Dawn Unleashed

Nora trailed his fingers along his jaw and pulled his chin down till they were eye to eye. "David, it's not your choice." Needles of guilt stabbed at her heart till it felt like a pincushion. His expression was hollow, riddled with pain and indecision. If he could become human for her, he would. But, he could not. She had to be the one to change. She would not back down. Ever. She was willing to gamble with her life for her one shot at forever with him. Nothing, not even death was going to tear them apart.

David tore his chin from Nora's grip and fumbled for the encrypted cell phone at his hip. He didn't have enough faith in himself to turn her. Perhaps his lack of belief made him weak. Perhaps, it made him wise. He wasn't brought into this life by choice. Nora made her stand on the issue clear. She wanted this. She wanted him. He'd try until there was no more time or breath left to waste to change her mind.

He should run and leave her. Bless her with the gift of her humanity. She'd be whole. She'd move on. She'd be human. He could not face an endless ocean of days and nights without her by his side. He was kidding himself if he thought he could ever live without her. If death thought to force them apart, the Grim Reaper had a big surprise coming. He'd fight his way to the pits of hell if he had to. For her. Always for her.

He flipped open the phone in his hand and punched in a text. The message was brief and to the point. Its meaning clear, nothing left for interpretation. 'Get your ass to the city' was all it said. He hit send and snapped the cover closed.

Cole heard the beep from an oncoming text. A message from David flashed on the screen. No flowery words or long speeches from his friend, just one sentence. He didn't have to text back to know where David wanted to meet. He already knew. With a shrug, he slid into his jacket and swiped a set of keys off the hook in the garage. Looked like he was going to the bright lights of the big city after all. While he was there if he just happened to wander into the action. Well, what could John Mark really do to him?

Chapter 66

Maggie trudged through the day. The rain kept away most of the customers except for the very faithful, or the incredibly stupid. Such as the blonde bimbo standing on the other side of the counter, twirling the ends of her hair and snapping her sugar-free gum as she studied the menu. Really? Maggie wanted to reach across the counter and snatch the high school honey by her perfectly highlighted blonde ponytail and wipe the stainless surface of the counter with her face. "Have you decided yet?"

The blonde snapped her gum, setting Maggie's nerves on edge and smiled in reply. "So like, I'd really like to make sure there aren't any hard feelings between us. Glenn is such a great boyfriend. He's already asked me to the prom and everything."

Maggie bit her tongue and returned the smile, "Fabulous. Good for you," she tee-heed sarcastically. "Aren't you the lucky girl." Impatiently, eager to get the blonde on the move and out of her face, she rapped her blunt fingernails on the register. "Ready to place your order now?"

"Well, I wouldn't want you to spit in my food or anything like that," Broadzilla said with a roll of her eyes.

What in the hell did she want? Maggie could care less if Glenn took his dead dog to the prom. It wasn't like she was going or anything. The self-induced humiliation of going to the prom dateless was not something she planned to willingly suffer. She'd rather have a root canal. "Wouldn't dream of spitting in your food." Actually, the thought had crossed her mind, about a thousand times in the last minute. "Glenn is so yesterday's news," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "No hard feelings. Honestly. Now would you like to place an order?"

The blonde, hell Maggie couldn't even remember her name, obviously didn't believe her. "I just bought the cutest little dress for the prom. He's going to die when he sees me in it. I think." She paused for effect, which infuriated Maggie even more. "I'll skip. After all, the prom is only a couple of weeks away and I've got to lose ten pounds before then."

Maggie stared after the blonde and wondered exactly where the girl had ten extra pounds to spare. Zero was not a size. Hell, zero wasn't even really a number. The skeleton in the science lab had more meat on its bones. Where'd the girl find a prom dress to fit her the toddler section?

Groaning, Maggie glanced up at the clock. There were too many hours left in this tedious day to count. She could not wait to go home and take a long, hot shower. She tried not to pout about the prom dress hanging forlornly in her closet. The damn thing had been a total waste of money. Money she could have stashed away for books or tuition. But, when she saw the dress in Hannah's store window. She'd whipped out her debit card and bought it anyway. Someday, maybe she'd actually get to wear it.

