After Dawn, What Came Next

If they failed to dispense justice, the two of them would be seen as weak and soft. That was something as leaders they could not afford. “The blood is on our hands, old friend. Better we should bear the stains than pass the burden onto someone else. The two of us, we died a long time ago.”

Drew nodded. They had died long ago. The minute they had been birthed into this world. “We have no other choice. The pack won’t allow them to live, even if we could grant them pardon. I won’t have that kind of a death on my hands. Execution by the brotherhood’s blade is a far kinder death than being ripped to shreds by the pack.”

“More blood sacrificed to the thirsty ground, then?”

“Agreed.”

Steven rose to his feet at the sound of keys rattling in the lock. Paul and he along with Angelica had been stuffed into a cell and left there in the quiet to contemplate their fates. Oh, there was but one fate in store for them. Death. As if he could protect her, he shoved Angelica behind him. Without her frilly dresses and ribbons and bows, dressed in pants and a t-shirt, she had nothing to hide her truth of the coldness in her big blue eyes. She was an adult confined in a child’s body. There would be no pardon for her, just as there would be none for them.

Angelica thrust out her chin. She was ready to meet her fate. Her brothers were tense and terrified. She had no fear of death. Death was the only form of release she could hope for. No matter how the Guardians chose to end her. It wouldn’t be nearly as painful as the life she had lived for so very long. She held out her hands and stood there passively as a brother clad in black leather clamped the cuffs around her wrists. “You really don’t need to restrain me. I’m ready.”

Cole stared down at the woman child and felt a pang of regret. She was young and looked as if she should be outside playing in the sunshine instead of so willingly going to her execution. He resisted the urge to pat her on her golden curls to offer her some measure of comfort. He truly had none to give. “I am sorry.”

“I’m not. Oh, I’m sorry people got hurt. But, that I’m going to die. I’m not sorry about that at all,” Angelica said.

Paul walked shoulder to shoulder beside his brother. The place was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Steven walked, stoically looking ahead to meet the eyes of their accusers. Paul couldn’t face the glare of distain in their faces. Angelica skipped as if she were going to a party instead of to her death. If only he could meet his end as cheerfully as his sister. He wanted to live. He wanted a chance at a real life, both for him and his brother. He wasn’t going to get it. Lifting his head, he searched the row of vampires for one friendly face. There she was, bravely meeting his eyes. Phoenix, healthy and whole, she cried unexpected tears for him.

The brothers were going to execute them. Phoenix clung to Cat’s hand. The brat pack had stood united before in the face of wrong. Steven and Paul and even their demonic little sister didn’t deserve to die. The pack didn’t agree. The Guardians didn’t agree. And the brothers didn’t agree. Even Cat with her self-righteous sense of right and wrong wavered on the fence. Danni hadn’t given an opinion and shouldn’t it be up to the two of them to decide what happened to their captors? Shouldn’t they decide what brand of justice was served in their name?

Tearing free of Cat’s grip, Phoenix fell instep behind the garrison escorting the condemned to the waiting SUV. If the three accused only had a matter of hours to live, she was going to spend those last fleeting hours with them. Maybe, there was a way to save their lives. Paul had saved hers. Steven had torn the collars free from their throats. Angelica had led the brothers to them. Didn’t that count for anything or was justice as blind and cruelly impartial as it seemed to be?

Danni stepped forward and fell into line beside Phoenix. She didn’t know what to believe. Paul…Jefferson, whatever his name was… had saved her life. The very least she could do was stand behind him as the brotherhood dispensed justice. Did he and his brother deserve to die? Did the little girl vampire deserve to share in her brothers’ fate? She couldn’t answer that. To her, justice had already been served. Everything depended on a person’s point of view. Starr and Sebastian were dead. They had plotted and planned the whole thing. The twins and the little girl had played their parts, but sometimes, the guilty were no more at fault than the innocent.

Pack justice would have her in the fray tearing out their throats in a thirst for revenge. Other than being shaken and having her worldview narrowed just a bit. There was no physical harm done. The nightmares might never leave her. The trauma of her ordeal would leave their mark, but did these three deserve to die because of something that they had no more choice in than Phoenix and she had.

