e told her she didn’t have to return to Sanctuary. As though a part of him had been as hesitant as she was to tip the balance of the tenuous relationship developing between them.
She could feel something else moving within her though. A welling panic that wasn’t pushed aside as easily as it had once been. A feeling of danger that she couldn’t put her finger on.
“Dash, you’re growling.”
Dawn looked up at Dash, to realize he was doing just that as Cassie stepped out on the dance floor with one of the young men who had attended the house party with his parents.
“He’s twenty-five,” Dash snarled. “He drinks too much and he drives too fast. I read his file and he has no business dancing with her.”
Elizabeth snorted and rolled her eyes.
“He’s a good boy feeling his oats,” Seth countered. “I’ve known Benjamin since he was a child. She’s in safe hands.”
“As long as she doesn’t get in a car with him,” Dash snapped.
“It’s a small island, Dash,” Seth chuckled. “We don’t keep cars, only a few ATVs.”
As they talked, Dawn turned and watched the crowd again. She could still feel it, those eyes watching her, malevolent, filled with an evil promise.
She had felt those eyes before. Cowering in a cage, terrified. She was hungry and she was weak. The labs were too cold again. They did that when they wanted to punish the young Breeds. Put them in separate cages, naked, hungry, and let the air grow cold.
She could feel the cold around her. It settled in her bones and she had to force her teeth not to rattle. And she knew the eyes were watching. Watching all of them. The mirrors across the room weren’t mirrors, they were the eyes from hell.
She shuddered at the thought, blinking desperately as she tried to push it back. She didn’t want to remember the labs. She didn’t want to remember that scared, frightened child, and she sure as hell didn’t want to remember the horror of it.
She stared past the guests to the open French doors and the night beyond. She should be there, she thought. Watching for danger, sliding through the shadows, stalking the bastard that waited for her. She could feel the animal side of her wakening, stretching, preparing for battle.
“Dawn. Is everything okay?” She flinched as Elizabeth whispered the words close to her ear.
Dawn turned and met her friend’s concerned blue eyes. Elizabeth, like all Breed mates, seemed frozen in time. She hadn’t aged a day since Dash had mated with her, though she took the effort to fake a few lines here and there in her otherwise creamy, clear complexion.
“I’m fine.” She knew her smile was tight. “Why?”
“You were growling, sweetheart, and it wasn’t a sound I thought you would want Seth to hear.”
In other words, it was primal, angry. A warning to the enemy that she was coming, that he couldn’t avoid her. Her nails bit into her purse, the feel of her gun beneath them a comfort.
“Dawn, what’s out there?” Elizabeth asked as she turned back to the room, staring over the crowd, then back to the doors.
“The past,” she said softly, hoping she was right. “Just the past.”
She turned back to Elizabeth and inhaled deeply, aware of Seth turning to her, as though he had sensed her uneasiness, or the evil stalking them.
“You owe me a dance,” she told him, trying to tamp back the panic.
It was the effect of the memories moving in, she told herself. She had never felt this way, in ten years of training and missions, she had never known such primal, instinctive fear.
“And Dash owes me one,” Elizabeth drawled. “Maybe I can help take his mind off the fact that his little girl is growing up.”
Dash glowered helplessly back at her. He had the look of a man fighting that realization to its last breath.
“You know, dancing with you could be dangerous,” Seth told Dawn as he led her onto the ballroom floor and took her in his arms.
“Really?” She questioned him lightly. “Is that bow tempting you?”
He breathed out heavily as they began to move around the floor.
“I want to see you in nothing but the damned bow,” he growled. “It’s driving me crazy.”
Dawn felt a surge of heat rise inside her at the sound of his voice, the scent of his need. It hadn’t changed; every time was just as intense, just as searing, as the one before it.
As his arms tightened around her, moving her against him, Dawn pressed her head against his chest and tried to assure herself that everything would be fine. It was going to work out, she promised herself. They would find the assassin and Seth would be okay.
“You’re worrying too much.” He kissed the top of her head, the hand that pressed against her back holding her closer as they circled the dance floor. “Everything’s going to be fine, Dawn.”
“Of course it is.” She lifted her head and smiled, but inside she felt as though she were walking a tightrope.
“Come here. Let me hold you closer.” The deep murmur of his voice sent a shiver racing down her back. “You’re trembling, sweetheart. Are you cold?”
“Considering I’m barely wearing clothes?” She smiled at that. “I have a serious draft where there’s usually no draft, Seth.”
The heat intensified as a muttered groan left his throat. “You’re trying to kill me.”
The feel of his erection against her lower stomach, the scent of his need and the strength of his arms around her assured her Seth had little thought for anything but that draft and that bow beneath her dress.
“There’s a serious arising where there’s usually no arising in public too,” he growled, causing a hint of laughter to escape her.
She laughed with Seth. She could go years without laughing at Sanctuary. There had always seemed to be a veil between her and happiness. It always seemed to hover around her, but never touch her, until now.
Something inside her seemed freer, less contained, but she was terribly afraid that the loosening of emotion inside her was also the reason the memories were returning. Why the panic was building inside her.
