After Dawn, What Came Next

Shayla moved across the room and fingered the fringe of a tapestry worth more than she would ever see in her lifetime. Pack funds went to more practical things than room décor. A tapestry hanging on the wall and threaded with silver and gold would probably be seen as a frivolous waste of money. Besides, with all the kids running around in the house and their rowdy parents, it wouldn’t last a day before it was ruined. The quiet was what threw her off the most. There was no TV blaring in the background. No heated conversation or deep rumble of male voices and lilt of feminine laughter or children’s loud chatter to drown out the silence.

She couldn’t imagine her life being anything other than what it was. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant with Phoenix would Carter have eventually come around? Could she be living here miles from her pack in such luxury and graceful silence? She would be a different person and Carter a different man. She would be wearing silk and expensive linen, the heels of her designer shoes tapping across the floor. Instead, she wore worn blue jeans, t-shirts, and a battered pair of tennis shoes that had seen two previous owners before coming into her possession.

R.J., Ray, as her son liked to be called, was downstairs somewhere with his friends. No doubt, planning a rescue attempt or consoling Cat. Mom and dad, especially dad, were not happy with their daughter. Kids seldom did what their parents thought they should. It was a fact of life. Obedience came with a high price and Shayla had paid such a price when she married Ramon and in the days that came afterwards. She had always been ruled by her sense of duty. Carter was the only act of rebellion she had ever truly performed. Standing against Seff was standing for her pack. Saving Eloise and risking her life in the process was her duty as pack. Carter had been the only thing she had ever wanted for herself. Even as in love with Tracker as she had been at the time and still was to this day. She had always loved Carter just a smidge more.

Ray had been here for a couple of days before the girls went missing. She wondered, not that her son would ever hide anything from her, what Carter had told him during that time. Shayla knew her son. He was far too honest, like his father and Tracker. Ray didn’t look at her the same way he had before he left for the city. There was something different, a glimmer of knowledge in his eye. She had never been dishonest with her children. It was that there were some bits and pieces of her past she would rather keep to herself. It they had ever asked, she would have told them. But, until now, they had never known what questions to ask. Shayla heard the soft whisper of Carter’s footsteps coming softly toward her. “Do you have any leads yet?”

Carter paused. Shayla stood with her back to him and arms crossed over her chest and eyes fixed on the tapestry hanging on the wall. The two of them had gotten good at this game over the years, her, always looking away and him, pretending not to see her at all. Her body hadn’t changed at all. Closing his eyes he could remember the feel of every curve and dip beneath the palm of his hand. The jeans were loose on her slight frame and her t-shirt baggy. Her hair was in tangles from the worried twisting of the strands around her fingers. He wanted to smooth out her wrinkled clothes and brush the tangles from her hair. She was a woman that deserved everything to be right in her world. And the man he used to be wanted to go to her and make everything right for her.

He was a master of covertness. He inhaled her scent, the musky essence of wolf and woman mingling with the pungent aroma of worry. She was a wife and mother. Not his and she never would be. Slowly, he approached her as one would a wounded animal, so desperate to help, but not certain if he would get his hand bitten off for the trouble. “Nothing yet. I am sorry, Shayla.” Carter stretched his fingers and withdrew them, balling his hand into a fist to keep the touch to himself. It would be so easy to forget the woman she was and transform her back to the woman she used to be. The woman he dreamed of every night.

Shayla dipped her chin and nodded, hiding her disappointment behind a weak watered down smile. It wasn’t Carter’s fault Phoenix was missing. Knowing him as well as she did. He was probably roasting in guilt. She was not about to put another coal on the fire. Phoenix was a bright woman. Shayla had to believe that whoever had taken Phoenix would not go through so much trouble only to kill her. Her daughter was strong and fierce, every bit her father’s daughter. Phoenix might, she just might, save herself instead of waiting for help to come.

Shayla lifted her eyes to read the expression on Carter’s face. To most he wore an expressionless mask of cold indifference. Only she could see the truths he hid. His hair was damp from the shower. The pale blond locks almost sandy brown with moisture and curling haphazardly around his square jaw to frame his high cheekbones. He had traded his silk shirts and tailored trousers for fighting gear.