It was just an unlucky turn of the wheel that they were alone on the streets that night. It could have been anybody…any wolf. Both Phoenix and she had failed to keep Barbara safe. Neither one of the two of them had been able to face her yet. Barbara deserved a say in what happened to the twins and their little sister. Her words could condemn them to death or possibly, save their lives. Danni wondered what Barbara would choose. If anyone gave her a chance to speak at all, what would she say?

Cat tugged on Ray’s sleeve and dragged him into the procession. Tom and Claire followed behind with Barbara in tow. The group of them was broken, but not beyond repair. She had no idea of what might happen next. If Phoenix and Danni would fight to save the trio’s lives or step aside and let her father execute justice. The burden of it shouldn’t be theirs to bear alone. As always, they would stand behind one another and support each other through their darkest hours. It was the least they could do for one another.





























Chapter 84

Alex blended in with the crowd. It wasn’t easy pretending to be someone she wasn’t. This day was not easy, putting on the wig and the thick glasses, walking with the stumbling gracelessness of the human she pretended to be was a trick, but attending her father’s funeral was the most difficult thing she had ever done. Alexandria Grey was supposed to be in her late fifties and she had to look the part. Before long, she would have to give up the guise of her humanity all together. She should have done it long ago. Everyone had tried to convince her that she needed to cut the ties to the mortal world she was once a part of, but she had needed that small piece of herself intact. If for no other reason than her own sanity, she supposed.

Alexandria Grey was going to have to die. Being here surrounded by mourners, seeing her father decked out in his finest and still and cold as a stone, brought that point home. Janine had worked miracles with her. Stuffing her red hair under a faded blonde and gray streaked wig and adding the thick glasses to hide the wrinkles Alex should, but didn’t have. It was strange to see her former high school classmates as aging men and women. They, the kids she had grown up with, were thinning out too. There were a few less members of the class of 2000 here than there had been at her mother’s funeral. Most of her father’s old coffee clutch buddies were gone. Only a handful remained and they had shown up in full regalia to see her father into the great beyond.

Vampires had all of the time in the world, but what good was it when everything around you faded to dust and crumbled under the weight of the second hand and passing of days? Loss was a cruel cosmic joke. The price she had to pay for her long life had finally come due. Chance had wanted to come, but she had wanted to do this on her own. Some things a person simply had to do alone. Perhaps, it was her way of showing her strength or simply of giving death the middle finger.

To her, this wasn’t the real funeral. The pyre had been built and the neatly stacked logs ready to burn. But, it would wait until the brothers and the pack returned. Seeing her father decked out and laying so peacefully on a bed of white satin was almost surreal. Alexander Gray had never been still a moment in his life. He had never dressed so snappily or groomed himself so impeccably. Her father was wrinkled t-shirts, faded blue jeans, and mussed hair and this shell in the coffin was just a body. It wasn’t him.

Alex had nodded and mumbled comments suitable for the occasion. The words she spoke was as automatic as the phrases uttered to her. There was no comfort to be found in this place or from these well-meaning people. Whatever peace she might manage to find would come from somewhere deep inside of her and she would find it when she was ready. Right now, the reality of her father’s death hadn’t truly sunk in. It would and when it finally did the loss of him would shatter her world.

She loved both her parents. Her mom’s death had been easier. Leigh Gray hadn’t deserved to die the way she had, writhing in pain and suffering a long, drawn out ordeal from cancer. Alexander Gray got the better death, dying peacefully in his sleep. But, he had suffered too, day after day without his wife at his side. They were together now. Probably making out like a couple of teenagers, if Alex had to guess.

Alex wove her way though the mulling crowd that had come to pay their last respects. The awfulness of this day would be over soon and then the real horror would begin. Getting through the rest of her life without her father. She could very well live to see the next millennia or beyond. To her or anybody else’s knowledge, no vampire had ever succumbed to old age. Most chose their own demise or simply went insane and had their destruction chosen for them. Kore and Kiros, Eric O’Sullivan, Rourke, old vampires, ancients, and bat shit crazy, were the only examples she had to judge her assumption by and they were all dead.

