Dawn's Path: Completed Work

He could lie to himself, but not to her. He would not stoop so low as to promise her that everything would be ok when he had no guarantees that it would. He couldn't with absolute certainty guarantee that she was safe beyond the next minute and that something wouldn't happen to cut her life short. There was the foreseeable and the unforeseeable, the certain and the uncertain, and they were all just victims of the randomness of the world. "Janine. You're very precious to me and I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to you. Please, go home. It's not safe here."

Janine blinked away the tears gathering on her lashes. She knew better than anyone how unsafe the city had gotten. There had always been a certain element of danger here. And Marcus was just like the rest of them. Pushy. Demanding. So fucking worried about her human life that sometimes it made her head hurt. "I just want a few more hours just to be me."

"Janine, you'll always be you, no matter what. Fangs won't change that." Marcus cupped her cheeks in his palms and tilted her head up so that their eyes met. In her blue eyes he saw the true depths of her fear. She wasn't afraid of dying. Not his brave Janine. She was afraid that after tomorrow night, she'd never live, truly live as she did tonight. She was terrified, not of the pain, of the blood, or of the darkness, but of changing on some elemental level that had nothing to do with being a vampire. She wanted her party to prove she was still alive. "Go home. Do this for me."

"It's not fair."

"I know." Marcus kissed Janine lightly on the forehead and squeezed her tightly in an embrace. Holding her, he memorized every last detail of her, her smell, the taste of her skin on his lips, and the beating of her human heart. He wasn't good at goodbyes. And he'd never been able to settle for the finality of them. Releasing her, he said the only thing he could and the only truth he believed. "I'll see you soon."

"Nobody likes an unhappy drunk," Janine said, blotting her eyes with the hem of her scarf. Forcing a smile, which was the last thing she felt like doing, she shook off her fear and watched Marcus disappear into the dark places beyond the reach of the streetlamps with Sam following closely behind him. She was hardly in a parting mood. But, she wasn't going to let it stop her from enjoying the last few hours she had left of her human life. They were too short. Too precious. And she was not about to let them pass her by.

Janine climbed into the SUV, letting the darkness of the interior swallow her whole. Hot air blasted from the vents doing little to chase away the chill that had settled in her bones. She exhaled onto the window and doodled with a fingertip in the fog left from her breath. "What do you call a prostitute who tripped and fell on her ass?"

Alex shook her head and raised a brow at her best friend. Janine's tone was forced, the joviality strained and anything but happy. Everyone had overheard Janine's conversation with Marcus. And no one said a word about it. Tomorrow was coming whether they wanted it to or not. And Janine was not going to change her mind no matter what her fears or doubts. "What?"

"A ho down. And that's exactly what we're going to have. The party is still on," Janine said stubbornly. She watched from her smudged window as the city faded away and there was nothing but darkness around her and the dim glow of the dashboard ahead of her. She focused on the light. It was always about the light and the promises that came with it. The display on the digital clock on the dashboard caught her eye. It was a little after midnight. The tomorrow she'd worried so much about was today. And in twenty-four hours tomorrow would stand still, frozen in time and the final beat of a heart.

After the dance had ended, Patrick closed his eyes and meditated. John Mark and Dane sat naked as the day they were born, scrunched into the sweat lodge on either side of him. The three of them had been through so much together, Dane's reluctant rise into leadership after Lucien's death, John Mark's s struggle to understand the deaths of Robbie's parents and to accept that his failure to prevent them had not been his fault, and, Patrick's personal battle and subsequent shame spiral of self damnation at the taking of a human life. Tomorrow night was just another step on their lifelong journey as brothers.

Patrick was nervous about what he'd have to do tomorrow night. So nervous in fact, that his fangs suffered performance anxiety and refused to descend from his gums. He didn't want her to suffer. But, there was no other way. Death was pain. And there had been so much of it in the brotherhood over the last couple of years. Everyone had a bellyful of death and suffering. The brothers needed Janine to live just as much as he did. Her continued life was their ultimate victory over death.

If he lacked the strength to snatch her out of death's hands, Dane and John Mark would try. Each and every one of the brothers would try to anchor her to this world. Janine had to live. She simply had no other choice. Her death would be too hard a blow for the brotherhood to endure. Tomorrow, there would be no failure and no death, only life.

