Dawn's Darkest Hour

Eric stopped and inhaled Shayla's scent, pinning her back to the Son's chest with an icy stare. "I believe last time we crossed paths we had the opportunity to get properly acquainted." To him, Carter's little woman was as appealing as paste. She was tiny and weak, sharing the brutish temperament common to all wolves and the coloring of her distant brotherhood cousins. Immediately Eric silently calculated the many ways he could use her to bring Carter to heel. The child, of course, the child! Carter cared for her infant son as much as he did for the woman.

"Go to hell," Shayla huffed.

O'Sullivan snorted and waved Daniel and Yessette into the room. "Now that we're all conveniently assembled. I believe my young friend has an announcement to make that will clear all this confusion up."

"Daniel!" Hunter pushed past the warriors blocking his path and grabbed his boy, pulling him in to a bear hug. He wanted to cry at the sight of his son. Relief washed over him and was quickly replaced by parental concern and no small amount of rage. Daniel was whole and sound, shrinking away from him with an embarrassed blush at the fatherly embrace. Daniel hugged him back lightly and then stepped to pull away. Seeing his son did nothing to cool the fury sparking through him at what O'Sullivan had apparently done to Daniel in the first place. Daniel had been drugged and taken against his will and someone had to pay for that. "Are you harmed? I swear, I'll kill him if he touched one hair on your head!"

Daniel pushed free from his dad's embrace. He was ashamed at the relief and the love that flooded his father's expression. Guilt at what he was about to do clogged his throat. After all the times he'd sworn his dad didn't give a damn about him and he'd been a shit in return, he realized now how harsh and wrong he'd been. His dad loved him, but what he was about to do to his pack and especially to his father would shatter whatever bond between them there was.

"I'm fine, dad. Really." Daniel bit his bottom lip. Tongue-tied he didn't know exactly what to say. The speech that he'd practiced in his head on the way over didn't come as freely as it had when he'd practiced it over and over in the car. "Dad, this is Yessette."

"Yessette," Hunter bowed. "Thank you for taking care of my boy." He grasped onto her delicate fingers to bring them to his lips and paused, sniffing her skin. Dropping her hand, he grabbed his son and inhaled. Baring Daniel's neck, he saw the evidence of what he suspected in the pattern of two little pinprick wounds. The two of them had shared blood and bodies. The mingled scents of sex and blood were unmistakable. He took a breath and held back his tongue and his rage. If this little seemingly delicate butterfly of a woman had forced his son to do the unthinkable he'd kill her where she stood. "Daniel?"

Daniel knew the train of his father's thoughts. His dad had always, always obeyed pack law to the letter. He believed in the ancient superstitions. His dad had smelled the sex that Yessette and he had so thoroughly enjoyed earlier in the day and his dad believed according to the custom that his son was now a mated male. Daniel could see the doubt and rage hidden behind his father's carefully schooled expression. His father would rather cling to his conclusions than face the reality of the truth. Daniel couldn't let that happen. Daniel held no faith in the ancient ways. He was committed to Yessette because he chose to be not as a consequence of what his father would consider a bad and rash decision.

"Dad, I wasn't forced to do anything against my will." Daniel tugged the collar of his shirt free from his father's grip. "I wanted her to bite me. I wanted her in every way possible and she took what was freely given. Dad, I'm not coming home. I love her."

"I forbid it!" Hunter growled. "You're too young to know what you want!" He reached for Daniel. His fingers closed around empty air as his son stepped out of his reach. "Daniel, please," he pled.

He couldn't lose his son, not like this. In time he could accept that Daniel had chosen a vampire for a mate. He would mourn the grandchildren that would never be born. He understood love and the risks one took for the sake of it. He would have chosen Gina whether she was human, wolf, vampire, or something other. Sometimes, love simply happened and you were powerless against it. What Daniel was so carefully saying went beyond the choices that love sometimes forced a person to make. Daniel was turning his back on his family and what was worse, on his wolf and the wolf's sacred duty.

"No, I'm not. Dad, I love Yessette and she loves me." Daniel stepped back and draped a possessive arm around Yessette's narrow shoulders in a protective gesture. "I'm staying. There's nothing you can say to change my mind." He jutted out his chin in determination. "Nothing."

