Dawn Unleashed

Gingerly he knocked on the door. Part of him hoped his mom wouldn't hear his knock over the blaring TV set, the happy squeals of the twins, and the newest addition to the family's hungry wails. His other brothers and sisters were on their way to school by now. In all the years he'd been under this roof, he'd never bothered much with them. He was always too busy with himself to form a relationship with them. He considered them his mom and step-dad's kids more than he considered them brothers and sisters. He regretted that too.

He waited for a minute. He could chicken out and turn tail. Make a quick getaway. She hadn't heard him knock. There was still time. Cole gathered up his nerve and knocked again, a little louder this time. He heard her light footsteps and the even lighter scuffling of smaller feet following behind her to the front door.

She opened the door and blinked in disbelief. She was dressed in standard mom issue plaid pajama bottoms and a faded short sleeved cotton t-shirt. Her short blonde hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail at the nape of her neck. "Cole!"

Cole gently unwound his mom's arms from his neck and wiggled his cheek away from the shower of mom kisses she embarrassingly planted on it. "Hi."

Jesse stepped back from the door and motioned for Cole to come inside. "Well, hi yourself. Young man, how come you never call your mother? Don't you know I've been worried sick?" She meant the chastising remarks as joke. But, he flinched into his jacket.

He looked so mature. Something in his eyes told her that he wasn't her little boy anymore. He was dressed in black leather from head to toe. His boots looked sturdy and very heavy, but oddly, soundlessly, he stepped through the front door.

She quickly gathered her composure and ran a nervous hand over her disheveled ponytail. Self-consciously, her fingers brushed at the formula stain on the front of her t-shirt. "This must be the day for company and of course, I'm a complete mess."

"Mom, you look beautiful as always," Cole said.

Jess giggled and swatted at her son with her free hand. The crook of her other arm was occupied by the baby. "Save your flattery for the ladies, Cole. Well, come in, come in. This is still your home," she said shooing Cole through the living room and into the dining room. She unceremoniously plopped the newest addition to her family, and hopefully the last, into the bouncy seat on the kitchen table and received a scowl and a baby whimper for her efforts. "We've all missed you so much. The house isn't the same without you."

Cole followed his mom into the dining room and cocked his head in a questioning gesture. His brows lifted as he eyed stacks of snapshots scattered across the dining room table and at his dad, who was perched over the edge of the table on his elbows studying the pictures. Cole's whole life was laid out in Polaroid and color photos, some more faded than others with time. Birthdays. Christmases. His first tooth. His first bike. Those bad overpriced school pictures parents feel obligated to buy. Every embarrassing moment scattered across the dining room table.

Jess flushed a moment's worth of discomfort and scooted pictures out of the way to make a place for Cole. "Your father stopped by and I just couldn't help dragging out all these old pictures of you." She pushed Cole into the chair closest to his father and scurried off to the kitchen to make coffee. She used the excuse, her love for coffee, to give Cole the father and son moment that had been so long in coming. She'd wanted this for Cole and for Robert for so long.

A part of her wondered what life would have been like if...At the time, she'd been justified in leaving Robert. He was so distant and withdrawn. He wouldn't even touch her or hold Cole in his arms. At the time, she'd been right to pack Cole and herself up and leave. Bill, just sort of happened. She hadn't meant to fall in love with another man. She hadn't meant to push Robert so far away from his son. As happy as she was with Bill and the kids, sometimes that tiny thought seeded in the depths of her mind budded and she couldn't help herself for her wonderings. What if were big words that she had no business questioning. Most of the time she was able to push the unwanted questions away. But seeing them, father and son together, seeing Robert after all this time, made the questions bloom bigger and fuller than they ever had before.

"What are you doing here?" Cole hissed under his breath at his father. He kept his voice down so his mom wouldn't hear. From the kitchen, cups clanked together and the coffee maker chugged away.

"Looking at pictures," Robert answered. He had meant to go out for a drive to clear his head from the brutal images burned into his mind and somehow he'd ended up on Jess's doorstep. The last time they spoke, he'd promised her he'd save their son. He didn't realize that it wasn't his son that needed the saving, but him.

