After Dawn, What Came Next

With Barbara out of the woods, he could do with a few minutes of rest and some quiet. Jan was exhausted too. She wavered on her feet and eased her body down onto the armrest of his chair. The last twenty-four hours had been the most trying of their lives and they had really been through some shit in the past, so that was saying something. Barbara was probably ready to get rid of them. He remembered what it was like to be young and to want to strike out on your own. He fought his mom tooth and nail back in the day for his independence. Nodding, Thomas smiled at Barbara. He forced his body up from the chair and grabbed Jan by the hand. Their little girl was a grown woman and needed her space. She had survived a horrible ordeal and the news of Alexander’s death had shaken them all to the very core.

Jan leaned over and kissed her daughter on the forehead. She always wondered about their hybrid children. How much her sons and daughters would inherit from her and how much of their father was in them? The wolf she had passed down to Barbara had saved her daughter’s life. A part of her had wanted her children to inherit nothing of her legacy, but she was glad today for the gift of the wolf. “Try to get some rest, ok?”

“I will, mom. Promise.”

Tom wasn’t gay. He wasn’t gay. The erection in his pants might think differently, but he would show his confused cock who was boss. Claire stalked toward him. She was a fine specimen of feminine beauty. Slender with curves in all the right places, she was exactly the kind of woman he lusted after. Part of being in with the Brat Pack was a no touchy no feely agreement between them. Unrequited lust was a part of growing up the way that they had with girls and guys as best friends. He had had a constant boner from the time he was thirteen years old and nothing but a ton of frustration to show for it. No wonder he was a little sexually confused. They weren’t kids anymore. He was a man with needs. All the women in the Brat Pack were beautiful and it had felt wrong and almost creepy, as in almost like lusting after your little sister, to feel a pang of attraction towards any of them.

Cat was…had been the exception to the rule. But, everyone lusted after Cat. Ray and he had spent long nights in that painful awkward phase between boy and man discussing her every curve at great lengths. Tom wondered if Ray’s part in their all night lust fests had been an act. It hardly mattered anymore now did it? Cat had chosen her mate and was holed up in her room with the lucky son of a bitch. Everyone had always wondered what would happen to the poor bastard stupid enough to deflower the Great Father’s daughter. Well, the guy still had the capacity to walk upright and for the moment was breathing. But, for once, Tom was glad, despite the late night boners and wet dreams about her, that it wasn’t him.

He was desperate to prove his masculinity. That and worry over Danni and Phoenix, and of course the bullshit with Ray who refused to even so much as look at him now, rode Tom hard. Looking back with his balls somewhere up around his solar plexus and an ice pack planted in his groin, he would wonder what made him do it. For now though, he wasn’t thinking with his brain. He was on Claire like white on rice. Pinning her against the wall, his lips seeking out hers and his hands touching places that were definitely in the no zone. “I want you, Claire. Aren’t you tired of everyone else getting what they want and never getting what you want?”

Claire hadn’t expected to be attacked by Tom in the hallway. He handled her roughly, pushing his way under her shirt and latching onto a breast with a sweaty palm. His knee forced her thighs apart and the weight of his body crushed her against the wall. He was like an octopus…a horny octopus with ten thousand tentacles. Well, he should have chosen someone else to feel up. Her dad had taught her a few nice moves guaranteed to stop any guy in a heartbeat. Nobody touched her without her permission. Ever. And Tom wasn’t on the guest list of men she ever wanted touching her.

Oh, she knew why the portion of his brain dedicated to self-preservation had taken a little hiatus. Everything was fucked up as in fubar’d. Their little Cat, the love of everyone’s lives, especially Tom’s, had chosen a human mate. Phoenix and Danni were still missing without a trace. Barbara had almost been killed. Ray had let the cat out of the bag about his secret lusts that weren’t exactly so secret. Alexander was dead. And the bonds that had held the seven of them together for so very long were thin as a gossamer thread. They were falling apart at the seams.

It was tempting to lose herself for a few minutes in the thralls of physical lust. A quick bang and see ya later might make things right in the world, temporarily. But, not with Tom, never with Tom. He was sweating all over her, panting, and pawing at her, and in truth, it disgusted her. Claire kneed Tom where it hurt the most and side stepped him as he fell to the floor with a groan, cupping his nuts and staring up at her in disbelief. Yeah, it was like that. “Really? Get a grip. What the fuck, Tom? What the fuck?”