Perhaps, nobody was truly meant for immortality. Maybe, the mind or the spirit, the small glimmering parts of a vampire that were still human, simply couldn’t endure forever. Carter was the oldest living vampire Alex knew. At well over five hundred years old, he showed no signs of falling into Crazy Land anytime soon, but the man did have a few odd quirks. Sure, he had lost his footing on reality a time or two and had almost lost his head as a result. But, he was far from the particular brand of crazy that had ended the lives of the brotherhood’s adversaries. What kept him sane? What kept him going? How did Carter do it? Survive one day after the next?

Carter had something to live for…something or someone. Alex did too. Chance was the glue holding her together when all she wanted to do was fall apart. Her duty to the goddess and the brotherhood was secondary to him. Duty kept her feet planted on the mental version of terra firma, but he grounded her.

The stink of flowers and embalming fluid and so many people reeking of sympathy and grief clogged her sinuses. Alex had to get out of here. She stepped outside into the sunshine to find the space to breathe. It was a beautiful fall day. The kind of day her father loved. Cool and crisp, the air tainted with the smell of burning leaves and the calm accepting anticipation of the winter to come. The sunlight stung her eyes and the coolness in the breeze ruffled the hem of her skirt. Still, it was better out here than in there confronting death and pretending to be something she wasn’t anymore.

Time dulled the memory. Already, she had but the faintest recall of the sound of Lucien’s voice and the smell of his musky scent. She could barely remember the taste of her mother’s famous apple pie fresh from the oven. When she closed her eyes and tried really hard, she could rouse the memory of sitting in her father’s lap, so safe and secure from the world. The world was not a safe place. Memories were poor substitutes for the real thing.

Squinting and lifting her face to the warmth of the sun, Alex took a deep breath. Janine kept a notebook of her last few months as a human. She wrote down words that described the taste of foods and the texture of them on the tip of her tongue so that she would never forget. Janine was terrified out of all the things she was about to give up, that she would lose the memory of what it was like to be human. Alex knew that was something she could never forget. This…life and death…joy and grief…was what it meant to be human. “Dad, I’ll never forget you. Never.”





















Chapter 85

Phoenix snuggled into the warmth of her dad’s broad chest. Home felt good. Home was safe and in her father’s embrace was the safest place of all. Ray…he was such a dork. He had done one of those man hug things with their dad and retreated off somewhere. Not her. Oh, hell no. She was a daddy’s girl and here was the best place in the world. “I’m ok, dad. I promise.”

Tracker wanted to march over to the compound and rip those vampires limb from limb. He would love to reenact the days of Vlad the Impaler and shove a stake up their asses and subject those fucking vampires to a very horrible death. His wolf demanded retribution for what had been done to his little girl. A little pack justice would be too merciful for those sons of bitches and that freakish vampire child. Feasting on their blood and chewing the marrow out of their bones would never atone for the horror his baby girl had endured.

Her father…at least his wolf was at bay for now. Her weak explanation of what had happened seemed to placate him for the moment. He would never accept less than Steven and Paul’s deaths. Phoenix had no plans to tell him what she planned to do. That she was going to make an appeal to the Great Father for their lives. There would be a tribunal, farce that it would be of one though. It wasn’t the vampires’ faults. They were just as much of a victim as she had been. The real culprits were dead. But, she doubted her father or any of the pack would see it that way. The pack wanted blood as repayment for the insult that had been done to her and to Danni. The brothers wanted death. She just wanted to put the whole thing behind her. “I wasn’t hurt.”

Tracker tightened his hold on his daughter. That was so like her…the parts of her that made her, her mother’s daughter, anyway. Shayla had always been the forgiving type. Too gentle a spirit to deserve the bad in this world. If not for her, he would have killed Carter long ago. This time, he wouldn’t hold back. Carter failed to keep Phoenix safe. Carter had always failed to fulfill his promises to Shayla. Not this time. Carter had to pay. Tracker would not allow history to repeat itself through his daughter. Those vampires…he didn’t give a fuck what their names were…were going to pay with their lives. As for Carter, that Shayla was the one thing he had always wanted and would never have, was punishment enough.

