After Dawn, What Came Next

Torr had to admit he was a bit biased in terms of his daughter. She was a chip off the old block and that was not necessarily a good thing. But, he had never been able to see her flaws only her perfection.

There was an old wives tale, or maybe, it was a curse or a prediction that said one kid was born to spite the parent. Well, Fallon sure as hell did her fair share of spiting him. He loved his baby girl and she loved him. In his eyes she did no wrong and likewise, he was the perfect father. That was far from the truth on both accounts. He had tried so hard not to turn into his father that he had ended up spoiling her instead.

Her position in the world was not an easy one. She had abilities she hadn’t even begun to tap into yet and yet at the same time, while she was wolf, so much of her was human. She straddled both worlds and sometimes didn’t belong in either. Torr had spent his entire life trying to make that up to her.

At thirty-seven Fallon was unmarried and had not given him a grandchild. Not her fault. Nope. He blamed Daniel for that. Her mother was fading bit by bit, day by day, and there was not a damn thing either one of them could do about it. Erica was still just as beautiful to him as she had been on the day he met her. But, the truth was there in the wrinkles on her face and the gray in her hair. They were going to lose her. Torr didn’t regret loving Erica and he sure as hell didn’t regret bringing Fallon into the world. He did regret the loss they would someday have to endure.

The world was full of losses. Daniel was Fallon’s first true loss. Her heart was broken. Torr could see it in her eyes. She was still enthusiastic and had hope for the future. But, it had cost her to realize Daniel wasn’t going to be a part of it. She was trying to move forward with Catcher, but Daniel was there, dragging her against the current and holding her back. Catcher and Daniel would have a showdown. Of that, he had no doubt. He only hoped Fallon didn’t get hurt in the process.

He could not imagine the hell that Shayla and Tracker, and Gina and Hunter were going through. Hunter was a man of few limits and a temper that far too often got the better of him. Mouse was wise beyond her years not to allow her father to go on the mission. She knew better than to leave her father to his own devices. Without Gina to keep him grounded the man would come unglued.

Tracker had that uncanny ability to separate himself from any situation no matter how close to home it was. Tracker had stayed behind to protect the many instead of racing forward to find his daughter, sending Catcher in his stead. Tracker had entrusted his only daughter into Torr’s care as Hunter had entrusted him with Danni. Torr would find those girls and deliver them home safe and sound.

Torr didn’t admit it often. He preferred not to acknowledge exactly how much of his father he had in him. But, he was glad for the son of a bitch’s DNA today. The part of him that knew no limits to the capacity of his cruelty would have a field day when the bastard responsible for abducting those girls was caught. There would be no trial or any committee meetings about what to do with him. The bastard wouldn’t live that long. Torr would see to that up close and personally, and very, very painfully.

Chapter 70

Cat paced the alleyway and cursed under her breath. The four of them had been out searching for something for hours and had shit for their efforts. The Guardians had already scoured the area clean. There wasn’t one shred of evidence that hadn’t already been found. Whatever scent trail might have been left was already gone. There wasn’t even a drop of blood or a shard of broken glass to give them a hint of where Danni and Phoenix had been taken. Nothing, and it was damn infuriating. Exactly how were they supposed to find their friends now? Go door to door? Put their pictures on milk cartons? Facebook everyone in the country? She slid down the wall and landed with a hard thump on her butt. For all she knew she could be sitting where Danni and Phoenix had been taken down. “Anybody got any ideas?”

Tom had been avoiding meeting Ray’s eyes all morning. One glance at the male and his cheeks blazed red with embarrassment over what had happened between them last night. The only explanation or excuse he had was that he had been piss drunk. He probably would have kissed anybody with a heartbeat. Instead he had kissed Ray, deeply, with tongue, and no small measure of raw enthusiasm. Ray was his friend! His best friend. Sure, Tom had always known about Ray’s hidden attraction to him, but he thought the two of them had long since worked beyond that. He thought Ray had always known the two of them were hands off…no touchie touchie. The looking had been bad enough. But, now what was he supposed to do?

