawer closed as loudly as he could. In his current state, it was the only outlet he had for his rage. His hands were shaking as he flung a shirt at Tom. Whatever their issues were with each other they’d have to wait. Carter had dragged him off the couch and spared him no sympathy when he’d told him the news. Could things be any more of a cluster than what they already were? Barbara was stable, fading in and out of consciousness, but stable. At least there was that piece of good news. But, Phoenix and Danni were missing without a trace. His sister was out there somewhere and he needed to find her.

Tom pulled the shirt over his head and dragged his fingers through his hair. Ray’s issues with him were Ray’s issues. Ray didn’t have to come in here stomping around like an elephant on the rampage for Tom to get the hint. Ray didn’t appreciate last night and he was pissed off. Tom was automatically on the defense and had no other card to play but cockiness. “Sorry, I don’t swing that way.”

Ray was hauling Tom off the bed by the shirt collar and shaking him like a maraca. Tom stank like a brewery and was red eyed like he had been out on a three-day bender. “I don’t give a damn who you fuck. You can fuck yourself for all I care.” He threw Tom down on the bed and then reached down and hauled the miserable, cocky assed son of a bitch to his feet. “I got bigger problems than you right now. YOU have bigger problems than you right now. Phoenix and Danni are gone.”

“Gone? Where’d they go?” The surreal feeling of waking up still a little buzzed made it difficult for Tom to concentrate on Ray’s words. Maybe, if the bastard would stop shaking him, it might help. Ray was bristling with rage and stank of worry and fear. Fear not for himself but for somebody else.

Ray stopped shaking Tom long enough to pin him with an incredulous stare. Did a question as stupid as the one Tom had asked really come out of his mouth? And to think he had lusted after this dumb son of a bitch since puberty. Beauty and no brains…that’s what he got for thinking with the little head instead of the big one. “Danni and Phoenix are missing you f’idiot. Barbara almost died. DIED. TOM! Starting to figure it out now, eh?” Ray released the collar of Tom’s shirt with a disgusted huff. He should have known better than to come up here. But, he had wanted his best friend at his back.

“Shit. Who?”

Ray tightened a weapons holster around his hip and shoved a dagger into the sheath. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Are you with me or not?”

Ray didn’t have to ask twice. Tom tugged on his over the shoulder harness and slid a loaded clip into his handgun. “Fuck yeah, I’m with you. Don’t worry. We’ll get our girls back.”

Ray snapped a clip into place and tucked into his holster. He slid on a jacket to hide the array of weaponry strapped to his body. He had never considered himself as a weapon before, but he did now. “I am the son of one of the bravest men in the history of the race. I am the son of a master vampire. I am the son of an omega. I know we will.”

Cat wasted no time tugging on weapons and gearing up. Christian paced the bedroom floor shooting her disbelieving looks. He didn’t get it. This was the paranormal world and it operated quite differently than the human world he was used to. A human might call the cops and ask for help. In the supernatural universe, the Guardians, the pack, and the brotherhood were the cops. They took care of their own.

Christian flinched at her as she sheathed a particularly nasty looking dagger into the holster strapped around her right thigh. She had never worn the brotherhood’s traditional black leather fighting gear into battle before, but she was wearing it now.

The leather was Kevlar reinforced to resist punctures and it covered almost every inch of her from head to toe. The boots were shit kickers in every sense of the word. Lug soled and steel toed with lacings going up to her calf and all these nifty little compartments for stashing things. The gear was totally utilitarian. For the wolfier side of the brotherhood, the seams were breakaway and could be torn free in the blink of an eye. She was loaded up as a person could get and still maintain full range of motion. The whole get up was surprisingly light and flexible. So what if she stood out in a crowd? She always had.