The high-necked Kevlar shirt clung to his chest. The leather pants hung low and snug on his lean hips. He had yet to put on his jacket. She could smell the pungent essence of gunpowder mingling with his natural scent of spice and pure male. He was armed. Holsters and sheaths loaded with weaponry hung from his hips and powerful shoulders. The effect of masculine beauty and danger was devastating. She had forgotten what a beautiful man he was. No, that wasn’t true. She had never forgotten. She had just put it out of her mind.

It was a comfort to her that Carter was going out to toss the city in search of her daughter. All Phoenix had to do was hang on. Carter would find her, if not out of loyalty to the pack and the brothers then to her, to himself and to the them they used to be. “You’ll find her.” Carter stepped closer, crowding her against the wall and the overwhelming everything that was just him. It would be so easy to get lost in him and let him sweep her away. Forget the last twenty-seven years had ever happened and go into his arms. Shayla ducked away and moved to stand and stare out at the panoramic view of the city.

Yes, he would find Phoenix and he would personally filet the man responsible. He hoped like hell it wasn’t one of his own behind the abduction. The dark days were long past. None of the Guardians had ever witnessed an execution. He feared that when the time for justice came it would usher in a new era of terror. Some of his Guardians would leave. Turn away from the cause out of sheer disgust. Others would remain faithful, but witnessing such a horrific death would never leave them. The leather gear he hadn’t worn in over twenty years creaked with his movements. He would much prefer his expensive silks and wool trousers or even better the satin of Shayla’s naked skin against his opposed to black leather and Kevlar. But, those days were long past too.

Shayla refused to turn around and acknowledge the draw to him. She stared out at the city instead and pretended the past hadn’t come back to haunt her. Every minute the two of them had ever had together flooded her mind. His touch. His scent. His soft whispers against the curve of her ear. His hands in her hair. His body crushing hers as he lost himself to the passion they created. His bite and his blood, the life force they shared and the intimacy of it, so much more than physical, almost as if their very souls had touched. She squeezed her eyes shut as if that would block the mental images and hugged her body even tighter, digging her nails into the soft flesh of her upper arms.

Carter had always had this effect on her. Phoenix, her very flesh and blood was missing. Tracker was at home, probably falling apart. The whole world was caving in and all she could think about was Carter. He stepped closer, drowning out everything else, towering over her with his height and leaving her gasping for air in his shadow. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to. He was close, too close. Closer than he should be and she was sinking, fumbling in the shadow of him, and dying a thousand deaths. “What did you tell R.J.?”

Carter sensed Shayla’s desire, her quivering need to fill the empty space between them. He drew her to him, so desperate himself for a connection and nothing more than the feel of her body against his. “Enough. He knows my blood is in him and in you. I can feel it, Shayla. The effect I have on you and it is killing me.” He tilted his chin and ran his jaw over the sleekness of her hair. Her breath hitched in her throat. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. His fangs slid free of their sheaths and he was hard and aching for this woman in every way a male possibly could yearn for a woman. “We are a part of each other, Shayla. We always have been. One taste, Shayla, is all I’m asking. Just a sample of paradise to sustain me through the endless desert that is my life.”

Out of reflex, Shayla extended her neck and rested her head on Carter’s shoulder. His fingers remained in the safe zones of her body. Stroking her forearm and gripping her tightly around her waist, but she burned from the touch. She was a respectable woman. She was faithful to her husband. Tracker was her life. Carter was her past. Though her resolve wilted like a rose plucked from its stem and left in the summer sun too long. She mustered the strength to wiggle out of his embrace.

She had felt it too. Carter’s longing danced a dangerous dance with her desire. She too had been in a desert of her own making. One thing she did not do was lie to herself. “R. J. is a good kid. I see your goodness in him. Your strength and sometimes, your stubbornness as well.”

Carter felt the chill of Shayla’s absence from his arms. “I believe he inherited his stubbornness from his mother.” He chuckled and ran his fingers along Shayla’s jaw, tilting her head so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes. “He is the best of both of us.”

