Dawn's Path: Completed Work

Patrick sat with his feet propped up on the computer desk watching the security monitors. Toby was busy with Anna and Chris discussing wiring and security monitoring for the wolves' new home. And Patrick drew the short straw. Manning the post was BORING. Toby had literally hundreds of cameras wired throughout the woods and the compound and even in town. Covering every inch of everywhere with unseen electric eyes and the screens showed the same old shit on each and every one of them. Oh sure, Toby probably thought this was fascinating shit. But, he'd rather be out on the beat than stuck behind a desk doing nothing. He was a tracker not a voyeur. And this job sucked.

He caught movement on one of the screens and idly swiveled in his chair for a closer look. The Great Father walked hand in hand with the compound's newest resident. Now, that was interesting. He chuckled under his breath, watching his cooler than ice stoic leader make the moves on that sexy little she-wolf. Who would have guessed the Great Father had game? He rolled his chair across the bank of monitors for a much closer look. The female, Tala, he thought was her name, was smoking hot. And that lip lock she exchanged with the Great Father...whew...steaming up the camera lens. "Oh yeah! Get you some of that!"

Drew broke the kiss and glared at the intrusive, all seeing eye of the camera. The link he shared with the brothers made privacy virtually impossible. The link, while serving its purposes, was also sometimes, like now, a real pain in the ass. He knew they were being watched on the monitors and didn't really care. But Patrick's enthusiastic cheer echoing in his thoughts reminded him of how tightly bound he and his Sons were. A wicked smile curved his lips. The brothers were worse than the women when it came to sticking their noses where they didn't belong. Even his lofty position didn't exempt him from gossip. And there'd be plenty. "How about we take another walk? Get away from these cameras."

Her head spun and her toes curled from the heat and passion in the kiss. Spellbound by the desire in his eyes and the gentle pressure of the tip of his thumb as he traced it over her bottom lip. Tala nodded in agreement. Privacy could get them in a hell of a lot of trouble. She should do the sensible thing and go to her room. A cold shower might help to cool the burn. But, she doubted it. The flames consuming her had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the man holding her in his arms. Turning back now wasn't even a possibility. She'd blamed her wolf for the wrong things. Her wolf wanted his wolf. It was she, the woman, who wanted them man.

Her decision was made. She was going to see this through. Ride the ride wherever it took her. Shirk her duties and her responsibilities and for once, live for herself, not for her pack. Hand in hand they walked through the woods. Basking in the cool of the night and in the heat of one another.

Chapter 64

Carter stood at the foot of the towering monstrosity of concrete and glass. Cursing under his breath for breeching his previous policy of non-involvement. He should have gotten out while he still could have. It was too late for that now. Not only did the Sons have a fucking tracker locked around his ankle. But, after centuries of running and hiding, the devil had finally managed to catch up with him. There was nothing he could do about it now except face it like a man and hope like hell he lived to see the dawn. "Fuck," he muttered. Nothing said 'c'mon in and let us hack off your head' like an open door. Obviously, Eric was expecting him.

He shivered from the power of his former master. Vowing to himself never to get involved in so much as helping an old woman across the street or rescuing a cat from a tree, Carter took a deep breath and accepted the invitation of the unlocked door. He'd made it a few steps inside of the marble foyer when hands grabbed him and shoved him against the wall. The guards were efficient. Far better quality than any Roark had ever employed. Stinking of rogue, death, blood, and menace, the guards roughed him up with a few well-aimed punches just for fun. "What are you doing here?"

"Just stopped by to say 'hi'," Carter feebly answered. He shielded his power and his thoughts, as if by chance Eric hadn't sensed him and sent the welcome wagon to greet him. He knew better. O'Sullivan was close, in the shadows watching, and he wasn't alone. Bianca hovered nearby probably enjoying every minute of this little scene, waiting for it to play out. Although he could have, Carter didn't fight the guards. He was more than capable of killing a couple of henchmen. But, he thought it best to let Eric have the win and his moment. After all, they'd been playing this game for centuries and would continue to play it to the bitter end. And that end would come when one or the other of them finally died.

The guards held Carter pinned against the cold marble wall, pressing a blade to his neck just waiting for the word. "Bullshit. We can smell the Sons' stink all over you." The henchman's fangs gleamed in the faint wisps of light that filtered in through the heavily tinted windows. "Can I kill him boss?"