Chance packed his gear and met his dad in the garage. Will had yet to arrive. Which meant only one thing. Mom was trying to talk him out of volunteering. Not going to happen. His dad lived and breathed this shit. Besides, it wasn't like they were going out on a suicide mission. This was a simple observe and report type of thing, hardly dangerous at all. In fact, too sedate, almost too boring for his tastes.

Options for rides were a bit limited. The brotherhood owned two monster SUVs. One was parked on the far side of the garage and its twin had been taken for Janine's trip to the city. A non-descript, blacked out window SUV might be too obvious for the type of covert mission Dane had assigned them to. Yeah, hard to believe how much prowling through the streets in a vehicle so bland drew so much attention.

The other choices weren't any better. Nothing screamed stake me like Anna and Chris's compact, environmentally friendly, teeny-tiny, clown cars. Nah. Not good choices if the shit went down. And knowing Chance's luck, it in invariably would. He snatched a set of keys off the row of hooks anchored to the wall at the far side of the garage and tossed them up into the air as he waited for his dad to finally make an appearance.

He was itching to get the show on the road. Alex knew the score and she backed him one hundred percent. She'd never try to coax him to stay out of the action. This was their life. And sometimes, life was tough. He ran his palms over the sleek, black surface of the car. Nobody actually got paid for what they did. And as a general rule, none of the brothers technically owned anything. Community property was the rule. And the tricked out, vintage 1968 Camaro SS nobody was brave enough to even so much as think about driving unofficially belonged to Dane.

Under the premise of community property, Chance was willing to take the risk. Unlocking the door, he slid into the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition. The engine purred like a lethal jungle cat. A sigh, something akin to love, escaped his lips as he wrapped his hands around the steering wheel.

A sly smile crept across Will's lips. His kid liked to live on the edge. And sitting behind the wheel of that Camaro was pretty damned dangerous. Chance must have read his thoughts, because he was thinking exactly the same thing. The mission was a tight, quick, easy in and out type of assignment. Dane played his cards close to his chest and assigned details conservatively. Leaving no room for discussion or debate. The inactivity was killing Will. Patrols were a necessary evil. But, the real danger seemed to be a million miles away from here as it had been since the day the brothers had taken Roark out.

Things had been just too quiet lately, although, his wife would disagree about that. Candace would keep him at home, wrapped in bubble wrap if she could. Dane didn't have to ask him twice to take the assignment. More than that, he'd backed him up when he refused to give into Candace's demands to come along. His wife was a pacifist to her core. And unless he or their son was in danger, she'd never take up the sword. She didn't have it in her to kill. Will wanted to make sure she never had to. And that meant despite her protests, she stayed home. "Dane will kill us if something happens to this car." he said as he stashed his gear in the backseat and slid in beside Chance.

Chance snickered and flicked the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. "Sometimes Dad, you gotta live dangerously," he said as he peeled out of the garage leaving behind a trail of burned rubber and acrid smoke.

"Absolutely," Will agreed, chuckling as Dane rushed into the garage chasing after them a day late and a dollar short. Ok, so when they got back, they had some explaining to do, and probably some ridiculously asinine duty to perform as penance. Could be anything, polishing rocks, counting pine needles, or washing the brothers' dirty jock straps with a washboard for a year. With Dane, you could never be sure. But, for a chance to drive a car as sweet as this one and have a little fun on an otherwise mundane assignment, it was worth it.

Chapter 38

The wolf reveled in her newly found freedom. These woods were quiet and plentiful. She ate well from the bounty of the rolling fields around this place. The deer here were content, fat, and lazy. The hunting was good. The soft, spongy, earthen loam under her paws was unfamiliar. The cool pungent scent of pine was so different than the dry, spicy smell of sage and spindly scrub. Psaiwiwuhkernekah Ptweowa, the Great White Wolf, Father wolf of all packs, was right to send them here. This land, as foreign as it was, truly was a bountiful horn. And here the pack would flourish and grow.

