Dawn Unleashed

She was awake, but not quite ready to be awakened yet. The shaking became more insistent and the voice more demanding. These days sleep was a rare and precious commodity she didn't get much of an opportunity to indulge in. Cole wasn't here. Once again her mind had substituted reality for a much more pleasant fiction. Jesse mumbled something unintelligible and reluctantly gave up the notion of stealing a few extra seconds of sleep. With a yawn, she pried her eyes open and blinked in shock.

"Cole? Oh my GOD! COLE!" Jessie threw back the covers and wrapped her arms around her son, grabbing him in a desperate hug. He was safe and sound. She swore to herself that if he ever came back she wouldn't push him for answers. She promised herself that she wouldn't cry all over him if he came home again. She did though. She cried hard, the deep sobs heaving her shoulders and she asked, what she swore she wouldn't. "Where have you been?"

Cole returned his mom's embrace. She felt small, almost frail in his arms. He buried his nose in the collar of her nightgown, inhaling that wonderful mom scent he'd missed so very much. "Don't cry, mom," he said, barely managing to keep his voice from cracking. She had a death grip on his jacket and wasn't about to let him go. She hadn't hugged him like this since the third grade when he'd fallen out of a tree and broken his arm.

Jessie snapped on the light on the bedside table and took a closer look at her son. Cole was different and not the boy she remembered. "You let your hair grow out," she said, sifting through the strands with her fingers. Cole had always been well built, tough and strong, big for his age. Over the past months, he'd gone through a growth spurt and filled out the t-shirt beneath his jacket, stretching it with the well defined muscles of his chest and arms. There was something else, not so much visible as something she perceived with her mother's intuition. The boy behind his hazel eyes had grown up into a man. She realized then he'd come, not as a prodigal asking for forgiveness, but as a fully gown man, to tell her goodbye. "You're ok?"

"Yeah mom, I'm good." Cole exhaled and just sat there giving his mom time to ebb the flow of her tears and himself a chance to breathe before he said what he'd come to say. "I came...,"

"Yeah, I know, to say goodbye," Jessie said in resignation. She held Cole's hand loosely in hers. His fingers were long and sculpted. The hands of an artist and so much like his father's. His grip strong and secure. Her hands were dwarfed by the size of his palm. As much as she didn't want to, she slid her fingers free from his grip and let him go. "The car. I'm sure if you get a new battery and air up the tires, it'll run."

Cole shook his head and smiled a sad smile. "No, you keep it. Sell it if you want. Where I'm going it'll only be in the way." His mom rested her head on his shoulder and stared up at him. Her unshed tears glittered like diamonds in the dim lamplight. Her hair was threaded through with gray beneath the fading blonde of her dye job. He felt responsible for each and every strand of gray and the lines of stress at the corners of her mouth and eyes. She wasn't quite forty yet, but in the months he'd been away she'd aged a decade and it was all his fault.

"I can only stay for a minute. I came to tell you not to worry about me anymore, that and to tell you how sorry I am for disappearing like I did. I put you through hell and I know it. I love you, mom. I never meant to hurt you."

"I love you too, Cole. Don't ask me not to worry about you though." She ran her fingers along the line of dark stubble on his jaw. Her little boy was a man now, so big and strong. Cole had her nose and his father's broad cheekbones. The shape of his ears came from her side of the family, but he'd gotten his height and the breadth of his shoulders from Robert. "I brought you into this world and that gives me the right to worry as much as I like."

Cole chuckled for a brief moment and rested his cheek against the top of his mom's head. He felt like a little boy again leaning on his mom to keep him upright. His heart was breaking as he watched her tears silently roll down her cheek. God, he was so lucky he had a mom like her. Turning his back on her and walking away was the hardest thing he would ever do, no matter how long he lived. Necessary, yes, but that didn't mean protecting her from the truth of the world he was about to become a part of didn't hurt. "But, I can still ask you not to."

"Where are you going, can I ask you that?" Jesse stiffened. Cole wasn't saying goodbye as in an I'll see you next week or next month, even next year, kind of goodbye. He was saying goodbye permanently. Damn it, Cole was nineteen, almost twenty and twice her size. He had the legal right to do what he wanted with his life, but that didn't mean she didn't have the fleeting idea to try and knock him out and tie him to the bed until he came to his senses. He was her baby boy, hers.

