Dawn Reclaimed

Hunter unrolled the silverware and draped the linen napkin across her lap. She stared down at the knife, fork, and spoon like they were foreign objects and she didn't know quite what to do with them. Her hand trembled as she moved to pick up the fork and get down to the business of stuffing her face with food. Hunter wasn't as picky or as squeamish as she seemed to be. He ate with such enthusiasm that it brought a smile to her face. He dug in, nibbling and sampling everything set out before him. The silvery gleam of the room's dim lighting glimmered off the flat edge of the knife to the right of her plate. She clamped her hands in her lap and focused on the moat of gravy on the plate. The cutlery reminded her of that wall of stainless steel surgical supplies and what had been done with them. Whatever appetite she might have managed to muster was gone.

"You've got to be hungry. Eat," Hunter said through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. The food was surprisingly good, considering a vampire was the head chef around here. He'd thought if he simply dug in and got down with the knife and fork action. She'd follow suit and enjoy the spread. She stared down at her plate as if it were toxic waste instead of some of the best chicken he'd ever tasted.

"I can't." Gina stared at the knife Hunter used to spread butter over his roll. She felt stupid and childish. But, the silverware, especially the knives, she couldn't touch them. Tears welled up in her eyes as she whispered. Admitting the truth came easy and the words spilled out. "The... silverware."

Hunter stopped in the middle of buttering his roll. "You don't need to worry about table manners around me. Trust me, I've seen worse." The wolves generally dug their teeth in and ripped prey apart. Devouring whatever the pack was lucky enough to catch in greedy mouthfuls. And meals served at the dinner table weren't much more civilized than a pack hunt. He hadn't stopped to think about the silverware being a problem for her. He did not connect the knife with the blade used on him. But, she apparently did. He gathered up all the silverware and rolled it tightly in a napkin. Sitting it to the side, he tore apart the chicken with his fingers, dipping it into the mashed potatoes. He held out the bite to her, cupping his hand under the offering to make sure she didn't get dripped on by the gravy. He gave Gina an encouraging smile she bent took the bite from his fingers and chewed.

She was too embarrassed to eat a fancy sit down dinner like this with her fingers. Surely, the glitch in her brain would reset and cutlery would once again be her friend instead of something she feared. The chicken and mashed potatoes melted in her mouth in an explosion of flavors and texture. Timidly, she scooted closer to Hunter for another bite. The silverware had touched her plate and the food on her plate. She'd written her helping off as unsafe and contaminated. Taking his food off his plate even though his silverware had touched it didn't trigger the same terrifying response. For some reason, her psyche considered the food and him as safe.

Hunter fed Gina bite after bite from his plate. Not questioning, just feeding her, enjoying seeing her eat, savoring the food he fed her. He took bites for himself here and there. But, his greater joy, knowing that she was taking what her body needed from his hand. Once the plate was cleared and he'd used the last roll to sop up the gravy. He moved to the cheesecake. The sticky, sweet strawberry glaze was going to be a little tricky. He scooped out a piece with his hand and broke off a small chunk. Grinning like a fool when her lips brushed against his fingers and nodded in approval of the sweet taste of strawberries and the creamy cake melted on her tongue.

He paused as she protested another bite and licked a small drizzle of strawberry sauce from the corner of her mouth. Feeding her triggered every male instinct both he and his wolf possessed. His wolf, usually silent, growled an almost purr of possessiveness in his head. "Full?"

"Thanks," Gina said, a little more than embarrassed and ashamed. She was such a baby. Her mind realized that silverware couldn't hurt her and that anything that the silverware touched was perfectly safe. Napkins were useful objects, nothing to be afraid of. She mussed that her illogical phobias were simply one of the many things that she couldn't explain. "When are you going to tell me what's really going on?"

Hunter grunted. Emptying the plastic pill bottle in his hand, he fed them to her. Placing one after the other on her tongue, he snapped the cap off of a water bottle and handed it to her.

The pills were melting in her mouth. But, she wouldn't take the water. Not out of a water bottle. The plastic bottle had the same shape and size. The same blue label as the water bottles the killer had left for her to drink. She grabbed up her glass of iced tea and downed the pills. "Sorry. I guess I have a phobia of bottled water too," she said apologetically.