A blush spread across her cheeks as she daydreamed. What would Cole think if he saw her in the dress? What would everyone think if she showed up to the prom with a mature, manly, beefcake like him as her date? She'd be the talk of the school. No wait, she already was the topic of gossip and the recipient of piteous stares. She was the girl that got dumped a month before the prom. Maggie pushed the thoughts out of her head and focused on something different. So what if she didn't go to prom? What did it matter? Her whole life awaited her. Wasn't that what really mattered most, not some dumb high school dance?

Chapter 67

Shayla watched the sun set. The bright orange glow sank low behind the treetops, bathing the ground in a wash of purples and indigos. Green grass turned a soft black. The birds sang their evening song, low and melodic from the branches above her head. She wrapped her arms around her body to chase the permanent chill that had settled over her soul away. Tracker was out here somewhere, silently watching her from the thick cover of blossoming brush and towering pines. She needed to talk to him. He was right. She owed him, and herself, a chance at finding happiness.

Perhaps, he'd finally worn her down to the point where she'd given up on Carter. What he said made a lot of sense. Carter wasn't coming back and even if he did, how long would he stay before he ripped her heart in two again? How many chances was she willing to give him? How many times would she put herself out there for him to destroy over and over again? Martyrdom just wasn't in her nature. What about R.J.? Didn't he deserve some stability too?

Tracker was everything that Carter wasn't. Stable. Loving. Warm. Honest. He could give her, or at least, he'd do his damnedest to give her everything her heart desired. He already had earned a special place in her heart. Was it love? Not yet, but, maybe in time, it could be. "Tracker."

Tracker watched Shayla through the thick branches of a dense copse of maples. She was beautiful, bathed in the glow of twilight and surrounded by the greens and browns of nature. She couldn't see him, but she sensed his closeness. The prey always knew when a predator was at hand. She was almost in his grasp. Just a little longer and he'd pounce, have her just where he wanted her. Beneath him. Loving him. Her heart filled only with thoughts of him. Carter would be just an awful memory that she'd soon forget. He'd make sure of that. He slid out from between the tree trunks. "Shayla."

He stalked closer, ever mindful that his prey could bolt. She watched him with wide brown eyes. Frightened. Never. Wary. Always. "Care to take a walk?" he said, offering his arm. Overhead, the birds skittered from branch to branch. Tiny ground creatures scrambled for cover in the thick of decaying leaves, and the lingering glow of the evening sun surrendered its rays to the dark woods around them.

Shayla slid her arm through Tracker's. They walked a short distance down the trail. Once surrounded by trees and nature, she pulled him to a stop. "Tracker, I've tried things my way and I've ended up alone. I'd like to take you up on your offer. I don't know if I'll really be everything that you're looking for or where we'll end up. But, I'll do my best. I need to move forward. I'm tired of looking back."

Tracker squeezed Shayla's hand. Her resignation to accept his offer wasn't as sweet as he'd imagined. She did it more out of a broken heart than hope for the future he could give her. He wasn't picky and grabbed at the brass ring she held in her grasp. Shayla wasn't the only one who had ended up alone for far too long. "To tomorrow then?"

Shayla lifted her chin to meet his face. His lips curled into a happy, contented smile. She rested her weight against him and let his strength keep her upright. In his arms, she'd never fall. He'd never let her. "To tomorrow." His mouth was light on hers, savoring the moment. His lips worked against hers with heady, sweet, caresses. She closed her eyes, pushing lingering thoughts of Carter to the back of her mind. Grappling at the thin tendrils of happiness within her reach, she kissed Tracker back with everything she could muster to give.

Chapter 68

It was full dark by the time Cole reached the outer perimeter of the city. The city glowed with an orange light, piercing through the black velvet of night. She had a pulse and a life of her own that not even the darkness could permeate. He zipped along the spider web of off ramps. The traffic moved at its usual frantic, harried pace. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere other than where they were. He stretched his back and made a lane change, slowing onto his exit. It seemed like a lifetime ago since he'd been home. Hell, in a way, it had been. The last time he'd driven these interstates he was still Cole Zimmerman and still human.

