Dawn Redeemed

Erica smoothed her hands across Torr's cheeks and pulled his face from its resting place in the crook of her neck, forcing him to look her in the eye. "You have too much regret. Despite what he was. He was still your father and you regret his death. Even though you did what you had to do to stop him. Torr, you're more human than you realize. You may be many things, but deep in your heart, you're only a man." Balanced on her tiptoes, she rested a gentle kiss on his lips. His lips tasted like the salt from his tears. "I know the difference between good and evil. I could have never loved a man like your father. But, I do love you."

"Do you regret that?"

"No." Erica lowered her weight onto her heels and took a deep breath. "I need time to sort things out, Torr. You can't expect me to jump into anything without thinking this through. My emotions are a mess. I love you. But, I'm so very angry right now. You violated my trust and that hurts. I had a right to know long before now."

"You're right. I should have told you...everything. All I can do is say that I'm sorry and hope that its enough. You and Fallon are my miracle. Never forget that." Torr reached out and smoothed his fingers down a stray curl that fell across Erica's cheek. "I wish I could have been there for you and Fallon from the very beginning. But, I'm here for you now. Forever."

The softness in Torr's eyes when he spoke of love and fatherhood was melting any resolve that Erica had. She needed to think about things, where her life was headed and what she wanted for herself and her daughter. She couldn't let love influence her decisions. "If you want forever then you have to give me time."

"The world is so much bigger than you ever thought it was. You're frightened of it."

"That's an understatement." Erica bit her bottom lip. She needed answers, real answers. Hard truths she wasn't sure if she was ready to face yet. Torr had a habit of softening the blow with round about explanations and sugar coated versions of reality. She wanted to stay and comfort Torr. His emotions were raw and bleeding around the edges and she wanted nothing more than to ease his pain. If she stayed, her feelings would become even muddier and more confused than they already were. She wanted, no, she needed her mind to be crystal clear before she made the important decisions that the truth was going to force her to make. "I should go."

Torr hid his disappointment behind a cocky smile. "Ok." He released the strand of her hair he'd been nervously twirling around his fingers and ran his fingers across the softness of her cheek. "I promise, I'll give you all the time you need."

"Thanks. Torr, I'll try. I'll really try." The man caressed her cheek so gently with careful loving strokes. It'd be so easy to forget the wolf and see only the man. God knew she wanted to. Forgetting what he was beneath the surface might get her killed. She felt like Red Riding Hood. When would the wolf emerge from the flesh that held it captive and try to eat her? The thought sent shivers up her spine.

"What more can I ask. I love you Erica." Torr let her slide out of his fingers. The change of her scent wouldn't let him forget what he was beneath the surface. She was afraid of his wolf. Somewhere, buried deep in her human psyche in some dark primitive place, her fear blossomed and grew.

Erica rested her forehead on the doorjamb and exhaled. She couldn't help being afraid of his wolf. Try as she may not to. The wolf was coming between them. "I love you too." Her keys jangled impatiently in her fingers. "Sorry about breaking in."

"No problem. Sorry I almost shot you," Torr shrugged with a grin.

"Maybe next time I should call first."

"That'd probably be best." Torr gripped the doorknob tightly in his fingers to keep them from finding their way into her hair. He grappled with his male instincts, and with his wolf's. It was not in either one of his natures to let the prey go. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Torr's eyes burned like laser beams on the small space between her shoulder blades as she stepped off the front porch. Each step that she took away from him became harder. As if the earth had twice it's normal gravity and was determined to keep her in orbit around him. She had to go or she wasn't going to. She meant what she said. She was going to try. But, if she was going to save them. She had to come to terms with his wolf. And, no matter how much it hurt, the only way she could do that was to know the whole truth.

"Erica," Torr called after her. "Take your time, but please hurry." He was ready to start their lives together. There was plenty that he should have said and didn't. Secrets that weren't entirely his to reveal. Erica's inquisitive nature had already began to unravel them. All he'd managed to do was to dig himself into a deeper hole, once she discovered all the things he'd left unexplained.