"I can understand that. In time, you will get better." He couldn't imagine the terror she'd gone through. The things the killer had done to her. He'd seen her endure more than her share of torment in their bleak time together. The things he hadn't seen haunted his thoughts. The things she'd gone through before he came along, when she alone had the man's full attention, he couldn't guess, and didn't want to.

"I think I'd get better faster if any of this made sense. Can you at least try to explain how you healed so quickly? Why I did? Where am I? And when can I go home? People are still looking for me. I should call them and let them know I'm okay," Gina said. Barely keeping a grip on her trembling voice, she whispered. "Surely you can tell me what's going on. Can't you?"

She'd lied to Hunter. Maybe, the people she shared office space with noticed she was missing and maybe, they hadn't. There wasn't anyone special in her life. She had no best friends. No family in the area. Once or twice a month she checked in on her parents. But, they were always so busy living their own lives in sunny Florida, the calls never lasted long past the obligatory 'hi, how are ya's'. The truth was, until her rent came due next week or the week after. Nobody would probably notice she was gone at all.

Hunter pushed his chair away from the table. "I don't suppose you're going to accept my best advice not to question and be simply be grateful that you're alive and whole are you?"

Gina sipped her iced tea and shook her head. "No. Hunter, I have to make sense of all of this. I have to understand if I'm going to put what happened behind me."

Hunter exhaled a deep sigh. "Tell me everything you remember and I'll fill in the blanks as honestly as I can." He didn't know what he was going to tell her. A lot of it hinged on what she confessed to remembering. He wasn't going to load her down with things that she couldn't or didn't recall. His plan was to explain the things she did remember as logically as possible. He couldn't have her spending the rest of her life terrified of silverware, cinderblock walls, and bottled water. If telling her would heal her and allow her to go back to her life, he'd give it a try.

"Where do you want me to start?" Gina asked. There were so many things she didn't want to remember. She wanted to forget her abduction. Forget the pain. Forget the man's face and his voice. The sting of the blades cutting through her flesh like a knife cut through butter. Those things she wanted to lock away somewhere in the back of her mind. She wanted answers to the scattered memories she had about him. She wanted to understand how come he wasn't dead and why she wasn't. When by rights they both should be six feet under. No one could have survived the injuries they'd sustained. Physically, it wasn't possible. She was grateful for whatever miracle had pulled her out and restored her. No argument there. But, she only wanted to understand.

"I was stupid, you know, really, really stupid. I saw the platform was dark. That someone had busted all the lights. But, I went anyway." Gina chuckled, "I knew the neighborhood was bad. I had no business standing on the platform, alone in the dark in that neighborhood. But, I did it anyway. Pretty dumb eh? I thought he was a mugger desperate for a few bucks." She shrugged. "I was wrong. I realized that when I felt the needle poke into my arm. Then everything went black. And I woke up. Unfortunately, I woke up."

Gina toyed with the hem of her yoga pants, twisting the cuff between her fingers. "He kept telling me how important I was. How he needed me alive. Had special plans for me. At first, I began to hope that I might be found. Get out, you know, in one piece. But, then he got restless. Bored. And I knew that I was on borrowed time. He played with me...wanting to hear me scream...for a while I was able to hold out. I thought that if I didn't give him what he wanted. He'd get so pissed that he'd kill me quickly or let me go."

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she let them fall, splashing down in fat drops onto her lap. "He got pissed. And he hurt me more. Finally, I couldn't stop myself. I screamed for all I was worth. Anything. I would have done anything he asked me to do just so he wouldn't hurt me. He was cutting me." Gina lifted her shirt and drew a line across her belly with a fingertip marking the spot. "Said he was making a picture."

"What happened then Gina?" Hunter asked gently. He wanted to comfort her. Assure her that she was safe and the son of a bitch was dead. But, he allowed her the time she needed to talk it out.

"You came. He hit me hard and I only remember bits and pieces after that. What I saw doesn't make any sense. There was a big dog. A big, really big dog, like a wolf or something, and then there was you." Gina shook her head. "Crazy huh? He hurt you. I saw it. And I know this is selfish. But, in a way, I was relieved because at least he wasn't hurting me anymore. There was that. He had someone else to play with and I wasn't alone."