She could still feel that amplified sense of being watched, being touched by evil. Her shoulders were tight with it, her skin crawled with it.
She looked out over the dance floor again, trying to make sense of it. They were far enough from the open doors that they couldn’t be seen—that couldn’t be it. No one appeared to be watching, except Jason Phelps. He looked as inebriated as ever, a smile on his face.
He looked like a weasel. And she didn’t like weasels.
Seth could feel the tension slowly building in the woman he held, and it made him want to hold her tighter. Because he knew. He had known what was coming the first time he took her to his bed.
She had held the memories back because she had never let go of that amazing control enough to give them a chance to slip free. There was no control in the passion they shared though. Not for him, and not for her.
It was like wildfire.
That, added to the stress of the mission she was involved in and the assassin no doubt still lying in wait, was too much for her.
He hadn’t just walked out of her life ten years before. He had consulted the best psychologists and psychiatrists in the world and discussed the situation. He’d needed to know what he was facing if he ignored Callan’s and Jonas’s request that he walk away from her.
He had stayed away because those professionals had warned him that under the right circumstances, those memories would definitely return.
As he held her close, their bodies swaying to the music, the heat of arousal, tenderness and some undefined something that had existed since their first touch wrapped around them.
He let his fingers press against her lower back, hoping to ease some of the tension. He pressed his lips to her shoulder and felt that little purr he loved so well.
He almost grinned as he thought of the smile Dawn had given Lillian Bartel. Whatever the other woman had said to her might not have set well
with her, but she knew how to be a lady.
Not that Seth didn’t intend to find out exactly what Lillian had said. The woman could be a bitch; everyone who knew her was aware of that.
Her husband, Craig, was a good man, enamored of his wife and accepting of her faults, but aware. He made apologies where they were needed and reined her in when he had to. She would learn, though, not to snipe at Dawn—he wouldn’t have it.
“This is nice,” she sighed, finally relaxing against him marginally as they seemed to exist in their own little world.
He was conscious of the other couples around them, many of them watching him. They were used to seeing him with Caroline. They had come to accept that Caroline would be around permanently. They were surprised, and in some cases shocked, to see him with the little bodyguard.
And he didn’t give a damn. Hell, he had known things wouldn’t work out with him and Caroline. This only confirmed it publicly.
As he looked around, he did grin. Dash and Elizabeth were across the room, and Dash appeared to be surrounded by female fury.
Elizabeth was glaring at him, and Cassie looked mortified.
“I think we should go rescue Dash,” he murmured, turning her until she could see the small group across the room.
“Hmm, I can smell Dash’s anger from here.” She stepped back, taking his hand as they started off the dance floor.
“Hey, Dawn. It’s my turn to dance.” A hand gripped her arm from behind, tried to pull her from Seth, and something inside her snapped.
She turned back with a snarl, barely holding back her violent reaction as she jerked her arm from the grasp, her flesh feeling blistered, dirty.
“Whoa!” Jason Phelps fell back, a look of surprise on his face as Seth quickly pulled her back against his hard body.
Other dancers were pausing now, watching, avid curiosity in their gazes.
“Don’t touch me again.” She leveled furious eyes on him, the animal inside her reacting with a ferocity she couldn’t understand. She could smell his blood, beating hard and fast in his veins, and she wanted to see it spilling to the floor.
“Dawn.” There was an edge of warning in Seth’s voice and it pissed her off.
“If you want him to have a dance, then you dance with him,” she hissed, pulling away from him and casting him an accusing glare.
He knew the mating heat. He knew the symptoms of it by now. A mated female couldn’t tolerate another male’s touch during those first weeks and months of the bonding.
Betrayal flashed through her as he watched her with a frown, and what she perceived as an edge of censure in his gaze.
“Excuse me,” she bit out between gritted teeth. “I think I’ll find a drink.”
“Hey, come on, gorgeous, I just wanted a dance.” Jason laughed. “I thought we were friends.” A male pout pursed his lips and it sickened her.
The mating heat was destroying her. Her nerves were strung as tight as a banjo string, and the animal inside her was clawing for freedom, almost a separate entity, attempting control.
“I don’t have friends,” she told him with deadly softness, making certain her voice carried no farther as rumor-greedy eyes tried to listen to the exchange. “I warned you of that before. Remember it.”
With one last furious look at Seth, she turned and moved across the ballroom as she motioned to Styx to cover Seth’s back. She couldn’t do it right now. Her emotions, her sense of balance were so compromised she felt almost outside her own flesh. As though her spirit were gliding alongside her body rather than within it. And before her inner eye Jason Phelps’s face flashed back at her. Shock, surprise But how could he be surprised? He would know…
She stopped and shook her head before turning slowly and staring back at him.
He couldn’t know about the mating heat, and he wouldn’t know about the reaction female mates had to touch from males other than their mates. A reaction the males were supposed to experience as well, but with female touch only.
Seth knew.
That’s why her reactions were so extreme, almost violent. He knew, and he had still attempted to curb her response as though—what? She was going to spill Breed secrets in the middle of his ballroom floor?
