Dawn Unleashed

Carter instinctively shrank back into the shadows. Light from Shayla's window had flooded the yard below and was cut off leaving darkness when she snatched the drapes closed. Out of all the random sounds that struck his vampire hearing, the wild pounding of her heart was the only one he heard. Pain, guilt, and remorse for what he'd given up, sacrificed to keep her safe from the darkness in which he lived bit savagely at his soul. He'd never told her. Never uttered one word about Yessette, not wanting to taint her precious purity with the ugliness of the thing he'd created.

The front door was thrown open and a pair of brown eyes regarded him curiously, sparking with excitement and enthusiasm. "Uncle Carter!" Evan was out the door before his mother could catch up with him, bounding off the porch and into his arms.

"Where have you been?" Evan chided, pinning Carter's cheeks between his palms. "You've been gone forever!" He pressed his nose to Carter's and leaned in till there were eye to eye. "Did you miss me?"

Carter had spent so many months in the cold darkness that Evan burned him like a hot ray of scalding sunlight. He held the little boy tightly in his arms and inhaled deeply of the sweet scent of childhood. For a minute, he could forget all the hurt he'd caused Shayla and her people. For a minute, with the little boy's arms clutching tightly around his neck, he could pretend that all was forgiven. "I thought about you everyday."

"Aunt Shayla and baby R.J. too?" Evan asked, speaking into Carter's shirt collar. He held on as tightly as he could so that his adopted uncle couldn't run away to the city again.

Carter nodded and swallowed past the lump of remorse stuck in his throat, "Especially them."

Satisfied with Carter's answers, Evan released his neck and climbed around till he was seated high above, on his perch on Carter's shoulders. His fingers tangled in Carter's blond locks. "I'm almost eight now."

"I know," Carter said with a chuckle. "You're getting so heavy I can barely carry your weight." He pretended to sag under Evan's weight, which was lighter than air, as he walked up the porch steps. Evan's little boy giggles were like strains of familiar music he hadn't listened to in far too long. Cherished, but never forgotten. Nash waited for them at the door, his eyes drawn into narrow slits of suspicion and wariness. Carter couldn't blame him. Already, the man had guessed the reason for his visit wasn't a pleasant one. "I wish to speak with the Great White Wolf."

Nash nodded. Carter wasn't here on a social call. Nash was wary to invite the vampire into his home where he'd once been called and treated as a brother amongst the pack. Carter's place wasn't here anymore. Yet, the vampire handled Evan so carefully, gently prying the boy off his shoulders and setting him down on the porch. His fingers playfully ruffled Evan's dark hair as he sent him on his way. "Very well. I'll send for him. I trust your visit will be brief and to the point?"

"I'll be here no longer than I have to. I don't wish to linger where I'm not welcome." Carter dipped his chin in a bow and passed through the door Nash held open for him. More wary, curious eyes regarded him as he stepped through the living room, following Nash into the study.

"Tracker, come," Nash barked. Tracker was an omega to his very core, lethal and unshakable to his duty to the pack. He wanted to meet with Hunter in private before he called in the Great White Wolf and called the meeting to order. He left Carter in the study, underneath the watchful eye of Tracker and the swiftness of the blade sheathed behind his back. "I'll return shortly."

Carter nodded and pretended to be interested in a book he'd snatched off the coffee table as he waited for Nash to return. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed the smells of the pack and the ever present din of noise and activity that their lives till now. Life instead of death was all around him, hurrying past him at the speed of light.

Tracker bristled. He'd made no formal announcement to the pack about his intentions toward Shayla. That Nash had left him in charge of the vampire was not Nash's mistake, but his for not saying something. He took the vampire's presence in his very home as an insult and a threat. His wolf scrabbled beneath his skin to protect what they both considered to be theirs. Shayla. "So, you're the vampire."

Carter glanced up from the book he'd snatched from the coffee table. Threat registered in the body language of the male facing him. "Excuse me?"

Tracker's lip curled at the insult of oversight committed by the vampire. Carter was cool, almost aloof. The failure of him to respond to Tracker's male posturing was maddening. "I'm Shayla's intended. She and I are to be mated."

