After Dawn, What Came Next

Gently, he eased Alex away from her father. She fought against him, struggling to reach her dad. “He’s gone, Alex,” Chance whispered. He clutched her to his chest and all but carried her out of the bedroom. He knew what Alex was thinking. If there were even a faint glimmer of life left in Alexander, her blood would stoke it back into a fire. Alexander was still and peaceful as if he had fallen asleep and would open his eyes at anytime. The two of them had discussed what to do when the time came and he knew Alexander’s wishes. This wasn’t it. Alexander wanted, no, expected him to take care of Alex. Alex was his prized possession and he had entrusted her into his care. “Let him rest in peace, Alex.”

“But, I might be able to bring him back,” Alex said. She was kidding herself, choosing to believe a lie over the truth. There was no bringing back her dad. He was gone. There wasn’t a spark of life left in his weathered body. If she tried, something worse would happen to her father than dying. She would reanimate him, but the parts of him that made him her father were already gone. What she considered was forbidden in their world and punishable by death. Not even the lowest of the rogues would consider such a thing as forcing the dead from their graves.

“No, you can’t, Alex. Not if you truly love him.”

“But…I. It hurts, Chance. It hurts so bad,” Alex whispered. She cried bitter tears ripe with sorrow, soaking her husband’s collar with the salty heat of them. Chance patted her back and did what he could to comfort her. There was no comfort he could offer. No words he could say that would ease the pain of her loss. She was the last branch of her family tree, an orphan without brother or sister to carry on the great legacy of her parents. She was not alone with the brothers standing behind her in shattered silence and Chance here, cradling her in his embrace, but she had never felt so alone…so abandoned in her entire life.

Chance rocked Alex in his arms. The brothers left behind to patrol the woods began to silently filter into the house. Janine was blotting tears away from her cheeks with a linen handkerchief, aching to comfort Alex while seeking her own solace in Patrick’s embrace. The woods were filled with the soulful howl of mourning wolf song.

The world kept on turning, but it would never be as bright as it had been with Alexander Gray no longer in it. Alexander Gray was but a simple man, but he had been the rock, the cornerstone of so many peoples’ lives. He meant nothing to the world at large, but he meant the world to so many and his loss had shaken them to their very foundation. He was not a warrior, but he had fought many battles. His would be a warrior’s honor and a warrior’s pyre, a funeral of honor amongst the pack and the brotherhood. In letting him go and giving him the death he wanted they honored him.

















Chapter 76

“Alex honey, Mr. Rayburn is here,” Janine said gently. Alex had been at her father’s side throughout the rest of the night and early into the next morning. She hadn’t even let Chance call the funeral director until after the sunlight had filled the bedroom with the glory of a new day and she could no longer bear to see her dad so pale and still in the bed. The smell of death mingled with the aroma of coffee that had sat on the burner way too long. Janine didn’t even know why she made the coffee. She supposed, just to have something constructive to do since Alex had effectively shut everybody out.

People wanted to help, but there wasn’t any helping to do. Alex wouldn’t let anybody touch anything. Candace had moved to take out the trash and Alex almost came unglued. Mr. Rayburn, the eldest son of the former Mr. Rayburn and the grandson of the Mr. Rayburn before that, and the great grandson of the Mr. Rayburn who had started the funeral parlor originally, would want Alexander’s suit out of the closet. The particulars were spelled out on paper and the bill already paid. Thank God for that. But, he would need Alexander’s suit. The one Janine had picked out years ago. So that Alexander could be sent out in style.

The funeral was for the human members of the community. The brotherhood and the pack would hold their own ceremony and lay Alexander out on the pyre after the humans had their turn at paying their respects. Janine peeked cautiously out of the living room window and glared at the hearse parked in the drive. Some traditions never changed. Before long, once the news traveled the circuit. The usual sympathy casseroles and condolence cakes and pies along with the town’s newest generation of blue haired, nosy busy bodies would start to arrive.

