After Dawn, What Came Next

Mouse was born to lead. She had always, always been good at getting people to do what she needed them to do. Tristen was a natural born father. He had the necessary tools of parenthood down to a science. He had acted to fill the gap when their own father had basically abandoned them after their mother’s death. Daniel had resented Tristen for that. Looking back on it, Tristen was simply doing what he was born to do.

Daniel wondered. What was his purpose? He was a good fighter and could hold his own, but he wasn’t one of the best. He was the captain of his own destiny, but damned if he could guide anyone else on their path. He didn’t have a nurturing bone in his body. He built things with his hands and hated the blisters. He was a lover who couldn’t love and at the same time loved too much. Maybe, he was born to make everyone’s lives hell. He was certainly good at that.

Daniel felt the ripple of unease pass through the pack. Inside the house lights clicked on and there was the rustle of bodies moving into action. After all these years he still carried the phone in his pocket and he wasn’t surprised after so long of being silent, it rang.

He didn’t bother checking the alert. He beat feet up the walkway, bolting for the front door. Something had happened, something bad enough for the brothers to sound the alarm. He ran head first into Catcher and Fallon bounding down the stairs on the way to the dining room. Whatever issues he had with Catcher and regrets he had over Fallon were forgotten. Catcher could go from completely relaxed to lethal in less than two seconds. The man was there now, geared up and rechecking his weapons on the way into the meeting. He had heard of Fallon’s legendary skills as a physician, but had never seen her in full doctor mode until now.

One look at his brother, the grim mask of determination on his face and Kacie’s crumpled form clutched in his arms, and at their father, already locked and loaded and ready to go, and at Tracker, Catcher’s equally deadly twin, and Daniel knew there was trouble. He listened to Nash spell out the deets. Nobody had to ask him twice to weapon up. At that moment, whether he knew his purpose in life or not, he knew his purpose for the time being. His own life might not have much value and that made him perfect for the job. His brother and father had something to lose. He had nothing and he had never ever accepted defeat as an option.

Marianne stood her ground. Her dad and Tristen had too much invested emotionally to go on a rescue mission. Nash backed her supporting her decision to ground them from the team. Tracker practically vibrated with outrage that he had been left out of the team too. They were all good men, capable, but too much of a liability. Perhaps, she was too emotionally invested in the situation as well. Danni was her niece and in a lot of ways more like a little sister.

Putting Daniel on the team was a risk. But, it was one she was willing to take. Daniel had always been able to separate himself emotionally from any situation and had the ability to see the facts for what they were. The team needed someone with Catcher’s skill and well, ability to kill with the cool efficiency of the killer he had been bred to be. Thomas was already in route to the city. Marianne didn’t want to send Fallon and leave the pack without a physician, but if things went south, as in Barbara didn’t pull through or there were multiple casualties, Fallon would be needed worse there than here.

She wondered if sending the three of them to the city, as involved as they were with each other was a mistake. Torr had been placed in charge of the mission. He wouldn’t let any bullshit take precedence over the mission. He was alpha enough to keep Daniel and Catcher from killing each other. She couldn’t count on her brother or on Catcher to keep Fallon safe. Not when they were her biggest source of angst. She doubted either one of them had Fallon’s best interests at heart. What they thought were her best interests, sure, but as for what they actually were? Not a chance. They would lay down their lives for her, but Torr he would never let her get into a situation where her life needed defending in the first place.

She wished she could accompany the team, but the pack was in upheaval as was the brotherhood. It had been quiet for so long. Some of the younger members of the pack had never seen real combat. Drills and practice sessions did not compare to the experience of living it. There was always the risk that whoever had captured Danni and Phoenix wouldn’t stop with them.

The Great White Wolf should have never sent his daughter and her friends to the city. He should have never have placed their lives at such a great risk. In the combined hierarchy of things with Tala and Drew on their way to the city and Dane and John Mark accompanying them, leadership of the brotherhood reverted to the pack…to her and the council. The first thing to do was to beef up patrols and the second, pray, just pray.