Shayla twisted her chin out of Carter’s grasp and hid her smile beneath her own mask of indifference. Carter knew better though and grinned down with his arctic blue eyes twinkling in mirth. “That he is. Is he ok…with it?”

“He is. R.J. is not quick to judge. He isn’t a marshmallow either. R.J. is sensitive and caring and he understands about forbidden love. Perhaps, more than you think he does.”

Shayla’s eyes snapped up and saw the understanding in Carter’s. “ I know my son.” No, R.J. was not quick to judge or one to hold anyone’s past against them. He had plenty of his own demons to battle. He loved so freely. Perhaps, too freely, so much like her it made her heart break for him. The pack hadn’t been so liberal when she had fallen for Carter. What they had together broke all the unspoken rules of the pack. Her job was to make babies and birth the future of the pack. Carter was incapable of giving her the babies the pack had needed so desperately at the time. Things were better now. Mothers survived the difficult hours of labor. Children thrived in greater numbers than they ever had before. With the combining of three packs into one there was enough genetic diversity to ensure nobody married for the future of the pack alone.

She had been a coward in so many ways when she had chosen Tracker over Carter. All these years she had blamed Carter for being afraid. She had blamed Tracker for being an opportunist and taking advantage. But, she had failed to see her own blame or to fully recognize it until now. She made choices too. She loved Tracker, but she had chosen him over Carter out of duty and responsibility. The pack hadn’t pressured her. They hadn’t needed to. She had pressured herself into doing what she thought at the time was best for everyone. She knew full well what she was giving up, Carter, this posh life in the city. But, she had done it for her children, to a degree for Tracker, and most of all for her own sanity. Tracker, in some ways, fell short. But, Carter would have fallen farther from the graces of her heart. And in the cold of the night, his guilt would have made for a very poor bed partner.

He wouldn’t have been enough in the long run. He never would have loved her more than his cherished guilt over things that had been done and could never be undone. Tracker was heat and fire to Carter’s cold and ice. Tracker was capable of great love despite his past. The man had not one shred of guilt over anything he had been forced to do as an Omega in service to Eloise. He had no remorse over taking Carter up on his offering. And even though he knew he was not her first choice, he overlooked it and gave her his all anyway.

“Would my blood be enough?” She asked. “Even after all these years we are still linked together as strongly as we had been on the day we first forged the link. Your blood is a part of me and a part of R.J.. It flows between the three of us. Does it flow through Phoenix too? Would it lead you to her?”

Carter shuddered at the promise of tasting Shayla’s blood once again. Deep down into the very core of his being he was a vampire. Maybe, that made him a son of a bitch. Craving one tiny sampling of the forbidden fruit. Would her blood be enough? Her blood was everything. “Perhaps.”

Shayla steeled her resolve and slid her hair over one shoulder, completely offering her throat. She knew how good Carter’s kiss could feel. She knew the hell the coolness of his mouth and the pierce of his fangs into her very soul would stir to life within her. “What are you waiting for? Do it.”

“Shayla…”

“Carter, if this will bring my little girl back to me safe and sound then a few drops of blood is no price at all to pay. I’ll be ok. We’ll be ok.”

“It’d be easier on me to take a stake through the heart than to endure what you’re asking of me. Though I live, I die a slow death, Shayla. With the beat of my heart and the blood…your blood circulating though my veins, I die a little more day by day.”

“I know, Carter. I’ve felt it too all these long years. A part of me has been still so very long, dead and only you could bring it back to life. What we want, truly want, can never be and the blood flowing between us is all that is left. I want my daughter back, Carter. I can’t have the life I should have lived returned to me. The life you gave away in exchange for the romance of your guilt. But, I can have my child back. You owe me at least this much.”