The things Ray had said to him had been said out of anger and hurt. What Tom wouldn’t give to turn back the clock twelve hours and have things between the two of them normal again. Tom could have endured the covert glances and unspoken lust. He could have worked with avoiding the elephant in the room for the rest of his natural life. He could have pretended and everything would have been ok. After all, he had been pretending with Cat for years. Sneaking glances and wanting to touch her so badly his entire body ached from the need of one single caress.

Cat was the elephant in the room nobody wanted to acknowledge. Ray was an enigma in that department. The man wanted Cat as badly as he wanted him. Tom got it, but he really didn’t grasp the concept of how Ray could want…could love two people at the same time and get nothing but a contrite offering of friendship from both of them. Cat, Tom understood. She was everything lovely in the world. But, him, Tom didn’t get what Ray saw in him or why Ray would risk their friendship for just one kiss.

Cat was as out of reach to him as he was to Ray. She had chosen a human guy over pack or brother. She wore the flush of last night on her face and the man’s scent on her skin. Tom’s only hope was that her father would intervene. Dear old dad wouldn’t want his daughter hooking up with a man not even capable of protecting himself from the big baddies in the world. Tom didn’t think Cat’s dad would use force to get her in line, but a man like the Great Father rarely had to resort to force to get what he wanted. Tom pitied the man who had won Cat’s affections, poor human son of a bitch. He was envious that it wasn’t him, but in a way he was just a tiny bit thankful that it wasn’t too.

The wolf was riding them hard. Every year it got more difficult to avoid the wolf. Wolves lived for the hunt, to defend the pack, and of course, to bring the next generation into being. The wolf wanted to mate, as in for life, mate and it was damn difficult not to grab some available female and get down to business.

Tom thanked god his parents were who they were. They didn’t pressure him to buckle down and father grandchildren. They didn’t balk at his indecision over what to do with his life. They didn’t offer advice he didn’t need or want. They let him find his own path and were patient with him to a fault. Especially since he was rapidly approaching the thirty year-old mark and had yet to make one damn decision on what he was going to do with his future.

He had taken so many college courses, to the point where he had become a professional student, but had yet to declare a major. He worked part time at the Super Center. He had worked the same damn job stocking shelves he had had since he was seventeen. He hung out with his friends and took online courses all under the guise of pursuing his dream. He was pursuing his dream or would be, if he ever figured out what it was.

Cat knew her destiny. Everyone knew what she was born to do and what she would eventually become. She was just avoiding it. Cat had been born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. She simply didn’t want any part of it. Maybe, this human guy she had hooked up with was an act of rebellion. The thought of that didn’t necessarily make Tom feel any better. She could have rebelled with him and he would have died a very happy man.

Tom couldn’t believe they were standing here in the mouth of this damn alley searching for clues to their missing friends whereabouts. Danni and Phoenix shouldn’t be missing at all. The Great Father had sent them all here to ‘grow up’ and what a cluster fuck that was turning out to be. Danni and Phoenix were probably dead. Cat was never going to change the world. And as for the rest of them, maybe the Brat Pack was as good as it was going to get. He kicked a rock, watching it rebound off the pavement. “I got nothing.”

Ray watched Tom, standing there with his hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders slouched. The man had been avoiding doing even as much as looking at him all day. Ray meant every word of what he had said. He couldn’t spare Tom as much as a second thought, not while Phoenix was still missing. He could see the defeat in Tom’s posture and wanted to shake him like a bobble head. Tom didn’t think there was any point of searching for Phoenix and Danni. He didn’t say it, but he thought this was a body retrieval mission instead of a rescue. Ray refused to even think of the possibility that his baby sister and one of his best friends were dead. There were clues out there. They just hadn’t found them yet.

Ray paced the alley, keeping as far away from Tom as he could. He was embarrassed about last night. Tom could barely remember his zip code, but he sure as hell had remembered last night. Kissing him was an accident of epic proportions. Ray had just wanted a sample of what he would never have. It wasn’t Tom’s fault his feelings didn’t run the same way Ray’s did. You loved who you loved. Tom loved him, just not to the same depths as Ray loved him. Ray was going to have to learn to accept it. Accept it and move on.