Evan couldn’t see the future. What was to come was distant and cloudy, ever changing as the sky or waves in the ocean. The path was no set on any particular course. He knew that was not what Mouse wanted to hear. But, sometimes whatever had to happen simply had to play out. He had faith enough for the both of them and in destines that had been placed on hold that had suddenly begun to run in fast forward. What was to happen was exactly what needed to happen, but it wouldn’t be until the dust settled that anyone saw the truth in it. The future groaned with the pain of labor and it wouldn’t be until after the birth had taken place that anyone rejoiced.

Fallon was too busy researching animal tranquilizers to realize the discomfort of her situation. She had been seated in between Daniel and Catcher. The SUV was crammed to capacity with supplies. She had everything she could think of stuffed into the back. Without analyzing the darts there was no way to know what type of drugs had been used. The effect of any drug was an unknown in Barbara’s hybrid system. Tylenol, safe for humans, was lethal to a wolf, but Barbara tolerated the medicine just fine. She typed back and forth to Thomas on her tablet and received minute by minute updates from Carter. They speculated, but neither one of them would know what to do for Barbara until they examined her.

It had taken a small army to restrain Tracker. The only thing that had even placated him in the least was that Shayla was accompanying the team and that she wasn’t going to be out in the field. Shayla was going under the guise of caring for her daughter once she was found, or at least that was what she had told Tracker. Fallon knew differently. Shayla rode up front with Torr and she was going to do whatever it took to get Phoenix back.

The pack needed someone with Tracker’s experience at home. Mouse hadn’t been wrong in that. Tracker wouldn’t have stopped until he found Phoenix. Nobody would, but Tracker would put himself at unnecessary risk to get her back. Catcher wasn’t nearly that careless. He had never met his niece and had the luxury of emotional detachment. Same as Daniel did in regards to his niece Danni. She knew both women, had known them since they were born and in so many ways had been like an older sister to the both of them.

She could lose herself in the medical side of things and then shake in her boots after everyone was safe. She had to be there for Thomas. He wouldn’t stop until Barbara was alive and whole. She had to be sensible and detached. Sometimes not stopping was too much and she might have to do the unthinkable and convince Thomas to let Barbara go. She didn’t want to think about that any more than Catcher and Daniel probably wanted to toy with the option of cutting their losses and considering Phoenix and Danni as collateral damage in a war everyone thought was long over.

The personal shit would wait as it always did in times of crisis. Daniel one hundred percent supported Mouse’s decision to ground their dad and Tracker. He knew all too well what happened when emotions clouded a person’s judgment. That very thing had almost gotten his dad killed. Catcher was of the same mind as he. While Daniel didn’t want to admit it, he respected the male for the cool detachment Catcher had mustered from someplace deep within his psyche.

Daniel did his best to ignore the brush of Fallon’s thigh across his. She was too engrossed in the tablet clutched in her grip to notice the contact. The point of her stylus tapped on the screen at light speed as she searched for some clue as to what might be in those damn darts. Even twenty some years later, just the thought of drugged darts caused a wave of nausea bubbling up in his system. Drugs had gotten a hell of a lot better in the last two decades and a lot more lethal. The drugs that had dropped him like a stone were child’s play compared to what might have been used on Barbara.

Fallon would know what to do and if she didn’t she would fake it until she figured it out. Thomas couldn’t handle this on his own, not when it was his kid involved. Fallon was a true professional. Researching lists of potential drugs and how to reverse them like a real pro. Although Catcher and he were going out into the field, she had her own version of heavy lifting to do for the team. She would have to make potentially life and death decisions. Sure, the battleground would be different from what Catcher and he would face, but it was no less bloody.

Daniel didn’t have a clue of where to begin looking for Phoenix and Danni. He banked on the fact that he too would have to fake it until he came up with something. From his own personal experience he knew all too well that the obvious place to start was from the inside and work his way out. The Guardians were still toddling in the baby steps of their infancy. Very few of its members had been around long enough to remember a time when there hadn’t been a force except for the brotherhood to guard the city. But, there were some who knew everything of the bloody past that had led to the evolution of the Guardians. He thought that there was where they should start looking. It was the obvious answer and the only one that truly made sense.

