After Dawn, What Came Next

All one had to do was think about the situation logically. Cat had never had a boyfriend before and she had fallen into bed with the first male brave enough to hold her hand. Maybe, this was her father’s fault. If he had loosened the reins on Cat and actually let her have a life, the whole thing might not have happened. Ray refused to blame Cat. She had been protected and smothered with love her entire life. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a bad thing, but for her it was a terrible thing.

She had been so sheltered that she didn’t see reality as it actually was. She couldn’t see the awfulness people were capable of or that it was just a part of the real world. For her, the world was a magical place she viewed through rose colored glasses and people were good and honest. Everything would somehow turn out just fine, because for her it always had. She had always set her parents up as being infallible, perfect people.

They weren’t. Her father had killed in battle long before he became the Great Father. He enforced the laws he created in the goddess’s name. Ray wondered if Cat for one second had considered exactly how that law was enforced. What it was her father and the brothers actually did to keep the peace. The peace they enjoyed was hard earned and it had been birthed in blood. Reading about history in a book was one thing. Her father had made it and written his chapters upon history’s pages in blood not ink.

Her mother, Queen Tala, was no saint either. The pack had its own bloody chapters in history. Cat had stopped one paragraph from being written, but there were plenty of pages to fill the book. Tala had shed blood to protect those she loved. Her father, Cat’s grandfather, had killed for the pack and to earn his title. Humans themselves had their own particularly bloody history. Christian may not have done the killing, but his ancestors certainly had. Nobody’s, whether through history or in deed and purpose, hands were completely clean. He wondered if Cat had ever considered the people she loved, even herself for that matter, as tainted.

This was not going to be pleasant for anyone, especially not for Christian. The Great White Wolf was here. Ray could feel the ripples of the man’s power coursing up and down his soul. Nope, when Drew found out what his little girl had been up to, it was going to be bad, very bad. Nausea bubbled up in his gut. Cat was so naïve and innocent. Had she been careful? She wasn’t stupid. She knew where babies came from, but had she in the heat of the moment taken any precautions? He felt Tom’s eyes on him and glanced up to meet his stare. The same thoughts had just occurred to Tom. How far did the bonds of friendship go? Could they work together for Cat’s sake? Could they risk Phoenix and Danni, their families, and possibly even themselves for her?

Tom moved to stand behind Cat. Cat’s posture was stiff and her chest heaving from the rapid intake of her breaths. He couldn’t believe the depths of his stupidity, but then again why should he be surprised? Cat meant the world to him and so did Ray and the rest of their friends. Cat had decided what she was going to do. Tom could see it written all over her face. She was going to face off against the one man capable of doing her more damage than any other man in the world. Her father.

He couldn’t believe he was going to take her side and the along with choosing her side, the side of a human guy last night he had wanted to kill. Ray was right behind him, his line drawn in the sand. Maybe, they were all wrong about Drew. Parents overlooked a lot of shit out of love for their children. They made concessions and accepted the unacceptable because their children meant more than their pride.

Kids sometimes did the same for their parents. Barbara’s grandmother was a vampire and they had all eaten cookies off her plate. His mom was human and that hadn’t stopped anyone from running to her to fix a booboo and steal a little coddling. Even Queen Tala and Great Father Drew had wiped more than their fair share of runny noses. Someday Cat was going to fall in love and marry someone, all of them were, hopefully. Maybe, they were wrong and it wouldn’t matter to him that she had chosen an ordinary human. Sometimes, love just happened and who it happened to was simply chance.

He understood that no a lot better than he had. Ray loved him. It wasn’t Ray’s fault. It just happened, just the same as he had fallen for Cat. It seemed like nobody was going to get what they wanted out of this. Drew was a fucking scary son of a bitch. Cat would be lucky if Christian didn’t run off pissing his pants once the Great Father got done with him. Ray wasn’t the fickle type, but he could just as easily fall for a girl and forget all about last night and that damn kiss. And as for him, well he was a free spirit and on the market. Who knew who he’d end up falling in love, as in the forever type of love, with.