Chapter 96

Theresa's finger hovered over the doorbell. David had tried his damnedest to talk her out of this. But, she couldn't just leave without seeing her parents one last time. Knowing that she'd never see them again. That she'd have to disappear without an explanation, just like David had. She wouldn't do it. She couldn't break their hearts, like he had, again. "Mom."

David grabbed his sister's hand and squeezed tight enough to make it hurt. "Don't do this, Theresa. Don't."

Theresa jerked her fingers out of his grip. "I can't walk out on them. I can't."

"What are you going to tell them?" David demanded. He positioned himself between the doorbell and his sister. The noise of the TV was keeping his parents from hearing their scuffle on the front stoop. Theresa didn't understand yet. No matter how hard he'd tried to convince her otherwise. In her mind, she was still human. "You might kill them."

"I won't. Get out of my way, David." Theresa shoved against him to get to the doorbell. Ever since his disappearance, the whole house went under tight lockdown after dark. But, the porch light always stayed on. Some part of her parents had always known, always hoped that someday David would find his way home.

The world slowed to a crawl as the front door opened and a wraithlike figure appeared in the frame of the glass screen door. David sucked in a breath as he took in the limp black hair, lifeless eyes dark as two bits of coal, and sunken in face lined with endless nights of worry. Her clothes hung loosely on her too thin frame. Skin bagged under the clothes, just as loosely. "Mom?" She was but a ghost of the mother he remembered.

"David?"

Chapter 97

Erica's feet pounded up the porch steps in a determined sounding echoing boom. There was only one person she could trust to tell her the truth. And if he didn't...well she might have to accidentally share his big secret with the IRS, Immigration, or which ever government agency took care of this sort of thing.

Her heart pounded in her throat and her fingers trembled as she balled them into a fist. To hell with the doorbell. She needed to pound out her frustrations on something. The drive through the peaceful countryside to his house wasn't nearly long enough for her to work through her numerous issues. "Nash!"

The door flung open so quickly that Erica with her might coiled up inside almost fell on top of him as she moved to pound on the door. "I figured you'd come back," he said with calm, quiet, coolness. "Come in. There's no need to wake the whole house."

"How'd you know I'd be back?" Erica huffed. His casual, cool manner infuriated her all the more. She wedged through the narrow space between his body and the door and blinked at the bright light in the entryway.

"Fallon forgot her backpack," Nash said, extending the pink bag to her.

"I didn't come here for any backpack." Erica snatched the bag from his hand and slung it over her shoulder. The backpack was more like an oversized purse as it bounced against her shoulder blade.

"No, I don't expect you did." Nash gently ushered Erica through the entryway deeper into the house. "Let us discuss a few things." The house was filled with the hushed sounds of people settling in for the night. His fingers were hot, wrapped in a gentle grip on her upper arm as he led her down the long hall into the study.

Erica dropped the backpack on the loveseat. The same loveseat she and Torr had sat on earlier. She remained standing with her arms crossed over her chest. Nash lounged on the corner of a big desk that took up one entire wall of the room. The power of his presence crowded her. She fought to keep her nerve and stay put instead of hightailing it out of here as her basest instincts screamed at her to do. "What is your name?"

"You already know my name, Erica."

Erica nodded in understanding. "Nashoba Blackstone, just exactly how old are you?"

Nash sighed at Erica's uncomfortable, strained stance. "The world I remember from my childhood was a lot smaller and a whole lot quieter. At my age it's easy to lose count of a few years here and there. If memory serves me correctly, I was born in eighteen eighty-eight."

"You're one hundred and twenty-three years old?" Erica croaked, using her fingers to recount the math just to be sure. "How is that possible?"

"Erica, please have a seat and I'll explain. I'm sure you have a few questions for me." Nash had the feeling he and Erica had a long night ahead of them. He took two coffee mugs from the cabinet and filled them to the brim with the fresh brew he'd poured from the pot in the kitchen. He added cream and sugar and handed one to Erica. The other, he left black and kept for himself. After all the years of practice, he was good at hiding what he was from humans. He moved deliberately and slowly to the empty wingback across from Erica and took a seat.

"None of you people age." The warmth of the mug seeped through her palms and gave her a small measure of comfort. She didn't want to feel comfortable here, sitting across from Nash...in the den of the wolf...as it was.

