Dawn Unleashed

"No," she said, twisting out of David's reach. "No. You're not leaving me like this. Cole, please. Listen to what I'm asking. I have reasons...,"

"No reason is good enough," Cole said. He was tempted, not by her, but by her the blood flowing through her veins. He paced back and forth in front of Rachel's grave. He stopped, glaring at the two of them. "What's wrong with you?" he asked, shaking his head not believing David had put her up to this. "Why do you want this so badly? You don't understand what it's like...to be one of us."

Was this another one of John Mark's tests? How was he supposed to answer? Yes? No? Was this test to be graded on a curve or was it strictly pass/fail? Which answer was passing and which was failing? "David can do it."

"I love him," Nora answered honestly.

"Enough to die for him?" Cole asked. He hadn't even covered the chapter on human transformation in vampire high yet. Let alone take a risk with her life and her soul. "If he won't turn you. What makes you so sure he loves you?"

"Cole," David snapped. Cole was treading on thin ice. He insinuated and assumed things that weren't true. The boy had barely broken in his fangs. What did he know about the immortal world? He took a deep breath before he rattled Cole's baby fangs right out of his head. "Cole, I do love her," he said. Sighing, he stared up at the sparse canopy of stars over his head. "Too much to do this myself. I can't risk her life."

"So you're asking me to do it for you?" Cole retorted. "What? This way if I fail, you can blame me instead of yourself?" The silence of the graveyard broke with the resonant boom of his voice. A small covey of birds awakened by the noise skittered in the pines.

"We'd never do that," Nora gasped. She knew the risks. David had been preaching them to her for months. Any risk was worth taking, worth dying for, to be by his side.

Cole pinned Nora with a glare. "If I fail you'll be dead. You won't be blaming anybody for anything." His feet wore a path in the narrow space between Rachael's headstone and the foot of the next grave. Nora and David too, for that matter, had to be out of their minds.

"Cole, do you remember the day Rachael died?" David asked.

Cole shifted his eyes from Nora to David. Her face was fresh and innocent, expectant. David knew better. He knew what she would become. "As if I could ever forget. I've got a front row seat every time I close my eyes." His fingers wrapped around the cross around his neck. His voice was low and thick with regret as he spoke.

"Then you understand why I can't do this to Nora. I can't be the one to give her what she wants," David whispered. "I had to kill my sister. I failed Rachael. Don't force me to lose Nora too."

Cole winced at the regret etched in David's features. The mask of cool indifference was gone. Melted away into the very real face of a man who had lost so much and regretted everything. David was his friend, not a mentor, not a brother, but a friend. Cole took a deep breath and stared down at the grave at his feet. By agreeing to do this, he might very well send Nora to hers as well. David had very little to live for and if he lost Nora, and he would. One way or another either through a failed attempt to turn her or to time, there'd be nothing left of him. As a Son, Cole knew a vampire bent on his own destruction would be his duty to destroy. He wasn't sure, Son or not, if he could kill David under any circumstances. "I'll do it."

Nora sighed a soft breath of relief. She didn't think Cole was going to agree to what she'd asked. David was honest. She had no doubt that David could turn her. But, he was too afraid. His soul stained by too much guilt at things he could not change and were ultimately, not his fault. Her palms were drenched in sweat. Self-consciously, she wiped them on her jeans.

Cole unsheathed his fangs and rattled off a silent prayer to his goddess, to any deity that found his juvenile whispers worthy of their attention. He could barely control the urge to pounce and sate his need on the offering of flesh. But, this didn't work quite that way. He had to maintain control. Stop at just the right moment. Pin her, fully aware, in his arms while she suffered from his bite. He knew all too well what she'd feel. Deep in his memory, he remembered every agonizing second. He understood David's nod. Nora oblivious to the slight dip of his chin hadn't seen a thing in the darkness. Without warning, he struck, drawing out her life force in greedy pulls while she struggled, helplessly in his embrace.

David fought the instinct to knock Cole away from Nora and rip his head off. Nora's gasps and moans of pain were fading, becoming more and more distant as Cole drained her. Took every drop of life from the woman David loved in hopes of delivering her permanently into his arms. The smell of her blood, her human blood, was thick and sweet in the air. Her heartbeat pounded like a drum in his ears. Thudding fast, like hummingbird wings and then fading, softer, and softer, irregular, like spatters of rain on a tin roof, till it stopped and everything was quiet, silent as the grave.

