Prologue

In the Darkness:

Dust’s dark silhouette stood in sharp contrast against the flames of a burning building that was slowly collapsing under the intense heat. His hands were clenched by his sides as he fought for control over the waves of emotion and power sweeping through him. Unable to contain the grief welling up inside him any longer, he tilted his head back and released a savage cry as his body shook.

He was alone—completely and utterly alone with his heartfelt, tortured grief and the ghosts that haunted his soul.

Soon, the eerie quiet of the night was broken only by the sound of the crackling fire and the fading echo of his mournful cry. At one time, the grief-stricken howl might have been mistaken for the cry of a wolf or a coyote. The cadence of the desolate tone drifted on the light breeze with the same long, haunting melody.

His grief cut more sharply than a surgeon’s honed blade, and the ground trembled as his agony radiated outward, causing the earth to roll with the intensity.

A supernatural force spread outward from him, the type of power only imagined by authors and artists in the time he called Before… but this was After…. This was a new world where such powers existed in a few of the survivors.

The burning building in front of him trembled and collapsed to the ground. The only thing left standing were parts of the metal frame. He slowly sank to his knees and bowed his head. Around him the dust from the dirt parking lot danced as if trying to distract him. He couldn’t help but think that his name fit what he had become—dust that floated on the wind; changing, shifting, growing, and fading away. It had all led him here, kneeling on the hard-packed dirt in the middle of nowhere. Dust closed his eyes as another wave of pain struck him and he drew in deep breaths as the waves kept coming.

Finally, he lifted his head and stared at the dying flames of the old warehouse. Smoke swirled upward in tight circles on the breeze and filled the darkening sky, but it wasn’t the smoke that made his eyes burn—it was the memory of the diesel bus driving away.

The acute feeling of loss was more intense than what he’d felt the day his world had changed—the day fragments of a comet had hit the Earth, the beginning of the After. With that single catastrophic event, he had lost everything—and yet, this pain felt so much worse.

Dust shook his head slowly as the taunting voice of the creature he had battled minutes before echoed through his head. He had given a name to the creature. Why, he was not sure. Perhaps it was so he wouldn’t lose his own humanity—or to create humanity in her.

Daciana was different from Dust. He didn’t know her origins or how she had evolved. She’d been called several names before he’d given her this new one—She-Devil, wolf, Lycan. Now she had more than one form.

His battle with Daciana had caused an unexpected change in himself. One he didn’t yet understand, but he knew he was now something more dangerous than he’d been before.

“The female, she will not accept what you have become,” Daciana had warned him in a sing-song voice. It had hurt more than the sharp tips of her claws, because she was right.

“What am I? What have I become?” he wondered out loud in a strained voice.

He lifted his hands up and stared at them. Was he destined to become an unnatural creature whose only thought was to destroy what was left of humanity and the Earth? That fear was what had pushed him to send Josie and Sammy away.

Josie—who had also changed into something else—into one of the Others after the catastrophic events and those like Sammy—the unchanged human girl who had saved his life and given him hope and purpose.

A sudden rage rushed through him, and he rose to his feet. A look of determination flashed in his eyes. He was not a monster! Lifting his arms, he held his hands out and released the power flowing through him.

“I am not a monster!” he defiantly repeated to the empty yard in a loud, savage voice.

His eyes glowed with a dark, swirling green, fueled by the intense supernatural power inside himself. Dust turned his attention to the destroyed building where Josie had freed Todd, Sammy’s seven-year-old brother, while he and Sammy had distracted Daciana. He poured his feelings of sorrow and loss outward.

Swirling waves of energy soared up and formed a dense cloud. They shifted, changing in composition as the cloud enveloped the building. Instead of slamming into the structure and destroying the remainder of the twisted metal framework, those streams of power combined with the fire and began to glow like a welder’s torch, while additional streams of energy picked up the torn and mangled pieces of paneling. As if by magic, they unbuckled and stiffened back into normal sheets. The pieces were lifted and connected back together as the fiery red whips of molten energy welded the seams.

Sweat beaded on Dust’s brow and ran down his temples as he took a step forward. He concentrated on what the building looked like before his battle with Daciana. He didn’t want to destroy like Daciana had. He wanted to build and heal their ravaged planet. He wanted to prove that there could be something better out in the world for his kind than death and destruction.

Tears of anguish streamed down his face as he continued to use his power. They were for everything he had lost. The comet had taken everything away from him, and yet in some ways, it had given him more than he could have imagined.

He had created a new family made up of young and old, unchanged humans and Others. They were survivors, fighters, friends, and—something more. Together, they were finding their way across a vast and altered landscape into the unknown…they had been doing it together.

Dust raised his arm and wiped his damp cheek against the sleeve of his shirt. Now he was alone again. He swallowed and stared at the newly rebuilt warehouse.

His body trembled—this time with an intense hunger. The craving was different than before. He unconsciously ran his tongue over his teeth. They felt normal. For a moment he wondered if he had imagined that they changed when he was fighting against Daciana.

The brief hope running through him faded when he caught a scent carried on the breeze. Turning, he focused on it, automatically summoning the animal to come to him. His eyes widened when he saw a small coterie of prairie dogs slowly emerge from the darkness. His lips parted in a gasp when he felt his teeth lengthen again. Fear and revulsion swept through him and he released another guttural cry.

Shaken by the changes coursing through him, he took off running across the uneven ground. When he tripped on a low tussock of wild grass and started to fall, long wings appeared behind him and lifted him into the air. This time, they were not made of sand, but were real wings from his very thoughts.

A desperate need surged through him to put as much space between himself and his new family as he could. He must protect them at all costs. His fear gave him strength, and he swept up into the night sky, heading as far away from the old gym and the only family he had as quickly as he could.