After Dawn, What Came Next

“Are you that eager to die, brother?” Steven couldn’t believe his twin thought there was a chance for a different outcome. The brothers might listen to their side of the story as they had promised to. He doubted it would do any of them the slightest bit of good, besides wasting everyone’s time. What the hell, what else did they have but time? There were dozens of cruel fates Steven could imagine. Some were far worse than meeting his end at the brotherhoods legendary blade. The brothers could leave them here, locked in this cell for an eternity. Simply let them starve to the point of insanity and they ripped one another to shreds out of desperation for a drop of blood.

The one thing the brothers wouldn’t do was let them go. Maybe, they deserved death for what they had done. Nobody was ever going to believe that they were just as much prisoners as the wolves were. Sure, they could tell their side of the story. But why? The brotherhood had already made up its mind and any appeal either he or his brother made was just for show.

“Anything beats waiting. I’d rather have it over with.”

Angelica cocked her head to the side and frowned at her brothers. Listening to the two of them deliberate back and forth was the worst kind of torture the brothers could have ever inflicted on her. Someone, a kind woman with soft blue eyes had offered her a change of clothing. Angelica had been eager to peel off her bloodstained dress and yank the ribbons out of her hair. She had never worn jeans and tennis shoes before. “The both of you make me sick! Look at the two of you! There are things in this world worse than death. We should be lucky the brothers plan to let us off so easily.”

“What do you know about things worse than death?” Paul shouted.

“What do I know? I’ve been trapped inside this body for almost thirty years! I’ve been a child for decades! What do I know about fates worse than death? That you asked me such a question shows how little you know. Death would be a reprieve to spending the next thirty years or an eternity as I am now.”

“You did it didn’t you?” Steven asked. “I’ve been wondering what tipped the brotherhood off. Sebastian was many things, but he wasn’t stupid. He had the Guardians and the brothers well in hand. His plan was foolproof. They would have never found those wolves. It was you. You led the brothers straight to us.”

“Why?” Paul stammered in disbelief. He hadn’t wanted what his mother had proposed. He hadn’t wanted to marry or father children with Phoenix, but he certainly didn’t want to die either. He would have figured something out. He had been working on a plan. He had actually hoped the little wolf had it in her to do what he had intended and he hadn’t been disappointed when she had. It simply hadn’t gone exactly according to plan. He wanted his mother and father dead and they were. He was going to release the females after assuring their cooperation. The terms were so simple. They would agree to remain silent long enough for him, his twin, and his sister to escape. Freedom in exchange for freedom should have been simple and agreeable enough terms. But, then the brotherhood stepped in and fucked up his plans. “I had it under control.”

“You already know why,” Angelica retorted. “You didn’t have jack shit under control. Nobody deserves to be forced into this life as we were. What you and our dear brother were going to do to those wolves…I couldn’t allow that to happen. I hate what we are. I hate what I am. Don’t you see? We deserve this.”

Steven snorted. If they weren’t already on death row, he’d kill the little bitch. There wasn’t any point to kill her now. No reason to waste the effort when the brothers were going to do it for him. “We deserve to die? None of this was our fault. What we are isn’t our fault. Our parents deserved what they got and as for the wolves, they’re freaks of nature, just like us. It isn’t a matter of deserving or not deserving anything. Things simply are what they are and we’ll be the ones to suffer for it.”

“We’ve always suffered for it, brother, me more than you.” Angelica flicked her eyes to Paul. “Still betting on your wolf? Do you think she is going to return the favor? Do you think she is going to save us? Do you think anything you can say is going to save our skin? Think that if you want, but I don’t. Personally, I’m just glad its over. Finally over.”

“Sister, I don’t think it is, not yet.”



Chapter 86

Fallon sat on the edge of her bed contemplating life and death. The news of her uncle had hit her harder than she had ever imagined it would. Finally alone and with the time to process her uncle’s death she sat and stared out the window at nothing. It was good to be home again. The familiarity of the pack surrounding her was welcome and comforting. The crisis had given her a reprieve from her bigger problems. She really hadn’t wanted to dwell much on her love life. Love life, how funny up until a week ago she didn’t have a love life to think about.