"Danny, you can't mean this." Hunter raked his hand through the short stubble of his hair, searching for the words that would talk sense into his son. "You know what will happen. Is she worth it?"

"Dad, she's my everything," Daniel answered, drawing Yessette in close. Hurt replaced the love in his father's eyes. Hunter was a man of few words, but Daniel knew the words that were about to come. Bracing himself and hearing nothing but silence was worse. Much worse.

Hunter drooped his shoulders in defeat. Complete numbness replaced hatred for Carter and relief that his son was whole. After endless hours and days of searching, his boy was as lost to him now as he had been then. He didn't have the heart to say the words required of him. The words would mark his son as banished, excommunicated forever from the pack. They stuck in his throat, tangled into a mass he could barely breathe past. Ultimately, he was unable to utter them. Without a whisper or as much as a backward glance, he stormed out of the room. No one dared to follow.

"Since the boy is unharmed and very much alive and well." O'Sullivan sucked in a dramatic gasp, overplaying the moment. "And in love. You have no reason to hold Carter. Release him to my care at once."

"Damn it. He's right." Michael huffed and dug through his pockets for the key to release the locks holding the chains fast. "What about Shayla? She needs to get clear of here before I unlock the chains."

Shayla crossed her arms over her chest. Her heart was breaking all over again at the sight of Carter, struggling like an animal in a trap against the chains. She wanted to cry for Daniel and his father. She understood and knew all too well the sacrifices one made for love. She was about to put herself out there and offer perhaps her greatest sacrifice yet. "No, I'll stay and feed him." She waved off Michael's worried stare. "He won't hurt me. I trust him."

Hesitantly, Michael conceded to Shayla's request. "Fine. We'll be outside." He unlocked the chains, gathering them into a wad around his arm as he freed Carter's limbs. Carter clung the arms of the chair in a death grip, somehow managing to control himself against the hunger raging through his system. Michael begrudgingly respected the man's determination, but doubted in the end Carter's resolve would mean jack shit.

Shayla waited until the doors closed tightly behind everyone. Carter and she were face-to-face. As alone as they were going to get with a small army waiting in the hallway ready to barge in on them at one whisper from her lips. Now was not the time for questions or explanations. There was no need for them. Nothing had changed between them. At the end of this, she was going back to her life and he was going back to his. She dropped to her knees and pulled her hair back from her neck, grasping it in her trembling fist. "Do it." Closing her eyes tightly to hide the tears, she waited for his strike.

Carter lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Shayla's body. She was so warm. Blood flowed through her veins heating his skin. He couldn't hold back any longer. Bianca would have found him another to drink his sustenance from, if he'd asked. He hadn't. He should have though. It was wrong of him to put Shayla or himself, for that matter, through this torture.

He found himself a starving man suddenly placed in front of a buffet and he was helpless against it. He kissed her gently on the neck before he drove his fangs home through the flesh that was as familiar to him as if it were his own. His fangs pierced her fragile skin and blood surged over his tongue. She stiffened in his arms, stifling the gasp of her pain. Hot tears from the corners of her eyes spilled across his cheek. Mingling with his own hot tears of regret over all the ways he'd hurt her.

Shayla's blood was a wellspring of life. Knitting his tattered and torn outer skin whole, working its way though his body and deep into the fibers of his soul. If only, she'd been able to heal the darkness inside of him. From that, there was no refuge, no supplication strong enough to release him from the icy grasp of his true nature.

Carter took only what he needed and afterwards, gently carried her to a settee and spread a blanket over her chilly limbs. Shayla was dazed from the amount of blood he'd taken. For though he'd taken only what he had to. He'd drunk deeply. Her brown heavily lidded eyes stared up at him dazedly and transfixed. "Carter," she whispered.

Her lips trembled to muster the strength to say more words. He silenced her with a fingertip over her quivering mouth. "Hush now. Rest. Shayla, it is done. You've healed me."

"But, you're still not whole," Shayla whispered. Carter's gentle voice echoed with unspoken shame, empty, hollow, and cold, so very cold. After everything she'd done to save him. All the pain she'd suffered at his hands was for nothing. She'd given him every part of her. Her body, her heart, her blood and her very soul, the sum of her very essence hadn't been enough to pull him back from the brink. Instead, he flung himself even deeper down that dark chasm than he had been before she'd tried.

