Dawn's Shelter

"Get on with it then." Thomas gritted his teeth and stiffened. Torr was preternaturally fast. Thomas probably wouldn't even feel it. He might know he was dead or dying for a few minutes before the finality of it stilled his beating heart. Sheer the spinal column, knock out the respiratory drive, no breathing, no heartbeat, not for very long. The cold science behind his death made him shiver and weak kneed. He stood taller than he felt and braver than he'd ever been before. He'd said his goodbyes and he was ready to meet his end.

Torr moved toward Thomas. Jan took aim and unleashed the blade. The silvery steel caught the last draughts of light of sunset and reflected them as it arced across the bluffs on a course true to its intended target. Shouts echoed and arms encircled her body. Forcing her face down into the snow. The weight of heavy bodies crushed against her. Pinning her to the snow as they held her in place. She twisted, trying to turn enough to see if her dagger had hit its mark.

Thomas reacted. No time to think only to simply react. He caught the movement of Jan's arm as it flexed and her hand released the dagger aimed for Torr's chest. "NO!" He leapt, protecting Torr with his body. The air rushed out of his lungs as the blade met with flesh. Searing pain gauged his chest. Gasping like a fish out of water, he dropped to his knees. The snow beneath his body was stained red with his blood. He was wrong about death. It hurt. It was cold and terrifying. Dark and final and nothing like he'd thought it would be. Blackness swirled and swallowed him whole.

Stunned, Torr stumbled on his feet as Thomas's body collided with his, knocking him out of the way. Thomas took the lethal blade intended for him. He was going to kill this man. Yet the man had put his life on the line, for him. He scrambled in the snow. Pressing a palm to the wound, stabilizing the blade with trembling fingers. Feebly trying to staunch the river of blood spilling onto the icy crust of white snow.

Energy coursed through Jan's body, charging the atmosphere around her with shimmering pulses of power. She heaved and struggled beneath the bodies pressing against her. Preventing her from getting to Thomas. The wolf she was so unfamiliar with began to take form. Occupying the space where her arms and legs had been. Ripping through the restrictive clothing as she emerged. She roared in fury, baring her teeth as she shook off the men holding her fast to the ground.

Drew crouched by Thomas's side. Pressing his hand to the chest heaving beneath his palm as Thomas struggled for each painful breath. The injury inflicted by the blade was fatal, as intended. Thomas didn't have long left. The dagger had punctured a lung on its way through his to his heart. The tip had missed the vial organ. But nicked the aorta, leaving a gaping hole spilling blood into Thomas's chest cavity. Smothering Thomas as he mustered gasp after ineffective gasp.

Barbara twisted free from the Doc and Mack's restraining grip. Bolting over the snow encrusted ground to her son. "Save him! Save my boy!" Her tears mingled with the blood pouring out of Thomas's chest and the corners of his mouth. She searched Drew's face for a sign of hope. But, found none. She pulled up the sleeve of her coat, desperate for access for the one thing that could possibly save her son. Her blood. She bit deep and hard. Ignoring the searing pain self-inflicted by her fangs. Her blood dripped across his cheek as a hand grasped her wrist, stopping her.

"His wounds are mortal. He could turn," Drew cautioned. He knew Thomas's deepest wishes. He would not want to spend eternity as a vampire, even if it would save his life.

Barbara had no thoughts about the consequences of her actions. She only wanted to save her son. Whatever happened as a result could be sorted out later, once he was alive and well. "I don't care! I have to try!" She jerked her wrist free and pressed it to Thomas's lips. "Please baby. Drink for me!" She cried as she cradled his head with her free hand. Praying to feel his lips accepting her wrist. Drinking in the life that she offered.

The wolf had no higher thoughts to guide her, only instinct. Growling and curling her upper lip as she flashed a row of razor sharp teeth in menace. The atmosphere was heavy with the threat of danger. The air was filled with the scent of spilled blood. Not the blood of sport, but human blood, fresh kill and death filled her nostrils. Her fur stood on end, pointing skyward along the ridge of her back and bushy tail. Her ears were flattened against her skull and eyes were wide as she huffed in confusion.