"I wish," Nash said with a chuckle. "On that point, you are wrong. We do age. Albeit more slowly. We still grow old."

"How old?"

"None of us knows for certain. We are the past, the present, and the future. None have survived long enough to die a natural death. Except, for Nana, all of the original descendants have long passed on. My kind, has the promise of a very long life. But, few will see it to full fruition. Long life is a mixed blessing, Erica. Battles over dominance, pack wars, and the burdens of bringing in the next generation have cut too many lives short over the years. That is the price we pay for the curse of hope."

"Fallon is like you?" Erica asked. Nash was trying his best to answer her questions. For every answer he gave her though. A new question took its place. Nash should be old and wrinkled. For that matter, he should be dead in his grave in stead of sitting across from her contemplatively sipping a cup of coffee. No doubt he was taking his time to taste the flavor of the truth in his answers as he took his time to sip between the fantastical fiction of the life he knew as fact.

"Torr loves you too much to burden you with the answers to your questions. I suspect that's why he risked it and you found out certain truths about him the way you did. Unfortunate, really. But, what words can accurately summarize the reality of a world you've never known and certainly never would have believed existed? As for Fallon, she will age naturally until the time of her first shift, sometime in her early twenties. After that, she will remain in the zenith of her beauty and vitality for many, many decades. She is what she is, Erica. But, even the life she was born into is not without choice. If she rejects her wolf, she will wither and die a completely normal, human existence. Each and every one of us here is so out of choice. To live without your wolf is to linger through each day being only half of what you truly are, or so I've been told.

"You look at me as if I'm a monster. Don't deny it. I can see the truth in your eyes. You don't understand the burden of the choices I have made...that Torr has made over the years. Our lives are not easy, Erica, and the choices we make to live them have their price. I have sacrificed greatly for the future of my family. And Torr, he has sacrificed much, for you and for Fallon. Perhaps, more than you'll ever comprehend.

"You will continue on as you always have. It's not easy to linger so long after the one woman you've loved more than life itself is gone. Fallon will lose her mother. But, Torr will loose a vital part of his being. Have you ever considered that? What risks he takes with his heart in loving you? For us, fate plays a cruel trick in deed. We live on, and on, and on while everything we love crumbles to dust around us. Our wolves are sacred beings, Erica. And in our choices to serve the purpose for which we were born we suffer long after those we love are gone.

"I love my Eloise. Make no mistake about that. But, a distant part of my soul still waits with stilled breath for the day I'll cross the Great River and hold my darling Rosemary in my arms again. She died bringing my Tala into the world and for over thirty years now, my heart has counted the days until we'll see each other again."

"I didn't realize...," Erica let the sentence die on her lips. She wasn't certain what to say. She sipped the cooling coffee in her mug. In a way, knowing Fallon would grow up strong and healthy and live a very long life brought her some measure of comfort. It did, but, she planned to die an old woman, to spend her life watching Fallon bloom into a woman and flower into middle age, maybe even early old age, with bits of gray at her temples and wrinkles carved onto her face from endless laughter and joy. Erica had plans to bounce her great-grandchildren on her knee before she left this earth to meet her maker. Her plans had just taken an abrupt U turn. "What about Torr?"

"He'll have to let you go, someday. You're human and there's nothing to be done about that. Time will steal you away from him."

"I'm not sure I'm worth the heartbreak." Erica leaned forward and placed her empty mug on the coffee table with a sigh. "It's so unfair."

Nash nodded. "It is . Apparently though, Torr thinks you are worth the risk. You speak as if you're already dying."

"I am, day by day."

"We all are. You don't listen very well do you? I've told you how few of us survive to a very old age. Yet, you speak as if you're the only one who is destined to die. None of us know when that time will come. You and Torr are no different than any other couple. We all fall in love. We all risk our hearts for the sake of love. No matter how briefly lived that love may be. Don't shut him out because of an uncertain future that from your point of view seems certain. That's unfair, to the both of you and to Fallon. If he is willing to take the risk. Perhaps, you should as well. Torr is a Pack Master." Nash fingered the scars trailing down his right cheek to disappear beneath the collar of his shirt. "And the title comes with a hefty price."