Carter raised his brows and sized up the wolf. The male was practically frothing at the mouth with anticipation at the unspoken threat hanging in the air between them. Carter slammed the book closed. The book made a loud, echoing booming sound as its pages compressed between the leather covers. Responding to a challenge, trying to reclaim a heart that he no longer had a right to wasn't why he was here. He hoped Shayla could find some measure of contentment and happiness with the brute. "Congratulations are in order then," he said, though the words set his fangs on edge.

His coolness did nothing to ease the wolf's rising agitation. The male was marking his turf. Carter could appreciate that. The thought of Shayla in this furry mutt's paws filled him with rage. He should neuter this son of a bitch and do her a favor. "I'm not here to fight you."

Tracker narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth. The change was just beneath the surface of his skin. "I fight you everyday. She's still in love with you, you know."

"I'm sorry about that. I'd hoped she would move on. I'm not good for her."

"I know that and so does she. When your business here is done you'll leave without a word to her?"

Carter placed the book back onto the coffee table and exhaled a deep, exhausted sigh. "That is my intention. I have nothing to say to Shayla, nor she to me. I have made my bed and I shall complacently keep silent and contentedly lay in it. What is done is done."

"Good." Tracker didn't relax or move his eyes off the vampire stinking up the study with the sweet stench of his kind. He glared at Carter, trying to invoke some sort of a reaction from him besides cold indifference. Aggression, he knew how to handle. Nothing, he didn't know what to do with that.

Carter enjoyed poking at the rattled wolf. It was as much fun as jabbing at a rattlesnake with the end of a stick and trying to guess when it would strike. "Although, I think you'll find Shayla is not as easily won over as you might think. I believe I might be quite a difficult act to follow."

Chapter 56

The door to the study opened and Drew, his old friend, walked in with Nash and Hunter obediently in tow. "Drew, it has been a while," Carter said, rising to his feet.

Tracker glared at Carter as he was excused from the room. He was not an Omega, despite what his sense of duty said to the contrary and being dismissed with a gesture rankled him. Or maybe it was the confidence in which the vampire dressed him down. Shayla would forget Carter. He would win her heart and she would forget the cold bastard ever existed. She would love him.

Carter smirked in satisfaction as the wolf stormed out of the room in a cloud of fury at being dismissed. Carter quickly forgot the pissed off male and turned his attention to matters at hand. Silkily, as if he were born to play the role of diplomat, Carter began. "Great Father," he said addressing the closest thing the Sons had to a master. He then tipped his head to Nash. "Pack Master." The room hummed with the power radiating off the two leaders. His eyes locked with Hunter's. They both knew why he was here, to discuss life and death. "Hunter."

Nash and Drew nodded to the vampire, curious as to what the ancient one wanted. Carter held his ground beneath the scrutiny of the masters and took a deep breath. He was so used to pretending to be human, he almost forgot that with them he didn't need to. They knew exactly what he was. Time was something all of them had in abundance. But, he saw no need to waste it. So, he got straight to the point. The sooner he was back in the city to protect the boy, the better. Also, he could barely keep reign on the urge to bolt up the stairs and reclaim Shayla as his. He needed to be away from her. Being here, so close, was more difficult than he could have ever imagined.

Carter ran his fingers along the cool, smooth surface of the wingback chair and contemplated his words. This could go badly for him if he didn't get this exactly right. They were suspicious of him, and rightfully so. From their point of view he was as much of an enemy as O'Sullivan. "I believe we have a common goal."

Hunter snorted. He and the vampire had nothing in common except for the shit mess they'd gotten themselves in with O'Sullivan. "What?"

Carter leveled his gaze at the trio. "Eric O'Sullivan needs to die."

Drew exhaled. He knew Carter wasn't here to take a trip down memory lane and relive the good old days. This was hardly a social call. He couldn't agree more with Carter's statement. But, there was duty and there were rules to be followed. His Sons could not go around beheading every vampire that they believed needed removed from the world. They were enforcers, not judges of an immortal's moral compass. They had to have cause. "Has he violated the law?"

Carter smirked at the coolness in which Drew asked the question. "More times than you could imagine. He believes himself above the law."

"And you?" Drew was the master of two great races with the power of the pack and his Sons flowing through him. He saw through the glitter and spit shine of Carter. This was not an innocent man. "Where do you stand with the law?"