"I don't think you're crazy, Gina. Then what happened?" Hunter bristled at Gina's recant of events. She remembered too much. Saw too much. It wasn't the truth she'd seen and couldn't piece together, things about him. It was that she remembered far too many details of her fear, her pain, and her suffering. Hearing her tell the story had him wishing he'd been the one to tear the son of a bitch to pieces. He would have saved the bastard's black heart as a gift to her.

"I don't know. I think I passed out for a long time. Because when I woke up, there you were. Chained like me. You now what happened after that." She wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve and stared at Hunter. "He kept hurting you and hurting you. But you never screamed. He kept calling you a werewolf and asking questions about vampires. Why didn't you make up something to tell him? Anything to keep him from hurting you."

"The man was delusional, Gina. You know that," Hunter said cautiously. She remembered too much. Knew too much about him and the vampires. He couldn't fop her off with lame explanations. She was right, she had suffered even more because of him and because of the vampires. It was their fault that she ended up in that madman's hands at all. He'd selected her to bait them in. She'd bled for them.

"Yeah, but vampires and werewolves? How nuts do you have to be to believe that stuff?"

Not as nuts as she might think, Hunter mussed. "Gina, what do you remember about our rescue? Try to remember. Tell me everything."

"Not much really." Gina shook her head. "I remember this man. He smelled good. Like laundry soap and fabric softener, clean and homey. The smell made me feel safe. Like I didn't have a care in the world. That's really stupid isn't it? He got me out of the chains. I remember that because my arms hurt so badly when he pulled me loose. He..." Gina snickered, "you're going to think I've really lost it. He told me to drink something. And I did. I know I'm not right," Gina said pointing to her head. "I felt the leather of his jacket beneath my hands and I felt his wrist against my lips. I tasted... But, I couldn't stop drinking. I was drinking his blood and I knew it. But it didn't taste bad. His blood was sweet and rich, not coppery, like you would think. It was so good, even though somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was wrong. I couldn't stop.

"After he pulled his wrist away there was all this pain. Like someone had dumped me in a bucket of ice water. But, it didn't last long. And I felt better, great as a matter of fact. He lifted me as if I were made of glass and told me to close my eyes. I was so grateful to be getting out of there that I did it. I didn't bother to ask questions. I just did what I was told. When I opened them. I was outside. I didn't think I'd ever see the sun rise again. I must have fallen asleep or passed out again. And when I woke up. I was here."

Gina sighed. Telling her story, sharing her burden lightened her heart. She knew how insane her story sounded. But, she never doubted what her eyes saw and what was embedded in her memory. Somehow, things had gotten twisted around. Vampires and werewolves didn't really exist. "I'm crazy as hell aren't I?"

"Actually, Gina, I do," Hunter answered. She doubted what she saw. Dismissed it as temporary insanity. Her mind's way of coping with the stress of everything she'd endured. He could easily feed into her beliefs and create a web of deceit. Convince her that her mind had concocted the strange events and they weren't real. Destroying her, convincing her to doubt her sanity would solve his problem and ensure the safety of his secret. But what would it do to her? How could she go back, pick up the pieces, and move on if she couldn't trust anything her eyes saw and her ears heard. She couldn't. She had to hear the truth.

"You do? You think you're a werewolf?" Hunter was worse off than she was. The torture inflicted on him had turned his mind into soft, pliable putty. How much would she have to do to convince him that the tooth fairy was real?

"No, Gina. I don't think I am. I know I am."

"And the vampires? C'mon I really didn't drink the blood of a vampire or anything else. I dreamed it up."

"Gina, you were right about everything. We should be dead. I thought you were. I knew I was going to die. I'd given up. Said goodbye to life and waited. Chained and bleeding against that cold wall. Waiting to draw my last breath. I wanted it. I wanted it for you. I prayed for death to take us both. It seemed like the only way we were going to get out."

"You wanted to die?"

"Gina, I've been dead a long time. Not physically, but on the inside. I'm nothing but an animated corpse. I'm alive. But, I haven't felt alive for over a decade."

"And now? Did coming so close to death change your mind?"

"I don't know. I had a lot of time to think when I was hanging out waiting to die. My brother saved us. At first I hated him for doing it. I was so ready to give up. Join my wife. And now, I just don't know anymore."