"Now, now, is that any way to treat an honored guest? I think not." A male voice boomed through the dark, empty, interior and the sound of it sent chills down Carter's spine. Eric emerged from the shadows. Walking in the slow, measured steps of a predator evaluating the prey. Unrestrained power flowed around him in an aura of stinging energy, dark intent, and cold calculating mastery. "Carter, it's been such a long time."

Eric's breath caught in his throat. He'd spent centuries planning exactly what he'd do to Carter when he finally caught up with him. And now, he had him and all the vengeance he'd been so carefully plotting turned to dust. Looking at Carter, Eric remembered exactly why he'd chosen him in the first place. He motioned for the guards to release their hold on his precious prize. Carter wasn't going anywhere. His days of running were over. Now that he'd found him, he wasn't about to lose him again. Carter was not a fool. With his back pressed against the pale marble wall, he held his ground. Flinching almost imperceptibly as Eric reached out a hand to stroke his cheek. "Still so beautiful," Eric said, his voice reverent as if he were beholding one of God's angels.

Carter swallowed the lump rising in his throat. Power swirled around him, sampling his particular flavor. He kept his face an emotionless mask, as Eric's cold fingers traveled over his jaw, up to trace the outline of his lips. The move was subtle and spoke of rights and ownership Eric didn't have. Carter was no lover of men. And neither was Eric. The bastard was a lover of beauty, no matter what its form. He coveted the beautiful. Prized a fair face above all else. And Carter's beauty had condemned him, deprived him of the death that should have been his over five hundred years ago.

Eric was not beautiful in form or in deed. Everything about the man smacked of ordinariness. His hair, a cross between blond and ashy brown, had been cut short in a modern style that might take decades to grow out. His eyes, a mossy green shade, studied Carter shrewdly and burned sharply with intelligence beyond his many years. As if with just a glance, he could separate marrow from bone and see every secret inside a man's soul. The weak angle of his jaw added to the plainness of him. O'Sullivan was not a big man. Standing slightly shorter than average for a male and rail thin in his stature, he appeared almost frail, perhaps even dainty. It wasn't his appearance that drew others to him. It was the brutal force of his power that drew followers like moths to flame.

Eric didn't need stature to prove his place in the hierarchy of their world. They stood inches apart. Master to Master. Sizing one another up, their eyes and expressions hard and unforgiving, neither man said a word. Fury rippled off O'Sullivan, burning Carter with the raw power of it. Carter refused to give any indication at his disgust as Eric reached out and with the care and longing of a lover ran his fingers through his hair. Tangling the strands and trapping them in a savage grip, Eric yanked Carter's head down. His nostrils flared scenting Carter. His eyes flickered with desire and raw hatred. "Come back to bring the Sons on another tour?"

"I'm not working for them," Carter gritted. Standing in the presence of his old master, Carter felt as if he were a fumbling infant again. The powerful master he'd become faded and he was a mere boy marveling in awe at the man that had at first held him in such thrall. O'Sullivan pursed his lips and patted Carter's head, taking his time to rub Carter's blond curls between his fingertips before he dropped his hand to his side. Eric's touch was gentle. But, the glare in his eyes promised blood and pain and a death that would be anything but quick. "I swear it to you, Eric."

A feminine chuckle echoed from the dark corners of the room. The stiletto heels of her black patent leather pumps tapped against the marble with each step closer she took. "Really." Carter averted his eyes away from Eric and focused them on her instead. Eric chose well when he made her. Bianca was everything a woman wanted to be. Beautiful. Perfect in face and form.

She was classic and timeless in a way few vampires were. The clothing she wore was the height of fashion, clinging to her curves and accentuating her tiny waist and full breasts. She wore her midnight black hair in her signature style. Swooped up into a French twist at the base of her head, highlighting the graceful arc of her long neck. Diamond earrings dangled from her dainty earlobes, glittering like stars in the dim light overhead. Her eyes were a rare shade of sapphire and many a man had willingly gone to their deaths staring into their depths. Her lush ruby red lips promised erotic nights and delivered death on breathless kisses.