Carter narrowed his eyes. Drew was not a man to mix words. Admitting to a crime might mean his death. It wasn't his demise that he was necessarily worried about. "Temptation is a difficult mistress to conquer," he said, confessing nothing. The Sons had one law, only one. Taking of a human life was forbidden above all else. He had, over the centuries, broken every law ever created by immortals or man. The law of the Sons was, regrettably, no exception.

"If you think Eric will stop, he won't. I've known the man for longer than any of you have been alive. He is relentless. He will hunt you down till there are no wolves left in the world. Either you take them into hiding and wait for him to find them or you eliminate the threat. But, be mindful of this, he doesn't stand alone and the task won't be easy. You're out numbered tenfold."

Drew lifted an eyebrow at Carter's claim. His contacts in the city tracked the vampire population. "So many? Unless he's hiding them, we've no information of such a claim."

"He is, right under your nose. For so many of us, this life was not a choice. You can't imagine how tempting the promise of the best of both worlds can be. To look at the sun without agony, to taste something other than death, what so many wouldn't give to reclaim that which was stolen from them. He claims that he can give what they've lost back to them. Drew, I believe you know intimately of what I speak."

Drew sucked in a breath and gravely nodded. He did. Through the blood bond with his wife he had adopted some of her gifts and she some of his. He could look upon the sun without pain. He could eat, food, just as a mortal. He was a wolf, when he chose, and a vampire, at other times. But, he, despite Eric's outlandish claims, was never quite human. "I do."

"The blood of the ancestors," Nash rasped. Beneath his flesh his wolf roared in outrage. Eric meant to drain his people for gifts that besides from the Great White Wolf were only speculated to exist.

"Finally, the cur catches up with the rest of the class," Carter said, his voice dripped with sarcasm. "Either way, Eric wins. He's used Hunter's boy as a pawn. If he drains Hunter, he gets what he wants. Thanks to your stupidity," he said, with a pointed glance at Hunter. "And your blood oath, if you fail to deliver, he still gets what he wants. He'll use the boy instead."

"Never!" Hunter bristled. "I'll kill him first."

Carter smirked, "Good luck. You'll need it. You have no idea how powerful Eric is."

"And you do?"

"He is my maker," Carter said. "If you're stupid enough to take him on in hand to hand combat, even with the gifts of your wolf, you're dead. He's already bested you once before. The tranquilizer darts were quite effective. Don't you think? He's got you by the balls and you know it. You won't move against him as long as Daniel is at risk."

"What are you proposing?" Drew asked.

"A bargain. Eric is very good at covering his tracks. I'll hand him over to you along with enough evidence to effectively give you the cause in which you so desperately need to uphold the law. You let your Sons do what they do best and I walk away, along with Yessette."

"Insane vampire," Hunter growled. Yessette needed to die. She deserved to die for what she'd done to his son. "Yessette is more of a threat to humanity than an entire horde of rogues. The bitch is bonded to my son."

"I'll deal with that little detail," Carter assured. The thought of how he'd have to break the bond sickened him. But, to protect her, there wasn't anything he wouldn't do. "After this is over, you'll never see Yessette or me again. There are still a few uninhabited corners of the world left. She can be saved."

"Is that really the more humane alternative?" Drew asked. Sometimes, the solace of the grave was the better answer, the only answer.

"It'll have to be. I can't kill her. It's my fault that she exists in the first place. Grant me this small concession for my sacrifice." Carter's voice was thick and heavy with regret. Both of them would die locked away in a prison of ice and snow. Without human blood, eventually they would wither and slowly go insane with thirst. But, she wouldn't hurt anyone again and neither would he. In a few years, maybe sooner, it'd be done. "Better it be me than your son. Daniel will survive. As for us, Yessette and I, all we have is each other. We deserve this fate. Perhaps heaven will still have us."

"Perhaps," Drew whispered. He hated to condemn anyone to the fate Carter had planned for himself and Yessette. The thought of a slow descent into insanity and eventual even slower and more painful death from starvation froze him to the very marrow of his bones. "Very well. We have an accord."

Carter exhaled the breath he'd been holding. At first, he didn't think the Great Father was going to agree to his offer. At least, he had the assurance that Yessette would be protected. Now he had to get the evidence, enough evidence to condemn his maker to the swift justice he'd earned at the edge of a blade.

