Dawn Redeemed

Erica drained the cold remains of her six dollar cup of coffee and tossed the empty cup in the trash. She snatched her keys off the table and slung her purse over her shoulder. Knowing exactly where she was going and what she was going to do when she got there felt good after a sleepless night and countless hours of doubt and indecision. People would call her crazy and maybe she was. No sane person would willingly go into the wolf's den. But, she was about to.

Torr rolled over and ignored the light knock on his front door. Whoever it was could come back later. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning he'd awakened face down in a pile of brush naked and shivering. His wolf must have had a good time last night. At least one of them was having fun. He certainly wasn't. It was taking every bit of control that he had not to pick up his cell phone and call Erica. Beg for her to take him back. He'd made a promise that he'd give her time and he was going to stick to it.

Finally, the incessant knocking stopped. He rolled over onto his back and squeezed his eyes shut against the warm yellow morning light seeping in through his curtains. In his mind's eye he caught flashes from his wolf, vague shapes and scents, the taste of prey. His body tensed as he heard the gentle creak of hinges inching open and the sound of timid, soft footsteps tiptoe through his living room. A smile curved the edges of his lips as he caught the smell of her perfume. Erica was here. Rolling over, he pretended to be asleep.

Erica tiptoed across the living room carpet. The house was quiet. Torr's truck was in the driveway. But, he hadn't answered the door. After giving the doorknob a gentle turn and finding it unlocked, she let herself in. Maybe not the brightest thing to do, especially since she knew he had a gun. "Torr?" she whispered, announcing her arrival. Better to let him know she was here than risk getting shot. "It's Erica."

Erica made her way from the living room to the kitchen. No Torr. She heard the rustle of blankets and the groan of a bedspring followed by the sound of heavy snoring drift through the silent house. Torr was still asleep. She busied herself by making a pot of coffee. Hoping the smell of fresh brew and the sounds of someone puttering around in his kitchen would wake him up. Once the coffee had finished percolating, cheerfully announcing the completion with a series of wheezes and hisses, she poured two cups and added cream and sugar to hers and left his black the way he liked it. Carefully, she grabbed the two mugs and eased down the hallway.

Torr slept in the middle of the bed curled up on his right side. A swath of hunter green sheet wound around his waist barely covering his backside. Erica took a minute to study him. He was a beautiful man with long, muscular legs covered with a fine layer of coarse black hair. Even lax in sleep his body had a keen awareness to it. As if in less than a second muscles could transform from their dormant state to one of powerful action. His ebony hair stood up at odd angles, highlighting the hard angle of his jaw and angular curve of his cheek. She sat the mugs on his nightstand and reached out and brushed a dried leaf out of the bedding. "Torr, wake up."

Torr should get an Oscar for his acting abilities. He rolled onto his back and sleepily opened his eyes. Casually, he took his time pulling up the sheet that was bunched around his thighs and covered himself, after watching an embarrassed, shy blush spread across her cheeks. The sight of her was enough to make him hard. Adjusting the sheet to hide his growing interest, he scooted over to make room for her to join him on the bed. "Hi," he said with an overdone yawn.

"I made you some coffee," Erica said, forcing her eyes to look anywhere but at the huge bulge beneath the sheets. Timidly, she sat on the edge of the bed and reached for his mug. Torr lounged on the pillows and stroked the small of her back with his fingertips. The contact with her bare skin was torture.

"Thanks." Torr took an obligatory sip and handed her the mug. Once her hands were free and there was no danger of a spill, he draped an arm over her hips and slid closer to rest his cheek against the smoothness of her thigh. She'd dressed for the anticipated heat wave and wore a pair of light weight kaki shorts and a linen button down shirt in a soft shade of green that highlighted her hair. The combination of the scent of her perfume, tinted by the hint of her growing desire, and the sweet smell of summer sweat aroused him and his wolf. When her fingers reflexively began smoothing through his hair, both he and his wolf sighed in approval.

The black stubble on Torr's chin was rough against her bare thigh. Heat radiated off him in waves. Although Torr had his air conditioner on full blast and the house was a little too chilly, a light sheen of sweat broke out on her brow. His fingers, lightly stroking the skin of her inner thigh, tempted her. A moan passed from her lips as he gently ran his lips over the path of his fingers and nipped playfully at the hem of her shorts. His fingertips had already found their way under her shorts and were blazing a trail straight to her panties.