The old suburb still looked the same. Dark storefront windows and glittering light in every color imaginable winked at him as he drove past them. People walked, casually strolling along the sidewalks like they didn't have a care in the world, oblivious to how close the devil was to their homes. As if here, nothing could touch them and the violence of the city would never dare to intrude. Cole took a deep breath, smelling the wash of humanity heavy in the air. Hunger jabbed at his gut. All he could think about was the peaceful sensation of blood pouring down his throat. He could have it. The blissful calm of killing. All he had to do was pull over to the curb and pick a random victim. So simple. What could they really do to defend themselves against him?

Cole slowed to a stop at a traffic light and watched a young mother. Her arms loaded with groceries and a toddler in tow, hurry across the crosswalk. The child, wide eyed and fresh as newly fallen snow, turned to look at him through the windshield as he jogged to keep up with his mother. The steering wheel groaned in Cole's grip. The urge to hunt quickly squashed, replaced by something stronger, duty perhaps. Making sure that kid had a future and the mother got to hold her grandchildren in her arms someday was his responsibility.

The light changed from red to green and Cole pressed on the gas. The only car left in the garage had been a silver economy car, a far cry from his supped up Camaro. The engine whined under the strain of Cole's heavy foot in protest. He followed the road till the groups of houses and their neat lawns became sparse and the din of lights reluctantly surrendered to the darkness.

His senses tingled as the pale white tombstones of the cemetery came into view. A vampire was near. He could feel David's presence, prickling like tiny ants crawling over his skin. The heavy iron gates were closed for the night. Cole wondered whether the wide set of gates was closed to keep the living out or the dead in. He was still undecided about that point. It seemed the dead could walk and talk and the living were sometimes more like corpses than the dead in the graves.

He parked the car in a flat grassy place along the side of the road and pocketed the keys. With no effort at all, he leapt the ornate metal work fence and headed to where he knew David waited for him. A light breeze stirred the leaves of the oaks towering over his head and whispered through the pine needles with a soft sigh. A cemetery, the only quiet place left on earth. Not even the noise of the city dared to invade this sacred place. Cole crammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and walked along the neat rows of headstones.

The graveyard was supposed to be a place of peace and comfort to the living, a place for remembering. For him, it wasn't. For him, the stones were a reminder of Rachael and the bitter unfairness of her death. He was careful not to step on anyone's plot out of respect as he picked his way through the cemetery. Who knew how the dead buried in the ground had met their ends. The dead deserved at least this small tribute to their lives.

That no one would ever step on his resting place sent a cold shiver down his spine. He was the living embodiment of what most humans longed for. Why they went to gyms, got plastic surgery, and rushed to the doctor at the first sniffle. He'd cheated death, slipped out of its icy grip, at least for a little longer.

The moon over head shone down, fat and full, bathing everything in a glowing, eerie, ethereal light. He didn't need its brilliance to see David and Nora, standing hand in hand at the foot of Rachael's grave, whispering quietly to one another as they stared at the grim reminder of how real death was. The hunter inside of him roared to life at the scent of humanity and the temptation of her blood.

Cole's footsteps made not as much as a whisper of sound as he approached. Nora was completely oblivious to his presence. But, David wasn't. He watched Cole's steps eat up the distance between them with wary eyes, his grip tightening on Nora's fingers, his head bobbed in a silent nod, acknowledging.

Cole's brows lifted in surprise, taking in his former English teacher. She was pale in the silvery moonlight, almost luminescent. Eyes wide. Afraid. He could smell the essence of her fear on the air. Enticing the hunter buried within him even more. In her world she was the embodiment of control and coolness. In his she was a scared rabbit. Prey. "Ms. Temple?"

Nora gasped and tried to swallow her heart back into her chest. She strained to make out the features of the man who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Cole? Cole Zimmerman?" At least the man resembled Cole, not that she could tell very well in the dark. David knew about Cole and didn't tell her? She snapped her mouth, which was probably hanging open in shock, shut. The white points peeking out from beneath his upper lip glimmered in the moonlight. She released a shuddering breath that she hadn't even realized she was holding and took a subconscious step back. She backed into the hardness of David's body, strengthened by his warmth and determined not to give up when she was this close to being with him forever. "Call me, Nora," she managed to croak.

