Dawn's Path: Completed Work

Her first duty as daughter to a powerful pack master was to the pack. At least, it was supposed to be. And the wolf had no qualms about following the established hierarchy and rules within it. On that point, she and her wolf did not agree. Her human brain could not wrap itself around the concept that pack came first and family, second. Her family was her life. And protecting them, especially her father, came before all other duties. Her wolf instinctively thought otherwise. Her wolf wanted a mate. Nature demanded it.

Propagation of the species, survival of the fittest, required her compliance. Her wolf had chosen a fine male for them, an alpha as strong, cunning, ambitious, and ruthless. As duty bound as she to the world they were born into. Evolved to be what the pack needed him to be. Succession up the hierarchy wasn't a simple matter of the old handing off the torch to the young. Battles for Pack Master, the supreme Alpha, were bitter, bloody, and they were deadly. And that was why she was here instead of there. She could never mate with a man that would someday soon challenge her father for rights to the pack and to her. How could she ever feel anything but hate for a man so determined to kill her father? Their lives were long, and to endure a lifetime with a murder, whether instinct demanded it or not, was unfathomable.

She wanted no part of this particular portion of her destiny. Her wolf flattened her ears and barred her teeth, growling in rage at the direction of Tala's thoughts. She would not give birth and mother the next generation of Alphas. Although she had to admit, the idea of a child of hers killing its father for rights to the pack had a certain justice to it. The male would ensure strong offspring and the continued survival of the pack. And to her wolf, that was the only thing that mattered. The mating would be life long and probably extend long after death. She'd be bound to him for the rest of her long life, trapped in a loveless marriage of necessity and instinct. Sure, her wolf would be happy. But, she would rather die than live such a duty bound, cold, unfeeling sham of a life.

There were others that had been unable to bear the burdens placed on their shoulders. They'd chosen to abandon the pack. Endure a short life without the magic, without hope, and without a future. They lived either as humans or as wolves, never as both. One half ripped away from the other. And they did it to escape a destiny beyond their control.

The pack was weak, in danger of dying out. Desperate for the genetic diversity the pack needed to survive beyond the next century. Scouts scoured the continent in search for more of their kind. The Lost Children, Father Wolf had called them. Isolated, alone, most of the time unaware of their dormant natures, they lived as humans. The desert was too remote a place. Not even humans could tolerate the desolate conditions in which the pack lived. Year after year, more young left the fold. Abandoning the magic and the uncertainty of the future for the bright lights and glittery promises of humanity. The temptation of a one hundred percent human life of electric light, fast cars, and every convenience at your fingertips was almost too hard to deny.

Father Wolf had told her father this was a good place. This wet, cold, dripping, frost covered land of barren trees and rolling bleak fields was to become a home to them. Habitat! Yes of course, that's what it was! Tala remembered now. The pack's lands had grown smaller and smaller over the decades. Encroached upon by interstates and the expansion of humanity until their hunting grounds were almost non-existent.

Tala knew what she was and what she was not. She was not a werewolf, shape shifter or other such nonsense. Those were just legends humans concocted to pass the time. She was gifted. Born this way. The gift was passed down from parent to child, from generation to generation.

Her wolf was spirit. When not here on the physical plane, inhabiting the body they shared. Her wolf was a guardian wolf, as were all spirit wolves, guarding the barriers of Kokumthena's realm, the land between the living and the dead. Tala was corporeal. Alive. Breathing. Yet, spirit and ethereal. Trapped as a human with the instinct and power of the wolf living inside of her.

Refusing to communicate with the sacred realm, meant to know the passing of years, temporary and fleeting, as a human being. Refusing to return to human form would be to forget to know what it was to be human. Eventually, the animal took over and there was no way back. Forfeiting the immortal gift and the legacy to future generations. The gift would cease to be passed on and the remnants of her great race would die.

She heard the snapping of a twig from behind her and leapt to her feet. Scrabbling for the handgun tucked away at the base of her spine. Damn, her weak senses! Her wolf would have captured the scent of an intruder on the wind. Although her senses were not quite as dull as an ordinary human's, she'd failed to detect the presence of someone sneaking up on her. She could fight. The residual gifts of her wolf left her stronger, faster, and more agile than an ordinary human. She could heal wounds quickly. She could deliver bone-crushing blows with her fist. She could out run anything on two legs and most things with four.