Cole choked and gagged on the blood coating his tongue. He drew strength and energy from Nora's life, till there was nothing but a faint spark, a barely burning ember, left. She had maybe a few seconds before death came to claim its prize. In these few fleeting breaths, her fate would be decided. One way or the other, whether she died or was reborn, she'd never be human again. Pulling back, he withdrew from her flesh and sank his fangs deep into his own skin, wincing at the agonizing sting from his bite. Her jaw, coaxed open by his index finger was slack and cool. Cold and dead as the flesh he pressed to her lips. "Drink, Nora."

Nora knew nothing, felt nothing and it was wonderful. Comforted by the black velvet of nothing she rolled in the luxury of not feeling and not being. She grappled to hold on to it as she was torn from its enveloping layers by a force she could not understand but only experience. She fumbled at the flesh at her lips and latched on, drinking deeply of the heady goodness it promised. So sweet. Decadent and luxurious, the taste was like nothing she'd ever had in her mouth before. She worried at the source with her teeth and drank.

She was so cold. Frost bit and stung at her limbs. Air, rushed into lungs that no longer needed to breathe. A voice, that no longer needed to speak screamed in an ear piercing howl. Limbs, stiff with pain, spasms and cold jerked and flailed in the grass. So much pain, agony tore her away from the black cocoon of nothing and need as she whimpered helplessly.

Voices assured her that it would be over soon. She was fine. She was going to live. David whispered softly to her, pulling her away from the torment of her agony. Finally, the pain did stop. She heard hearts beating. Smelled the sweet scent of a humanity that was no longer hers to claim. Her eyes opened and with David's arms around her, helping her upright, she sat and looked at the world through fresh eyes, the eyes of a newborn vampire.

Cole couldn't watch. He'd done his part. Deep inside, he felt dirty and tainted. Fueled by the blood of the dying. He was a greedy fiend. Nora had given him her life in search of a new one and he'd given her a piece of himself. His life, in exchange for the life he'd drained away gulp by eager gulp. He said nothing to David as he walked away, disappearing into the graveyard without a sound. David didn't say anything to him either. After all, what was there to say? Nora was alive. What did that make him? A parent? A savior? That he could deliver a soul from the grip of death. He didn't want to think about it. About what he'd done made him in return.

He left David to tend to Nora and ran through the darkness. Sticking to the fringes of the city as he melted into the quiet shell of night. He sucked in great quantities of fresh air to clear his cluttered mind, the twinges of guilt in his conscience, and the fear, not of who he was, but who he could be. Cole wandered through the countryside directionless. Alone. Battling with a beast that existed only within him. Of that thing, the greedy beast that would never be satisfied, he was terrified

Chapter 69

Maggie frowned up at the clouds drifting across the perfection of the pregnant round moon over her head. A filmy haze encircled the orb, promising rain at some point during the night. She could practically feel it in the air. The humidity clung to her cheeks like a second skin. Over the horizon, the deep boom of thunder and spidery white fingers of lightening flickered in the distance. "Great," she muttered, frowning at the sky.

The black trash bag was slimy in her hands. Slicked by shake leavings, greasy wrappers, and an unidentifiable assortment of goo left behind from the evening rush. At least most of the sloppy mess had made it to the trashcans. On warm sunny days, the only two restaurants in town that sold ice cream, Happy's and What's the Scoop, were in a bitter battle for supremacy. Usually, What's the Scoop, won the war. But, today Happy's had won the battle thanks to their new summer menu and extended hours.

She didn't bother to point out to the throngs of customers ogling Happy's offerings with open-mouthed, slack jawed delight that the new summer menu was exactly the same as last summer's menu. How quickly the general public forgot.

She was worn to the bone and exhausted from smiling. Today she'd really had to force a smile onto her face. That blonde tramp and the impending prom, to which she didn't have any intention of attending, had gotten the better of her. It didn't help when Glenn, decked out in his jock's finest with the tramp of the week on his arm, demanded the prom tickets from her. Her answer was no. Hell. No. She'd paid for them and she was keeping them. He hadn't even asked how she was doing or made any attempt at pretending that he actually cared. He hadn't bothered to offer to pay her back for the money she'd spent on the tickets.