"Nor will I ever be."

Tears mingled in her lashes. Stubbornly, she refused to let them fall as he turned away from her and walked through the door without as much as a backwards glance. She was battered, but not broken. Carter had shown her that despite her pain. She could go on living. If only, he'd learned the same, things might have stood a chance at being right between them. She had no other choice, but the one he'd left in her hands. Because she loved him so very much, she had to let him go.

Chapter 114

The graveyard was quiet and still. The city sang its endless song in harmony to the wind rustling through the dry branches above. Dried leaves skittered across the tombstones, making a crackling sound as they danced on the currents of air. The smoky scent of fall, laden with the promise of the long winter yet to come, mingled with the thick, musty smell of freshly turned earth. David knelt at the foot of the grave and sifted a fist full of damp ground through his fingers. "Rachael, I'm sorry."

David allowed the tears he'd been struggling to hold back to fall. So deep was his regret that his shoulders quaked from the effort of his sobs. He wasn't strong enough to protect her and he hadn't been strong enough to bring her back. The sin he'd committed against her weighed heavily on his shoulders. Failure was the most grievous of sins. The one he kept repeating over, and over again.

Even his tears weren't pure. They were tainted with the stain of his sin. Guilty tears fat with pain and regret for all that he'd done and could never undo fell onto the upturned dirt. His fingers clutched at the mound of loose earth beneath them as if he could claw his way into her grave and take her place in the vault. She should be out here. Better she mourn him and live than be in the icy, cold, clutches of death's greedy hands. That he would live a thousand lives while she had lost the only one she had left the bitter taste of irony thick on the tip of his tongue.

David died little by little every day. Life took pieces of his soul, the smaller deaths a payment for the long life he'd been given in the stead of true death. Such, was the burden of his kind. Death, true death eluded them and left nothing but an empty, soulless creature in its place. He was in danger of becoming such a thing. Cold. Dead. Lifeless.

For ten years he'd teetered on the brink. What little of his humanity he had left was gradually slipping from his fingers. Hope was the illusion he clung to in preference to despair. Teetering back and forth on a very slippery slope, he never knew when the day would come that his grip would fail and he'd fall head long into the darkness.

Nora hung back, sticking to the black shadows of the pines. David needed his moment to grieve. The rawness of the sorrow in his stature confirmed everything she'd suspected. He was guilty of no wrong. Relief rushed through her and she exhaled the breath she'd been holding for so long. The sounds of his sobs crushed the wall around her heart. All doubts were washed away in the tide of the flood of her emotions. She loved him. Of all the things that he'd seen, the unfathomable, terrifying things, that she dreaded imagining. He could still cry. The realization that he was still as human as ever made her love him all the more. Gingerly, she stepped out of the darkness and into the pale glow cast from the city around her. "We've got to stop meeting like this."

David couldn't meet Nora's eyes. He kept his stare locked on the tombstone barely visible through the mound of earth and mountain of flowers adorning the grave. "This is a place for the dead. You should go."

Nora sighed and extended her hand. If he took it or not, was up to him. Gently, she shook her head. "No. We should go."

David lifted his head and stared at the hand she extended to him. He made no effort to mask his true self from her. She needed to see for herself what sort of a fiend dwelled behind the mirage. "You know what I am. I belong here. You don't."

"David, I waited for you for ten years. I didn't give up on you then and I'm not giving up on you now." Nora wanted to run to him. Hold him. Soothe his wounded spirit. Instead, she held her ground and her hand out to him.

"You don't understand my world." David balled his fingers into fists. Grave dirt coated the spaces in between his fingers. "Nora, I've killed, in cold blood. I've taken lives. More than I can recall. In this grave is where I belong. Where all like me belong. Nobody should live forever."

Nora let her gaze roam over the grave at her feet. David bore so much guilt over his past. He wanted to revel in it and wear it like a badge over his heart. She wasn't going to let that happen. Yes, he'd live a very long time. She had her suspicions though that he hadn't been truly alive in the past ten years. Sometimes, life was defined by how it was lived and the art of being alive had nothing to do with the sum of a man's years. His heart would beat long after hers stopped. But, as far as living, she'd already surpassed him. "Nobody does."