In truth, Ray didn’t want to hook up with someone who couldn’t see beyond a person’s exterior to the reality of the soul that lived within. The body was beautiful in all its forms, short, tall, skinny, stocky, black or white and all the colors in between, male or female, old or young, wolf, vampire, or human. The beauty was there in the variety of shape, color, and species. Nature was a cruel bitch in that she had given him the ability to look inside a person and the capacity to love who he loved regardless of gender. If he could only be attracted to females, it would certainly make his life easier. He could pick some beauty, romance her, and become a proud papa. It unfortunately, wasn’t in the cards for his life to be so easy.

Knowing what he now knew of his mother’s past had helped him to understand her a lot better. He thought his mom was so accepting of him simply out of a mother’s love. Sure, her love for him was a part of it, but there was so much more. She too had loved someone incapable of fulfilling her obligation to the pack. Carter couldn’t make the babies she was supposed to birth. The pack begrudged no one happiness, as long as it coincided with the bigger picture. The pack prized children above all else. Children ensured the survival of the species. It was one thing to be incapable of bearing the next generation through some physical condition or just because it didn’t happen despite your efforts, but it was quite another to choose not to.

Ray respected Carter a lot more than he had at the start of this whole thing. Ray knew his mom was a stubborn woman. She would have stood against the pack and raised both him and Phoenix with Carter as their father, if he would have let her. He had broken it off for her and for them. Carter understood the pack better than anyone gave him credit for. He had known, whether he would have made a good father or not, he wasn’t what she or her children had needed. The pack might have exiled her and taken him and his sister away from her. She might have spent her entire life away from the people she loved most because she chose a vampire over a wolf as a mate.

Times were different now, but not so different. The pack probably wouldn’t exile him if he chose a male over a female or a vampire over a wolf, but they wouldn’t exactly welcome him either, odd that, and quite the double standard. Over the years the pack had come to accept humans, even welcome them into the fold, but someone like him, never, not really.

The pack accepted the help of the brotherhood and offered help in return, but there were lines that were never crossed. Tala had crossed that line and mated with the Great Father. She was queen to both species, the Great Mother to them all and Cat was the result of that union. Perhaps, that was why the unspoken line had been drawn. Cat was neither vampire nor wolf, but both and something other. There were plenty of pack that thought Cat shouldn’t be. That she was dangerous because of her hybrid DNA. Yet, another double standard the pack unwittingly embraced. Human hybrids were welcome and Cat, revered as she was as the Great White Wolf’s daughter, was feared.

Ray wanted to laugh in the packs’ faces. If only they knew Cat hadn’t chosen a wolf or a vampire, but a human. Tom certainly wasn’t taking that particular bit of knowledge very well. Poor bastard. Tom had lusted after Cat since puberty. Ray too had had plenty of wet dreams with Cat as the star of the show. But, for all his lust and willingness to bed her, he knew some things simply weren’t meant to be. Tom had never accepted that and had considered himself in the running until now. Hell, with as big as Tom’s ego was, he probably still did entertain himself with delusions that Cat and he were going to hook up.

The whole fucking bunch of them were in a real pickle. Phoenix lusted after Tom, but she’d never go there because of him. She loved him more than she loved Tom. Well, she could have Tom. In fact, once they got her home safe and sound, he’d make sure of it. God, Ray couldn’t imagine his baby sister out there somewhere in danger. Phoenix was tough and Danni… was there any harder female than her? The woman could peel paint off a wall with just a stare. Ray would not accept any possibility except that the two of them were alive and keeping each other safe.

The alley was devoid of clues. There was nothing to indicate where the two of them had been taken or for what purpose. Ray’s mind filled in the blanks as to the purpose, but he refused to dwell on the images his deepest darkest fears came up with. Barbara knew what had happened and once she came to everyone was going to know. Ray swallowed back his grief that Barbara was hurt, possibly dying for no other reason than she was what she was.

Whoever had taken Phoenix and Danni didn’t want a half-human hybrid. And that had probably saved Barbara from whatever their fate was. But, her human side had also placed her life in danger. She was dying because her body couldn’t withstand the effects of the drugs. The brat pack had been living under the delusion of their safety and youth for far too long. They should have discussed the reality of what they were before the time for decisions came. How far would they take things to save one of their own? They could save Barbara’s life, but not without a hefty cost.