Fallon blew out a frustrated breath and cracked her neck. The net was a conflicting tangle of facts. The drug coursing through Barbara’s veins could be anything. She would rather focus on unraveling the mystery than acknowledge the heat of Daniel’s body so close to hers. She would rather pretend her thoughts didn’t stray to Catcher and last night than acknowledge her dad’s stare at her through the rearview mirror. His expression was one that promised they had a long talk coming. And she would rather not deal with the topic of their impending discussion at all. Dear old dad had no room to throw stones. After all, if he had been straight laced and on board with the program his father had planned for his life. She wouldn’t be here now would she?

Parents seemed to forget their pasts when it came to advising their children on how to live their lives. She was far beyond the point of parental intervention and she really could do without her dad’s version of father knows best. But, yeah, she would have the talk with her dad and she would tell him under no uncertain terms that she loved him, but he could and needed to stay out of this area of her life. Besides, Daniel was a moot point and a subject she had wasted way too much time on anyway.

Catcher acknowledged Torr’s stare through the rearview mirror. The man was a can of whoop ass about to explode on somebody. Torr was very protective of his daughter. Catcher could respect that. Luckily, Fallon’s well-being was something the two of them agreed on. He was the better man, the only man, for Fallon. The trick was getting her to see it and there was no better way to do that than through her father.

All parties involved would have to put aside their personal feelings for the duration. They needed to focus on getting Phoenix and Danni home safely. Catcher was already on top of the situation. He had a list of potential suspects engraved in his gray matter and would not stop until he had rattled the truth and probably a pair of fangs out of somebody. That particular part of the mission would be his pleasure. He specialized in extracting confessions. Blood and pain were his pride and joy and he could not wait to get started.

His brother was probably going postal at this point. Not to worry he would exact revenge on the offending party on his brother’s behalf. Nobody hurt his family. He would throw in revenge for the insult done to Tracker at no extra charge. Tactically, sending Daniel out into the field was dangerous. But, Daniel had connections. Catcher didn’t know the extent of Daniel’s involvement with Carter, but the two of them had shared a past and a lover. He wondered if Fallon knew about it and if he could potentially exploit Daniel’s past to his advantage. All was far in love and war and if he knew anything, he knew quite a bit about war.

The city housed about a million people, most of them human, crammed into a sixty-mile radius. That was a hell of a lot of stones to overturn, bushes to shake, and corners to search. Somehow though, Catcher didn’t think this was a random abduction. Someone knew too much. Someone knew the packs’ vulnerabilities. Someone knew their deepest secret. This was an inside job. Nobody had mentioned that possibility, but was there really any reason to state the obvious?

It came down to a simple matter of time. The time it took to discover the guilty, the time Phoenix and Danni had left to live, and the clock ticking away the balance between the two. Either they would find the girls in time or they wouldn’t and time, one way or another, would be out for someone.









Chapter 70

Shayla needed Tracker. Riding shotgun in the SUV with Torr behind the wheel dodging in and out of traffic like a bat out of hell did little to soothe her rattled nerves. Mouse had denied Tracker’s demand to accompany the mission. Shayla respected and appreciated Mouse’s concern for Tracker’s safety. After all, his brother was the next best thing and not as much of a potential liability. If something happened to Phoenix, Tracker would be insensible and unstoppable. She was the only person capable of talking him down, but she wouldn’t be able to do it, not when she would want vengeance as badly as he.

As a concession Mouse had allowed her to ride into the city with Catcher and the team. She was no stranger to war or the battle for one’s life, nor was she a stranger to watching someone you loved die before your eyes. But, the one thing Nash and Mouse and the whole damn council had discounted when they had permitted her to tag along was that she was a mother and hell had no fury like a mama protecting her child. God help the fucker that had taken her baby. If she got her hands on the son of a bitch before the team did there wouldn’t be enough of him left to wipe up with a sponge. They wouldn’t need a pyre to dispose of the body. They’d need the single flame of a match to burn the pieces left behind by the time she got done with him.