Torr rolled over on his belly, trapping her thigh beneath his weight. He leaned up on his elbows, wedging an elbow on each side of her leg and withdrew his hand from the lacy edge of her panties. His wolf was patient and knew how to stalk prey. His eyes roamed over her face; cheeks tinted in the blush of desire, eyes at half mast, pearl pink lips drawn up into a bow. Yes and no battled for supremacy on the silky sheen of her mouth. His fingers began unbuttoning the last button on her blouse, slowly working their way up with deliberate precision. He took his time, careful not to spook the prey and send it running for cover.

Erica drew a deep and shuddering breath as Torr's lips assaulted the soft flesh of her stomach. His tongue traced a path of slow, deliberate circles around her belly button. There was one last pearl button left fastened on her blouse, posing as a lone sentry over her withering resistance. Ending up in bed with him was not what she came here to do. But, damn the idea sounded better and better. She was barely capable of thought as his fingers worked that last button free and slid open the edges of her blouse. When his palm brushed over the straining peak of her nipple, the heat searing her through the thin bit of lace and satin, she lost all coherence and arched her back for more.

Torr grappled with the urge to rip through the thin material of Erica's bra and get to the prize beneath. Slow down cowboy, he told himself as he worked the blouse over her shoulders and down her arms. Her skin was soft as satin and as fragrant as a meadow in bloom. Hungrily, he rose over her and bent to claim her lips in a long, urgent kiss, laboring at her mouth with his tongue. Her soft moan and panting breath were the reward for his painstaking efforts.

Erica smoothed her hands down the taught muscles of his back. Jagged, puckered thick, lines zigzagged over the otherwise perfect flesh. They'd only been together twice before and she'd never explored his body in such detail. A thought broke through the haze of her arousal and scrambled to the surface of her mind. Scars. What were they from or who? "Torr, let me see."

Torr lifted his mouth from her neck in confusion. "Huh?" He and his wolf had been contentedly working their way across every inch of her creamy skin, sampling and tasting, when she interrupted them.

"The scars on your back. How'd you get them?" Erica asked, wiggling from underneath him. She scrambled to her knees in a tangle of sheets and loomed over him. Forcing him to stay on his belly as she traced the path the scars carved through the skin on his back. The work of art that was the tattoo that ran from one shoulder blade to the other and trailed down his spine to disappear beneath a twisted tangle of sheets was a marred work of art crisscrossed with stripes of puckered scar tissue. Torr was busily trying to distract her with his fingers, dancing along the hem of her shorts while she analyzed his skin.

Some of the scars were linear and deep, flanked by two or three shorter scars on each side. Erica ran her index, middle, and ring finger down the marks, her red nail polish stark in contract to the pale, pink, lines. Were the scars from claws? At the base of his shoulders, running randomly down his right side at intervals, curving arcs of mounded tissue and deep fissures pock marked the skin. Bite marks?

"Battle scars," Torr explained uncomfortably. His skin rippled beneath her touch. "No big deal."

"No big deal?" Erica gasped.

"No. Big. Deal." Torr rolled onto his back and guided her closer, maneuvering one leg over his right hip and snugging her down over his faded erection. "Nothing more than the leftovers of a few little spats. The scars look worse than the injuries actually were. I can heal a lot more damage a lot faster than you can." Torr smoothed his palms up the backs of her thighs and dove his fingers beneath her shorts, toying with the silky cloth of her underwear.

"They're bite and claw marks and the straight scars, are those from a whip? How can that not be a big deal. People die from animal attacks and floggings...I..." Erica wiggled her butt out of Torr's grip and swatted at him when he grinned up at her in amusement. "Stop that," she sputtered.

"People die from whippings and animal attacks far more easier than I do, Erica. You have to remember, I'm not exactly human. I'm a lot harder to kill than you think," Torr said smugly. So much for trying to recover the mood, Erica was a bundle of rigid muscle beneath his fingertips.

"Silver bullets?"

"Bullshit. Any bullet will work as long as its aimed in the right place."

"Wolf's bane?"

Torr sighed, "Once again, bullshit. I don't even know what the hell wolf's bane is. Erica, please try to relax. We were having such a good time."

Erica became aware of her position, straddling Torr's thighs and scrambled off. She felt along the covers and located her shirt. Hastily, she slid it on and fastened the buttons, frowning at its wrinkled, disheveled state. "Is your wolf dangerous?"

