After Dawn, What Came Next

Angelica stayed to the rooftops hopping from building to building. The wolf couldn’t climb to get her and the vampires and the wolf in its human form were too slow to catch up. She could get into tiny places the men couldn’t. Her heart pounded in her chest. This was so much fun, watching them scramble to follow her. The wolf lowered its big head to the sidewalk sniffing to capture her scent. It was a huge thing with glowing yellow eyes and a tri-colored buff coat of thick fur. “Oh my, what big eyes you have.”

Daniel growled under his breath. It was better for him to stand back and let the omega wolf inside of Catcher do his job than for him to transform into a wolf himself. He could not harm a child, no matter if it were really a child or not. Catcher would have no such hesitation. The thing…vampire child, wanted to play games. Ok, they could play. “All the better to see you with,” he shouted.

Angelica stifled a snicker. She bolted and ducked beneath an old air conditioning unit rusting on the roof. “Oh my, what big ears you have!”

“All the better to hear you with,” Daniel shouted. The girl was on the rooftop above them. He motioned to Cole and David to round the building and cover the fire escapes. Just as expected a blur darted from one rooftop and dropped down onto the roof of another. Cole and David wasted no time scaling the fire escapes in hot pursuit.

She heard the men coming, bolting across the asphalt roof. Angelica hurled her body over the ledge and shimmied down a rusty drainpipe leading from the roof to the sidewalk below. They had her and she knew it. Trapped in a dead end alley and between the banking walls of two buildings, she slipped farther into the shadows. The wolf stalked her, his breath heating the night air with bellowing clouds of steam. “Oh my, what big teeth you have.”

Daniel rounded the corner. They had her. Cole guarded one rooftop and David the other. There was only one way out for her and that was through Catcher. He doubted the little vampire…little girl…whatever the hell she was, would like the result. He pressed a hand to Catcher’s wolf’s back and moved deeper into the alley. “All the better to eat you with.”

Angelica giggled in the face of death. “Are you sure you want to do that? I have goodies in my basket. But, you’ll have to catch me first to get them.” She batted her eyes, looking every bit the innocent eight year-old little girl she pretended to be in her lace and frills. Seeing her exit, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through the hatch of an old garbage chute, fast as a whisper and quick as a bolt as lightening.

“Damn it!” Daniel barely had time to blink before the little girl was gone, almost as if she had never been there at all. She disappeared into a hatch in the wall leaving nothing but her giggles echoing through the darkness. Catcher’s wolf growled and pawed at the rusty hatch. Daniel for once totally agreed with him. This was totally fucked up. Daniel was too big to fit through the opening. Catcher’s wolf couldn’t follow her. The building was one of those huge monstrosities constructed at the turn of the last century and left to rot. The building took up most of a city block and that little girl could be anywhere inside of it. There might be at least a dozen ways out and the four of them couldn’t cover them all, if they managed to find them in the first place.

This little girl hadn’t risked her life to lead them here for no reason. Daniel sensed they were close to Danni and Phoenix. The fur on Catcher’s wolf’s back bristled and stood up on end. He sensed it too. The little girl might have led them into a trap. But, in doing so she had also led them that much closer to finding Danni and Phoenix. The question was why. If Daniel knew nothing about vampires, he knew they never did anything without a reason that usually benefited them in some way. What did a vampire child have to gain by leading them here? He’d find that out soon enough. Daniel wasn’t so prideful that he didn’t know when he had been bested. He did the only sensible thing he could and called for backup.











Chapter 79

“I can’t believe you’re going through with this,” Danni said. Her head was still swimmy and her legs like rubber. Her inner wolf had healed her wounds and replenished what the vampire had taken. Phoenix was dressed in what the vampires had provided and had insisted that she do the same. A wedding dress, Danni still couldn’t believe it. The gold collar around her throat chafed and served as a reminder that yes indeed they were prisoners and tonight was to be their wedding night.

She’d rather die than let that vampire Jackson snack on her again. By now the two of them had pretty much figured out what they were doing here and why the vampires had gone to such lengths to capture them. The vampires wanted…no needed them alive to carry out their abomination. The twin males would drain them to the point of death and infuse their bodies with vampire blood. The result was something Danni didn’t want to think about. Phoenix and she would become hybrids, like the Great White Wolf and Queen Tala. Not wolves, not vampires, and definitely not human, they would be forced to birth the next generation of beings exactly like Cat into existence.