He shuffled through Cole's life captured on vivid color print and battered faded Polaroid instamatic film. "I missed so much," he whispered under his breath. Cole's first day of school, he hadn't been there for that. Cole's tenth birthday, he'd sent a cheesy card and a twenty-dollar bill for that special occasion. Cole posing in his quarterback uniform, he'd missed that too. Cole at his sixteenth birthday party, smiling into the camera. Cole looking every bit a man in a tuxedo for the junior prom. He'd missed it all.

Robert wanted to hate Bill for stealing his life away from him. But, he couldn't. Bill had been there when he had not and by every right Bill was just as much of a father to Cole as he was, perhaps more so. He was glad that Jesse was happy, even if that happiness had been found in the arms of another man. Her life was full and complete. A part of him wanted to take all the years back and rewind the clock. Take back all that he'd missed, every last second he'd so stupidly given away. "I just wanted to make sure."

"Make sure of what?"

Robert picked up a picture and stared at it. The picture was a few years old, a little tattered around the edges. He ran his fingers over Jesse's face and traced them over Cole's smile. Children stair stepped in age grinned up at the camera. Bill's arm was draped possessively over Jesse's arm and a hand rested casually on Cole's shoulder. "That your mother is happy."

Cole looked down at the family photograph in his dad's hands. So many times, he'd looked at that photo and wished the hand resting on his shoulder had been his dad's hand instead of Bill's. How many times, he'd wished it had been his dad who had taught him to ride a bike and gave him a proud smack on the back when he scored the winning touchdown. Bill had made sure he didn't lose his balance and fall off the bike and Bill had never missed a game.

Cole had never given Bill much thought. He'd resented every attempt Bill made at fatherhood until a wall had been forged between them. For all the times he'd wished his dad had been there for him, he finally realized, his dad had been. He owed Bill an apology and he owed his dad a chance. He hadn't been there for all the bumps, scrapes, and bruises earned from falling off his bike and scoring the winning point, but he was here now. "Yeah, she's happy."

Jesse dug under her bed and pulled out another box. Dust bunnies clung to the corners of the box. Ashamed at her housekeeping, she shooed them away and jogged downstairs with the box clutched in her hands. She stopped just outside of the dining room and peeked around the corner.

The sight of the two of them together peering down at the pictures caused her to blink back a tear. Cole looked so much like his father when he was that age and she'd first fallen in love with him, another lifetime ago. Life happened and kept on happening. Things that were torn apart, seemingly irreparably damaged could be mended. She would never, ever give up her life for a second chance at the one she'd missed out on. But, the feelings were still there, buried beneath a thick layer of time. She still loved Robert and a part of her always would. "I found more pictures."

Cole shook his head. If there ever were a shutterbug, it was his mother. She took pictures of everything and anything and squirreled them away in scrapbooks and boxes. He rolled his eyes in a mock gesture of exasperation and gave her a playful scowl as she opened the box. "Really, mom?"

"Hush Cole," Jess chastised. She lifted the lid and grabbed a handful of pictures from the box. Something landed on the table with a light metallic sounding ping. It bounced once and landed on the pile of snapshots she'd taken from the box. Her old wedding ring had fallen out of the box. The ring was nothing fancy, just a plain gold band and a symbol of a promise neither Robert nor she had kept.

Robert picked up the ring. The gold band was dwarfed and dainty, almost fragile looking, sandwiched between his rough fingertips. He held the circle up and turned it over and over between his fingers. He'd had every good intention of keeping the whispered promises when he slid it on her finger. Life just hadn't worked out the way either one of them had planned. Their eyes met, as he dropped the band in her palm and closed her hand around it. So much was said in those seconds. In her eyes he saw that sometimes she questioned just as fervently as he did...what if. She pondered just as he did on lonely nights...what could have been.

Jesse slipped the ring onto her right ring finger so she wouldn't lose it. Once they'd sifted through the pictures and the memories of what once was, she'd return it to its rightful place, along with the pictures and the memories, back into the box. She took the seat next to Cole. Next to their son, the only piece of the present, that was theirs to share and the three of them sifted through the photos and poured over happy, cherished moments from a life gone by.