David glared at Cole from over the top of Nora's head. Her body shivered in suppressed tremors against him. Good. Maybe now she'd see what he'd been trying to get her to see. Raw and with all the veneer stripped away, no more smoke and mirrors, he knew what she saw when she looked at Cole. Death. She should be afraid. This was what she was asking for. "Cole."

Cole ran his fingers along the top of Rachael's tombstone. The white marble was smooth and cold as death. The stink of the mums and daisies someone had laid at her grave was nauseating, sweet and cloying, choking as the decay they adorned with their brightly colored petals. The feel of the pendant, Rachel's dainty cross, stretched on the thick leather cord around his neck froze him to the core. Nora's eyes, darkened with fear and trepidation followed the movement of his fingertips over the headstone. He didn't miss the glimmer of the blade strapped to David's hip, nor the tips of his fangs barely visible from beneath his lip. "This is an odd place for a reunion, isn't it?"

Nora nervously licked her lips. She wasn't afraid. At least that's what she told herself. The fragrant spring air loaded with the smell of growing and blooming things caught in her throat. "You're a vampire," she said, her voice was shaky and loaded with fear.

"Yes," Cole answered. Before, he'd never really paid too much attention to Ms. Temple. Ignored her and dismissed her as just another teacher, not anyone of too much importance. Someone he'd forget as soon as he graduated. Not anymore. David's scent was all over her. Marking her as his. She knew what he was and what David was.

David's fingers tensed on her arm, digging into her flesh through the light jacket she wore. He eyed Cole with intense fury, almost disdain. David would have been just as happy if they turned around and went home, never to look back. Even though they were in agreement about what had to be done. He still didn't want it for her. He was afraid, not of Cole, but of the end result. She could die. He'd been very clear on that point. She couldn't allow that to happen. She'd gone too far to turn back now.

Wasn't this what she wanted? To be with David forever, of course it was. "I don't know how to say this," she said, hesitating. What was the proper way for her to ask Cole to end her life? Out with the truth was best, she supposed. Yet she floundered, trying to find the words.

"Ms. Temple...,"

"Nora, please," she said, forcing a weak smile on her face. She wiggled out of David's grip and inched closer to Cole. As a student in her class, he'd been hardly noteworthy. Good grades. Grammar errors. She knew him more by his reputation than his performance in her classroom. He'd been popular, cocky, and arrogant, picking on the weaker students, schmoozing with any adult who could help him get what he wanted. He'd been trouble. In the last few months, something had changed in him that had nothing to do with the fangs glimmering white in the moonlight. He'd left the teenage boy behind and grown into a man. He towered over her, eyes boring a hole straight through her into her very soul as if he could see every secret she'd every tried to hide.

"Nora," Cole said. Her nervousness was almost a palpable thing in the air. His eyes flashed from her to David. David's expression was closed off, unreadable. He did not so much as bat an eye as she struggled to find words. David stood, like a statue carved of marble, always watchful and at the ready. But, Nora, his former English teacher, her face was like a book. She feared him. She struggled to understand him. Expectation and hope glowed on her cheeks like the light of a perfect sunny day. Trepidation tracked across that clear sky like fleeting storm clouds, tightening the corners of her mouth.

Nora shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other. Bits of dew soaked through the thin canvas of her tennis shoes. Her toes felt cold and clammy in her white, cuffed socks. Her window of opportunity was about to slam shut for good. If she didn't come right out and say what she had to say now, she never would. "I want you to turn me into a vampire," she said. The words hurried and slurred together into a singular, almost intelligible mumble.

Cole stood absolutely still, mouth hanging open as he processed Nora's request. She couldn't have meant what she said. Why would she ask him when David was capable of doing the job? "What?" He shook his head in disbelief and glared over the top of her head at David. "What? No. No way."

David grinned at Cole's apparent disgust at Nora's request. Hell was already full enough without Nora's gentle soul trapped within its walls. Of course, Cole wouldn't willingly condemn Nora to the ranks of the damned. David wasn't ready to face losing her. She might not survive the transformation. Once reborn, she might hate him. Hate them both. "Nora, we should go."