Her beauty was deceptive, as was his. Eric had seen to that when he made them. They were death, lethal, sweet death in a breathtakingly beautiful wrapper of flesh. "Big brother," she said, scoring the tender skin with the points of her nails as she caressed his cheek. "We've searched the world long and far and to find you here, in the last place we would have ever thought to look." Tsking, she placed a chaste kiss on his lips. Carter recoiled from the coolness of them. "Shame on you. And bringing the Sons to our doorstep with you," she chuckled. "You naughty, naughty boy."

"Following the girl here was a mistake," Carter admitted fervently. He regretted meeting her and following her here. Getting involved at all. And he saw it, in the heat of Bianca's stare, the thing she dared not to say. Now that Eric had found him, he'd never let him go. Bianca and he weren't brother and sister. But, they were possessions, at least in Eric's mind. No good deed goes unpunished. And in standing here, under his master's scrutiny and the heat of Bianca's kiss searing his lips, he still couldn't bring himself to regret that he'd helped the girl. A life for a life, he supposed. And over the course of his long life, he had taken many.

"It was," Bianca agreed. She'd been tracking Carter for weeks. And purposely not found him. Buying him time to do what he did best and run. The fool hadn't run. He'd delivered himself to O'Sullivan's doorstep. She released his cheek and stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched the scene between master and son play out to completion. She could end it, very quickly. All she had to do was let Eric's best kept secret out to play.

"Hear me out!" Carter wanted no more deaths on his hands. He'd taken out dozens of rogues and put the humans they'd left unfinished out of their misery. In five hundred years he'd sent more humans to their deaths than he could ever make restitution for. Eric was a bastard. But, damn him for it, Carter still felt a loyalty to the man who had made him this thing that he was. "Keene is in town."

"Roark's second?" Eric laughed at the thought that Keene posed any threat to him. And that Carter harbored even the slightest bit of concern for him was perhaps the most laughable thing of all. Carter had been born resenting him and this gift he'd been given. Keene was capable, quite an efficient killer. But, he lacked a certain flare, style, as it were. The man did what he'd been created to do. He was all brawn and absolutely no class. Eric should have known a phoenix would try to rise up from Roark's ashes. He would have thought Keene though, was smarter than that. "He's nothing to me."

"Eric, Keene is a Son. His presence here means everything. It means, you're not welcome in the city and you should get out while you still have your head attached to your neck."

Bianca chuckled at Carter's statement. It really was a touching sentiment that he cared so much about them. She was counting on the brotherhood's involvement. Eric had no interest in a city of this size. Too small. Too gauche. He'd come here for Carter and no other reason. And now that he had him, they could leave this godforsaken place to the Sons and be done with it. "And I suppose you made a deal with them big brother?"

"Can I kill him now?" the roughneck pinning Carter to the wall asked. He didn't get the purpose to all this playing around. He'd signed up to kill. And although he didn't relish the thought as much as some, he didn't mind doing it. After all, it was better to kill than be killed.

"Murder such a messy business. Not in the foyer," Bianca chastised, rolling her eyes. Amateurs.

"Perhaps, he can be of use to us," Eric purred. "Injure him if you must. But, don't kill him. And be sure you don't mess up his face. There will be plenty more to kill later, my eager young friend. This one belongs to me." He hated letting Carter go. The danger was always there that he'd slip from his grasp again. And Eric had neither the time nor the patience to spend another few hundred years chasing him down. "Pass a message along to Keene. We'll meet him under the River Bridge at midnight tomorrow. Alone."

"I'll tell him," Carter said. Eric's power ramped up, stinging his skin with the heat of the force behind it. Panting and twisting desperately in the henchman's grip, he grappled for freedom. Carter's power responded, searching out Eric's. The source, the blood that had made him what he was. Carter couldn't hold it back. Everything he'd worked so hard for dissolved in a rippling, burning force of energy.

The henchman restraining him in a relentless grip hissed from the heat of it. Eric was the master. And like the master he was, he never let go of what he perceived as his. Carter should have anticipated the move. He should have gotten the hell out when he could have. He hadn't and now he was going to pay the price in his blood. Eric was on him before he could react. His fangs tearing through Carter's flesh, his throat working to swallow the blood he'd released with his bite.