"I wish I could explain it. Just know that I'm doing something good. Something I hope will make a difference. Something that will make you proud of me."

"Cole, I've always been proud of you."

"But, this time, I'm actually going to earn it."

Jessie sighed and gently trapped Cole's chin in the palm of her hand. Now it made sense. He'd been gone six months. Cole left a boy but came back a man. Of course, he wouldn't want her or his brothers and sisters to find out about it. He definitely wouldn't want Bill to know what he had planned to do with his life. "Did you run off and join the Marines?"

"Something like that," Cole mumbled. His mom was scrambling for explanations and the one she'd provided for herself was as good as anything he could have come up with. The Marines were a walk in the park compared to the kind of training he'd spent the past six months enduring. "Look, I've gotta go. I mean it. Sell the car, move the twins into my old room, and do not worry about me." He cupped his mom's chin in his palms and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek. Reluctantly, he released her face and gave her one last lingering hug. "I'm glad I came. I couldn't take leaving things between us the way I had. I missed you."

"You'll come around for visits won't you?" She asked the question out of the vague hope he would agree. She had never, ever used mom guilt on her children. Damn, it was tempting to lay it on thick though. She didn't want her baby boy fighting the good fight for God and country. She wanted him home, safe and sound. Jesse gave Cole the biggest hug she'd ever given him in her life. She had to force her arms open to release her hold on him.

The time for lies was over and he didn't want to make promises he couldn't keep. He moved off the bed and stood over his mom, staring down at her, memorizing every last detail of her face. Yeah, it was better she think he was joining the Marines than to know the truth. He might not see her again for a very long time. In a matter of years, he'd have to disappear from her life to protect her. He might be able to fake it for a while, but he'd never be able to hide the truth forever. As much as it killed him and he knew he shouldn't, he bent to give her one last hug. "Love you, mom."

Jessie struggled not to wrap her arms around Cole and beg him to stay. She gripped the blankets in her fists to keep herself planted on the bed as he turned, gave her a ghost of a smile, and closed the bedroom door softly behind him.

Cole riffled through his dresser drawer and found what he was looking for. The rest of his things his step dad could do with whatever he wanted. Stuff them in trash bags. Cram them into cardboard boxes. Cole didn't care. He didn't know why he needed the snapshot. He hadn't seen his father, his real father, in years. He hadn't even spoken on the phone to him since his sixteenth birthday. But, at zero hour the photo of him with his dad taken on a sunny day in September was more important than the collective piles of crap he owned.

He was six in the picture and his dad, roughly around twenty-six. The snapshot was of one of those rare happy days when his dad had actually come to visit after the divorce. In the picture, taken by a stranger in the park, his dad had his arm draped casually around Cole's narrow shoulders. His dad had seldom hugged or touched him at all. The brushes of his fingertips were cautious and hesitant as if they were painful for his father to endure. Cole never understood why his dad was so hands off and so sparse with the physical display of affection or why he'd stopped visiting all together and moved to a remote corner of Montana. His dad had never bothered to explain and he as a kid and feeling so abandoned by the father who was supposed to love and protect him, had never asked for one. Their whole relationship from Cole's point of view was based on assumptions.

In this the final dawn he'd ever see with his human eyes. The snapshot was important, but he couldn't bring himself to call his father, not even to say goodbye or hear his voice one last time. Maybe, that ship had sailed and was never coming into port. Maybe, he just needed one happy memory to take the place of all the bad ones that had happened since. The photo represented everything his childhood should have been and wasn't.

Now that he was older, Cole could see the resemblance between the two of them. Subtleties that he'd never noticed before, in the curve of their broad shoulders, the tilt of their chin, and the shape of his cheekbones. His hair was lighter than his father's and his eye color was unique a mix of his dad's brown eyes and his mom's green ones. Carefully, Cole smoothed the tattered corners of the photograph and slid it into the worn leather wallet in his back pocket for safekeeping.

The house was beginning to awaken around him. From his sister's room he heard the rustle of blankets. The twins asleep in the bedroom down the hall exhaled a collective dreamy sigh. And the baby he'd never really acknowledged as his half-sister or even as a part of the family at all, snuffled in her crib. Cole didn't have any more explanations in him and no heart for another goodbye. He slid back the curtains and exited the same way he'd entered, out the window.