Christian didn’t know whether to grovel at Cat’s feet, call her mistress, and beg to be spanked or run for his life in terror. He stopped counting the various blades, throwing stars, and daggers she had stashed in every conceivable place on her person. With her hair slicked back into a tight ponytail and an expression on her face that said fuck with me and die. He was totally in lust with her. He was going to have to get her into that outfit sometime for play and of course for the privilege of peeling it off of her inch by inch.

She couldn’t go out there alone. He had tried to talk some sense into her and given up. She wasn’t listening to him. He pulled on his tennis shoes. What this mission needed was a good undercover guy, someone who could blend in and not be noticed. In that get up Cat was going to have every man in the city drooling and crawling after her on hands and knees. “I’m going with you.”

“No you’re not.” Cat didn’t have time to remind Christian of just how fragile he was. He was staying behind, learning to make pancakes or something edible. She would lock him in her room, but that seemed a little too cruel. She trusted the Guardians with her life and with his. If the Guardians didn’t do the trick, and keep Christian in line, within the next two hours the brotherhood would be here and they sure as hell would. Cat did a final weapons check and gave Christian a peck on the cheek. “Stay here.”

Christian trotted down the hall to keep up with Cat. The woman moved like she had fire on her heels. They ran into company in the hallway. Cat’s friends he guessed, judging by the black leather and mean expressions on their faces. Great. The men eyed him with contempt and then snapped their attention on Cat as if he weren’t even there. A woman every bit as beautiful as Cat sidled up beside the men and paused to give him a curious eye.

“Are we ready?” Cat asked. She was grateful to her friends. She hadn’t really wanted to go it alone and she should have known she wouldn’t have to. She had Claire, Tom, and Ray at her back. She was at their backs as well. She put out her hand palm up and Ray planted his on top of hers. Tom gripped Ray’s hand and linked his fingers around Ray’s and hers. Claire piled her hand on top of Tom’s and the four of them gripped one another’s hands tightly. “Friends forever.”

“Forever,” Tom said.

“Forever,” Claire said.

“Forever,” Ray said. He gave Tom a look. Tom returned the look. The two of

them exchanged something in their eye contact that said under no uncertain terms that they were here for one another and for the rest of the pack. For now they had called a truce and put the personal bullshit aside to do what needed to be done.

“Forever,” Christian said adding his hand to the tangle of palms and fingers. They weren’t leaving him at home. He was in this with the rest of them. Good, bad, or ugly, he was there. Cat scooped him up and flipped him over her shoulder as if he weighed nothing at all. He found his body sailing through the air to land on the bed. “What are you doing?” he howled indignantly.

“Keeping you safe. You’re human and that is something worth protecting. I can’t let you come. I’m sorry, but if I have to worry about you I won’t be able to focus on finding my friends. You have to stay home.”

“Because I’m human.”

“Exactly.” Cat closed the door and pulled on the knob. The frame shattered, wedging the door tightly into place. The jammed door should hold him for a few hours. Long enough for the brothers to get here and then some. She had a lot of explaining to do when she got back. While she trusted the brothers and Christian, she didn’t trust her father not to do something stupid and trick Christian into answering questions he didn’t know better than to answer. “Sorry, Christian.”

























Chapter 68

Megan hadn’t been back a week and already the normal chaos that was her abnormal world was back on again in full swing. There hadn’t been much offered in way of condolences for her loss. Everyone here had lost someone or they wouldn’t be where they were. It was impossible to hide what you were from family and friends. The best thing to do was to hide from your family and friends. It was better for you and better for them if you weren’t…as in simply weren’t.

People went missing everyday never to be found. The police had dozens of missing persons reports tucked away in files. It wasn’t that they hadn’t looked. It was just that they hadn’t looked in the right places.

People died everyday. But, some of them weren’t really dead. It was just better if the world, if their family, and their friends thought they were.