“I do.” Carter was on her, piercing her skin with his fangs and drinking deeply of the wellspring he’d left to dry up. Shayla wriggled in his hold, pushing against his chest with balled fists and burning him with heated gasps of breath and frantic exhales. He crushed her breasts to his chest and pinned their bodies pelvis to pelvis letting her feel the effect she had on him. Pressing his hardness to the softness of her and damning them both for the lust and intimacy the contact created. He followed the lingering traces of his blood through her veins, tracking that bit of himself within her deeper, farther and farther, through to R.J. and beyond, away and near, so very near to her daughter, his little Phoenix rising from the ash.

Without thought, he bit his wrist and returned to her what he had taken. Shayla drank deeply, hungrily and with heated urgency, her tongue tracing over the punctures and her lips sealed tightly drawing him into her body. Carter supported her head and relished the feel of her and all the things he had lost once again within his grasp. His body was hard and aching and her, soft, warm, and compliant in his arms. The feel of her pressed against him was heaven and it was hell in equal measure. He wanted, but could not have. He could hold and touch, but never keep.

Shayla drifted, reeling from the effects of Carter’s blood invading her system. The link was like a golden thread woven between them, glistening and binding her to him. The feel of his breath against her hair and his arms around her body, crushing them together was everything she had been missing and wished she had never found. Tracker was her husband. She loved him without limit, but this man holding her and quivering at the feel of her was the love of her life.

They had been apart these long years and lonely nights. She felt his isolation and loneliness infuse into the deepest parts of her soul. As it had been for him, it was also for her. She had her husband and her children and maybe that had drowned out his absence and made it somewhat more bearable. But, for him, there had been nobody and nothing, only his guilt and his duty to the Guardians to occupy the empty space she had once held in his heart. Carter clutched her body to his and gently guided her cheek to the warm center of his chest.

Carter couldn’t help himself. He had no more power to stop the kiss than he did to stop a freight train barreling full speed downhill. His hands were in her hair, fisting the strands and forcing her face up to meet his. The flavors of their mingled blood were on his lips as he thrust his tongue into Shayla’s mouth for the first taste of paradise in over twenty-five years.

Shayla melted in Carter’s embrace. It could be the effect of his blood on her, but she feared it was something much deeper than that. The desire belonged to her just as much as it belonged to him. His mouth was warm and lush on her lips. His tongue questioned and demanded in equal measures as he searched her mouth for answers. Shayla’s reply was honest and hungry and through its honesty she felt the sting of betrayal.

There were lies that were permissible and those that were not. She could lie and say that she had exchanged blood with Carter to find her daughter. Not a lie, necessarily, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. The kiss could be chalked up to a side effect of his blood. It wasn’t. She had risked the last twenty-five years to feel his lips on hers, his blood surging through her veins, and his arms around her just one more time.

Shayla had walked in the shade, capturing glimpses of sunlight here and there. But, she had never felt the sun on her face, shining down on her in all its glory till now. Temptation was an ugly, ugly beast, so ugly in the promise of its beauty. Tracker had pulled her out of a very dangerous time in her life. She had been drowning and he had set her feet on solid ground. She owed him everything. Carter offered such an empty promise and pretty lies. Once upon a time she would have followed him anywhere. Now, she had her family to think about and the one man that had stood by her side. Carter had sold her out for his guilt. He had abandoned her to save himself. She would do well not to forget that. But, her body held no grudges against him. Her body picked up where they had left things off twenty-five years ago and the body wanted what it wanted. Her body wanted him.

Ray stalked through HQ to walk off his agitation. The debating and arguing wasn’t getting them any closer to finding Phoenix and Danni. His little sister was out there somewhere and what were they doing to find her? Taking up space in the only place she wasn’t. Ripples of unfamiliar power tingled his skin. The link to Carter flared to life and singed the edges of his soul.

He had felt Carter’s agitation all day. The emotion invaded him the minute Ray’s mom had entered the compound. There were things he wished he didn’t know. His mom and Carter’s past together was just one of them. Carter’s aching for her choked Ray, causing him to stagger blindly into the penthouse. Of course, Ray was one hundred percent devoted to his mother. Had any woman ever sacrificed as much for her children as she had? Knowing her history with Carter explained so much. There had always been a hidden emptiness behind his mother’s affection for Tracker, something missing in her eyes when she looked at him.