Catcher was giving her space and time. He was intuitive that way and knew what she needed and when. Some doors opened and others closed. A part of her was still mourning Daniel. The idea of him…of the two of them finally together had been with her for so long. It was strange not to have that small glimmer of hope any longer. Someday, she supposed Daniel would have room in his heart for another person. And there was just the slightest twinge of jealousy in the pit of her stomach that it wasn’t going to be her.

She wished it could have been as simple as it had been for her Aunt Leigh and Uncle Alexander. Those two were extensions of one another. There had always been Aunt Leigh and Uncle Alexander. They made sense and nobody had ever doubted that there might have been a time when they weren’t together. They were one of those legendary couples that simply were perfect together. Even her mom and dad had their share of troubles. The same went for Alex and Chance. Mouse and Evan had a turbulent start to their relationship too. But, as for her, she had never imagined herself with anybody but Daniel and the thought of him not being the one left her heart aching.

Who knew what was going to happen to Daniel now. He might already be packing for Texas. Misery loved company though, and he might decide to hole up with Carter for a while. There had never been two men that deserved to be eternal bachelors more than they did. But, they weren’t exactly lonely. They had their guilt to keep them company.

Single life hadn’t been easy for her uncle. Uncle Alexander was lost without Aunt Leigh. He endured the days of their separation, but he hadn’t really enjoyed his life without her. Maybe, that was what it was to be so in love with somebody. To find your soul mate and to know it with a certainty that ran deep into the marrow of your bones. Without your other half you ate, slept, and did the necessities, but you didn’t really live. You existed. Alex was suffering. Fallon was suffering beneath the weight of the loss too. But, knowing that her aunt and uncle were reunited gave her great joy and was a soothing balm over the open wound of losing him.

Maybe, she was hiding in her room to avoid confronting the loss of her uncle. Up here alone it was easier than facing his death in the company of others. Today, she simply couldn’t be the dutiful daughter or the niece she was supposed to be. She just needed space and time and thankfully, everyone was giving it to her.

The long hot shower had helped to clear her head. She hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet. Lounging in her robe and sitting here staring at the window seemed like the better way to spend the day. There was so much awfulness in the world. Things happened everyday that were beyond your control. People died. Private battles were lost and won and day after day the world just kept right on spinning. Life didn’t stop for anybody until it stopped all together.

Catcher paused on the other side of Fallon’s door. In his hands he balanced a tray loaded down with food. He wasn’t certain if she would be in the mood for breakfast or lunch, so he had piled on plenty of each. She needed space and he had given her the time she had needed. Being away from her was killing him. He needed the reassurance of her scent and of her warmth against his skin. The pack was whole again. He had done his duty and had earned a little respite in Fallon’s arms.

Fallon had awakened this need within him. Catcher had always acknowledged the physical needs of a man, but this need was different and went soul deep. He was born a protector, but with her the need to protect her was gut wrenching in its urgency. He wanted her to suffer nothing. His wolf had accepted her as his mate. He would lay his claim on her and make her his wife, but some instinctive part of him knew she wasn’t ready yet. Something kept holding her back from giving herself to him.

There was an old saying ‘grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow’. He wondered if it worked the same way for women. Fallon had him by the balls and held his heart in the palm of her hand. Could he romance her into submission? Could he give her orgasm after orgasm and have them lead her to the place where she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt this was right for the both of them? Maybe. If not, he would sure as hell have a lot of fun trying.

Catcher knocked on the door and barged in without giving her time to answer. “Hi,” he said. God, she was beautiful with her red hair tangled and cascading into curls over her shoulders. Plenty of peachy smooth skin showed through the gaps in her robe. He was hard and aching and wanting. But, he was willing to wait until she decided exactly what she needed from him.

Fallon picked up the bottle of lotion on her nightstand. At least pretending to apply the vanilla scented lotion to her legs gave her an excuse to be not dressed yet in the middle of the day. Catcher’s gaze raked over her and left her feeling like the robe cinched around her waist wasn’t there. Heat flared over her from the hunger in his stare. The tray he carried and set on the bed was loaded to the point of overflowing with every conceivable delicacy. She hadn’t given much thought to food and didn’t do so now. It was him that stirred her appetite for other things to life.