The trash bag slid in her grip. Gooey and slime covered, the bag sailed over the edge of the dumpster and landed with a sick, wet thud on top of the other bags. Fat, black flies buzzed lazily around the heap. The only thing she'd accomplished in her attempt to save face with Glenn was to talk herself into a very deep corner. He didn't believe her when she claimed that she couldn't sell the tickets because she had a date. See, jocks weren't so dumb after all.

She had no date and no prospects for one. Her fingers stuck to one another as remnants of goo dried in between them. She wiped her palms on her apron, leaving a trail of sticky sludge across the bright red fabric. Her ego had gotten her in a hell of a mess and she had no way out. She slammed the weathered gate to the trash bins closed behind her and snapped the rusty lock shut. The fence surrounding the trash dumpster was meant to keep critters out of the trash. Not that it did that good of a job. Sometimes, she was tempted to leave the gate open just to make it easier for the raccoons and opossums and to drive her boss insane.

The parking lot was dotted with dim circles of light. The town around her was quiet and nestled in for the night. Nothing but the soft hum of tires on the interstate and the occasional bark of a dog broke the silence. Her keys jangled in her fingers as she stomped off to her car. Pouting wasn't very becoming. But, it was the only defense she had. The days were growing longer. Her time stuck in this burg, getting shorter and shorter. By the time of her ten-year high school reunion, when she came back rich and successful, Glenn would have forgotten about the prom tickets and her lie. Wouldn't he?

The car whined as she backed out of the space and shifted into drive. She didn't want to wait ten years to make Glenn eat crow. Maybe that was high school of her. But, she didn't care. She served up burgers and fries all day. What was wrong with doling out a very well deserved slice of humble pie to Glenn? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She was going to the prom, date or no date. She'd get all dressed up, enjoy the night, and rub Glenn's face in the fact that she was having a great time all by herself. She'd be embarrassed that she didn't have a gorgeous hunk on her arm to make him jealous. But, she'd be ashamed of herself if she hid in her apartment and pouted while everyone else was out having fun. That wasn't how she wanted her high school friends to remember her and it certainly wasn't how she wanted to remember high school. She had a life and when August rolled around, she was going to start living it.

Chapter 70

Bianca glowered at the men from behind the curtain of her lashes. The desk stretched out between them like a no man's land, she on one side and wall-to-wall warriors and werewolves on the other. Good versus evil? No, just survival, plain and simple survival of the fittest. When it came down to it, it was O'Sullivan or her and she'd chosen the right side, herself.

Michael studied Bianca's face. She gave him nothing, not so much as a twinge of discomfort to read anything into. The suspicions he confronted her with weren't anything. He wanted her to turn herself in. But, he didn't know and wouldn't know exactly what she'd be turning herself in for. The only thing he did know was that she was in deep shit. If she weren't careful, the shit would pull her under.

Her Guardians were fanned out across the room, unsure of which side to stand on. They were made, much like her, at the whim of someone else. Their lack of choice in the matter bound them as one. The same way the Sons and their choices bound them as one. The werewolves were born into this world. Genetically bred as brothers. Danger and duty fused them into a cohesive unit of one mind and heart. Within a few days, it wouldn't matter what had brought them together. Some of them wouldn't be standing here once the smoke cleared. Bianca, hopefully, would.

Michael studied the way Bianca handled herself in a roomful of warriors. She was the very picture of grace, as if she were hosting a garden party instead of planning an attack. There was still time for her to confess. Admit to her part in O'Sullivan's game, if she chose to. Danger was almost palpable in the air. Waves of power surged and shimmered from the combining of supernatural forces. He wondered how many of his brothers would be lost in this battle and whose side, if pushed, Bianca and her Guardians would be on. Bianca and her Guardians were a large enough number to tip the scales either way.

Drew leaned heavily against his knuckles on the hard surface of the table. A map of the city sprawled out beneath him. Hunter circled a spot on the map with the wide tip of a red marker. Ground zero. Nestled in an upper class urban neighborhood with plenty of witnesses a war waited to happen. "We'll set up points here." He drew a circle on the map. "Here, and here. He won't get away. He'll be surrounded." War sickened Drew to his core. His whole life, all two hundred and some odd years of it, he'd known nothing but and he was tired to the depths of his soul and beyond. "We'll move in and tighten up the perimeter."