Chance stood helplessly beside Alex with his hands jammed deep into his pockets. Janine shot Mr. Rayburn junior a watery smile and ushered him into the kitchen for a cup of coffee while Chance tried to coax Alex away from her father. Unpleasant business death was. Unpleasant and unhappy. Mr. Rayburn, who wasn’t much older than thirty and not exactly accustomed to being placed in such an awkward position, straightened his cockeyed tie and winced at the sip of coffee he had taken from the mug. The guy looked like he would rather have a root canal without so much as a Tylenol than spend one more second in this house waiting on Alex to say her last goodbye.

The Rayburns were good at keeping secrets. After all, they had been keeping one hell of a secret for the past three generations. No doubt, dear old dad had clued in his eldest son about the brotherhood and the pack. Mr. Rayburn Senior had buried Robbie’s parents and before them the empty coffin beneath Lucien’s gravestone. This particular Mr. Rayburn, the one sitting across the table and looking anywhere but at her would have been just a boy when the brotherhood arranged for Barbara’s fake funeral and vacant grave.

Knowing Leigh, the particulars of Alexander and her funerals had been laid out long before the time came. Leigh was a woman who liked to be prepared for the ‘just in case’ in life or as it was in this particular case, death. Mr. Rayburn Junior, Teddy to his closest friends, knew what he was supposed to do and had been paid well for it. His long fingers were shaking as he planted his palm over the rim of the mug to prevent her from offering him a warm up shot. She got it. Not everybody in on the secret was exactly comfortable with it. But, she would have expected more from a guy that handled the dead, dressed them up, and made them pretty for their final hoorah.

The awfulness of a world without Alexander Gray in it settled over her shoulders like a thick, black cloak. Mr. Rayburn was anxious to be on his way. Damn near eager to haul Alexander’s remains onto his little gurney and be out of here. He was a man that was supposed to be kind and caring and understanding. Perhaps, he was, underneath is anxiety. Maybe, he thought Alexander was a vampire and was going to hop off the embalming table and start dancing a jig. “Give her just a few more minutes to say goodbye.”

“Yes, of course,” Teddy replied. God he hated the ones that died at home. Nothing was sadder than going into somebody’s house and wading through an ocean of bereaved family members to pick up a corpse. He had a good sense of the man Alexander Gray was and knowing that made his nervousness even worse. It was one thing to get Great Aunt Thelma, the old woman nobody came to visit except for on holidays ready for her funeral. It was quite another to prepare a man so loved and cherished as Alexander ready for his.

Families had certain expectations of what their dearly departed should look like. An impossible task for sure. Nobody looked good decked out in a coffin. They wouldn’t. They shouldn’t. They were dead. But, it was his job to make them look as if they were merely sleeping and might hop out of their coffins and shout ‘just kidding’ at any minute.

The best he could garner from the peanut gallery mulling about in the house was that Alexander had passed around midnight. It was ten in the morning and decay waited for no one. He should have picked Alexander up and gotten him in the chiller hours ago. It was going to be a good test of his skills as a mortician to make a body that had sat that long look presentable.

His dad had performed his last funeral just last week. Glory had been an easy one. She had so few family and the whole funeral done and over in a day. The coffee cooling in his mug left a bitter taste on his tongue. The minute he had taken over the business from his dad. His dad had clued him in on one hell of a secret. Vampires and werewolves, go figure.

Teddy considered himself an open minded individual and he had seen his share of strange family traditions in regards to the dead. Came with the turf of being a mortician’s kid. But, what the brotherhood wanted him to do. To deck out a body, go through with a funeral service, and bury an empty coffin in the ground…well not exactly empty…the ashes from the pyre would go into the coffin…to even have a pyre in the first place when he had a perfectly good crematorium set up…the whole thing went way the hell beyond strange.

Funerals weren’t for the dead, but for the living. And this family had its fair, more than its fair share, of members that weren’t exactly alive. Teddy considered it some small measure of consolation that the brothers hadn’t asked for Alexander’s blood or something creepy like that. Most people and probably the brothers thought what he did for a living was creepy. Teddy didn’t see it like that. It was one hell of a responsibility and people placed a lot of trust in him to get their loved ones and someday, themselves decked out for their final journey into the great beyond. “I really must see to Alexander.”