Her senses tingled with awareness. Wolf magic was nearby. He was close. And she could feel his eyes on the back of her skull. Watching her. The male smelled of wolf musk and pine. The predator in him called to the wolf in her. And her wolf stretched, arched her back, and dug her claws into the softness of Tala's human psyche.

Tala wanted nothing to do with a male so damn afraid, so unwilling to accept the gift of Psaiwiwuhkernekah Ptweowa, the essence of spirit and soul of the Great White wolf entrusted to his keeping. She didn't have the time nor the patience to coax him into the idea of what he had become. The male didn't really have to even accept it. All he had to do was just free his wolf. The Great White Wolf would do the rest.

Nudity was not an issue for wolves. And it wasn't an issue for her. Nudity was a fact of pack life. Clothing hampered the shift. A wolf could strangle itself in a stubborn piece of cloth or a belt left intact from the change in forms. It was just easier to strip down and let the wolf be rather than have the wolf burst forth and claw its way free. Tala had no modesty about her body. And even if she did, as soon as her wolf took over, any shyness she had would be lost in the shift.

When she was in wolf form, she still had some control over their shared body. She was the rudder in charge of the course of the ship. She would not allow her wolf to mistake humans as prey. She did not allow her wolf to mate with natural wolves or any of her kin in wolf form. For that was forbidden, an unbreakable taboo, and a death sentence for anyone who disobeyed. So strict was the punishment that any female in cycle was contained for the duration. And likewise, when she was human, the wolf still had some control over her. Her senses were heightened, her body stronger, and her healing quicker. And if there were danger, the wolf would spring forth to defend their shared life.

Tala could spend months coaxing this hesitant male into accepting the truth of what he was or she could simply show him and let him sort it out on his own. Give him a crash course into the laws of their world. The latter might be better. She didn't know this man. And she owed him nothing beyond her vow to her father. Unzipping the jacket, she peeled off her clothing layer by layer. Stuffing the items in her pack. Shivering from the cold and the force of the oncoming shift, Tala shut down her mind and gave herself over to her wolf.

The Great Father frowned in confusion. He guessed that he was more desperate than what he thought for female companionship. So much so that his eyes were playing tricks on him. He could have sworn he'd seen a female. As a creature that preferred darkness to light, his night vision was infallible. The paler outline of her body, naked and bathed in soft moonlight had been beautiful to behold. And his groin had stiffened in response to the perfect feminine silhouette. It was an unwelcome, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and unnerving sensation, like a bowstring pulled taut, the arrow poised, and no target in sight. And considering there was no female, or anybody else in his woods, completely absurd.

He spent far too little time amongst his brothers these days. And he supposed that was the cause for his mind playing tricks on him. Somewhere deep inside of him a part of him longed for the kinship of his Sons. He had accepted his brother's death and made some measure of peace with it. But, he had yet to make peace with himself. A beast, unfamiliar and terrifying prowled the borders of his mind searching for release. His body had changed. He craved food and walked through the sunlight without pain. And until he fully understood the source of the change, what it meant, and why it had happened. He would not expose his Sons unnecessarily.

He didn't trust his sense of smell or his hearing any farther than he'd trusted his vision. The air was ripe with the sweet feminine scent of woman and pungent musk of the wolf he'd been tracking. Dry and papery sounding, spindly bushes rustled by the edge of the creek. And beneath the soft whisper of water sluggishly flowing over rock was a wetter sound and the sharp crackle, almost a snap, like that of breaking bone. Figments of his imagination, he decided. The wolf wasn't any more real than the maiden in the woods. He wasn't fit for companions, not in his present state of a vampire teetering on the brink of insanity.

Creeping forward toward the sound of claws scrabbling against the earth, so real, but undoubtedly not real, the Great Father stumbled as the toe of his boot caught on the shoulder strap of a backpack hastily crammed underneath the thick, dense, bushy branches of a pine tree. As he knelt to pick up the pack for closer inspection, the wolf bounded out of the brush. The wolf growled a low, menacing grumble of warning, flattening its ears against its broad head and baring a row of razor sharp teeth. And the wolf looked pretty damn real to him.