She smoothed her blonde hair into a neat bun at the nape of her neck and put on a beige power suit. Her head really hadn’t been in the game, but it was time to play. She was a hell of an organizer. She had already arranged sleeping quarters for the guests soon to arrive. Sent in a huge grocery order and arranged for someone to cook all the food. She put on extra cleaning staff to handle the day to day. The city had been broken down into quadrants and the patrols were out in force. Carter’s command was hers to carry out and she had done so. Every man and woman the Guardians could spare was out there looking for those missing wolves. It was one thing when a human went missing. It was quite another when one of their own went missing from the paranormal world. Those girls had to be found. Not finding them was not an option. Not finding them meant that they had failed. And failure was not something Carter would ever accept.

One would think with a limitless mortality life would hold some measure of certainty. It didn’t. Their hold on life dangled by a thin thread. One mistake and that thread could be severed. It was a precarious balance living the way they did. Alive but pretending to be dead to the outside world, living but not really able to live and be just like everybody else, it was a damn tricky thing to do. People left little bits and pieces of themselves scattered all over the past. Forgotten tidbits of history that could lead someone curious enough to one conclusion. That sometimes, the dead weren’t as dead as they pretended to be.

Those missing wolves had to be found. If the truth leaked out it could spell the end for everyone. The Guardians had a department dedicated to cleaning up the past. Facial recognition software and handwriting analysis programs had come a long way. The department was one area of HQ everyone avoided like the plague. The corner of HQ dedicated to erasing the past was affectionately called the dungeon. All those poor souls did all day was sit in front of a computer screen and search for evidence that could link the members of the Guardians to the pasts they would rather forget.

Obviously, the department hadn’t done a good enough job or they wouldn’t have a human Sherlock Holmes under their roof right now. The boy was the white elephant in the room. Nobody really knew what to do with him. She had an idea or two. Primarily give him a job and pay him well enough to buy his silence. Either that or force him into compliance by making it his life that hung in the balance. If he were one of them he couldn’t rat them out.

After a period of time a person really did cease to exist. Anyone who could link them to the land of the living died eventually and there was nothing left but those random scraps of this and that in the past. Her own past was being erased with each sweep of the second hand. The final link to her past was gone. Her mom was dead. Megan’s hands still shook when she thought of her mom’s passing. One little pill…one little fucking pill had ended her life.

No one should have that kind of control over life and death. But, they did.

Vampires did it every time they stuck their fangs into the living. Odd, how something as dead as a vampire held life in such high regard. They had laws against killing. Humans did too, but it seemed that their laws were more like suggestions than actual laws. It was murder if a human killed a valuable member of society, one capable of being productive. That law didn’t apply to the elderly or the very ill. The people society would rather shove into a corner and forget about didn’t have such value. One little pill could erase them as effectively as the delete key on a computer keyboard.

Megan wondered what society would do with the paranormal if they knew. Would they devise a little pill to do away with them too? Would it change the definition of what it meant to be alive, if they knew? Carter was old as fuck. The bastard was well over five hundred years old. All the things he had done and seen in his very long life boggled the mind. He was history…living breathing history. But, would society place any value on him or on any of them? Probably not.

She recalled her first encounter with a vampire. Megan touched the silvery scar at the base of her throat. Eric had left her alive to die. For all the regrets she had in her life, killing that son of a bitch was not one of them. How fragile life was. Thomas hadn’t let her die. He had risked their secret to keep her alive. Now he was the one on the verge of dying. Thomas had made his choice and he was going to die human. She didn’t really blame him though. This life…this life of hers was not without cost. Hers was a life of shadows and of living but not really being alive. She could make some discovery to save the world, but she could never take credit for it. Thomas was honest with himself. He knew his limitations. He couldn’t accept a life that was less of a life. She respected that.

Megan caressed the broach pinned to the lapel of her suit jacket and finished the work of putting herself together. She had collected bits and pieces of her own past. Pictures, her mom’s jewelry collection, her pompoms from the cheer squad, various things she had acquired throughout her life…her real life. The broach was her mom’s. It was amazing that something, an inanimate object mass-produced and sold at the Super Center for twenty bucks, could bring such comfort. But, somehow wearing the broach that had been a Christmas gift, passed down from her mom to her, was a source of strength. She had a feeling she’d need it.