She didn’t even bother offering to fetch him an ice pack. She stepped over him and left him there in the floor whimpering like a wounded puppy. Ray chuckled as she marched past him and kept on going. Claire turned on her heel. Some of this mess was Ray’s fault. He should have kept his lips and his lust to himself instead of trying to scam on Tom. It was his sister out there missing. Maybe, he should have been watching over her like a big brother should instead of panting after Tom like a damned fool. “You want some too?” Ray lifted up his hands in surrender and backed away. Smart boy. Claire shook her head and muttered under her breath. “Idiots.”

Tom winced at the sound of Ray’s approaching footsteps. Tom was about to toss his cookies all over Carter’s expensive rugs. He rolled onto his back and stared up at his former best friend. Claire had one hell of a kick. Maybe, eventually, his balls would descend down from his throat and end up back where they belonged. Maybe. Ray leaned over and extended a hand to help Tom to his feet. Begrudgingly and perhaps, a little gratefully, Tom accepted.

“You’ve really gotta work on your approach with the ladies, my friend.”

Friend? And what in the hell did Ray know about women? Tom leaned heavily on Ray and let him guide him to their shared room. “I think I’m going to die.”

“You wish. You’ll be fine.” It was so easy to slip back into their old routine, almost as if that kiss hadn’t happened. It had and there was nothing more to say about it. Tom would never understand and Ray couldn’t explain it. “So tell me, is that padding in Claire’s bra or are they real?” Claire was well endowed in the breast department. For years the two of them had tried to figure out if she was natural or if Victoria really did have one hell of a good secret.

Tom snorted and eased down on the bed. “I didn’t get a chance to find out. Sorry, man. I’ll try harder next time.” He stretched back on the pillows and eased a hand to readjust his groin, biting back a whimper of pain as he did so.

“Right. I wouldn’t advise it. The next time you might be wearing your balls for earrings.” It was nice to escape the worry over his sister and his mom for just a few minutes. It was nice to be a guy with his best friend and not have Tom stare at him as if he were a freak from another planet. Ray still liked girls. He just happened to like boys too. To Tom you were either attracted to girls or you weren’t. There was no liking both in his world. He went into the bathroom and got Tom a glass of water. Handing it to him Ray retreated to sit on the edge of his bed. “I still say Claire’s boobs are fake as a spray tan.”

“Hope not. I’d like to believe there is still some sense of fairness in the universe.” Tom sipped the water and leaned up on his elbow. Something beyond the obvious was eating at Ray. “You ok, man?”

Ray shook his head. Hell no, he wasn’t ok. There was a solid lead on Phoenix, but Carter had grounded the Brat Pack from the field. Too dangerous, he’d said. Ray didn’t like sitting around here with his thumb up his ass waiting. He could not get the image of his mom and Carter out of his head. That was a real kiss the two of them had shared. He had caught his mom and dad kissing before, but he had never seen them kiss like that. Ever.

It was so obvious to him now. His mom had chosen Tracker because of Phoenix. She loved Tracker. She had made a vow to him, but she also loved Carter. It wasn’t fair to Carter, to his mom, or to Tracker. The secret weighed heavily on his shoulders. Ray could never tell Tracker what he’d seen. He had to tell somebody before the truth exploded him into a billion pieces. “I caught my mom and Carter.”

“Aw fuck, man. That’s harsh. I’m sorry. Really, Ray. Are you going to tell your dad?”

“No. I know what its like to love someone as desperately as my mom loves Carter. I understand the sacrifices she made when she chose my dad over Carter. She didn’t do it for her, but for us, Phoenix and me, and for the both of them, both Carter and my dad. It sucks, but I get it.”

Tom avoided the pain in Ray’s eyes. If only he could love Ray the way Ray deserved to be loved. He could try. Hell, maybe he should. If it would give Ray some measure of peace, his pride was a small price to pay. Maybe, Tom was afraid of the physical act of loving another man. Maybe, he didn’t want to deal with his family or with the embarrassment and shame.