Janine sighed and nodded. Even the dead were short on time. Vampires were the only ones with plenty of time to spare. She could smell the sweet essence of decomposition in the air despite the fact that someone had opened all the windows. Alex was going to have to let her dad go. People needed to mourn. Janine needed to mourn. Alexander was like a father to her. Without him, she didn’t know where she’d be now.

Maybe, it was different with Alexander than it had been with Leigh. The woman had equally been her surrogate mother. But, with Leigh when she passed, everyone had time to get prepared for it. Everyone knew Leigh’s suffering had finally drawn to a close. With Alexander there hadn’t been any drawn out illness. Nobody had any warning. He was there and then suddenly, he wasn’t. Maybe, that in and of itself was why Alex couldn’t let him go. “What difference could five more minutes make?”

Teddy was no stranger to grieving families. He had been helping with the family business since he was seven years old. Vampire or not, these people were suffering from the weight of their loss. There was not one damn thing he could do about it. No real comfort he could offer. Five minutes, ten minutes, hell, a hundred years really wouldn’t make any difference at all, not to them and certainly not to Alexander Gray. “Take your time.”

“Alex,” Chance said gently. “You have to let him go now. Teddy is here.”

Alex had no more tears left to cry. She was certain she would find more later on, but for now she was all cried out. She didn’t want to leave her dad. She didn’t want Teddy Rayburn laying a finger on her father. Because if Teddy touched him it meant it was over, really over and her father was gone. The smell of death was thick in the house. Her dad wasn’t in his body. The once animated body of her father was now nothing but an empty shell. He wasn’t here. She had no sense of him. She had no sense of anything. There was nothing but the void of emptiness he had left behind.

There were so many things she should have said to her father. She should have been a better daughter. She should have stayed human so that he would have had grandkids and possibly great grandkids to bind him to this world. She couldn’t imagine herself living a different life. By now, she would be an old woman, her hair gray and looking so much like her mom did in the autumn of her life. She was a child of summer and she would never know fall or winter. Her dad had said that was the best gift she could have ever given him, better than a houseful of grandkids.

He hadn’t liked getting old. Alex smiled remembering the great coffee war of 2012. Shotgun shells, grounds of decaf, and green coffee tins littered the yard for months. Her dad…such a rebel, he and her mom battled off an on again for decades over preserving his health. He snuck shots of whiskey on occasion from an old bottle of Jack Daniels hidden behind the water heater in the basement. He puffed on Marlboro reds out of sheer stubbornness and tried like hell to hide the lingering smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes so she wouldn’t know.

Her mom knew all his hiding places. She knew about the bottle of Jack covered in a layer of dust. She knew about the pack of smokes stashed in the pocket of old barn coat that had been there for at least a year and still was over half full. She knew about the bags of pork rinds and potato chips he bought by the gross, took the time to hide, and never ate. It was never about indulging or not indulging or driving her mom nuts. To her dad it wasn’t simply enough to live. It meant more to enjoy life. And for him sometimes, simply knowing that you could whether you did or not was all that mattered.

Odd that her mom should be the one to die with cancer when her dad was the smoker. It was strange that her dad drank a pot of coffee a day and he didn’t have high blood pressure. Her dad had never turned down a fried chicken leg or slice of apple pie in his life and he had out lived her mom. For all their fights and arguments about a healthy lifestyle, she had gone first. And despite Alex’s best intentions, her dad had still died way before she was ready for him to.

They both had left her too soon. Her mom and dad, they were together now. And the thought of that, that they were turning the Summer Land ass over teakettle with their spats and bickering at one another over stuff that in the end really didn’t matter, and their love, their amazing love for each other that went beyond the confines of the grave, made her smile.

Alex lowered her cheek to her father’s cool lifeless hand. The skin was so frail and the fingers so gnarled and the hands that had once lifted her up were so stiff and still. She pressed a kiss to his knuckles and blinked the tears from her eyes. “Love you, dad. Always.” She allowed Chance to pull her up onto her feet and guide her out of the bedroom. His shoulder was warm and reassuring against her cheek and his arm around her waist so steadfast and sure. This was life. Behind her was death and ahead of her the knowing that someday, she would see her parents again.