"Honey, given the right set of circumstances, a Chihuahua can be deadly. There has never been so much as one case of an unprovoked wolf attack on an innocent human. That's not what we do. We don't lurk in the woods waiting for virginal teenage girls to happen across our path so we can eat them. We are protectors and defenders. Nothing more.

"You're safe with me. I'd never let anything happen to you. You have to trust me. You are safe around the wolves. They accept you as one of our own."

"How can that be? I'm human."

"They see you as my mate."

"Your mate?" Erica scoffed at his choice of words.

Torr smiled devilishly at Erica. "You are Fallon's mother. Fallon is my daughter. My scent is all over you, therefore you belong to me."

Erica scooted off the edge of the bed and crossed her arms over her chest as she scowled at the smug, possessive smirk on Torr's face. "That's a bit archaic isn't it?"

Torr shrugged nonchalantly, "It works for me. I like knowing that I don't have any competition." He threw his legs over the side of the bed and tossed the covers to the side, showing her what he considered to be one good reason to shimmy out of her clothes and climb back into bed with him.

Erica blushed and looked away. "Do you have to do that?"

"What?" Torr asked innocently.

"Walk around like that," she muttered.

"Naked?" Torr chuckled as he reached into the closet for a fresh pair of jeans. His ones from last night lay in a crumpled, filthy heap on the bedroom floor. "Clothes get in the way. Most of us prefer to shift in the buff as opposed to ripping up perfectly good clothes when we shift."

"So you strip down to nothing."

"Yes," Torr answered, pulling the jeans over his hips.

"Co-ed?"

A rumble of laughter erupted from Torr's chest. "Yes." Torr sifted through his dresser and pulled out a t-shirt. He slid in his arms and grinned at the jealous expression on Erica's face, "Erica, the only person I'm interested in seeing naked or being naked with is you." He jerked the t-shirt over his head and smoothed it down his chest. "Come on," he said, extending his hand. "I think its time you met my wolf for yourself."

Chapter 103

A smart adult knows when to let sleeping dogs lay and when to give them a bit of a nudge. Alexander balled up his fist and lightly tapped on the bedroom door. Fallon had been pouting long enough and it was time for a gentle, or maybe not so gentle, nudge. "C'mon kid, let me in," he said, jiggling the handle.

Fallon rested the book on her lap and glared at her uncle as he popped the door open with the blunt edge of a butter knife. So much for locks keeping people out. Pouting, she crossed her arms over her chest and sat staring down at the worn, faded cover of the book. Nancy Drew was hard at work on the verge of solving yet another case when her uncle so rudely interrupted them.

"What 'cha readin' kid?" Alexander asked as he picked up the book. The cover was as worn and dog eared as the hands he used to hold it, and probably just as old. As kids, both Erica and Alex had devoured the books cover to cover. Carefully, he folded over the tattered page end to mark Fallon's place. The spine cracked as he closed the cover and set the book on the bed. "Your aunt left me in charge of you today. Cut an old man a break, come out, and have some lunch. You've been holed up in here all morning."

"So," Fallon said, stubbornly reaching for the book. "Nothing else to do."

"Sure there is. After lunch I could saddle up old Jack and we could go down to the creek and go hunting for crawdads."

"What's a crawdad?," Fallon asked in a disinterested tone.

"Get off that bed and come find out," Alexander gently pried Fallon's arms apart and gave her a gentle tug by the elbow.

Fallon plopped into an empty kitchen chair and gnawed on the end of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She glanced at the clock. Marianne and the other kids were eating lunch too. Swallowing down a glass of milk under her uncle's watchful eye, she thought about how much she missed them. "Uncle Alexander, why is mommy so afraid of the wolves?"

Alexander dropped the knife in the dish strainer and gave his great niece a sympathetic look. "She's afraid of them because she doesn't understand them. Most folks are very scared by things they don't understand. Your mom will come around. Just give her time."

"You're not afraid?"

"No," Alexander answered. He rinsed out Fallon's empty milk glass and put it in the strainer next to the knife he'd used to make her sandwich. As far as he was concerned, werewolves and vampires weren't the most dangerous things out there. He read the newspaper and watched CNN. There were people that were far, far more deadly than any preternatural being he'd ever encountered.