Eloise shimmied out of her jacket and kicked free of her boots. Her daughter stood before her. Not in human form, but as the beautiful, glorious, sleek, sliver tipped wolf that lived beneath her skin for so long, denied of her freedom. Her daughter was as dangerous as she was beautiful. Sensing the danger that hung in heavy clouds in the air. Jan's wolf was a threat that she had to bring under control before more people got hurt. She gave herself over to her wolf and burst free of the clothing that her human form required as a covering.

Panting and shaking herself free of the shreds of cloth that bound her arms and legs the wolf surveyed the long lost wolf that had been missing from the pack for so long. Piercing golden eyes locked on the silver tipped wolf as a warning growl rumbled in her throat. The alpha female advanced slowly and cautiously. Her paws left a delicate trail of prints in the snow. Commanding the younger, smaller wolf to submit, she drew closer.

The silver tipped wolf held her ground. Refusing to drop to her belly and submit to the alpha. Growling low. Barring her teeth at the female as she approached, she wasn't interested in bowing to the alpha only in defending her mate.

Kacie shivered and clung to Tristen. Resisting the instinctive urge to shift that ran through her body. "Don't want to shift," she panted. "Need to stay me."

"Shh, don't worry. I'll shift with you. You are safe here." Tristen eased Kacie out of her jacket and backed out of the way. Giving her wolf the space she needed to spring free of her fleshy human wrappings.

The silky black she-wolf sniffed the air and crept forward on cautious paws. Approaching the females. Whimpering softly. Submissive. Compliant. Wishing only for peace within the pack. A sand colored male, followed behind at a safe distance. His tongue lolled out of the corner of his mouth as he dropped onto his belly in trusting submission.

Thomas floated above the assembly. Looking down at his body, bleeding out onto the snow. Watching his mother's attempts to save him. Amazed by the beauty and awesome power of Jan's wolf. Almost snickering as Torr crouched in the snow a few yards away with a bewildered expression on his face.

Here it wasn't cold. It wasn't hot. And he viewed the scene unfolding with casual indifference. He was morbidly curious as he watched his own death take place. He wondered if the lives he'd tried in vain to save in the ER bays saw the same thing when their time came. If they looked down at him as he shocked them, blew air into their lungs, injected chemicals into their bodies, and pumped on their chests, with the same cold, removed, disinterest as he felt now. Somehow, he felt bad that he didn't feel bad about his death. He didn't feel good. He didn't feel bad. He wasn't sad. He just was.

Somehow, he expected more pomp and circumstance surrounding death. He saw no bright light washing over him. His life did not flash before his eyes. In a way, he was disappointed. There were no pearly gates to enter or bright lights to follow. He floated in the nothingness above his body and waited for whatever was to happen next to happen.

A woman's voice flooded his mind, clear and crisp as a cold fall breeze, tinkling like thousands of tiny silver bells tossed about by the wind. The voice was beautiful and terrible at the same time. Instinctively, he moved to cover his ears, and then remembered, he had no physical body.

"My Thomas," The feminine voice said joyfully. "Whatever are you doing here?"

Thomas's gaze fluttered to the white nothing that surrounded him and then back to the grim scene below. "I don't know. Waiting for my brain to accept the fact that I'm dead, I guess."

Laughter washed over him like cool waves of a mountain stream. "Dead? My boy, what makes you think that you are dead?"

"Well, the knife through that sliced through my chest sort of clued me in to the possibility," Thomas answered sardonically. He tore his eyes away from his failing body and stared out into the mists. Expecting to see something beautiful in the cloud of white.

"Do you want to be dead?" the female voice cooed.

"Well, not really. Who are you anyway? Where am I?" Thomas huffed impatiently. If he was dead, he was ready to get on with it. According to the lore of the Sons, he should be standing on the banks of a wide crystal clear river. He should be drifting across to the other side. Not hanging out in a nimbus cloud or wherever he was.

"Impatient," Kokumthena said in an accusing tone. "My silly, silly, child. The afterlife doesn't exist in one specific form. For some, the afterlife is a river, for others, the gates of Saint Peter. For you, well, that's up to you."

Thomas had the sensation that he was falling. Air rushed past and ruffled his hair as the ground grew larger and larger beneath him and he landed with a thud in a patch of soft sand along the banks of a river.

"Better?" Kokumthena asked as she lounged on the sand beside him.