Cole nodded to the invisible pairs of eyes keeping watch over him. All the loose ends were tied up. Everything he'd set out to do was done. He climbed into the truck and navigated down the narrow streets of the city. There was no time for regrets now. The time for turning back had passed. He picked up speed and merged onto the interstate to make the final trek of his long journey into manhood.

Chapter 3

Daniel rolled over onto his side and idly toyed with one of Yessette's springy blonde curls. Tugging the curl straight between his fingertips, he released her hair and was fascinated by the way it'd bounce back into shape and shimmer like spun platinum in the dim lamplight. Except for the late night hours he kept these days. Life was good, so very good and sweet too. As sweet as a berry pie fresh from the oven. He lounged in the silk sheets bathed in luxury with her at his side. Anything and everything he'd ever wanted was at his fingertips for the taking. Eric did everything in his power to make sure of that. Money? No problem. The icing on the cake, that one thing Eric O'Sullivan couldn't supply, Yessette certainly could. "I told you. I can't."

Yessette pursed her full lips into a pout and pulled the covers over her naked skin. "Why not? You promised to show me." The boy, as she refused to call him a man, was becoming more and more arrogant by the hour to the point where he was practically intolerable. Her flesh crawled every time Daniel laid a finger on her. At first, the game had been fun and exciting. She lived to please Eric and he'd rewarded her with plenty of pretty sparkly baubles. But, now with her jewelry boxes over flowing and Daniel so corrupt that not even she could tolerate him. The game had grown dull.

The boy was predictable and fretfully boring in his feeble attempts to win her heart. Eric had asked her for this one little favor and she had yet to deliver what he sought after the most. No amount of coaxing or begging or any of the other things she did to keep Daniel happy had any effect. Eric was growing more and more impatient with her. Carter billowed like a dark storm cloud through the house always so full of gloom and doom. As for Daniel, words could not describe what she thought about him. Even now with him reaching for her breast, she brushed his hand away and crossed her arms over her chest. "You get nothing until you show me. Not even as much as a teensy tiny kiss on the cheek."

Daniel sighed and dragged his hand through his hair in frustration. The chin length strands tangled around his fingertips. He hated the stuff, but he kept letting it grow and grow because that's the way she liked it. He hated it when Yessette acted like a spoiled brat. Which anymore, was all of the time. His black brows knitted into a line as he flung his head back on the pillows and scowled up at her.

There was nothing he wouldn't do to keep her happy. Nothing. What she asked of him though was physically impossible. She nagged him on a daily basis and every day his answer was the same. He couldn't show her what he no longer possessed. "Yessette, please try to understand. I. Can. Not. Do. It."

"Humph." Yessette waved Daniel off with a flash of her white fangs. The only redeeming quality Daniel had was his blood. The vibrant gift of life was much to her liking, but Eric had forbidden her from drinking her fill. She could only sample and the paltry sips did little to quench her thirst. "I think I'll go sleep in my bed for the day." She flung back the silk comforter and slid into her robe. The robe was a simple token of appreciation Eric had picked up from Paris some decades ago. "I ask for one tiny little favor and you deny me. I do so much for you and get such miniscule offerings in return," she chastised as she cinched the silk ties on the robe closed. "Obviously, you need some time alone to think about it." She flung her hair over her shoulder in a huff as she stomped out of the room.

"Great," Daniel muttered under his breath. He ran his palm over the warm dimple left in the bed by her absence. "Women." Sighing, he slid further under the covers and pulled them up to his chin. Obviously, his bedroom was about to get a lot colder in the days to come. At least, this time, she hadn't gone full-blown Hurricane Yessette on him. He'd seen more than one of her temper tantrums and they weren't pretty.

Nothing would placate the woman. No excuse would deter Yessette's ceaseless demanding for what he simply didn't possess. She just didn't get it. He didn't have it in him anymore. It wasn't that he hadn't tried, because he had. His wolf simply wasn't there. There was not as much as a flutter of power beneath his skin. His calls, pleas for the wolf and he to become one, remained unanswered. The closest he could get to a wolf these days was on Animal Planet.