Carter was the oldest vampire anyone had ever met. His blood was potent powerful stuff, perhaps more powerful than the Great Father’s. Carter could save Barbara’s life. His blood was keeping her alive, but the few drops he had donated hadn’t pulled her back from the brink completely. Fallon and Thomas were on their way. They would work their medical magic and maybe, it would work. There was a chance that it wouldn’t too and then, there would only be one possible decision left. If Barbara was to live, she would have to be turned. Thomas was her father and when the time came, it would be his choice to make, his, her human father’s and Jan’s, her wolf mother.

What would he want if it were him? How to answer that? Honestly, Ray didn’t know. Living was pretty damn good and life a gift, but to live on the blood of another or worse, to consider the possibility of being more than wolf, more than vampire, and more than human? Would he want that for himself? Was he already there and didn’t realize it? He had vampire blood in his veins and wolf DNA in his cells. He was born of one man and strangely enough had three fathers, and yet his soul, so much of it was more…human.

Ray considered Cat’s question and had no answer to that either. Now what? Where did they start their search when they had nothing to go on? Fuck, who knew? Maybe, they wouldn’t have to look very hard. After all, it was his sister they were talking about and she had never taken no for an answer. If there were any possible way out, she would find it.

Cat felt the ripple of power run up her spine. There was a shift in the air stirring the dust in the alley into miniature tornadoes. She shivered and wiped the grit from her eyes. Her heart sputtered and then sped as if she had run a marathon. Her mouth was suddenly dry and hands shaking. Her father was nearby. With him over a hundred miles away, it had been easy to pretend she was her own woman, but with him here she was suddenly transformed into a little girl again.

She was nothing but a silly little girl playing dress up with the clothes in her mom’s closet. A part of her was relieved that her parents had come. Her mom would know what to do, just like she always did. Her mom would sort this mess out and fix it. Her dad, he would make everything wrong right again. The two of them had never failed her. Never. But, maybe she should have thought things through before she had acted. She had never had a boyfriend before let alone been in love. And she certainly had never done the big nasty before. She wasn’t the little girl they had placed into Carter’s care. Not anymore. She had become a woman and she wasn’t certain how either one of her parents would react to that particular piece of news.

Her mom was a little more lenient on her than her father. A little. Her dad was so protective of her. She had never had a boyfriend because no guy in his right mind would dare to cross her father. Cat eased up from the pavement and swallowed hard. No man would ever be good enough for her according to dear old dad. Wasn’t one crisis enough to deal with? Her dad would take one look at her and know exactly what she had been up to. This wouldn’t be an awkward ‘gee meet my parents’ intro between Christian and her mom and dad. This would be a disaster of epic proportions. Her dad wouldn’t kill Christian, but then again her father didn’t need to kill to make someone wish they hadn’t been born.

Her father believed she was born to change the world. He had told her for as long as she remembered that she was destined for great things. Too bad he hadn’t told her exactly what those things were. She had spent her whole life researching history and gaining inspiration from those brave souls who did manage to set the world on fire. Change didn’t happen overnight and unfortunately for those brave men and women. The outcome for them wasn’t always a happy one. History had martyred more than its fair share of world changers.

Well, she wasn’t about to become a martyr and as for her womanhood? She had been a woman long before last night. Her parents were just going to have to deal. She had chosen her mate. No, he wasn’t a brave warrior or a wolf. No, he wasn’t the biggest and the baddest. But, he was hers and she loved him. Christian was braver than anyone gave him credit for. Not only had he dared to love her in return. He walked where angels feared to tread. The one place in the whole universe he didn’t belong. He had walked into her world.

Ray saw the shift in Cat’s posture. She was preparing to stand off against her parents. Maybe, it was sheer reflex that had him exchanging a glance with Tom. Other than surprise that they had actually made eye contact, Tom’s return expression was mixed parts of dread and amusement. Yeah, the shit was about to hit the fan.