There was one thing everyone wanted. While they were jogging back to HQ to face off against Cat’s dad the thought was in everyone’s minds. Danni and Phoenix deserved the chance to fall in love too. And there was nothing, nothing the brat pack wouldn’t do to make sure they got it.

















































Chapter 72

Christian couldn’t believe Cat had stuck him in here and left him. She had been gone for hours and not so much of a word from her reached his ears. He didn’t appreciate that she saw him as weak any more than he appreciated being weak. There was no way to force the bedroom door open and he was effectively trapped inside. As much as he didn’t want it to his resentment of her heated to a boil. He loved her. He had trusted her at his throat. Last night they both had the time of their lives and today, reality had come crashing down on them. She thought she had to protect him. He only wanted to be by her side.

For years he had believed that vampires were somehow beneath humans. Humans were the stronger, better species and in ways, they were. But, vampires were also the product of survival of the fittest. Something he’d do well to remember. Christian hadn’t even begun to fathom Cat’s other side. She was a werewolf and a vampire and wasn’t that just the icing on the paranormal cake?

She should have taken him with her. Kept him busy instead of leaving him behind with nothing but his thoughts as companions. The men she kept company with were towers of strength, lethal, fanged, strong, and fully capable of protecting her. He couldn’t even wrestle open a busted bedroom door. Wasn’t that the irony of their mismatched relationship, if he could even call it a relationship at this point. He couldn’t do jack shit to help his woman. She would be the one to do the protecting, the providing, and whatever else she deemed necessary. He would be nothing more than a boy toy for her to pass the time with.

Hell, he couldn’t even make a decent pancake. What made him think for one second he had anything to offer her? Christian felt sympathy for her missing friends and hoped like hell she found them. There was a part of Cat that was simply too trusting, too innocent, and too pure for this world. She wanted to believe in the good of the world. The world wasn’t good. People weren’t altruistic. Not even he was completely infallible, as she would like to believe. Last night he had taken something precious from her. He should have put on the brakes and forced them to retreat to neutral corners of the room for her own good. He hadn’t. The only thing…the only thought in his primitive brain had been getting inside of her.

Her sheath had been tight and wet, so warm and soft. Her body had sung beneath his touch. He had felt it all, every caress, every kiss, and every bit of her pleasure through the bond her blood had created. He knew her wonder and her bliss. She loved him. Love? After one night together? Was such a thing even possible? Christian had known women before. He had felt affection for them, but never love.

Making love to her had been a privilege. Knowing beyond any shadow of a doubt that he had been her first was his greatest honor and his hardest fall. Sheltered in this fortress of the damned and locked away from the world, it was easy. This morning had been hard. Watching her go, being tossed over her shoulder and hauled into this bedroom and left behind, not only was it humiliating, it showed him how very impossible this whole thing between them was.

She had bound them together for his protection. She had locked him up like some damn helpless damsel in a tower for his safety. He wasn’t fucking Rapunzel. He was a man. Men did not hide behind their females. The truth stung. Last night he had been plenty, but in the long haul he would never be enough for her. He would protect her. Even if it was from herself he was protecting her from. Whenever he finally got out of here. He was going to keep going and never look back.

The door burst into splinters and a man big as a fucking house stormed into the bedroom. The bastard put the big in big. Christian didn’t have time to form a thought before the bastard snatched him up by the collar and held him pinned against a wall with his toes dangling a foot off the floor. He was helpless and eye-to-eye with a madman, struggling to suck in breaths through the tightness of the fist clenched around his throat. The man’s gaze never wavered and Christian, through the black spots floating in and out of his vision, had the uncanny sense that the man was reading every thought he had ever dared to think.

Holy Christ! The man had fangs, sharp points of dazzling white protruding in lethal razor sharp points from beneath his upper lip. The man’s forearms were nothing but corded muscle stacked upon bone and his fingers long and thick enough to encircle Christian’s entire throat with one hand. The man’s bronzed skin was flushed bright red with anger and his dark eyes glaring at him with menace promised certain death. Desperate for air Christian grappled with the man’s grip around his throat. Getting the big bastard to release his hold wasn’t happening. Kicking at the man’s thighs and shins with his stocking feet did nothing except for annoy the man and tighten the grip around his throat.

“Daddy! Stop!”