Yessette had a simple mind, singular in focus and almost brutal in its childlike innocence and pragmatic view of the world. For centuries Eric had spoiled her rotten. Showering her with expensive gifts the price of which Daniel couldn't even begin to pay. Eric had indulged Yessette's every whim no matter how bizarre the request. Whenever she through a tantrum, Eric would pat her on the top of her pretty blonde head and pull trinkets from his pockets to soothe the heat of her latest tirade.

The thought of it sickened Daniel. It was so obvious to him Yessette was playing them both. But, if that were the case, who was the one pulling her strings? Carter? Perhaps. Though he hardly seemed the type. It was more likely Eric was playing Yessette and she was playing both Carter and him under Eric's careful instruction.

Oh, Daniel did his fair share of playing too. He spent Eric's money by the fistfuls and lounged around this posh playground of depravity doing absolutely nothing to earn his keep. He ate gourmet meals. Wore more gold than King Tut. His clothes were custom tailored to fit. Eric offered him Yessette as payment for services he had yet to render and he'd definitely had his fair share of paydays in that regard. Daniel dangled his wolf, the wolf he no longer possessed, under Eric's greedy little nose much in the same way Yessette had but to bat her incredibly long lashes at him to bring him to heel. They were all game players. But, for the life of him he couldn't figure out exactly what game they were playing.

Carter leaned against the third story banister and stretched out his long legs. Effectively blocking a majority of the narrow hallway with their length. "What's the matter, Yessette? Relationship trouble?" he asked mockingly. He returned the disdainful, pouty, scowl she cast at him with a knowing grin. "You know these May/December trysts hardly ever work out."

"The boy doesn't love me anymore. He hates me." In her agitated state, the American accent she'd worked so hard to acquire slipped into the thick, drawling, rapid fire speech of her native tongue. "I would just as soon bed an ox than to spend one more day with him." Yessette paused and studied Carter for a brief moment and sniffled. His obvious lack of interest in her reflected in the icy pools of his gaze. "You don't love me either," she pouted, childishly stomping her petite foot.

Carter frowned and took a deep breath. In the process of her most recent temper tantrum, the neckline of Yessette's robe had slipped open to reveal her full breasts. He leaned over and pulled the silk closed, holding the fabric between his fingertips. Even though she behaved like a small child. She was still a very beautiful and desirable woman. She damned well knew it. She used her body as a means to an end with expert precision and cool calculation. Their time had come and gone. The past and was in the past. He no longer wanted her in a sexual way. He couldn't ignore her inner child long enough to spark up the slightest hint of interest in her. The only remnants of feeling that he had left for her was pity and regret.

Daniel, still so much a boy himself, had yet to see the truth beyond her curves, platinum blonde hair, and sapphire eyes. Daniel's mind was filled with a fantasy of words whispered by her lush lips in the heat of passion. Carter still had hopes that the blinders would be ripped free from the Daniel's eyes and he'd see Yessette as she truly was. There was still time for Carter to fulfill his promise. Unfortunately, grace, had an expiration date and for Daniel, the clock was ticking.

Gently, he bent over and brushed her cool cheek with his lips. "Unfortunately Yessette, I do." So deep was his love for her that it had become a stumbling block or perhaps, a chopping block for him. He'd risked and sacrificed all that he was to protect her. He still lacked the will to do what he knew someday would have to be done. "Go to bed."

Chapter 4

Bianca tucked a stray strand of hair into her tight chignon. She wasn't going for seduction, but for shrewd businesswoman and nothing said 'don't fuck with this girl' like a crisp suit, a tight chignon, and a sharp tongue. If those things didn't accomplish her goals, the wicked looking blade tucked under her skirt might be convincing enough. Michael was all sugar and spice and definitely, definitely everything nice. But, she wanted him out of her city.

She'd tried to play nice and go with the flow, but she was done with it. The Sons were putting a cramp in her management style and they needed to go. Now. Let them return to romping through the woods. She could handle the city. "So," she said. "I hate to be a bitch, but I really must withdraw my former invitation." Bianca leaned meaningfully over her desk and stared Michael down. He sat in the wingback chair inches away from her, unfettered and unaffected. "I think it's important for company to get the hint when they've worn out their welcome. Don't you?"