Dawn

by Sherry Foster

  David on the other hand was both furious and amused. He heard the at first incomprehensible comments through the pack bond and slowly came to realize the plant had ground almost to a halt because of the little female he trustingly left back at home with Stormie. He knew, better than anyone, how much his mate could talk. But he was also, as her mate, able to distract her from talking. The pack was laughing, both at his mate and at the new female at his house. So much for keeping her presence quiet. Everyone in the pack, including Stormie was hearing a first hand account, or maybe it was second since it came from the guards back at his house, of how the little females approached Stormie with the intention of turning her off.

  He had made the decision to take the young one because the males would not pay much attention to such a small female. He had an ulterior motive of wanting to know what information she had about the business. He left the older one under protection because she was obviously close to mating age and he did not want to stir any males up. After the last few months, what happened with Trina and Gabby and even more recently what happened at the prison with one of Gammon’s men, true mating was explained, again to the pack. The males knew if their mate crossed territory lines their wolves would start acting crazy. They were under strict orders if that occurred to shift and give the wolf the lead. They didn’t want another young female showing up and not having all the protection available. Or even worse, no one knowing about the female and losing her before they met her. So David knew, if Donna, or whatever her real name was, had a mate here, that mate would have been at his door within minutes of the female’s entrance. David also knew the males with no mates would try to out do each other wooing the new female since she had no mate in the territory. He was not about to have men swarming his house with flowers and candies and whatever else they thought up trying to get a date. He was not old enough to go through that kind of, his thoughts stopped as he realized he could have a daughter of his own in a few short weeks. If he had a daughter, oh hell no, he was going to build a tower, with turrets. For a brief moment he forgot about the laughter echoing through the pack bond, the female at his house upsetting his mate all but forgotten as he started planning fortifications for his house.

  He didn’t realize he had stopped in the hallway until he felt someone shaking his arm. He looked down into the worried face of Stormie’s mother. “Are you alright? I am sure the little one didn’t mean any harm. She seems to have assumed since this is a robotics company you left her in the care of a robot. Stormie must have been especially talkative if the child thought the only way to shut her up was to shut her down. I think you could have warned the poor girl before leaving her with my daughter.”

  He heard the laughter in her voice and he meant to reassure her but instead of reassurance “turrets” burst from his mouth.

  She had taken his elbow and was leading him down the hall before he realized what was happening. “You, young man, have obviously been working too hard. What I suggest you do is take the rest of the day off and go home and spend it with your mate. You know she is upset right now and well, company is the last thing she needs. I will take the little one home with me since I was headed that direction anyway. Charles went to your house to invite the two of you and your new guests to dinner, but unfortunately things did not go as planned at your house. You may want to lay down with Stormie and get a nap yourself. I will send Charles over tonight with left-overs for the two of you.” She led him back toward his office and didn’t let go until they entered the room.

  “Hello Alice, how are you today?” Leah’s voice sounded strangely forced to Trey’s ears. He listened as his mother-by-mating introduced herself to the young girl and he soon realized why she sounded different from the happy friendly woman he grew up knowing. She must have gotten some kind of vibe, unpleasant at that, from the tiny female. He watched as she deftly took over picking up and sorting all the papers in front of and scattered around Alice despite the girl’s best attempts to stop her. In a matter of moments the girl was standing by the door, folders in hand, with a comically confused look on her face. Well, Leah had plenty of experience when it came to difficult youngsters, she raised Trey and played an important role in his upbringing also.

  As Leah led the way outside she explained to Alice what was going to happen. At first the girl protested but soon gave up when her protest fell on deaf ears. Plans had been made and would be followed and Leah would book no interference in the new plans. David thought making new plans without the input of the little evil genius in front of him wasn’t the best of ideas, but he was not about to interfere in the new plans. Not if they got him a visitor free house again. Especially since Stormie had not taken to the small child and was still upset at the older girl for making her, as she said, look like a fool. David hoped she would one day see the humor in the situation. As he watched Leah drive away with Alice he ran through various scenarios to show Stormie the humor of the situation. Maybe when Gabby got back she could help him if his plans didn’t work.

  He wondered briefly why Trey never had Gammon and Santiago make those phone calls and worried problems had arisen at Marcus’. He hoped he was wrong but he called Trey as he drove home to find out and let him know the two new girls would be at his parent’s house instead of his.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “All I am saying is, I don’t care, I just need to be in on the rescue. Look, I have seen your guy Craig, I know shit about witches other than the clans but you can’t take him with you. I am more than willing to take his place.”

  “Trevor, I appreciate what you are asking. We have the entire pack, plus Trey’s, Gammon’s and even Santiago’s pack not to mention three freaking aliens who wants in on the rescue. We simply don’t have the logistics in place to work with four packs plus an Alpha from an unknown pack. You are shit at taking orders from others.”

  “Marcus, mate, come on. All Alphas are shit at taking orders. That is why the fuck we are Alphas. I can work with your guys. You have to let me in on this mission.”