R.J. was ok. At least there was that. She clung to her knowledge that her son was just fine and under Carter’s careful watch. Shayla was operating under strict orders that she was not allowed to go out on the search for her daughter. What the council didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. She was going to go out there and she was going to bring her baby girl home safe and sound.

Shayla was not an alpha female. She did not challenge authority. She didn’t need to. She lived by her own rules and until now they had pretty much coincided with the will of the pack. Torr hadn’t said a word to contradict her promise to the council. But, he knew her better. He had been there when she had risked her life for not only Eloise but him as well and while everyone else had forgotten the things she had done. He never had. The two of them didn’t waste time conversing possible strategies or debating outcomes. There was only one strategy and one outcome and that was getting Phoenix and Danni back.

Carter was an afterthought in her mind. The two of them were going to be working together to get her daughter back. After twenty-five years apart their worlds were about to collide once again. Tragedy had a strange way of being a harbinger to Carter. Whenever there was drama or a crisis you could expect Carter to come blazing in riding on its heels.

She had kept R.J. and Phoenix out of the wake of Carter’s particular path of destruction and would have been quite successful in keeping them safe, if Cat hadn’t pulled her little stunt and dragged them in to the thick of it with her. Shayla didn’t blame Cat. Her kids were old enough to make up their own minds about things. But, she wished Cat wasn’t so delusional. Peace and love were not going to save the world and this was a hell of a way for a kid as bright and promising as Cat to figure it out.

Shayla had faith in her baby girl. Phoenix would do whatever it took to keep not only herself alive but Danni too. Her daughter was tough as nails and while at the time she hadn’t necessarily agreed with Tracker’s educational tactics, she appreciated them now. She wanted to shelter her children from the awfulness of the world. Tracker thought differently. The things Phoenix’s father had taught her would serve her well and might very well save her life. Phoenix after all, was a survivor, like her parents.

Shayla was frantic to the point of tears and she might have let them fall if not for the brave front she insisted on for everyone’s sake. Tears wouldn’t bring her daughter back. Tears would not keep R.J. safe. And as she had learned long ago, they would never erase the past. Working with Carter again was her past coming around to bite her in the ass. It was easy to forget the feelings they had once shared for each other when he was not around to remind her of them. One look at him and everything she had thought she knew about herself had turned to dust.

She wasn’t hard. She wasn’t the determined woman she thought she was. Committed to her husband, to her family, and to the pack, yes, but also torn between what might have been and what was. She didn’t want R.J. to ever find out about the ties between Carter and him. She didn’t want R.J. to know that Carter had once been a father to him and a husband to her. She had a life and it was a good one. She meant every word she had said to Tracker. Her place was by his side and she was not going anywhere. She was getting their daughter back and their kids home where they belonged. And if that meant she had to work with Carter and confront not only him and her past. That’s what it meant. Nothing, not her feelings, Carter, or Tracker’s, mattered more than her son and her baby girl.

Torr gave Catcher the evil eye through the rearview mirror. He did not like how closely the male was sitting to Fallon. He had agreed to come along on this mission because out of the four designated to go, he was the sanest one of the bunch. That and he also wanted to keep a very close eye on his baby girl. Fallon didn’t know what males were capable of. He knew all too well the game Daniel and Catcher were playing with his daughter. She was a healer. Her heart went where it went and that was instinctively to the most damaged and impossible of cases.

Torr had put up with Fallon’s love for Daniel since she was thirteen. He had thought that eventually she would lose interest or simply give up on the boy. She hadn’t. Daniel was a user and he had used Fallon’s love for him to get what he wanted and of course, now that he had gotten exactly that, he had turned her loose.

Torr wanted to bust open a can of whoop ass on Daniel. Maybe, eventually he would. Unfortunately, avenging his daughter’s wounded pride would have to wait. Catcher was a male of worth, an omega, but still a man of honor and determination. Torr wondered if Catcher had figured it out yet. That he was wasting his time with Fallon. Torr could hope not. Fallon was too good for Daniel and if he had to choose sides, rather than see his daughter fall in with the likes of Daniel, he was team Catcher all the way.