Thomas scuffled in the soft, tawny sand. Brushing it off his hands as he felt along his chest. He expected his shirt to be tacky with drying blood. He expected to see a deep gash where the knife had embedded in his chest. He was whole and complete.

"Where did mom go? I can't see her now. What about Jan?"

"Humph. This is what you expected, wasn't it? The shore? The river? Me?" She crouched on her feet and reached over to stroke his cheek.

Thomas closed his eyes and groaned in acceptance. He was dead, really dead, game over thanks for playing, dead. He looked up into the golden-bronze eyes of the goddess. She glowed with silver-white light, almost too beautiful to look at without his eyes stinging. "So its over."

Kokumthena cupped his chin and forced his face to meet hers. "Do you believe it is?"

"How could it not be? I felt the blade go in. I tasted my blood on my tongue. People don't walk away from that kind of injury."

"From the very beginning of this challenge, you expected to die. Have the strange events that you've born witness to over the course of your very brief life taught you nothing? My dear Thomas so grounded in fact and science. Always trying to define the magic of the world into terms of black and white and explain away the unexplainable." She gripped his chin and puckered his lips with her fingers, giving his head a gentle shake. "Always trying to make everything fit in the little boxes of your mind. Sometimes things don't fit. They just are. Can you define the magic that wakes you up every morning and gets you out of bed? Can you define the gift that brought you back when you fell off that cliff? How is this any different from then?"

"I didn't have a blade sticking out of my heart then," Thomas retorted. Scrambling to understand her words and their meaning, he tried to make sense of it all. The absence of pain was a nice touch. He must be in the never land between life and death. Trapped in that endless waiting cycle. The three to eight minutes before true brain death occurred and after the three minutes it took for his heart to finally stop beating. He scowled at the perfection of this place. He shouldn't be here. He should be there. That body bleeding out on the snow should belong to somebody else and he should be the one working feverishly to save it. Was he dead or wasn't he? There was no 'sort of' when it came to dead.

"Bah, child's play. My father made you by his divine hand. He made you perfect." She smiled and raised a beautifully shaped kohl brow in his direction. "And if you're interested, highly repairable."

Thomas scowled in confusion. Human beings were not repairable. Not according to his experiences with them they weren't. A body, torn, ripped, bruised, burned, and battered, would only endure so much abuse before it gave out. Arteries clogged and stopped blood flow to vital organs. Hearts simply stopped beating and lungs drew their last breaths. Minds that shone like stars in the sky deteriorated and dulled. And sometimes, for no reason at all, organs failed. If humans were so repairable then why was it that despite his best efforts and all the advances in medicine that they still died?

"That is the way of life. The way my father created all living things to be." She sighed. "If you saw the things that I do. Heard what I do, day after day, you'd be grateful for the fact that you can die...change. I never will."

"Never?"

"Never." The goddess shook her head in agreement.

"So when we die, that's it then? No heaven. No hell. No afterlife."

"I didn't say that." She chuckled at Thomas's usual clinical summary to what she'd said. "I can't give away everything. But, I can tell you this." She pinched his cheek lightly with her fingers in a playful gesture. "Energy creates energy, and once created, it never ends, only changes form."

Thomas thought over her words. All the things she had said and those that she did not, but implied. He wasn't dead. Rather his spirit had taken a hiatus from his body. He shouldn't be here. He should go back, where he belonged. Back to the life he was certain that he was going to lose today. "Humph."

"What do you say Thomas? Ready to go back?"

"I'm not going to be a vampire am I?" Thomas asked hesitantly.

"No... your destiny travels a different path from that of your mother's." She touched his temple. Giving him a brief glimpse of what his life could become, if he chose it.

Thomas drifted once again. He saw children, strong and healthy, running in the sun. A boy with dark hair chased after a girl with tawny, curling locks. The air was filled by the sounds of giggling and playful laughter. A woman emerged from the back door of a house to stand on the back porch, watching the children play. Her hand draped across her pregnant belly. A hand, a man's slid around her bulging waist, locking his fingers with hers in a gesture so loving it made Thomas ache. The simple gold wedding band he wore on his left ring finger glinted in the sunlight, as he gently caressed their unborn child. His eyes lifted and met Thomas's. Tinted with meaning as they locked gazes and Thomas realized he was staring at a future version of himself.