  “No, I don’t have to let you in on the mission. I let you sit in on the planning. Hell, I let the whole damn group in on the planning but you heard the plans. We are not set up to take in people who can not speak to us via a pack bond. Think about it man. We would have to implement radios and thus open ourselves up to being overheard. Why are you so fired up about going on the mission with us? It is bad enough I have agreed to let the freaking aliens, did I mention we have damn aliens going with us?”

  “Yeah, that was a bit of a shocker. Doesn’t change the fact I have to be with you on this rescue.” Trevor leaned forward in his chair.

  After the meeting Trevor had requested a private meeting with Marcus so while Jaden and the others in his pack finalized the rescue mission to include the three aliens the two men had returned to the cabin Trevor had been staying in to talk. Now Trevor was asking for the impossible and Marcus was not about to give in and jeopardize the rescue. Not without a better reason than the non-existent one he had been offered.

  “Look, I am going to lay my cards on the table. I talked to Jules and William both while you were nailing down some details with your pack. My wolf has been giving me some problems and I hoped they could help me figure out why. But all three of us were at a loss as to understand what was going on until you told your pack what Kate did with her friend Dawn in order to find her. We think, mind you none of us have heard of anything like this before, but we think the blood sharing created a link my wolf can feel. Shifters have had blood transfusions before and we talked about some of the post reactions to the transfusions. I don’t know if you have had a pack member get a transfusion from a mated pack member before, but if so, did you ever notice the mate to the one who gives the transfusion draws a bit closer to the one who received the transfusion?”

  Marcus drew his eyebrows up and tilted his head to the side while he thought. Most of his males who found themselves in a situation to need transfusions received one from who ever was available and ab
le to cross match. Most of his males weren’t mated and most transfusions happened in the field. He couldn’t think of a single instance where a mated pack member gave blood and caused a bond to happen with their mate and the other male. He had no females who had ever received a transfusion.

  “I am not saying it has never happened, but none of my pack have ever mentioned anything about it. Most of my males aren’t mated so even if they give or receive a transfusion they wouldn’t know anything about a bond of any sort occurring. So you think because Kate had Dawn do some witchy ritual and create some sort of bond between the two you can, what feel the bond? Wait, you feel something for Kate and you think that makes Dawn your mate?”

  Trevor darted his head around the cabin before jerking back to stare at Marcus, “Appreciate it if you keep it down there. Last thing I want is a witch or her mate to take offense. I don’t feel something for Kate exactly. My wolf feels she is almost like a mate but not. Truthfully that is the only reason I am still here, because any talk of leaving makes my wolf a tad upset. I can’t think of any reason my wolf would want to hang around a witch, couldn’t imagine any possible reason why the other half of me would risk staying around a witch, until you dropped your bombshell earlier. If you have any other ideas I would be glad to hear them. If not, well, like I said, I need to go with you. At least let me go far enough into the mission my wolf can feel whether our mate is inside. We should be able to feel her from the perimeter of your set-up.”

  Marcus whistled, “Well damn, now that makes sense from what I have seen of true-matings. If you believe your mate could be in that compound your wolf will give you no peace until you get her safe in your arms. But Trevor, what if that isn’t the reason your wolf is giving you problems? What then?”

  “No reason to borrow problems from tomorrow when we got enough of them today to last us through next week.”

  Marcus shrugged, “You certainly have a unique way of looking at things.”

  “Can’t take the credit for that, got that saying from my mum.”

  “Let me think on it. No promises, cause to tell you the truth, that reason makes me less likely to let you come along than before. I have seen the true-mate crazy stage and I can’t assign men to battle you down to keep you from rushing in to save your mate if she is in the compound.”

  “Well shit, I didn’t think of that. I wish I could give you my word I would not jeopardize the mission, but you and I both have seen enough of this world to know when the true-mate bond comes into play the battle between man and wolf can get too intense for the man to survive intact. I would like to believe I am stronger than others, but if she is in there and my wolf starts to feel she is in danger, I don’t know what the bond would do. I don’t know how hard it would be to fight against. Would my being an Alpha give me a bonus in control or would the wolf be harder to control because of our strength? Too many variables to risk if I am honest.”

  “I have to say my respect for you increased with that admission. It isn’t always easy to accept we have faults when we are responsible for so many others. You don’t know if you will have control and I know what that admission had to cost you. I tell you what I will do, if you agree. We have tranquilizer guns and if you are agreeable I will accept you on the mission on one condition. You have to understand and agree to be tranqued if your mate is in that compound and you can not maintain control. Shit, do you realize it never occurred to me any of my guys could have a mate in that compound? If any of them have a mate that man could wreck the whole plan. We have never done a mission of this scope with this many people involved so it never occurred to me. Shit. Fuck me sideways.” Marcus glared at Trevor, “I am blaming you for this whole fuck-up of a cluster-fuck which I am about to create when I go back in that hall and adjust all the plans we spent the last week creating.” Marcus swallowed hard before he stuck out his hand to pull Trevor to his feet and into a brotherly hug. “And if I never find the words to thank you enough for causing me to think about how I could have doomed the majority of my pack, well, you can figure it out.” With that comment Marcus pounded Trevor on the back twice and turned him loose. The two men headed for the door and started trekking back to the meeting hall down the road. The hall wasn’t especially close to the cabin Trevor was staying in, so they had plenty of time to finish their conversation. As they started down the road Trevor stopped and looked at the house in front of his cabin.