"Torr is something I don't understand. He can do things that I can't imagine. How can I share his world? I can't be like him can I?"

"We are born into our lot, true enough. He can change for you. I know he would give up the entirety of who he is for you. But, to ask that of him. To ask him to be but a shadow of the man you love isn't love at all. You have to accept him, as he is, or not at all. That is, if you truly love him."

"He called us his miracle. Why?"

"You and Fallon are special. That is why I'm speaking to you of our secrets. Pregnancies are so rare for my kind. A child is a precious gift. The fact that you and Fallon survived the pregnancy and birth without the strength of a pack to aid you is nothing short of a miracle. A great many are not so blessed."

"There are so few of us," Nash said. Erica waited for him to say more, but he didn't. Suddenly, he looked his hundred and twenty plus years. His eyes were shadowed with the echoing voices of ghosts from the past. His neat braid hung over his shoulder and was threaded with more strands of silver than black. His life was long, much longer than the life she imagined for herself, but it had definitely taken its toll on him.

Nash pushed his weight out of the wingback and took the empty mugs from their resting places on the coffee table and set them on the bar. "Torr lost not only a son to his father, but another daughter too. He seems to be more blessed and more cursed than any man should ever be in one lifetime, no matter how long. Don't take his daughter, the only child he has left, away from him too. They need each other more than you could ever imagine."

"I won't." Erica couldn't see past the next few minutes in her life let alone into the future. She didn't exactly know how the truths of Nash's world...Fallon's world and Torr's world...her world now, it seemed, fit. But, Nash was right. She couldn't take her daughter out of it any more than she could extract herself from the crush of the paranormal. The world she thought she knew was gone and in its place monsters that were more human than the actual humans unwittingly sharing the planet.

Nash leaned against the desk and shot Erica a warm smile filled with understanding. He'd given her plenty to think about and while he'd tried to be gentle with the truth there were some truths there was no way to be gentle with. "It's getting late. Will I see you and Fallon in the morning?"

"I'm not sure," Erica answered.

"Fair enough," Nash said with a nod. "Well, just so you know, the door is always open and you can have your job back anytime you want it."

Erica stood and gathered Fallon's pink backpack onto her shoulder. The only sound was the jangling of the car keys she clutched in her fist. Nash made no move to stop her from leaving. He was trusting her with his secrets and she was free to go. "Thanks. I'll think about it."

Torr guided his truck to the side of the road and killed the engine. The dim yellow glow of floodlights dotted the horizon like random stars. He could not stand another minute in his own skin. His wolf paced in his head, crowding him out of his own mind. He slid out of his clothes and let the muggy heat of the night drape over his bare flesh like a hot, damp, blanket. There was one positive to sharing his body with a wolf. He could always abandon his troubles for a while. Just forget, and let the wolf take care of living.

It was well after midnight by the time Erica pulled into the drive and snuck inside. There was a rustling of soft footsteps in the grass and a sudden gust of a breeze. Probably, Alex checking on her parents during the dark of the night while they were asleep. Alex had explained to her that she did that often, popped by to check on her parents. She hadn't told her why. But, after Nash's revelations, Erica was beginning to piece it together. Alex had already realized the truth she was just beginning to grasp. Long life was not without it's price.

Gingerly, Erica tiptoed into Fallon's room and gave her a goodnight peck on the cheek. Fallon stirred slightly and muttered a soft, sleepy 'goodnight, Mama' before rolling over and falling back to sleep. Her little girl was special. Erica knew that long before anybody ever told her so. Even as a baby, Fallon had such an air of confidence about her. Almost as if she knew that she was born to do great things. At least now, Erica had a clue as to what they might be.

She scowled at the digital clock on Fallon's nightstand and gently turned off the alarm set for six in the morning. She hadn't decided anything yet and Fallon might as well get some extra sleep.

One insomniac, not counting Alex, in the house was plenty. Erica padded to her room and shut the door tightly behind her. She flipped through the pages of a novel she'd been trying to read and gave up any hope of a distraction from her long day.