Fallon beamed and a bright smile lit her face from cheek to cheek. "Neither am I.

"We're out in the woods again," Erica noted with dismay. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck and a swarm of gnats annoyingly fluttered around her head. She didn't consider herself a city girl. However, the modern convention called air conditioning sounded good right now. Even in the shade of the tall oaks and maples towering over her it had to be at least ninety degrees. The back of her shirt clung to her sweat dampened back like a second skin.

"I think there's an ordinance against werewolves within the city limits," Torr chuckled as he wiped a trail of sweat off Erica's forehead with the back of his hand. "We don't have to go too deep into the woods, just far enough to be out of sight."

Erica sighed in resignation as Torr pulled her to a stop and guided her against the rough bark of a tree. Nausea rolled through her gut as she remembered the last time she'd been out here, not too far from this very spot, watching a wolf shed its skin. "You really don't have to do this. I've seen it before."

"I want you to be comfortable around us. I mean my wolf, and myself, of course." Torr balanced on one foot as he pulled off his sock stuffing it down into his boot for safe keeping.

Erica crossed her arms and stared down at her tennis shoes as Torr pulled free of his t-shirt and carefully rested it on the tops of his boots. Being surrounded by nature with a half dressed man was stirring something else deep inside of her, besides her curiosity. She heard the clink of Torr's belt unfastening and blushed a deeper shade of red. "What's it like?"

"Being a wolf?" Torr asked, unzipping his jeans. Usually, he went commando. But, for Erica's benefit, he'd thrown on a pair of shorts under his jeans. "The shift hurts. It really hurts. Imagine the feeling of being jerked out of your skin by the hair and being turned inside out. I know it only takes a minute or so, sometimes less, for the shift to happen. But, that sixty seconds seems like an agonizing eternity. Then, just when you think you can't take any more pain and still keep your sanity, it's over."

"Then you're a big bad wolf," Erica surmised.

"Yup. Don't get me wrong, it's worth the pain. You can't imagine seeing the world through my eyes, smelling the woods the way I do, hearing the very pulse of life with my ears. In so many ways, this body," he said, patting his bare chest, "is the prison.

"When I'm the wolf, there's such freedom, and such a sense of peace. My mind isn't plagued with prattling mundane thoughts like who's running for congress, how much is in my checking account, did I take the trash out this morning...do I have spinach in my teeth...that nonsense ceases to exist. My wolf is content just to be. Everything is spur of the moment. Nothing is as planned. If my wolf smells prey and he's hungry, he goes for it. If not, the lucky critter gets to live another day. When I'm my wolf I can truly feel all the life in the universe, living, breathing, and dying in one harmonious chord of sheer perfection. Something humans never get to experience."

"Why not be a wolf all the time then?"

"Going all furry is only a part of who I am. Spending too much time in either form is equally dangerous. Sometimes, there are a few rogue pack members who do just that. They're in such fascination either with their wolf or human side that they don't shift back and the other form ceases to exist all together. I don't want that. I'd miss the other part of myself too much to live without the other half."

Erica nodded in understanding. She couldn't imagine living her life with only half of her personality intact. "Do you remember what your wolf does?" She asked nervously as Torr folded his jeans over his arm and placed them beside his boots. He stood in the woods clad only in a thin pair of black jogging shorts. "How much is him and how much is you?"

Torr snapped the waistband of his shorts back into place and thought about how to answer her question. "It's hard to explain. My wolf won't do anything that I don't allow him to do. Just as I am unable to do anything that he doesn't allow me to do. One side does not completely control the other. On some subconscious level, our awareness is always intact. Keeps us out of trouble. My wolf wouldn't know to stay out of the city if I didn't tell it not to. Just as I wouldn't be able to find my way through an unfamiliar patch of wilderness without his help.

"I don't remember specific events that happen while my wolf is in the driver's seat. I get more like random flashes. I know last night I was outside your house. But, other than that I don't remember any intricate details. Think of it...well when you're driving to a place you've driven to a hundred times before and suddenly, you look up and you're there. You don't recall passing the mini-mart on the corner. You can't remember what song was playing on the radio, or stopping for a stop light, but, you know you got there in one piece. The bits and pieces I get from my wolf are kind of like that. I'll remember seeing you." He grinned devilishly at her and winked. "Feeling your hands on my fur. But, that's about it."