Sebastian was being a real pain in the ass. Carter was barking orders at everyone. In general, HQ was in chaos over the two missing wolves. Maybe, it wasn’t that their own had been taken, but it was more to the point of who it was that had been taken. Thank God it hadn’t been Cat instead. The daughter of an omega and granddaughter of a pack mistress, that was bad enough. If it had been Cat instead, the wrath of the Great Father would have been on all their heads. The pack and the brothers would leave no stone unturned to find those girls, but the Great Father, if it had been Cat, his daughter, he would have leveled the entire city to find her.

Megan steeled her resolve and squared her shoulders. Sebastian seemed determined to thwart every one of her plans. She had mapped out patrol routes only to have him change the schedule and send the Guardians on what appeared to be nothing more than a wild goose chase. He had denied her request to call in extra donors to feed the brothers. He had refused to have meals catered in for the pack. He blew off reports from the returning patrols and file thirteened them instead of taking them seriously. He didn’t believe the girls were in danger and resources were being wasted. He insisted that the pack should handle its own problems and dismissed the whole incident. But, why?

As Carter’s second and next in command over the Guardians, Sebastian should be out there shaking the bushes to find those girls. It might be Carter’s ass in a sling, but Sebastian’s and the Guardians’ collective asses were in that sling with him. Sebastian had never been rash before. He took his job seriously, or had until now. Why was he being such a dick about things? Maybe Carter should replace him. Bianca used to hold the position. Maybe, Carter should give her her old job back and boot Sebastian out on his ass. It was too bad David was such a commitment-o-phobic. He would be perfect for the job. But, whatever. It wasn’t hers to question, just to plan and organize and do what she could to help. And if that meant keeping a pair of eyes on Sebastian to figure out what he was up to that was what she would do.

Carter had tended to Barbara as best he could. She was comfortable and resting well and most importantly she was breathing. She faded in and out of consciousness. He had yet to get anything worthwhile out of her. He could see the thoughts colliding in her mind, but she simply wasn’t coherent enough to put them together yet. Thomas was on his way. No doubt he had some concoction in a little syringe that would bring Barbara to her senses. Until then he had shit to go on. He didn’t want his city invaded by brothers and wolves, but what choice did he have? He was not a fool. As a general rule, he trusted nobody, not even himself. When there was no answer looking outward, the only logical conclusion was looking inward. And he had no doubt this was an inside job. Someone knew the wolves were unprotected. Someone knew about the tranq darts. Someone knew the promise hidden in wolf blood. And someone, when he found that betraying bastard or bitch, was going to pay.

Despite the direness of the situation, he grinned at the sight of Megan. She was dressed sharp as a razor’s edge in a snug fitting pencil skirt and matching jacket. The shirt beneath was white and crisp as a sheet of paper. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight chignon at the base of her skull and her blue eyes focused on the tablet she clutched in her manicured fingertips. The black leather three inch spiked heels she wore tapped against the wooden parquet floors as she made her way toward him. The woman carried no weapons, but with the efficient way she carried herself and that damned electronic device she used to keep HQ running like a top, she didn’t need one. She was one.

He had worried after the loss of her mother Megan would disappear. Vampires sometimes did things like that when the last tie to their mortal world was severed. Then again, where would she go? She had practically been raised at HQ having joined up at the tender age of eighteen and fresh out of high school. Carter had done his best to give her a normal life…before she signed her name on the dotted line forever. He had paid for her college and made sure she had attended each and ever one of her classes. He had forced her to go to football games and homecoming parades. He had made sure she got home to see her family on holidays. He had celebrated her birthdays with her until her last one. On that fateful night he deemed her old enough and she simply wouldn’t take no for an answer.