He wanted that future very much with Jan. And nothing, not even death was going to keep him from it. He snapped back into the battered body that he thought was done for. Enduring the spasms of pain as his mother's blood worked its magic. Healing torn flesh. He was breathing again. His heart pounded. Nervous system flashed wildly alive with surges of pain. He was alive. Every moment he suffered was worth it for the glimpse of the possible past he had yet to live. "Jan," he croaked out, blindly reaching for her.

The silver tipped wolf cocked her ears. Her eyes darted from the wolves to the man sprawled out in the snow. Recognizing the voice that called. She trotted closer to the man. Giving the sweet smelling creatures a wide berth as she crept silently across the snow. Waves of energy surged along her fur as she gave the body she shared over Jan.

Jan shivered. Confused and naked, wrapping her arms around her exposed flesh. Thomas! She scrambled across the bloodstained snow and reached out for him. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she scrabbled for the hand reaching to her. She buried her face in his hair and sobbed. He was going to be ok. By some miracle, he was whole again.

A warm jacket gently fell across her shoulders, protecting her from the cold winds. Her eyes trailed up from the booted feet, over the long legs and up higher across the bare chest, and to the eyes, sullen and forlorn that stared down at her. Eyes that conceded to loss and silently gave her the freedom she had fought for and Thomas had almost died to give her. "Thank you, Torr. Thank you."

Chapter 27

Torr nodded and turned his back on Jan. There would be no fight, not today or any other day. Thomas had risked his life for the woman he loved and had willingly sacrificed it to save a man bent on killing him. Thomas had saved his life. And Torr never left a debt unpaid.

He didn't know what would happen when he returned to Texas. What his father or the pack would do when he came back empty handed. It didn't really matter. As far as he was concerned, he'd lost the fight, and it was over. He intended to keep his vow to Thomas. He would not speak of this place or the people who lived here. Forget them and never return. He turned and tipped his head to Drew as he left the snow covered clearing. Bound for his hotel, a hot shower, and then miles and miles of endless interstate carrying him toward a life he did not want.

Barbara cried tears of joy. Discreetly tucking the edges of the coat around Jan's nude backside as she hugged Jan. Her son was safe and had found his life long love. Jan was going to make a wonderful daughter-in-law and a fine mother for their children yet to come. The secret she'd kept for so long was out in the open and Thomas knew who his grandfather was. Finally, after years of waiting and hoping, everything had fallen into place for her and her son. She hadn't cheated the death she feared would take her son. But, she hadn't simply let Death have him, not yet anyway.

She practically beamed as she helped Thomas onto his feet and slipped his arm over her shoulders. "I really like her," she said, nodding to Jan. Then she leaned closer, whispering in his ear. "I can see why you picked her, she's got a great little body. But from now on, could you ask her to plan ahead when she shifts. As great as Jan's backside is, I don't think you want everyone ogling it."

Thomas snickered. "I'll pass that along, mom. I'm really glad you were there today." He was alive. Whole and alive, and damned happy to be that way. He had his future ahead of him filled with endless possibilities. And he could not wait to get busy and live it. He pressed his cold lips to his mom's cheek and beamed down at her. He winked at Jan. Eager to get her alone and start making the babies that waited to be born sometime in the future.

Jan blushed at Barbara's comments regarding her butt. Self-consciously, she wrapped the coat around her tightly and pulled the hem as low as she could across her goose pimpled backside. Following behind Thomas and his mom as they walked along the trail. She kind of wished Barbara would do less talking and more walking. Jan was eager for a hot shower and more than eager for a few hours, uninterrupted hours, alone with Thomas.

She was looking forward to her life. To setting down roots and tying the knot with the man she loved. Torr had made the ultimate sacrifice for her. He'd given her the freedom she'd fought so hard to earn. She no longer had to spend her life hiding or looking over her shoulder. She finally had a place where she belonged and a place that she could call home.

Mack kept his eyes pinned on the back of Thomas's head. Trying his best to ignore Jan's shapely legs as he darted to Thomas's left side. "Need some help?" He pulled Thomas's arm around his broad, capable shoulders that had carried the weight of his secret for so long. He was glad to be rid of it. And to have a relationship with his grandson that wasn't based on assumptions and half-truths. Sure they were friends. They really and truly were. But, they were so much more. Blood.