Crushing stabs at the betrayal Carter was about to heap upon Eric tore at his soul. At one time, he'd loved the man as a brother. O'Sullivan had delivered him into the hands of death and Carter was about to return the favor. As just as Eric's fate might be, and he'd earned the fate in store for him, deed by dark deed, Carter felt pangs of guilt for the part he'd agreed to play in delivering Eric into its grasp. "Thank you."

"I'll position my men in the city and await contact." Drew planned. His heart ached for Carter and his decision. But, his duty had to be to humanity and his people first and foremost. Carter had made his choice.

"Of course, I'll send word as soon as I have Yessette and Daniel moved to safety. Be prepared, we'll have only minutes to strike. Eric is not to be underestimated."

"I'll send men in as back up." Nash pledged. His wolves were highly skilled, lethal in combat. But, until he could figure out a way for them to avoid the damned tranquilizer darts, they were vulnerable.

"I'll ready the team," Hunter said.

Nash's brows knitted together. A male's place was by his pregnant wife's side. Pregnancies were rare and risky. If Hunter lost another mate, if he weren't here, Nash wasn't sure Hunter would ever forgive himself. "Your mate,"

"Will understand. She's not nearly as fragile as she looks."

Nash nodded. Gina was a strong woman. She'd endured capture. Released the wolf hidden under her skin. And she'd saved Hunter from his worst enemy, himself. She was the glue that held the family together. "If something happens to you or Daniel, we'll all have hell to pay."

Hunter snorted, "Well then, we'll have to make sure nothing happens." He left the three leaders, eager to steal a few cherished moments of alone time with his mate before he had to return to the city.

Nash sensed that the two vampires had things to discuss that had nothing to do with the pending conflict. Quickly, he dismissed himself to inform Eloise of the threat so close to their home. If one vampire had this crazy idea, who was to say there weren't more with the same thought? Their defenses had to be reinforced. But, he could not, and would not return her people to life behind the fences that had for so long confined them. Life in a virtual prison wasn't much of a life at all.

Left alone at last, Drew contemplated what to say to his old friend. Far too often, he sounded too much like a leader and a father, than the companion he wanted to be. "Are you certain you're doing this for her and not for yourself? Is this what's best for Yessette?"

Carter didn't want to discuss Yessette with anybody. She'd been his biggest mistake. If he'd had the balls to turn her when she breathed her last instead of leaving her for Eric to discover and salvage. How much different would she have turned out? If he'd left her human and to the grave that was her inevitable end, where would he be now? "It is the only way."

"It is the belief of my people that there is no true death. Death is a beginning, not an end. You could give her peace."

He knew that. Carter knew he could end her and deliver her to whatever fate waited for her. The fate he'd unwittingly cheated her out of centuries ago and the same fate that Eric stole from him. Often, he wondered what his fate would be when his time came. There were no hopes of pearly gates and Saint Peter's eternal kiss for Yessette or himself.

They'd done much in their long lives to earn them a one-way ticket straight to Satan's brimstone doorstep. He cared nothing for himself and had resolved himself to that end. But, Yessette, he couldn't be the one to send her there. Perhaps, someplace in the throes of bloodlust and insanity, she could find redemption. Buried beneath the layers of ice and snow, eternal cold, maybe salvation awaited. "I wish I had your conviction."

"And I your courage. Go now. Make what preparations you must. My warriors await your signal."

Carter could not bear traipsing through the living room to make his exit. He couldn't risk bumping into Shayla. He couldn't endure the thought of her accusing eyes on him. He moved to the window and pushed aside the thick layer of silk drapes.

"Be well, my friend."

Carter gave Drew a strained nod and slid out of the window into the night.

Chapter 57

"Please no! Don't kill me!" Brant shrieked. His head spun dizzily. His memory fuzzy on what had happened hours ago. He'd been bitten or was it merely something he dreamed? He couldn't exactly remember. But, waking up in this dank basement filled him with terror. He was going to die. He knew it. Frantically, Hail Mary's flew from his trembling lips as he helplessly pressed his body into a corner. Wide-eyed with fear, he pled with the angel of death. For that's who he thought the amazingly beautiful woman wrapped in a form fitting white satin gown, was.