Catcher picked up the tray and set it on the desk out of the way. He knew what his lady needed and it wasn’t food. Stalking his prey, he sidled across the room. His bare feet padded against the floor step by slow step closing the distance between the two of them. Shaking his hair loose from the band holding it confined at the base of his skull, he freed the strands. Fallon wasn’t the only one who needed this. His wolf saturated the room with pheromones, causing Catcher to chuckle low under his breath as Fallon’s nose twitched and her pink tongue snaked out to lick her lips in instinctive reply.

Catcher was a beautiful man and he knew it. He didn’t have Carter’s classic artist’s brush perfect profile or the chiseled bulk of layer upon layer of muscle so common to the brothers. His come on was too strong. His approach direct and left nothing to interpretation. The clothes on his back felt two sizes too small and tight as a second skin. The shoes pinched his toes. Slowly, tracking her every breath, he unfastened the buttons and slid the expensive shirt down over his shoulders.

Fallon’s breath caught in her throat as Catcher peeled off his shirt and tossed it carelessly to the floor. The world and all the troubles in it melted away with the unbuckling of his belt and the slow almost intentionally seductive way he kicked free of his jeans. Catcher made a dance of undressing and revealing his beautiful body. He stood before her naked and hard as if he were waiting for her approval of the feast he presented. Her inner wolf approved, purring like a kitten in her head as he reached down to slide her robe open.

Her hands needed to search and to feel. Reaching up, Fallon ran her fingers over his chest and raked her nails down his washboard stomach. The flesh rippled beneath her touch as he sucked in a breath and exhaled a purely masculine growl. Catcher was so perfect, so fucking perfect. Of course, he was genetically engineered to be that way. Fair to any other man on the planet or not, Catcher was exactly what a man should be in every way. Her inner wolf did a happy dance as Fallon latched her fingers around his cock and stroked gently over the length of him.

Guilt had a funny way of invading a person’s thoughts at the most inopportune time. Dousing her as effectively as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. There were a hundred things she should be doing. She should be downstairs offering what support she could to her mom and Alex. She should restock the exhausted medical supplies in her emergency bag. She should check on Barbara at least one more time. They couldn’t do this now…not now with so many things hanging over her head and duties to be done.

Catcher had to have caught the shift in her thinking and as a result turned on the charm. He was damn hard to resist when he wanted to be. The scent of male and musk, of wolf and wild, Catcher’s own unique blend, filled her nose and called to her wolf. His touch was light and coaxing. Running his thumbs over her cheeks, he reached around with his long fingers and stroked them through her tangled hair. Her hands operated as if they belonged to someone else and no longer under her control. Her fingertips traced and tickled, stroked and caressed every inch of him within her reach. She wanted…she wanted badly, but that was his intention. The protest was weak, whispered rather than spoken aloud. “I should be doing something.”

Oh his little wolf, so stubborn and bound by her duty to others. Fallon never thought of herself or her needs first. If there were one thing he could change about her it would be her absolute selflessness. Making love to her was no sacrifice to him or a duty he had to perform. Paring their bodies as one was a labor of love. The days had taken their toll on Fallon. She wasn’t a talker. She didn’t express her emotions through words. Catcher could see the strain of everything she needed to say but couldn’t in her eyes. There were other ways to say so much without uttering a syllable. Through their bodies they could communicate far more than they ever could with words. Words got lost in the interpretation. The acts of the body lost nothing in translation.

Without asking permission, he slid the robe from her shoulders. Her touch was burning him alive. Each curious almost hesitant stroke of her fingers was the lick of flame. His fire dancer felt the heat but never the flame as she danced the dance as old as time. Catcher eased his hips between her thighs and gritted his teeth at the feel of her sleek skin sliding smooth as satin against him. His wolf howled for possession of this little female. Fallon’s wolf responded in kind, driving her to move beyond the conventions of her mind and duty to things that were instinctive and required no thought, only response.