Carter had forgotten the pleasure and pain of Eric's bite. He hated the sensation running through his veins, shivering and panting, feeling so weak, held upright by the tight embrace of Eric's arms locked around him. Rage over all the things Eric had taken from him clouded the heady, sticky syrupy sweetness of rapture. He was not a boy held in thrall by his master's greatness. He'd ceased to be a boy a long time ago. He was a man. He was a master. And he was more powerful than Eric could ever dream. Tossing Eric, batting back the henchman, Carter fought for his life and his freedom. His maneuvers were wild and animalistic. Flashing fang and growling he tore into Eric's throat, locking him into place, overpowering him, pinning him by the hair, his head forced back as he drank from his former master.

Bianca stepped out of the way as the two men battled it out. The scent of blood, Eric's and Carter's, was thick in the air. The smell of it stirred her hunger and her disgust. This game had gone on long enough and she was damn tired of it and of the two men playing it. Delivering a well-placed kick to Carter's groin, she ended this particular round. She towered over him as he cupped his injured pride. She held him in place with the spiked heel of her shoe planted at his throat. "You should have stayed in the shadows, Carter."

Eric chuckled at Bianca's boldness. At least, he'd managed to raise one of his children right. Bianca was ruthless and calculating. Biding her time. For what, he wasn't certain. But, he was certain of one thing. He'd never turn his back to her for fear of the knife she'd no doubt bury to the hilt into his spine. Carter sucked in a heaving breath as Bianca lifted her heel from his throat. The bond Eric had created surged to life. He knew Carter's every thought. Sensed his every emotion. Carter's hatred and rage singed the edges of Eric's mind. Hate was passion. Rage and the need for justice over deeds done too long ago, were just another roll of the dice. Carter's emotions would keep him playing the game. And in doing so, there would be no place on this earth, no matter how well he hid, that Eric could not find him.

Carter was powerful. A master in his own right and the most beautiful creation Eric had ever given life to. Carter had simply forgotten one thing. It wasn't right to bite the hand that made you. Eric was the master, and Carter, simply a student with much to learn. Eric straddled Carter. Pinning him with the force of his power to the floor. Smearing the blood from his neck across Carter's lips, Eric bent and licked the sweet, coppery substance off with the tip of his tongue. "Carter, you never fail to disappoint," he laughed.

Carter recoiled from the force of Eric's emotions assaulting his mind. The man was bent on having what he could not have. Wanting things a vampire should not want. And it would eventually mean his downfall. Fighting him would only feed Eric's obsession. The heat of Eric's breath and the cool snake of his tongue across his lips repulsed Carter. But, he showed no outward sign of it. There wasn't really any need to. Eric had forced a bond. An insurance policy, Carter guessed, to ensure that he wasn't going to hide again.

Eric's laughter rang in his ears. Bringing his rage to a boil. There was no undoing what had been done. Time, more years and decades than Carter wished to spend was the only way to completely sever the link. That, or killing the man here and now where he stood. But, with Bianca, Eric's henchmen, and the rogues Eric had conned into serving him, surrounding him, Eric wouldn't be the only one to die. Carter had no intention of throwing his life away to end Eric's. "You bastard."

Eric scraped blood from the wound he'd made in Carter's neck with his index finger and rose to his feet. Straightening his tie, he offered the precious drop glistening on the tip of his index finger to Bianca. She was very good at playing the game. And always knew the right move to execute. Her mouth was warm and lush, her lips wrapping around the end of his finger and her tongue savoring the drop as she caressed the pad with its tip. "Yummy," she said. Her eyes flicking to him as she chuckled at the horror so apparent on his expression.

Carter lay on the cold marble floor with his eyes fixed on the distant shadows long after Bianca and Eric had disappeared into them. There wasn't any point to leave a guard behind to watch over him. He was alone in the lobby. If he'd ever had a hope in hell of forgetting who or what he was. He'd gotten a bitter reminder of it tonight. He refused to give into the blood coursing through his veins and follow after them. Despising his very being he pushed off the floor and scrambled to his feet.

The stale air of the lobby was thick with the smell of blood and of rogue. The scent of it sickened him, hitting far too close to home. Reminding him of all the things he'd rather forget. He was death. He was rogue. And he was the past. And in the stench surrounding him was the faint trace, a whisper of a scent he wished he could forget and leave forgotten. He inhaled, thinking it more imagination than reality, savoring the trace of vanilla and gentle lavender. The essence wasn't real. Hadn't been real in four hundred years. And even now, just the memory of that scent could still bring a tear to his eye. "Yessette."