Christian was about to accept his immediate death when the lilt of Cat’s voice drew him back out of the fog. Daddy? This bastard choking the life out of him was Cat’s father? With a growl the fist around his throat opened and he fell to the floor with a hard thud. Christian didn’t even register the pain from being dropped like a bad habit. So grateful was he for air. He coughed and sputtered, sucking in breaths, prone on his belly gasping like a fish out of water and trying not to puke all over the biggest pair of shit kickers he had ever seen.

Cat’s father blocked all the light in the room, looming over him like a dark, menacing shadow. There she was again, protecting him. Not that he wasn’t thankful for her intervention, but damn, how many times was this delicate china doll of a woman going to save him? Her lap was soft and warm, cradling his head on her thighs. She brushed his hair away from his forehead. “Baby, are you ok?”

If Drew were capable of having a heart attack he would have had one then and there. Baby? Baby? He glared at his daughter, crouching on the floor and stroking the human boy’s blond hair as if he were a helpless kitten she had rescued from the shelter. She rested his head in her lap and glared up in defiance, just daring him to put one finger on the boy. Naw, he wouldn’t put a hand on the boy, just his fists and his fangs. Humans always thinking with their nether parts, well this particular human should have used his head before he dared to lay one finger on Cat.

She had bonded with the boy. That was the only thing that had saved the little prick’s life. Hurting him would cause her great pain. The thought of his precious little girl mating like an animal with this…this boy…with any boy, had him bristling with rage. When Drew had sent her to the city to grow up and become a woman. He had meant that figuratively, not literally. He had placed her into Carter’s care, trusting him with her life. Carter should have protected her better.

There were a lot of things Carter should have done, but ultimately, what could he really have done to prevent this? Cat was a stubborn woman. The child born to spite him and tie his insides into knots with worry. His human line thrived. Dane, John Mark, and Will were all born of his descendants. His pack flourished. Both had done so and would continue to do so without any intervention from him. But Cat, the one child he had guarded so carefully and held in such a place of high regard, had given herself to a human child, an infant of twenty some odd years of age, and why? He had let her off the leash in hopes that she would finally come to discover her destiny and here they were, father and daughter, glaring at one another, the both of them with rage in their eyes.

Males were scared of him and rightly so. No man had dared to so much as have one untoward thought about his daughter. The males of the pack and the brotherhood treated her as carefully and gently as a sister. No man had ever seen her as a woman before. Maybe, that in itself was what rankled him the most. It was far too difficult for him to admit that his little girl wasn’t a little girl anymore. And as for his protection, she didn’t want it, nor did she need it.

The old ways were gone. Fathers did not broker their daughters in marriage. Daughters did not obey their fathers out of a sense of obligation. Maybe, that was a good thing. Fathers didn’t always know best. When it came to their little girls their vision was clouded. No man, human, brother, or pack would ever be good enough for his little girl. Ever.

He was an old codger. Not unwilling, but he simply didn’t embrace the modern ways of thinking. Had he been married to her mother before he bedded her? No. Tala had rocked his world in all ways and turned it upside down. He had been helpless scrambling for cover and in the end had fallen head over heels in love. He loved Tala to this day and always, always would. Had it ended badly because they had shared bodies before exchanging rings? Everything had turned out perfectly exactly how it was supposed to. Tala was the bridge between their two worlds and maybe, just maybe, this human boy was another bridge yet to be crossed.

He swallowed his pride and reached down, plucking the boy out of Cat’s hold as if the male weighed nothing. Gently setting the boy on his feet and righting his rumpled t-shirt, Drew took a breath to make an introduction. He regretted the purple bruising and the fingerprints indented into the male’s neck. Ok, so he was a little more old fashioned than he wanted to admit when it came to his daughter. The boy stared at him with eyes round as saucers and a mixed expression of terror and disbelief on his face. The crowd drawn by the ruckus held their collective breaths behind him. “I am Drew, Cat’s father and you are?”

“Christian.” Christian thanked God he hadn’t pissed down his leg and embarrassed himself in front of so many prying pairs of eyes. He coughed hard enough to expectorate a lung and sucked in a breath. Dear old dad flashed his fangs as he tried to curl his lip into a welcoming smile. Hell, the grim reaper had more charm than this big bastard. Christian didn’t know whether to offer his hand for a manly handshake or drop to his knees and beg for his life.