Catcher cupped Fallon’s breast, rubbing his thumb over the ripening bud of her nipple. He marveled at their differences. His hand, encircling the creamy almost peachy skin of her breast, was a rich russet reddish brown. Her hair, orange as flame with highlights of gold, was such a contrast to his own midnight black. He was hard where she was soft. He was on fire and burning, yet her touch was cool against his flesh. She had strength and burned with an inner fire. Though sometimes, she didn’t realize it. His weakness was not one of the physical body rather one that went soul deep, and she, in her gift of healing, had stitched the wound closed.

Fallon bathed in Catcher’s hungry stare. No man had ever looked at her the way he did. She had never seen herself as beautiful. But, with him looking at her with such hunger, she felt like the most beautiful woman in the whole world. His shaft was long and thick at the base, pulsing with a life of its own and so very fragile. This was the heart of a man and she held it in her palm. Gently, she placed a kiss on the swollen head and licked the salty drop that had risen to the surface off her lips. Catcher called her his fire dancer. Well, if she was the fire, he was the air that brought the flames to life.

Her sense of propriety required one last protest, weak as it was. The world would still be there waiting for her. A couple of hours wouldn’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things. But, the loving could make all the difference in the world. She was battered spiritually and overwhelmed by death and loss. Her life…her entire world was changing and she was so weary with scrambling to keep up. Deep inside needing anything or anyone rankled her. People needed her. She didn’t need them. She healed the sick and had never sought healing for herself.

Catcher wasn’t one to engage in deep philosophical debates about the meaning of life. He grabbed onto whatever he could get and clung to it. He lived life. She was still alive, though she had done nothing but go through the motions of living for so very long. Fallon was done with simply existing from one day to the next. She wanted to be alive. She wanted to live. In their one night together, in that one human experience, Catcher had shown her what it meant to live. The life she had been living dulled in comparison to the one he had offered her in exchange. She wanted that life.

Dipping her chin and capturing the raw heat of him in the palm of her hand, she wrapped her mouth around his length. His taste and the pulse of power radiating off of him flooded her senses. She traced the distended vein running down his shaft with the tip of her tongue. He shuddered and grasped her hair in his fists. His hips flexed driving him deeper in his hunger for more. She gave Catcher exactly what he wanted, opening up to take more of him inside of her.

Catcher tried to maintain control. What she offered him. The things she did to him felt so good. The warmth of her mouth and the sleek feel of her tongue sliding over his swollen head drove all thought from his mind. Fallon was a giver and she gave so well. The instinct to care for others was embedded into the marrow of her bones. He too had been born to serve. Service was the only life he had ever known and it felt so good, so selfish and indulgent, to take. He stared down at her, mesmerized by the bobbing motions of her head. Fallon flicked her navy blue stare up at him. Her eyes twinkling with feminine satisfaction as she got him closer and closer to exactly where she wanted him. “This is supposed to be for you,” he gritted through clenched jaws.

Fallon withdrew and felt Catcher shudder from the sudden absence of her warmth around him. She licked her lips, marveling at the combination of salty male essence on the tip of her tongue. “It is.” She grasped his wrist and eased her legs apart. Lifting his fingertips, she planted a kiss on each one before guiding his hand down between her thighs. “Tell me I’m not enjoying this,” she said pressing his fingers into her depths.

Catcher could not and would never adequately describe the sound that escaped his throat as he delved into the soft wetness between Fallon’s thighs. Her sex was wet and the bud ripe and pulsing beneath his fingertips. He massaged her clit exacting a feminine sigh of desire from her parted lips. That sound, the beautiful lilt of her voice sweet and husky with pleasure was enough to make every second of hell he had endured in his entire life worth the suffering.

“I need you, Catcher,” Fallon said on a breathless exhale. Her mind was a void. Nothing existed, no worry, no care, nothing but the feel of him touching her. The bliss of his touch was a welcome void, shelter from her present and every reassurance for her future. Fallon eased back on the bed and began to scoot towards the middle. He stopped her, trapping her hips in his big hands. The sight of his pecs flexing as he guided her body up to meet his was breathtaking. The hard muscles bulged beneath his tanned skin. Catcher was like a sweet piece of candy in a very pretty wrapper. His hair fell forward to fall over his forehead. His brown eyes glimmered with masculine desire as he peeked from beneath the strands down at her. She had but to smile and nod her acquiescence and he slid into her, filling her with every inch of him.