He didn't relish the thought of killing a living being, especially one as old as everyone guessed O'Sullivan to be. Survival of the ages was a rare thing. There weren't many ancients left. To destroy a species so close to the brink of its own destruction was a bigger crime than the rogue had ever dared to commit. Drew would offer him one last chance. "We'll offer surrender."

John Mark's brows furrowed. Rogues were exterminated. End of story. Killed and put out of their misery like the dogs they were. Refuge to anyone who broke their rules would make a joke out of the Sons. Their numbers were small compared to the possible multitudes of rogues both in the present and the foreseeable future. Fear of their blades was one of the main things that kept the vampires in check. "Surrender?"

Dane nudged John Mark sharply with his elbow to shut him up. Whatever the Great Father's reasons were for offering such a rare gift they were not John Mark's nor his to question. There had to be a reason, a damn good one. He nodded to Drew, not understanding, only trusting his leader and friend's judgment.

Nash crossed his arms over his chest and stood with his feet spread wide apart. He wasn't as forgiving or trusting as the Great White Wolf. His pack master's orders were his pack master's orders. But, if the son of a bitch that threatened his pack met with an unfortunate end. That was ok with him and the rest of the pack. When in wolf form, the beast had the upper hand and threats were quickly and lethally dealt with. They did not have the vampires' control over their instincts. "We will do our best not to destroy the thing."

Drew nodded in thanks. "That's all I can ask of Brother Wolf." His eyes ran over the men and women surrounding the table. They were good, brave and loyal, every last one of them. The Guardians were a little more unpredictable than his Sons and his pack. But, they had no desire to end up in slavery to a madman. They'd fight. They'd die, if for nothing else than their freedom. "Tonight we send out patrols. No one makes a move against O'Sullivan. We'll attack soon enough."

Bianca was out of options. She had to play or get out of the game all together. She chose to play, for now. "The Guardians will take the innermost perimeter," she said. "O'Sullivan is used to feeling our presence. Otherwise, we might tip our hand too soon."

Michael raised a brow. She was offering the aid of her Guardians. Why? Had she changed her mind about helping them after all or was this just another attempt at deception. He'd like to rattle the truth out of her. "Good thinking. I'll accompany them on patrol." For weeks he'd been watching the assignments. She'd been keeping her Guardians running in circles. Tonight, he'd get her secrets out of her if he had to shake them loose.

Bianca smiled as warmly as she could. Michael wasn't fooled by her act. She tipped her head to him slightly. She pulled at the hem of her waist length black leather jacket and yanked the zipper up. "Shall we?" She asked, extending an arm to Michael. She ran her fingertips down the slick arm of his leather jacket. Once they were out of earshot of the men, she whispered, "Always trying to keep me safe. A girl could get spoiled by that."

Michael tensed his forearm beneath her fingertips. She chuckled at his reaction to her and slid her arm free, leading the way out into the night. No one wore leather pants the way she did. Her body was enough to distract a priest from his prayers to heaven. If the devil were a woman, she'd have nothing on Bianca. Tempting and terrifying, beauty and beast wrapped up in one seductive package. He had to remind himself of one simple truth. She was not the woman for him. "Not safe Bianca, just honest."

Chapter 71

Eric glanced at his handiwork. Pleased, very pleased with himself and the ingenuity in which he'd displayed to put his plan into action. The Internet was truly a wonder. One could discover so many things with the click of a mouse. When his guests came knocking and he had absolutely no doubt they would. He had a little surprise in store for them. Lips pursed, he whistled a little melody he'd heard so long ago that time forgot the simple words. Let them come, in droves, if they dared. Nobody fucked with Eric O'Sullivan. Nobody.

Carter made arrangements for his journey. He packed light, one bag for Yessette and one for himself. Where they were headed there wasn't need for much else. They wouldn't be around long enough to use the contents in the bags. He had a car at the ready well outside of the hot zone. The place where he knew the Sons would attack. He'd drive as far north as he could and from there, a small charter plane would carry them to the edge of the known universe. As far as any human could travel. It still wasn't far enough to prevent her from doing harm. The rest of the journey would have to be completed on foot. Good thing the dead travel fast. He had the spot picked out. Just south of the Arctic Circle, good of a place to die as any. Just Yessette, him, and the polar bears till death do them part.