There was a reason the brotherhood protected the pack and this was it. If the secret ever got out not one wolf would ever be safe again. Phoenix couldn’t let Danni in on the plan. She had no intention of going through with anything. She was simply playing along until the right opportunity presented itself. For now, she needed Danni to believe she was playing along. Phoenix clung to the knife like it was a life raft. She could do a hell of a lot of damage with a blade and the element of surprise. If the twins stood in her way, and Jackson might be a problem, she’d kill them. But, she wanted the brains of the operation, this mother of theirs, first. “What choice do we have?”

Danni scoffed and picked up the dress. “We could go out fighting.”

“I don’t intend to go out at all. Now get dressed.”

With Barbara on the mend there was little for Fallon to do but wait for the next wave of wounded to roll in. God, she hoped there weren’t any wounded, but she had handed over a shopping list of things she thought might be helpful, just in case. There wasn’t much she could do for an injured vampire. Stop the bleeding if there were any and sit back and let nature do her thing. Short of losing their heads or a blow severe enough to bleed them out in seconds, vampires could cure about anything without her intervention. Wolves, were almost…almost as lucky, but not quite as resilient as their vampire counterparts. Hybrid wolves, like Barbara and Tom, were a crapshoot and anyone’s guess in terms of their healing abilities.

Cat was in a whole classification unto herself. Nobody knew what her true abilities were because nobody had ever tested them before. Fallon had wild hypotheses about Cat’s healing abilities. But, she too would rather leave them to an educated guess than trial them in the field. Cat wasn’t going anywhere. The Great Father had seen to that.

Fallon hovered between restlessness and grief. She had received the news about an hour ago. Her great uncle was dead. Maybe, if she had been there she could have done something to pull him back. Alex was suffering. Luckily, Fallon’s mom and the rest of the family were there to help soften the blow of Alex’s loss. Fallon could go back. But, she wanted to be here where she might actually do the most good. Where she might have a chance to defeat death.

Thomas hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t talked to anybody, not even to Jan. Too much had happened. First Barbara and now uncle Alexander, it was too much too soon. Fallon got it. Thomas was close to uncle Alexander and the man’s death perhaps, reminded Thomas of his own impending mortality. Fallon marveled at Megan’s efficiency. The woman had managed to scrounge up everything on the list and then some. Life was just too damned short. Fallon wanted to cry over losing her great uncle, but she couldn’t give into the luxury just yet.

Worry was a welcome companion in her addled mind. Catcher and Daniel were out on the street searching for Phoenix and Danni. What would she do if either of the men in her life were wounded or worse, killed? She refused to believe with Daniel’s wily cunning and Catcher’s fierceness that such a thing was even possible.

Thinking about her love life kept her mind off a great many other things. Daniel had made it pretty clear that the choice between her choosing him over Catcher or Catcher over him was not her decision to make. He had made it for her as if she were a child incapable of knowing her own mind. Maybe, when it came to him, he did know best for her. Maybe, her mind was too clouded by the past to see the path ahead of her clearly. There was such a battle between the heart and the head. He was right. He wasn’t good for her. Not good enough. But, was Catcher any better?

They did want the same things out of life. At least, there was that. Catcher wanted a family and so did she. The question of his unusual parentage disturbed him. He hadn’t had to say it or ask for her to do a little digging into his background. He worried about what traits he would pass down to his children. Strange, it bothered him, but not her. Phoenix was right as rain down to the double helix strands of her DNA. Of course, there were recessive and dominant genes. But, Fallon was going on faith and the assumption that if Tracker could father a child as perfect as Phoenix, so could Catcher. But, there was also Fallon’s own DNA to consider. She was half-human and that always threw an unpredictable wrench in the works.