Gina curled up in her chair and rested her chin on her knees. "What happened to your wife?"

"She passed away bringing my daughter into the world."

"You have a daughter?"

"And two sons," Hunter answered.

"You wanted to die? Leave them?" Gina asked baffled. She didn't have anybody, and yet she didn't want to die. Hunter had children, a whole family he was willing to leave behind. "Why?"

"I missed my wife so much. I couldn't bear her passing. I'm afraid I haven't been a very good father to my children. Especially to Mouse... Marianne... my daughter."

"You could change all that. Make it right," Gina said softly. "How old are your kids?"

"Tristen is a man now, twenty-one this Christmas. Daniel is almost sixteen. And Mouse is twelve. They've grown up without me. They don't need me anymore."

"Kids always need their father. I wish I had mine. I mean my real mom and dad. I was adopted as a baby after they were killed in an accident. I never knew them. My adoptive parents were great. Fantastic. They loved me, a lot. But, there was always something missing."

"You don't understand my world. How devastating it is for a husband to lose his wife. When she died. I gave up and waited for time to pass so I could take my place at her side. When she died. I lost everything."

"No you didn't. You just misplaced it. I don't know what you think 'your world' is. But, it's not that much different than mine. People we love die. And the ones that are left behind have no choice but to move forward. Otherwise, they died for nothing."

"You make it sound so simple."

"It is."

"You don't know anything about me or the world in which I live. How different it is from yours. Things aren't so black and white for me. I'm bound by laws you couldn't possibly understand." Hunter stood and turned his back to her. Pushed and conflicted, his feelings bouncing between protecting her from his world and forcing her to see that she was a part of a bigger whole that she never knew existed.

"Explain it to me," Gina said. Worrying about Hunter and his family gave her something to focus on besides her fear and doubts. What the hell, she was losing her mind anyway. What difference could his confession make?

"I'll show you," Hunter said as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. "The tattoo across my back is the symbol of my people."

Gina stared at the forlorn wolf's eyes etched in swirling patterns of indigo between his shoulder blades. "The needlework is exceptional. But, what does that prove?"

Hunter called on the power of his wolf. Filling the room with snapping and crackling jolts of paranormal energy as his wolf awoke. The wolf took form. Fully healed, surrounded by the borrowed power of the brotherhood, he shifted as easily as changing into a clean suit of clothes. Stifled by the confines of the room, looking over his shoulder at the woman, the wolf had but one instinctive thought. The woman whose name was not important to a wolf was Pack. And more than that she was his. With a jolt, he was flung into the spirit world as his human reclaimed the body they shared.

Gina clamped her fingers into a fist. One minute Hunter was there with his back turned to her and then a shaggy, brown wolf with variegated shades of fur ranging from chocolate brown, to rich, dark walnut brown to almost black, formed out of his flesh and bone, and then Hunter was there again.

Gasping and crumpled into a heap on the floor, naked and shivering, Hunter opened his eyes and then shut them again. Pieces of tattered clothing were strewn about the room. Gina rushed to the bed and snatched the comforter. Covering him. She plopped her butt onto the plush carpet and sat Indian style. Pulling his head into her lap. Smoothing a hand over his forehead until he stopped shivering. Oddly though, she wasn't frightened of this man or the wolf inside of him. Somehow, she felt as if she were finally coming home after a long journey away. "We're in a hell of a mess aren't we?" she whispered. No longer doubting any of what she remembered. Grappling with the truth as fiction became fact.

Chapter 62

Claire stretched out across the bed. Her back supported against the headboard by a pile of fluffy soft pillows. Grant rubbed her swollen feet with sweet smelling eucalyptus and lavender oils. "That feels soooo good," she sighed. Fresh from the shower, sipping hot cocoa and munching on a melt in your mouth chocolate chip cookie and having the man she was wild, crazy, flip dizzy in love with rub her feet? Did life get any better than this.

Grant lifted Claire's calf in his palm and kissed the bottom of her foot. "Feeling better?"

"Much." She had put the awfulness of the exam behind her. Swept it beneath her mental rug in the back of her mind. There that particular memory would stay along with all the other unpleasant things she wanted to forget forever. "Grant, I'm worried."