Chance handed Alex off to Janine. Janine was quick to do what best friends did and enveloped Alex in her arms. He had one thing to do before the grieving could begin for him. He would see Alexander out of this world, guard his mortal remains and stand at the side of the pyre as the flames consumed them. More careful than he had been with anything in his life, he undid the bedding from the mattress and rolled the sheet up into his fists. Teddy took the feet and he took the head and together they lifted Alexander’s body onto the gurney.

















































Chapter 77

Shayla crossed her arms over her chest as if by sheer force of will she could hold herself together. Her child, her precious baby girl was out there in the city alone, possibly cold and hungry, or hurt and in pain. Danni was with her. Wherever the two of them were. They were together. Shayla clung to that hope as if it were a life raft and she, a drift in a turbid sea. Without Tracker by her side to comfort her, her spirits sank even lower. Tracker couldn’t have come. He would have torn the entire city apart brick by brick until he found Phoenix. He wouldn’t care what secrets got exposed or what the risks were as long as he got Phoenix back. Catcher wasn’t the man his twin was, but when it came to blood he was as fierce as her father.

Shayla moved to the floor to ceiling window banking the width of the public space of Carter’s inner sanctum. The city below was a glittering living thing with life breath and pulse. It was never dark in the city thanks to the electric glow of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of lights. She wanted to be out there too, helping in the search for her daughter and Danni. Carter hadn’t even paused for a second to think about it. He had shut her down and all but sequestered her inside HQ. She had free run of the place, but he had his eye on her.

It was better for her children if she remained here. He’d told her and for a minute, she had almost believed him. Old feelings died hard. And that spark, that goddamned spark that had haunted her for the past twenty-seven years was still burning. One look at him and any resolve she had turned to dust. On her wrist she wore Tracker’s bracelet, but in her heart she was a branded woman and the brand was one Carter had placed there years ago. She was faithful to her husband. Tracker had given her the wonderful gift of a baby girl and he had treated R.J. as if the boy were his own. She couldn’t have asked for a better husband or a better life than the one she lived as his wife.

Shayla turned and surveyed the opulence around her. There were gleaming golden and crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Persian rugs in bright colors, priceless and antique, decorated the polished cherry wood floors. The décor was posh and minimalist. Expensive baubles were expertly arranged on tabletops to add a decided look of avarice and warmth to the room. Carter always had had the best of everything. He had always surrounded himself with wealth and luxury. The overstuffed cream-colored leather sectional sofa was overflowing with throw pillows in a variety of textures and colors. Everything spoke of comfort, but at the same time was imposing, as if to say look but don’t touch.

Painted pictures in gilded frames hung from walls lined with silk wallpaper. There were brass and brick accents and sleek wooden pieces of furniture without smudge or scratch. Carter led a very beautiful life on the exterior, but it was a cold one devoid of a personal touch. Shayla wondered if anyone in Guardian HQ knew the man as well as she had known him, back then. He showed little to the outside world other than what he wanted others to see. He hid so well in plain sight. Very few got close to him. He wouldn’t allow it. Surrounded as he was with such pretty things and being so pretty himself. He was perhaps the most imposing man she had ever known.

It was difficult to imagine him now as he had been then. She smiled at a remembered image of him with R.J. fast asleep and tucked into the crook of his arm, a spit up bib draped over his shoulder, and the tiniest dribble of clabbered milk on the collar of his finest shirt. She thought she had the whole world at her feet: a man who loved her, a beautiful son, and the worst of her days behind her instead of ahead. It hadn’t worked out that way. There was no way she could have known that Carter loved one thing more than her. He loved his guilt and nothing, not even a woman’s love was ever going to take its place in his heart.

Phoenix was her salvation. Tracker had tried so hard to win her affections, but she had been so blinded by her love for Carter that she couldn’t possibly see anyone else. To this day Shayla still resented the bargain the two men had struck that ended up with her in Tracker’s arms. Carter had realized what she had not. That he could never be the man she needed him to be. He let her go because he loved her, not more than his guilt, never more than his guilt, but more than himself. Once she had gotten pregnant with Phoenix the rest of her life had kind of just fallen into place and Tracker was a permanent part of it.