He didn't move a muscle as the wolf inspected him. Huffing great clouds of exhaled breath from its nostrils to capture his scent. The Great Father did likewise, his nose confirming what his eyes saw. The wolf was magnificent. Far larger than any wolf he'd ever seen. The wolves he'd been lucky enough to capture glimpses of were roughly the size of German Shepherd dogs. This one was twice that size, almost the size of an English Mastiff or Great Dane, maybe even a small pony. There wasn't an ounce of excess fat on the animal and despite its large size, no clumsy bulk to hamper its movements.

Muscled and lithe, the wolf stood out of its crouch and circled around him, inching closer to the woods and farther away from him. The she wolf's thick, luxurious, glossy pelt was the dark of night, the dark of his maiden's hair. Intelligent, golden eyes tinted with intense hues of brown, stayed focused on him. The wolf made no move against him. But, he made no move against her. Eye to eye they studied each other. Catching one another's scents. Breathing one another's exhales. Two predators face to face one of the supernatural and one of the natural and both not exactly what they appeared to be.

The conclusion he came to about this magnificent animal was the most insane thought he'd ever had in his long life. Power radiated off the beast, tingling along his skin. He sampled the energy of the wolf and found it not that dissimilar from his own. The energy of the Goddess flowed through the she wolf as certainly as it flowed through him. The Great Father quickly dismissed his conclusions as fiction. If there had been a wolf then the only logical explanation was that there had been a maiden.

Her scent was all over the pack he held in his hands. The wolf's scent was on the pack. And the maiden's scent, so sweet and feminine, melded with the musk of the wolf. A wolf would not need a backpack. And a maiden would not traverse this deeply into the woods alone at night without shelter or provisions.

The journey to the center of the woods was treacherous and more than two days travel by foot. Not impossible for a human, but not that likely either. Even though the snows had melted off, the muddy forest floor would have made foot travel miserable and slow. And he'd been tracking this animal for weeks. He'd never seen evidence of boot prints stamped into the ground. The pack held that musty smell of items stashed and stored for later use. It hadn't been touched before now for weeks. Since he'd first caught the scent of the wolf in his woods.

He didn't like this. Not. One. Bit. The wolf was cunning. Avoiding the usual hunting spots the Sons used. The brothers loved the hunt. But, lately, duties had required them to seek out easy prey closer to the compound. They did boundary patrols that took them far from the deepest parts of the woods, where the wolf roamed. He knew these woods, every tree, every rock, every inch of them. But, somehow, she'd managed to evade even him, until now.

His mind had already reached the only logical conclusion there was. And the extent of the secret his brother had kept from him sank in. He wanted to deny the facts. Dismiss them as something other than what they were. For so long, he'd believed that vampires were the only supernatural predators in existence. He'd never even suspected that there might be so much as a sliver of truth to the legends. He, of all people, should have known better. He should have suspected what his brother had been doing all along. Why he'd disappear for weeks at a time and the reason for his cryptic, dismissive answers. Why the Great Father had only been able to track him for so long before the trail went cold. He'd thought he was tracking his brother, not a wolf. His brother hadn't disappeared into nothing. He'd simply changed forms.

Shock settled in and the Great Father cursed not only his brother but himself for his stupidity. He'd accepted too little as truth for too long. And the secret his brother had protected beyond his dying breath was staring him in the face. Unsure of what to do or what to believe, he eased onto the ground and planted his ass on the wet earth. The wolf mimicked his movements as well as a wolf could and settled on her haunches. Locked eye to eye, they stared and pondered the meaning of one another.

The wolf's magic prickled along his skin, calling to a part of him he didn't understand. He did not want to think about the maiden being a wolf or the wolf being a maiden. That through some magical goddess blessed force the two of them shared the same body. And that inside of him, something existed, he wished didn't. There were so many questions colliding like landslide at the base of a mountain and only one person to answer them. His brother was of the spirit world. He'd crossed the Great River. But, only part of him had gone to find peace. The other part, he'd left behind. And it lived on in him.