Instinct guided her away from the male following her. He carried strong wolf magic. Father Wolf said he could be trusted and that the pack was to be his guide. That SHE was to be his guide. The male had no knowledge of the wolf spirit he held trapped within his body. Her presence here in this wonderland of strange new things had awakened his wolf. But, the male didn't understand what he was and the nature of the beast he battled to from bursting free from the wrapper of his skin.

Father Wolf had gone the way of the spirit. The soul of the man who had occupied Father Wolf's body had gone across the Great River never to return. Psaiwiwuhkernekah Ptweowa was eternal. Spirit did not die as did flesh and bone. But, lived on and on. One day, when the body she shared with her human half died, she too would do the same. She would find a new home in someone else's skin at the time of first awakening.

It might be easier to give herself over to her human half. Awaken her female and allow her to speak to the male in their tongue. She would rest. Return to her goddess and guard the barrier until called upon again. Her human might have better luck than she had. The male fought against the wolf and the two were in a fierce battle for control of the form they shared. Her human trusted her and had given her rule over this body they shared. From deep inside of her the human half of her watched and took measure of their surroundings, thinking in the complex ways of humans.

She had not walked the woods on two legs nor seen it though human eyes since her arrival weeks ago. The pack magic inside of her was dwindling. The male carried the magic of the pack. But, it was weak and his wolf powerless to the reasoning mind holding him captive. With no force of magic to call upon, her human side was fading day-by-day. And the wolf half of them would rule if she did not shift into her human form soon. The wolf did not want to stay out of the spirit realm no more than the female wanted to remain trapped inside of her. It was death to them both to do so. A wolf wouldn't last long alone in this unfamiliar place. And the human, would fare no better.

She sniffed the air, detecting no trace of her determined tracker. Letting her guard down, she sank to her haunches in the midst of a pile of soft, fragrant pine needles and waited. She'd forgotten where her human had left the cache of things that she'd need after the change. And it had taken days to sniff out the spot. Relinquishing her control over her shared body, the wolf drifted off and waited.

The change came slower, more painful without the aid of powerful pack magic. It was almost as bad as the first time, when the wolf had chosen her and melded their spirits and their bodies. Without the thick, outer covering of fur for warmth, the air was cold. Leaving her chilled to the bone, naked and shivering on the ground. Once her wobbly body adjusted, and she got used to being herself again. She walked, or rather stumbled to the edge of the creek and drank with her cupped hands.

Her senses were dull compared to her wolf's. And the woods, shrouded in the thick cover of night, were veiled to her, still and lifeless beneath the cloud of her diminished hearing, sense of smell, and vision. But, in exchange for her limited senses, she could rely on solid thought, not merely mindless instinct. She'd seen the man, not a man at all, but something else. Something within him called to her basest nature. Confident and with a raw sensuality he'd reached her and filled her with an unfamiliar cry of longing and need. And it was this part of her being desired capture as much as the other part, belonging to her wolf, did not.

She waded into the creek, shivering from the crisp, coolness of the stream. Cleansing off layers of mud caked on her body and picking bits of leaves and twigs out of her tangled hair, she struggled to remember the basic functions of being human. She'd been trapped in her wolf form for far too long, almost too long. Clumsy and weak, her stomach growling in hunger and her fragile skin pimpling from the cold, she clamored for words and moved her lips to speak them. Tala, her name was Tala and it meant wolf in the tongue of her people.

The sound of her human voice as she said her name aloud sounded foreign to her ears and shattered the quiet of the woods. Scrambling up the slope out of the creek, she stumbled her way across the soft, cold, uneven ground to a copse of pine trees. Naked and battling to hold her body upright, wanting so desperately to crawl on all fours so that she could move faster, the ground closer, in the way of her wolf, she searched through the fallen pine needles for her pack.

Her fingers fumbled with the pack. Even something as familiar as unzipping the pack and pawing through the contents was foreign. She was here to do...something. The only thing was shivering in the dark, naked, alone, and in a strange place, her mind couldn't focus on what it was. She was forgetting what it was like to be human. Laying out the contents of her pack on the ground she struggled to remember what the items were for and what they did.