It wasn’t just any potential children the two of them might have that bothered Catcher. He was also worried about his past bleeding into his present and future. He was an omega. The old traditions died hard with him and he saw himself as cursed. Maybe, Tracker had learned to look beyond his past, but Catcher never had. Catcher was afraid he’d harm her or the child. That he wouldn’t be a good father or a good husband. Catcher was loyal to his core. Fallon had no doubt he would put his life on the line to defend whatever he saw as his. Though he had been raised loveless. He was far from incapable of loving. There was good deep within him. And damn her, but it was that part of him that overshadowed any potential bad she ought to see instead. She didn’t want to, but she was falling for him and falling hard. Maybe not hard enough though, because one look at Daniel and any feelings she had for Catcher dimmed to a flicker.

The two men in her life discounted her too much. Neither one of them had even considered that she had a mind of her own and could decide the course her life should take. Hell, she should leave them both to fight it out amongst themselves. She should dump them both and settle for someone else or continue to live as she had, celibate and alone. Nope, she wasn’t going back to sitting by the window and waiting for Daniel to get a clue. Nope, she wasn’t going to hide behind the security of Catcher either. She was her own woman. And she would do what she thought was best for herself. Maybe, that included Daniel or Catcher in her life, and maybe, it didn’t.

She could be pregnant right now. She wouldn’t even know for certain who the father was until the baby came. Yeah, Cat’s father wasn’t the only dad unhappy with his little girl right now. There was a father daughter talk coming. Rushing off to the city had bought her time. Hopefully, her mom would remind him of their own uncertain pasts. She might follow in the footsteps of her mom. After all, pregnant or not, Fallon didn’t need a man in her life. She wanted one, but she had lived quite happily before Catcher and Daniel and she could live, probably more peacefully, without a man than with.

There was only one certain way to prevent pregnancy and that was not to do the things that made babies. Well, she was done with that too. Sex was better than she had ever imagined it could possibly be. Maybe, what she needed was a friend with benefits. Nah, she wasn’t the type of woman who could share her body with a man without losing her heart in the process. Sometimes though, she wished she were. Her life would be so simple if she could take from a man only the physical and give it to him in return. But no, she had to have the emotional too. Daniel had been right about that. One night together and she had fallen in love with him all over again. One night with Catcher and the only thing she could dream about was the future they might have.

She was so screwed. Both of the men she loved were out there risking their lives to bring Danni and Phoenix home and here she was picking out china patterns when she didn’t even know exactly who the groom was going to be. Stupid. She was so fucking stupid. She loved two men and could only pick one of them. Daniel would have her choose Catcher over him. Catcher would rather the same. Her heart was team Daniel, but her brain had already sided with Catcher.

Daniel didn’t want her. Fine. But, he’d better not change his mind years from now, like Carter had done to Shayla. The man wanted Shayla so bad it made Fallon ache in sympathy. Carter had given Shayla up for many of the same reasons Daniel had spouted off for giving her up. How awful was it to love yourself, or rather your self-condemnation, to the point where you couldn’t love anyone else?

Catcher worried more for others than he worried for himself. In that the two of them were a perfect match. She was a natural born healer in need of someone to care for and he was a wounded spirit in need of someone’s kindness. His unspoken questions about his lineage had made Fallon curious and she had done a little digging into the archives surrounding the mysteries of Tracker and Catcher’s unusual birth. Most of the records had been destroyed, but she suspected Mistress Eloise knew more than what she had let on.

The way Eloise had clammed up when Fallon asked about Catcher and Tracker only made her more curious. Fallon’s research was done and the genetic mystery of Catcher and Tracker about to be solved. One snatched strand of hair from Tracker’s jacket and a similar donation snuck from her pillowcase from Catcher, add in Carter’s state of the art lab equipment, and voila, riddle solved. Even as identical twins Catcher and Tracker shouldn’t be exact genetic copies of one another. There were variances in the DNA, but not in this case. Tracker and Catcher were exact replicas of each other. Any differences between the two of them came from environmental factors such as diet, exercise and physical fitness regimes, and individual psychology. Tracker and Catcher weren’t twins. They were clones.

The secrets Eloise’s team of scientists had developed in the lab could have changed the world. When Catcher and Tracker were created her research would have turned the scientific community on its ear. The governments of the world had banned together and put an end to clone research over ten years ago. Eloise’s own records of the experiments her team had conducted had been lost in the fire, but the evidence of them was right there on the computer screen underneath Fallon’s nose.