"RACHAEL WOULDN'T BE HERE IF NOT FOR ME!" David shouted. His voice cut through the eerie stillness of the graves. "I failed her. I can't take the chance of failing you too."

Nora dropped her hand to her side and stared down at David. "You already have." There were so many things she hadn't had the chance to say to him. He'd given her one night as he'd promised. She thought she could make due with that and let him walk away. She couldn't. If he walked away now, he had failed her as equally as she'd failed him.

"But. You'll live." David's eyes followed her hand as it fell to her side. Good. Nora was getting it. She was finally giving up on him. Things were as they should be. No more sacrifices for him. No one else died because he'd failed. Ever.

"Yes," Nora answered weakly. Her chin wavered as she held back the sobs welling in her chest. The wall he'd shattered was beginning to rebuild. Disappointment was the mortar that held the bricks of pain in place. It wasn't that he didn't want her. It wasn't even the fact that he did want her that hurt. It was the knowledge that he was afraid and his fear was the only thing keeping them apart. "I suppose I will," she kept her tone firm and direct.

David fell to his knees. His jeans soaked by the night dew on the ground. She considered him a failure already. How long would it take before her love turned into bitterness and rage? "This," he said, gesturing to the headstone, "is all I have to offer you. You deserve so much more than death."

Nora gripped her purse tightly in her fingers and swallowed hard. "Then give me life. You say we can't be together because I can't survive in your world. Make it so I can. Make it so you're not afraid of me anymore. I love you enough to offer you all that I am in exchange for your fear. If I can take the risk to stand here defenseless against a vampire then you can be brave enough take the risk of loving me. The future isn't a clear path for anyone, vampire or human. You can't change what you are. So, I'll have to become like you. Perhaps, it doesn't matter. You're so terrified of yourself. Far more afraid of what you are than what I am of you. I think you'll conjure up another excuse to keep us apart."

"You're right," David said in resignation. He pushed up off the cold ground and stood. His eyes roamed over the graves, each stone marking a life ended. Names and dates carved in granite and marble to remember so no one would forget that someone had lived. Not that the person buried below died, but that they lived. "I've spent so long pretending to be dead that I think I've forgotten how to live."

Nora smiled and extended her hand to him once again. "I'm an excellent teacher."

"Do you think I can learn?"

"I think you'll be my best student yet." David's hand was cool and powdery, covering her fingers in loose particles of dirt as he slid his palm into hers. He tipped his head down, resting his lips against her forehead. His mouth feathered a kiss over her closed eyelids, to the tip of her nose, and finally down to where she so desperately needed the contact, to her lips. "So far, you're the teacher's pet," she chuckled after their mouths reluctantly broke apart.

Nora's warmth radiated the deep cold inside of him. Little by little her heat thawed all the places that had been frozen for so long. He felt light as air, as if he walked on the clouds. That she loved him despite all his flaws was a miracle. Life was full of people busy living it. People who were here one minute and gone the next. Failure was forgiven and forgotten. It was time that David did just that. Let it go and got busy with the business of living. "Let's get out of here."

"Gladly," Nora said. She couldn't replace the losses David had suffered, nor fill the void they'd left in their wake. She wouldn't try to. Time, he had so much of it, would scar over the wounds. She didn't know what their future would hold. If she'd end up with fangs or die an old woman with the love of her life at her side, young and handsome as he was now. Either fate, she would joyfully see to its happy end.

"I hope you grade on a curve," David said with a chuckle.

"Not typically, but I think for you I can make an exception."

"Do you think I'll get an A+?"

Nora shrugged and leaned in to the warmth of David's arm around her shoulders. "Maybe. But, you know something?"

"What?"

"A C is passing."

Epilogue

O'Sullivan liked to spend his time studying his prey. Shopping for just the right one was so important these days. He went for quality, not quantity. One good strike was worth a dozen shoddy ones. The kid zipped around a tight corner skillfully on his skateboard and ground it to a halt with the toe of his shoe. His buddies nodded and grunted in approval, giving him high fives and knuckle bumps in their worship.