Chapter 103

The power of an oncoming storm prickled the hairs on Tracker's arms. The storm wouldn't come till later, but when it hit, it was going to be bad. A backpack stuffed with his clothes was out of sight beneath a dense, leafy thicket of brambles. His legs were a little wobbly after spending so many hours in wolf form that his body needed a minute to remember how to walk on two legs instead of four. He had no idea of how many miles his wolf had tracked through the woods, but he felt every inch of them in the soreness of his limbs.

His wolf could only give him mental images from last night. Prey they'd let escape because they were too busy to give chase. Miles passed beneath their paws. His nose was full of the scent of pine and decaying leaves. He could smell them deeply embedded like a layer of invisible clothing on his skin. The denim of his jeans was rough and confining against his thighs. Foreign material rubbed where a soft, warm coat of fur had been. Tracker didn't bother with a shirt. He needed a shower. He had dirt and mud caked on him in places no human would want. But, his wolf never seemed to mind.

All night long, his wolf had patrolled the perimeter. Thoughts of the pack, protecting what was his, dominated the mind he shared with the wolf. Staying too long in wolf form was dangerous. The old superstition was that his human body, the ethereal part of his soul that made him human, would get trapped in the spirit world and would not be able to find its way back to the real body he shared with his wolf. Tracker didn't know if that was true or not. So much of folklore was made up of fiction. But, there was always a little bit of fact mixed in, enough to make him not want to chance it.

Tracker saw Shayla leaning against the porch railing. Her gaze was distant, lost to some remote thought. He stood in the cover of the woods and watched her. She was dressed for the heat of the day despite the misty early morning chill in the air. Her long, dark hair draped over one shoulder in a curtain of black silk. He breathed in every detail of her as if it were air, a necessity to sustain him. The white spaghetti strapped tank top showed off the deep tan of her skin. A pair of faded cut off jean shorts graced her shapely thighs. She was barefoot. Her dainty toes, the toenails painted a shade of pale, pale, pink, rested on the bottom rung of the railing. If the threat of danger weren't hovering over them like a storm cloud ready to burst, the sight of her would have been a comfort.

For now, the pack's territory was secure as it was going to get. He'd spent the night making sure of it. A thrum of possessive energy pulsed through his body as he looked at Shayla. His mate.

She belonged to him and nobody else. Last night before all hell broke loose he'd marked her. He wished that damned vampire would come back around sniffing for her. He'd be within his rights to protect his mate and kill him. A very dark part of him wished Carter dead. But, that would hurt Shayla far too much. She'd mourn him. Her mourning would leave Tracker with most of her, but not all of her. A part of Shayla's heart would hold on to Carter harder through the regret of his death than it did in the misery of his life.

Shayla didn't sleep well last night. More nights were sleepless than not these days. Tracker was out on patrol all night long. But, it wasn't worry for him that filled her mind and stole the dreams she so desperately needed. Thoughts of Carter filled her mind and kept her tossing and turning till she'd finally given up on sleep altogether.

She needed a few stolen minutes to herself before the day officially began. The morning was quiet, shrouded in clouds of white mist. A fat, lemon drop colored sun sleepily crawled across the eastern fringe of the horizon, heating the sleeping world below. The woods were a bustle of activity. Squirrels chattered noisily and scampered along branches. Birds filled the trees with their gleeful morning song. The chirping of crickets was harmony to their throaty chorus.

She should be filled with peace and stand in awe of all the life around her. She wasn't. Worry had her heart clutched tightly in its black fist. Guilt was there too, the substance of the fist that gripped her so tightly. Last night, she'd given herself to Tracker completely and irrevocably. Her heart and her thoughts should be with him. Instead they lingered on Carter. She could sense his dark presence in her mind. He was someplace far away and yet, he felt close enough to her that if she wanted to, she could reach out across all the miles that separated them with her fingertips and caress the harsh planes of his cheek.

Tracker was her mate by deed and pack law. Her concentration and all of her thoughts belonged to him. Too bad, she couldn't say the same for her heart. A part of it still belonged to Carter as much as her body belonged to Tracker. Not even death would change her feelings. A part of her knew and had come to terms with the fact that Carter's mind was filled with the desire to die. Even now, across such a vast distance, she could hear his dark musings like a whisper in her soul. If she could, she'd reach out and pull him back. But, she couldn't. She'd tried and in the end, all her efforts had caused her nothing but pain. She couldn't save someone who didn't want to be saved. She could not force someone to live who didn't want to. All she could do was focus on the here and now. Her here and now was with Tracker.