No one had ever produced a pair of living clones. Ever. Catcher’s suspicions were correct. He didn’t have just one set of parents. The DNA that had been spliced together to make him and his brother had to have been taken from hundreds of donors. Catcher would never know who his birth mother was. No doubt the colder darker version of Eloise that had commanded the creation of her twin omegas would have killed the mother shortly after they had been born.

If Fallon ever had a doubt about her feelings toward Catcher, she didn’t anymore. Catcher deserved normal. He deserved to be a father and to have a family to replace the one that he had been robbed of. She could never tell him the truth. Damn Eloise to hell for what she had done, but Fallon would keep the woman’s secret. Catcher was not a thing created in a lab. He was a living, breathing sentient being with both heart and soul. And nothing, no evidence or genetic mapping on a computer screen would ever change that. Determined to make certain Catcher and Tracker never found out the truth. Fallon hit the erase key on the keyboard and destroyed the evidence of everything she had learned.

Chapter 80

It was amazing how almost dying could change a person’s perspective on a lot of things and almost as amazing was how people changed their perspective about you in the process. Her mom and dad had not left her side in hours, not even to pee. Her mom hovered in that way that mom’s did and her dad monitored so much as every twitch of an eyelid for a sign that something was amiss. Barbara usually didn’t mind parental attention. She was the eldest and when her little brothers and sisters had starting coming along, she got pushed to the side farther and father back with each new addition to the family. It was kind of nice to be the center of parental attention again. But, it was also kind of annoying too.

Everyone was so careful around her. Nobody mentioned Phoenix and Danni out of worry of upsetting her. Barbara was made of tuffer stuff than anyone gave her credit for. She could take it. Visitors, Claire anyway, had kept her updated on the Brat Pack gossip. What a zoo! Cat and her little human, Tom and Ray, and Ray’s mom and Carter…Fallon and Catcher, Fallon and Daniel…damn, Barbara had been out of commission less than twenty-four hours and so much had happened in such a short period of time. At least, the Brat Pack’s little news anchor kept her diverted with juicy stories and her mind off of Danni and Phoenix.

Barbara hated that Alexander had died peacefully in his sleep. Not the way he had died, but that he had died at all. Alexander Gray was like a grandfather to everyone. He loved to be surrounded by kids. It worked out well for all parties involved. Alexander liked to entertain kids with his wild rendition of truth and kids liked to be entertained with his crazy stories just shy of outright lies. His human funeral was tomorrow. His real funeral would wait until everything was sorted out here. She was brave and didn’t cry. Alexander had been around for so long and it was simply impossible to imagine a world without him.

She slurped on chicken noodle soup and lounged on freshly fluffed pillows. Barbara wished she had been able to tell the Great Father and Carter what they had so desperately wanted to know. The attack was a blur in her mind. None of the details as fuzzy as they were had done anyone any good. She simply couldn’t remember what had happened. Something…no someone came out of the shadows and then there was nothing until she had woke up here.

Her poor dad was dead on his feet. Slumped in a chair and trying to force his eyes open. Her mom wasn’t in much better shape. Now that the crisis of her impending death was over and their adrenaline spent, with her on the mend and getting better minute by minute, there wasn’t anything for them to do but watch her heal. Barbara could tell her parents wanted to give her an ass chewing, but were simply simmering in the coals of their worry until a more appropriate time to let the parental lectures fly. “Guys, I promise not to do anything too impressive while you sleep. I won’t even lift a finger to get out of this bed. Really. If I need anything, I’ll yell for Megan. I swear.”

Thomas was relieved, composing the lecture he was going to unleash on Barbara over and over in his mind, but relieved that she was ok. He was tired. The news of Alexander’s death hit him like a freight train crashing into his soul. Alexander was gone. Thomas hadn’t seen anything unusual during Alexander’s last check up less than a month ago. The old coot was healthy as a horse and should have had a good many years left. Alexander Gray was simply too stubborn to lie down and die and yet, he had. Maybe, Thomas had missed something. Deep down he knew he hadn’t though. Sometimes, people simply died and there wasn’t any reason for it. Everyone was going to die sometime. Something he’d do well to remember. He was a physician and medicine could only do so much. Nobody could stop someone from dying when it was time. Well, a vampire could…sort of. But, even that was simply a putting off of the inevitable.