Tracker put his sense of justice on hold, for now. He patted Phoenix on the back and reluctantly released her. “That’s good, baby girl. I’m glad for it.” The less he told his daughter about what was going to happen to those vampires, the better. He would have his vengeance.

Danni sipped the tea her father brought her and watched him settle on the edge of the couch. They really hadn’t talked about what had happened. She could see the strain of everything she had suffered on her dad’s face. He wanted…needed to know, but not right now. For the moment, Danni was simply content to be home where she belonged. The things he and her grandfather had taught her had saved her life. Her grandfather had taught her blade and bullet, the defense of the body. Her dad had taught her the same, but had also taught her the value of the spirit and of forgiveness.

Parts of her didn’t want to forgive the twins for what had happened and their part in it. Did they really deserve to die? She was of a divided mind on the subject. Sometimes she emphatically agreed that they did and other times, she did not. Their mother had been a crazy bitch and dear old dad…the worst kind of betrayer. Was it really the twins’ fault? Deep down she knew it hadn’t been. They hadn’t had any choice. But, choice aside, what did the world they had found themselves thrown into really hold in store for them? The twins would never belong anywhere. The brothers wouldn’t take them in. The Guardians wouldn’t have them. They weren’t pack. They were outliers with no family and no place in any world. Maybe, death was the better choice when compared to an eternity of living as outcasts.

Crazy begat crazy. Phoenix probably hadn’t thought of that. What were the lasting implications of being raised as the twins had? Would they go bat shit insane eventually? They had never known any other life than the one they had. The twins had never gone out into the world. They were like children in so many ways. Was it fair to them to put them down? Was it a mercy or simply the easiest way to deal with them? It was the thought of the unfairness their lives had brought them that made her hedge on the fence. Justice was blind, but sometimes it was deaf and dumb too. “Dad…”

Tristen surveyed his daughter. Danni was deep in thought. He wished he had some wisdom to impart. He didn’t though. His dad wanted blood for what had been done to Danni. Daniel hadn’t said a word to anybody and had retreated to the woods. Mouse was locked in deliberation with the council. Tristen wanted what was best for all parties concerned. His wolf howled at the damage his little girl had sustained. His wolf wanted blood, but his human side wanted justice, true justice, to be served. The execution would be an end of things, but was it the right end?

Daniel deserved to die for what he had done in his past, but the pack had sought no punishment. Was he better for it or not? Only Daniel could answer that question. “I know what you’re thinking and I don’t know what to say.”

“Paul and Steven, even Angelica…they saved our lives.”

“I know and that fact only makes it harder, doesn’t it.”

Neither Paul nor Steven dared to speak aloud about their fate. They complied with every demand made of them without the slightest hint of resistance. As if, when the time came, the Great Father would grant them clemency. There would be no leniency or pardon. The best they could hope for was that their deaths would be quick and that one of them would not be forced to witness the execution of the other. It was bad enough to know what was coming. They had been reassured that they would get a chance to tell their side of the story before the final decision was made. That was horseshit. And besides, what would they say that wouldn’t condemn them? There wasn’t any getting out of this.

Angelica was grim. She sat perched on a metal bench bolted to the floor, swinging her feet over the edge, watching them, but saying nothing. Paul crouched in his corner of the holding cell and his brother sat with his back against the wall in the other. They had been conveniently stashed in the vampire version of a holding cell. He guessed they weren’t the first vampires to occupy the room. The door was made of solid steel and electrified. There were long gauges and rusty colored stains on the cinderblock walls. Eyebolts had been driven deep into the floor, but thankfully, there were no chains attached to the bolts. Someone had been nice enough to leave the lights on. Even a vampire couldn’t see in complete darkness. Imagining his fate and the fates of his twin and demented little sister was bad enough. But, doing so in the blackness would have been so much worse.

Someone had given Angelica clothes to change into. Stripped of her lace, frills, and bows, she looked like any other ordinary kid on the block. Paul wished he could work up some small sliver of sympathy for her, but he simply didn’t have it in him. He didn’t feel sorry for Steven either. Pity had no place here. There was only the waiting for death and nothing else. Begging for their lives wouldn’t do them any good. There was one way out and that was in chains being dragged to his execution. “How long do you think the brothers will make us wait?”