She remembered the basic physical movements required for dressing. Clothing was necessary. The cotton clung to her damp skin, tight and stifling, coarse and itchy compared to the soft warmth of her fur pelt. Tala wiggled her toes in the socks and slid her feet into the boots. Good for hiking. But, with her feet tucked and laced up tightly inside of the boots her footing was clumsy and unsure. The lined jacket restricted her movement and offered little protection from the elements. Fur was better. Warmer. Softer. She slid a handgun in the space between her jeans and the small of her back. To the rest of the world, she was a woman and a tiny one at that. Claws and sharp teeth were far more effective for defense. But, in her human form she had to play by human rules. And her wolf must sleep.

Tala winced as she dragged a comb through her tangled hair. Her fingers gripped and fumbled with the comb, still unused to the dexterity of opposable thumbs and motor skills it took to gather the strands and wring the water out of the length. What did she look like? Did she still remember? Fisting the ponytail, she pulled it to the side and ran the cold, damp strands through her palm. Her hair was black, like her wolf's fur. And her eyes, could she remember what color they were? Her wolf, had golden/brown eyes, and so did she. She extended her hand in front of her face and studied her skin tone, tanned almost russet, Native American toned, like Father Wolf's and the rest of her pack.

Kokumthena, the Mother Goddess, had sent her to this place to do something. Entrusted something critical to her hands. Thinking of Father Wolf helped. Tala nibbled at her bottom lip in frustration with blunt human teeth. Her nails were short and mud was caked beneath them. Spindly arms and legs supported her weight as she stood and slung the pack over her shoulder to get the feel of it. In her jacket pocket was a wad of money, a set of car keys, and an electronic device small enough to hold in her palm...a cell phone. Things her wolf didn't need. Her wolf hunted. She howled at the moon in joy. And she walked, her paws digging into the ground. Her wolf didn't need these things. But, she, her human self, wrapped up tight as a drum in cotton and leather, secured in this hairless, fragile wrapper of soft skin, did.

Tala fumbled with the cell phone. Frowning at the light of the display tainting the soft darkness with an eerie electronic glow. Yes! That was it! She should call someone. But, she couldn't remember who or how to use the phone. Hell, she couldn't even recall what the mission was or what she'd been sent here to do.

Dejected, disappointed, and so damn confused, she sat on a mossy, fallen log and stuffed the cell phone into her pocket. The item was important, perhaps, the most important thing she owned. Her wolf could keep her fed, sheltered, and safe. But, the phone was her only link to the pack. She was very far from home. The woods were cold and strange. Barren trees with shaking dried leaves towered over her head. The air was tinged with the scent of dying things and land settled in for winter's long sleep.

Her home was arid and dry, sometimes cold. But, it was a different kind of cold. Not this wet, dampness that chilled everything it touched as the air here did. Trees were sparse. And the open spaces wide. The ground was rocky and flat, shifting constantly from the battering of wind across open planes. Everything here was compact. Trees grew on top of one another. The ground was slick and spongy from the fallen leaves and constant moisture in the air. The snow pack had melted away and the entire woods was a giant ball of thick, sticky, wet, cold mud covered in sleek, glittering frost. Not even the stars shone with the same intensity here as they had at home. And she didn't like the unfamiliarity of it.

Her wolf growled in discontent and scratched at the surface of her mind, begging to be free. Her wolf did not like the confines of her imprisonment. She liked this awful, cold, dark, wet place. She found the trees majestic, the air sweet and musky with the scent of plentiful game, and the ground soft beneath her paws. For a moment, Tala considered setting her free and letting her take control of the body they shared. And if she hadn't been so focused on the task she couldn't remember that she was supposed to do. She might do just that and give herself over to the wolf forever. It was easier that way. Simpler. The wolf never forgot. The wolf lived for the moment. The wolf held no convictions or sense of duty beyond the pack so far away from this place. Her wolf did what wolves did and it was as simple as that.

She stifled a tear as she stretched out over the fallen log and stared up at the black night sky wavering through the branches towering above her head. It would get easier for her the longer she remained in this biped form. Her purpose would come back to her. Already, the memories were starting to take shape in the forefront of her mind. She had responsibilities. She'd volunteered for this. Better her than her father to be here. The pack was in danger and that was why she'd gone ahead before the others, before her father.