He closed his eyes and tried to see Ray the way Ray saw everybody else. Tom tried to look past Ray as a man, as a physical being and see deep inside Ray’s soul. Ray was beautiful and brilliant as a shining sun and yet at the same time so unsure and so very breakable. Tom could never risk putting out that light. Tom had never had a relationship that had mattered before. With Ray, it would matter. “I’m sorry. I wish…”

“I do too,” Ray said softly. “I do too.”









Chapter 81

Cat was encouraged by the first piece of good news they had heard all day. The team had their first solid lead on Phoenix and Danni. She sat across the dining room table from her mom and dad, picking at the food with the tines of her fork. Although, the food was gourmet nobody had much of an appetite. Christian sat next to her, forcing a bite of beef into his mouth, chewing it thoughtfully as an alternative to sitting at the table not really knowing what to do or say.

Their family back home needed them. Her dad was anxious to get home and not only comfort the pack and the brothers but seek comfort from them as well. Losing Alexander had hit everyone hard, perhaps, her dad hardest of all. He said nothing about Alexander’s death, but he didn’t really need to. The truth of the weight of such a loss was written all over his usually stoic expression.

As usual, her mom made every attempt to compensate for the mood hanging over the dining room table like a dark cloud. She tried to be pleasant and ever the good conversationalist, but what Cat had to say was for her father.

“Daddy, you said I was born to change the world. Did you ever give any thought to how I was supposed to go about that?”

Drew gave up on eating the minute the plate had landed on the table in front of him. He wanted to feast on the marrow of the boy’s bones and floss his teeth with the little prick’s spinal column. Tala thought if they all sat down together and shared a good meal it might help to ease the tension between him and his daughter. Cat glowed with happiness though worry shadowed her eyes. Drew wanted to be happy for his daughter. But, her choice of men left too sour a taste on his pallet. He had no particular problem with humans. He just didn’t want one…especially this one dating his daughter.

The past simply would not leave him alone. The chickens had come home to roost. Christian had been a part of this world before he was ever born. Rachael, Christian’s poor sister, had fallen victim to Eric O’Sullivan and suffered the consequences of stepping foot into the paranormal.

Their world was not a safe place for humans. Drew had known from the moment he had first held his baby girl that she would change the world. It was her destiny. Had he thought about how? About a million different scenarios had passed through is mind over the years. This, her with a human boy, wasn’t how any of them were supposed to play out. “I suppose that’s up to you to figure out.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Dad. Maybe, I don’t want to. Maybe, I don’t want to change the world. Maybe, I just want to be like everybody else. Maybe, I want to be normal.” Cat dropped her fork into her plate and glared across the table at her father. “You’ve spent your whole life in hiding. Everybody here has. For centuries, hell, millennia, all any of our kind has ever done is hide. No wonder people think the things about us they do. We are the creatures of the shadows, because we have no other choice but to be. We have gifts, dad. Maybe, we shouldn’t hide anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Phoenix and Danni, they’re missing because of what they are. We have what…a handful of men trying to scour a city with about a million people living in it? What if we could go to the police…the human police and ask for help? What if we had the luxury of having hundreds looking for them instead? We have no laws but the ones we make. Why is that? You make the law and we obey. Why? Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t I have a birth certificate and a driver’s license with my real name on it? Why can’t I tell anybody who and what I really am? What good is all this hiding if I can’t live a life, a real life, dad?”

Christian sank lower into his chair. Cat’s father stared at her as if she had suddenly sprouted horns. Who knew, maybe she could. The last thing Christian wanted or needed, considering Cat’s father wanted to eat him for supper, was her father thinking he had put the idea into her head. Christian never said Cat should go out into the world and announce the existence of vampires and werewolves to the general public. Hell, he thought it was a bad idea, a very, very bad idea.

Oh boy, Tala had no idea of what to say to her daughter. Cat was right on a number of points. Hiding was simply a way of life to the vampires and the pack. Nobody had ever considered anything different. They lived in an age of technology and being invisible in plain sight was becoming more and more of a trick. This was an era of enlightenment. Surely the days of angry mobs and pitchforks were behind them now. Maybe, the humans would embrace them and welcome them into their world. But, maybe, they’d slaughter each and every paranormal too.