Anger surged through the Great Father, charging the air with the thick, pungent scent of it. His brother shouldn't have kept the secret from him. His brother, the Prophet, had foreseen his own death. He knew he was going to die and he still didn't tell him anything about the legacy he was leaving behind. The wolf spirit was in him. It changed everything. Opened doors that should not be opened by anyone. Everything he'd ever believed about the world, about himself, his brother, and his goddess, was a lie.

The wolf studied the man. Sitting back on her haunches, she watched human expressions cross over his face, unsure of their meaning. Her wolf didn't understand such things. And really, didn't care. His scent was one of anger and fear. Tala pounded at the edges of the wolf's mind, demanding to take over their shared body. She wouldn't hear of it. Protecting her human and her pack was her primary duty here in this world of the flesh and blood. Danger was bred of anger and fear, of hatred and confusion. And as far as the wolf was concerned, the man was dangerous. The Great White Wolf's spirit was in him. The wolf could sense him, trapped within the man. And if the man would only accept, the wolf would be freed. Until he did, he'd be at war with his true nature and there'd never be peace for him or anyone else.

Determined to protect her human from danger, she bounded into the woods. Leaving the man behind in the darkness to stare after her. She wanted to leave this cold, unfamiliar place and return to the warmth and safety of her pack. The presence of the goddess soothed her. Urged her to remain here. This was where she belonged. Here in theses woods. The man, and her human balked at the idea, was to be their mate. Through him, all the packs would be united into one as they were meant to be. And this was to be their home.

The Great Father sat on the ground, staring after the she wolf, cradling the pack and the soft, scent of woman in his arms. His mind spun with the truths it was just beginning to understand. He was a vampire. He could feel the pointy tips of his fangs against the tip of his tongue. But, he was something else too. A werewolf. Shape shifter. A creature of both the dark and the light, of both blood and flesh and bone, of nature and spirit, and of legacy. He was something magical that should not exist. Yet, he did. He was the truth of legends whispered by the Shaman of long ago. And he was not the only one of his kind. His brother had not been the only one of his kind. And in that realization there was something else behind it-more. A glimmering truth. The impossible made possible. His brother had a family. Not from his life before the turn, but after. His brother had fathered children. And so could he.

Chapter 39

Lance leaned heavily on the pool stick, winking as he grinned at Angel. The two of them were dominating the table. Engaged in a hot and heavy game of pool against Bryce and Kayla. He was far from an expert. And he sure as hell wouldn't bet on his abilities. But, he'd taken a few lessons from Marcus, here and there. And Marcus definitely knew his stuff when it came to pool. He and Angel were winning. Seriously kicking Bryce and Kayla's asses all over the place.

He thought that after the deeply moving spiritual awakening Angel had experienced in the gym. She deserved a little normalcy and some fun. Easy chatter filled with good-natured cajoling, laughter, and joviality lightened the mood and she actually seemed to be enjoying herself. He aimed to take his shot, calling the corner pocket for the win. Just as he drew back the stick to sink the ball, Kayla distracted him with a simple, almost innocent question and he missed the shot. Thanks to the distraction and his bad aim, the cue ball sank into the pocket with a resounding thud and they lost the game.

"So Lance, it IS true that you stripped at a bachelorette party," Kayla said. Women gossiped. The women of the compound were no exception to the rule. Women and gossip were just a fact of life. And she'd heard the stories about the bachelorette party about a dozen times. Apparently, the evening's entertainment had been quite... entertaining. She just couldn't wrap her mind around the thought of her husband in a g-string? Sounded intriguing to her.

"Sure did," Lance said. He had no shame and saw absolutely no harm in not admitting the truth. However, he could embellish on it a little. Actually, Marcus had stolen the show and most of the tips with his fireman's get up. But, not one to be outdone, he'd earned his fair share of tips that night. And Alex had had a right proper send off in to the bliss of married life, thanks to the three of them. "I was the star attraction." Lance replied, winking at Angel as he swiveled his hips in a little bump and grind action. "The ladies can't resister Doctor Love."