  “You have one of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen. True craftsmanship went into the building of your house.”

  “Thank you, it took us two years to build that house. Come on, we gotta go shake everyone up and re-plan. Think if we did a flyover of all the birds the men could feel out a mate or do you think we gotta be closer? Damn, will a flyover put them on alert status or will they think the birds are some kind of military exercise that doesn’t involve them at all? Shit, way to fuck things up man.”

  “You know, I didn’t realize till you asked that question, your Krys is a mighty fine female but the two of you aren’t a true-mate are you?”

  “No man. But I wouldn’t let her go for all the gold in the world. To tell you the truth I don’t know what would happen if I had a true-mate appear and no one I have ever talked to has seen it happen before so I am hoping, if it is a thing, it never happens to me. I know in theory I would be happier with a true-mate, but my heart doesn’t believe any other female would ever be as perfect for me as Krys. And I am good with that. But how close does a male have to be to know he has a mate? You don’t have a mate so you can’t answer that question. We found if a female enters your pack territory your wolf can feel her cross the line, but if not your territory? We have an idea of how far away Craig was from the prison his Kate was in when he realized his wolf could feel their mate. But we never went into too much detail about that day as far as trying to find out exactly how far away he was when the wolf first became aware. He made some comment about his wolf being restless at the cabin which was miles away, but sometimes the wolves just want to run. Not much help I know but, shit. You got any ideas?”

  “Well, you said in the meeting you took a bird south with Craig and Kate on it so Kate could triangulate her fix on Dawn right? So I would think you should be able to go in low and circle around from the same distance and get a read on your men and me for that matter. You did say you never had eyes on the place when you went in with Kate. All the details and pictures you got came later from your guys on the ground. It should, in theory, work.”

  “Theory, I am beginning to hate that word. A lot of things should work in theory. Damn few of them turn out like we want though. Well, no time like the present when we have a meeting hall full of men and several of them mated for centuries.”

  “And by several you mean one right? Because correct me if I am wrong but your brother is recently mated as is Trey and Gammon is only a few decades mated and the rest of the guys in your pack who you picked for the mission aren’t true-mated at all.”

  “Matter of fact we have two, sort of, William should know something and Jules may be able to tell us something, he was mated for centuries before he lost his mate. The older males in my pack, who are mated, can be called into the hall if we need to do that. Not sure if Gammon can tell us anything or Edward despite their age. I mean, hell I don’t know the answer, you don’t know the answer. That isn’t a question we worried about when we were younger and had plenty of females. We just knew one day we would mate if we thought of the situation at all.”

  “Have your older mated males meet us there, the more men we ask about the distance the better the chances we can get in and out before the mission and learn what we need to know. Is Santiago mated?”

  “No one has ever said so I haven’t asked. I figured, our mates are such an important part of our lives if Santiago has never mentioned a mate in all my years of dealing with him then he either never had one, or lost her. Either way I always felt it to be his business. We call him for a pick-up and he arrives, gets the female or fema
les and takes them to Gammon. If he has a mate, well he won’t need another, if he doesn’t I figured the female would find a new home in his pack. Either way I trust the man with the lives of every female we rescue and I don’t ask personal questions.”

  “Fair enough I guess. Explains a bit about why you aren’t taking his pack but you are taking his birds and their pilots. My question is, are you sure you are going to have enough room with just the four birds?”

  “If we get more females than the twenty we estimate them to have we will leave our men on the ground and bring the females back. They can always get a plane ride back up here and we can send cars to pick them up at the airport.”

  “Twenty female shifters in one place, how did you come up with that number? Man do you know how many years, no centuries it has been since I saw that many young female shifters in one place? I stress the young because fortunately we have the older mated females still, can you imagine if the curse had wiped them out instead of just denying them girl children of their own?”

  “Trevor my man, I try not to think about it. And I imagine most males have either never seen so many young females in one place, if at all, or like you it has been a couple of centuries. I can’t believe it took almost three centuries to understand why we had so few females being born. Every year less and less, I guesstimate for most shifters older than two centuries that many females was at one time quite common. Now about the only place it is common is at Gammon’s compound. Not that I have ever seen the entirety of the female population at Gammon’s, but I do know how many we have sent to him over the last two decades. Kate said they had eleven females where she was being held so we estimate they put ten or so females in each prison.”