Cat was right. It wasn’t much of a life to be in the world, but to never be a part of it. Vampires and wolves had their own corner of the universe and governed it by their own set of laws. Nobody existed on paper and the ones that switched sides were erased as if they had never been at all. The wolves wouldn’t have it as bad as the vampires, if the truth came out.

Vampires had a fountain of youth flowing through their veins. What human didn’t want to live forever if given the choice? Not every vampire knew about the pack. That would definitely change the dynamic a bit. Life flowed through a wolf’s veins and it was the closest thing a vampire would ever get to reclaiming their lost humanity. To eat food, to drink anything, to have children, what vampire would kill for the chance to live, really live again?

“I don’t think you’ve thought this through, Cat,” Tala said. “We live in secret because there is no other way. Our gifts are too special and too rare to announce to the world. Humanity would never accept us.”

As the only human being in the room, Christian felt obligated to speak for humanity at large. Sure, he had been freaked out at first. Hell, he was still scared shitless of Cat’s father, but that had nothing to do with him being a vampire or a wolf, or whatever else he might be. It was because he was Cat’s dad. “I have. Why wouldn’t they? Don’t you see the benefit of living in my world? What it would mean to humanity? Your blood can heal the sick. Bullets can’t hurt you. A vampire police force…I mean come on…I know I’d sleep a lot sounder at night with the brothers patrolling the streets. The wolves, they could sniff out criminals and the vampires could swoop in and snatch them up. There would be no crime. Nobody would die.”

Drew pounded his fist on the table sending the crystal goblets tumbling and the fine china rattling. “Everybody dies. There is no such thing as an immortal. And as for this vision of peace and handholding you seem so infatuated with. I tried it once and my people were slaughtered as a result.”

“Humanity has changed since then,” Christian retorted. He still couldn’t believe he was sitting across the table from a legend. Hero worship didn’t begin to cover it. Once he had found out the true identity of the man Cat’s father really was, he had done quite a bit of research on Drew’s past. Tecumseh had been a real person. He had been born, lived, and died…well, sort of died, and he had set the world on fire.

“Humans never change! It is the battlefield and the weapons they use that changes, but the blood still flows red as ever.” Drew shook off Tala’s hand planted so gently on his bicep and sat down in his chair.

“Have you ever been to war, boy? Have you ever smelled the stink of death and blood, of the battlefield, so thick in the air it made you choke? Have you ever held a dying man and filled his head with visions of a better place while he died? Of course not. War is something you read about, something you watch on TV, a video game you play. To you war isn’t real, but I can assure you, it is.”

“I…I…I didn’t mean.” Christian didn’t mean what? Hell, he didn’t know. He hadn’t meant to insult the man or cheapen history. That was for sure.

“Don’t worry about it, Christian. My dad is just being his usual self,” Cat said. “See, you tell me that I’m supposed to change the world, but the first good idea I have that might change it, you squash like a grape. Why don’t you simply tell me how I should live my life? You hate Christian. You’ve never even let me out of your sight before now without a dozen warriors. You sent me here to find myself and I’m trying to. How long did it take you, Dad? Before you found yourself?”

Drew calmed and reached across the table to take his baby girl’s hand. “Apparently, I still haven’t.” Cat did have a lot on her shoulders. Most of it placed on them by him. He had such high hopes for her. Perhaps, they were too high. Maybe, he should place some of those expectations where they belonged, on himself. He was a leader. He had lived so long in complacency waiting for her to evolve into the woman she was supposed to be and putting the future on her as her burden to carry. He had never once offered to lighten the load. And he had never once considered that the future was still up to him to build. “I’m sorry, Cat. And I owe you an apology too, Christian.”

Christian stuck his hand out, reaching across the table. His eyes widened in shock when Drew accepted and gave him a handshake as a truce. “Accepted.”

Tala wanted to hug her husband. Now there was the man she had fallen in love with. She smiled at her baby girl. Cat was born to change the world and she had taken the first step to change it. “Well, dinner is cold.”

Cat shrugged. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“A vegetarian werewolf?”

“Hey,” Cat playfully grumbled, elbowing Christian in the ribs. Christian snorted and tossed a hunk of bread at her. She caught the bread and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Maybe, she could change the world after all. She simply couldn’t change it on her own.