The man was six foot seven inches of pure, bulging muscle and towering, bone crushing strength. There was an aura about him of danger that promised pain and a slow agonizing death. Cat said it was against the law for a vampire to kill a human. He wondered if that particular law applied to him. How did one address a vampire…not just a vampire, THE vampire of all vampires and not exactly just THE vampire either, but the king of the wolves, and probably the oldest living thing in the room?

Drew oozed with authority. He was a man that expected his orders to be followed without complaint. He was like the president, the pope, and a rock star blended into one. Christian should want to make a good impression on the man, but the whole gasping for air thing had kind of put a kibosh on that. Drew could snap him in two like a twig. He could…damn, Christian did not want to think about the things this man could do to him. He rubbed the bruises on his throat and swallowed hard. This man would smell a lie and probably gut him like a fish. Christian wasn’t happy to meet him and probably, the feeling was mutual.

Drew huffed with impatience at Christian’s inability to come up with something to say. He personally had nothing to say to the boy either. There were plenty of things he wanted to do to the male though. Starting with ripping his beating heart out of his chest and sucking on it like one of those all day jawbreakers Cat was so fond of.

Tala gently nudged her big oaf of a husband out of the way and reached out to shake Christian’s hand. Drew was many things. But, a contender for the Nobel peace prize, he was not. Over the years she had managed to tame him, possibly even civilize him, a bit. The man commanded hundreds of men and he did have a certain charisma, once you got to know him. But, this human guy making doe eyes at her daughter was about to piss his pants and why? Drew wouldn’t budge one inch. He couldn’t. His ego wouldn’t let him. “I’m Tala, Cat’s mother.”

Christian blinked at the woman. Cat was far prettier than her mom, but damn, her mom was quite the looker. Regal and so graceful, her hand so soft in his sweaty palm, it felt like silk in his grip. Mother Tala was small, tiny even, so delicate and beautiful in her fragile beauty that Christian was terrified that even a handshake would crush every bone in her hand. Cat’s mother was the kind of woman capable of bringing the world to its knees with nothing more than a whisper from her lush lips.

Well, at least he knew where Cat got it from, her ability to topple the tallest of oaks with nothing more than just a smile. It was so obvious looking at this odd couple, Cat’s mom and dad, which of them ruled the roost. His gaze flicked up to Drew. The big bastard had the nerve to look apologetic for almost crushing Christian’s windpipe. For all his hardness and his brutish strength, there was a weakness, a chink in his armor, and it was the women in his life. Christian exhaled a ragged sigh of relief. His position was as secure as Cat wanted it to be. Daddy dearest might not like him, but he would do anything to see mamma hen and their baby chick happy. “Glad to meet you, Tala.”

Cat rolled her eyes and gritted out an exasperated sigh. Her dad had made a complete fool of himself and her mom…her mom had charmed the pants off Christian with nothing more than a smile. Her parents were enough to make her pull her hair out and wish she had been born into a normal family…like say, the Addams family. Well, at least the disaster of meeting the parents was out of the way and Christian hadn’t pissed himself in terror. She practically had to wrench her mom’s hand out of Christian’s grip to get him to let go. Shooing her parents and the peanut gallery of observers to the splintered remains of the door, she turned to face Christian. “I think that went well, don’t you?”

Christian stared at Cat in disbelief. If that were Cat’s rendition of things going well, he would hate to see what her version of things going bad was. “Your parents are…interesting, Cat.”

Cat chuckled and gave Christian a gentle hug. “Wait until you meet the rest of the family.” She snatched a blanket off the bed and hung it over the doorway to at least give the illusion of privacy. For a minute or two she simply wanted to block the world out. Her brain was a swarm of buzzing bees. Christian kept his distance while pretending not to. She gave him his space and retreated to a neutral corner. They had plenty to talk about, but they’d wait. She wanted to touch him, to reassure herself that her dad hadn’t done any permanent damage. A touch would go so far in reassuring herself that he still wanted her. He had allowed her to hug him, but it was one of those hugs that were more perfunctory, a stranger hug instead of the intimate embrace of lovers. “Christian, are we ok?”