Tracker moved from the cover of the woods with grace. Almost as if he flowed out of the dense border of the woods like water flowed over rocks on its way to the ocean. She was his ocean and her feelings for Carter the rocks. The rocks were obstacles that the stream that was Tracker flowed over in determination that nothing was going to keep him from reaching his ocean.

Shayla smiled and melted against the hardness of his chest, encircled in the band of his arms. "You smell like pack," she whispered against the warmth of his skin. Her wolf liked the way he smelled and the heat of him surrounding her. Her wolf liked the taste of his flesh on her tongue and the press of his body against hers. The masculine growl flowing from his parted lips perked her wolf's ears. The scent of him pulled her under, drowning her in a tide of musk and pine.

Tracker's wolf liked the way Shayla's body responded to them. The smell of her wolf so close to the surface enticed him. In his arms, she was soft and warm, utterly female. He ran his nose along her hair, inhaling, breathing in the very essence of what she was beneath this human garb. She was his. Theirs. Her heart could cling to whatever memories it wanted to. But, this, this curvy she-wolf in his arms was all his. "Is R.J. still asleep?"

"Probably." Shayla's skin heated in his arms. She understood the nuance behind the question. Tracker wanted to brand her with his body and her wolf couldn't agree more with the plan. Where was the boundary between simple biology and love? How thin was that fragile barrier and when would it come crashing down around her? Tracker pressed his swollen groin against the juncture between her thighs and growled appreciatively. Her body had a mind of its own and her hips brushed against him.

"This morning I want to do it right and proper. Last night was too rushed. I want to take my time with you." Tracker trailed his hands down Shayla's waist and cupped her butt in his palms, pressing her even harder against him. Her body smelled of the musk of her blooming desire.

Her response was that of a woman to a man. The heart had nothing to do with it. He appreciated simple things. They were easy to understand. Food. Sex. Warmth. The dealings with the heart were too complex. Too wide and too varied. Sex was straight forward and left nothing for interpretation. Two bodies merged as one. Pleasure was the reward. Simple. In time, the heart, Shayla's heart, would go where the body led it. Tracker was a patient, patient man. He owned her body and her heart would come to him all on its own soon enough.

Shayla wrapped her arms around Tracker's neck for support. Beneath her fingertips his muscles flexed. His lips teased around the borders of her mouth, asking permission. He was her mate. Nothing would change that now. With a heavy sigh and a shudder, she took a deep breath and held it. Her body wanted him and what was the harm of giving his body and her body what they both so desperately wanted? "Ok."

Tracker chuckled and lifted Shayla into his arms. He carried her through the living room, his hands planted firmly on her ass. He didn't care who knew what they were doing. He wanted the world to know that she was after such a long wait, his.

Chapter 104

Daniel struggled to right himself in the seat. The world was a fuzzy blur of pine and woods zipping so quickly across his window. "Where are we?" he asked. The inside of his mouth tasted like old glue and his tongue was sticky, coated with the stuff. He tried to make sense of the trees and the open road in front of him. Beside him, his dad stretched out with the bill of his cap pressed tightly over his eyes. An arm was draped across his waist as if he were trying to hold himself together.

Nash's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, looking at his grandson and his son. He'd managed to get his pack out with a minimum of casualties. Most of the pack was battered and bruised, but they were alive. Without a trail to follow and the vampires locating their dead, there wasn't much more for the wolves to do but go home. He took his foot off the gas and gently pressed on the brake, slowing for the ramp. "We are home, Daniel."

Daniel eased against the seat and sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. He winced a bit from the pain of his expanding lungs. "Home." No one word had ever filled him with such a mixture of dread and hope. He dreaded having to face his family again, but was filled with hope because he was still alive to do it. A part of him realized that going home meant he'd lost. Yessette was alive. He could still feel the tingling weight of her essence in the back of his mind. But, he could feel the pressing bleakness of the blank spot where she and only she lived in his heart. He'd lost her. Forever.