She shifted her gaze to Seth. Suddenly, the need for him swept over her. Her juices flooded her pussy, instantly dampened her panties and had her forcing back a growl as she turned once more and stalked to where Dash and his family stood.
“Dawn, get a handle on it,” Dash muttered as she stopped beside Cassie.
“Yeah,” Cassie murmured. “Make certain you’re the one that gets a handle on it. It’s not their responsibility to do so.”
Dawn blinked at Cassie. She was watching the dance floor, her eyes restless, her cheeks flushed. The scents coming from the other girl were contradictory. Fear and confusion, anticipation.
“Elizabeth.” Dash’s voice was warning, the voice of a man begging his wife to do something with his teenage progeny, since he sure as hell didn’t know what to do with her.
“Dawn, you’ve walked into a family feud,” Elizabeth sighed as Dawn watched Seth finish his discussion with Jason Phelps before heading back to her.
Her eyes narrowed on him, and she didn’t understand why she was so furious.
“Don’t worry, Elizabeth, I think it’s something in the water,” she snorted. “All the men are acting weird around this place.”
Cassie smothered a laugh, and when her blue eyes turned to Dawn, there was a sense of thankfulness in them. Her father was obviously stressing over all the male attention she was receiving, and responding to the scents of his daughter’s confusion and awakened womanhood. It had to be hard on him. Every day that Cassie lived was a miracle to them. She had a price on her head set by the Council scientists, a price that would fund a small nation.
“Dash.” Seth nodded at the other man as his fingers loosely circled Dawn’s wrist. “If you’ll excuse us, Dawn and I have a bit more circulating to do before the evening is over.”
She glared at him as he gave her a hard look. “Circulating?” she asked sweetly. “Is that another word for flirting with the pretty boys you invited? What, Seth, I didn’t perform as expected?”
He stopped, his expression surprised, angry as he stared down at her.
Dawn grimaced, knowing she had gone too far. Knowing and not certain why. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t know—”
“Don’t.” He shook his head wearily then. “No apologies needed, Dawn. We’ll just say good night to a few friends and then go to bed.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll work it out there. All right?”
She wanted to cry. She knew there should be tears, but her eyes were dry, painful from the need to shed the poison that seemed to be consuming her.
“I’m losing my mind, Seth,” she whispered. “I can feel it.”
“No, sweetheart, not your mind.” He sighed, his gaze heavy and filled with regret. “Just your control. And, sometimes, that’s almost worse.”
CHAPTER 20
The party waned in the early hours of the morning, and the house took on a heavy silence, almost as though it were waiting for some unforeseen event.
Or he was.
Seth lay beside his woman, his mate. That term should have been uncomfortable, yet it wasn’t.
She lay against his chest sleeping deeply, her breath light and easy against his chest as he held her and stared at the ceiling above her.
The dreams were there, he knew. He’d eased her from several of them, stroking her back gently until she lapsed into a more comfortable sleep.
He felt the heavy tension of the house in his heart, his soul. As though he were waiting on that final boom. For the storm to strike and wipe away everything that had come before it.
The cougar was an incredibly strong, adaptable creature. It roamed the high places, the deserts and forgotten cliffs, the forests and boundaries that man tried to impose. It survived
on its own rules, and Dawn had done the same.
She was as graceful as the cougar, as adaptable, as incredibly beautiful and dangerous as the creature she had been created from.
But even with that strength, he didn’t know if she could survive what he feared he had been the catalyst for.
He stroked her hair as she shifted restlessly in her sleep, a muttered growl, a sound that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck, coming from her throat.
Seth closed his eyes and fought the agony building inside him. He admitted he was terrified for her to remember that past, terrified of what it would do to the woman and to the future he could have with her.
He’d had her now. He’d stroked that incredibly body, felt her passion and her hunger and carried the primal mark she had never given to another man. He didn’t want to live his life without the woman who had given him those gifts. Hell, he couldn’t imagine life without her now. He hadn’t even realized how much she was a part of him until she stepped into his life and took her place in his soul. As though it had been waiting on her, and opened for her with an ease that amazed him.
“Oh God…Oh God…” The words whispered from her as he grimaced tightly and pulled her closer to him, stroking her back, his lips touching her forehead.
He couldn’t stop what was coming and he knew it, but his prayer echoed hers as she whispered the words.
She never called for God while awake. She never prayed; she avoided it with clear intensity. Because God hadn’t answered her prayers as a child. He hadn’t saved her from the rapes or the horror.
She didn’t see her rescue as salvation, because Dayan had moved so easily into position and begun his own campaign to destroy her. She didn’t see Dayan’s death as a salvation or as an answer to her childhood prayers.
She didn’t see the strength inside herself, that strength that went clear to her soul, as a gift from God. She believed the scientists and soldiers in those labs were right. That God didn’t create her, and He didn’t claim her. She believed she was without grace.
Grief welled inside him. It tightened his throat and his chest, and left him aching with a depth he hadn’t previously believed possible. He ached to the core of his being, a pain he feared would never ease or find relief unless Dawn did.
“…Save me…” The words whispered past her lips, and he knew, in a second, she would wake up.
He could feel her gathering for it, pushing herself back to consciousness to escape those shattered memories and the child determined to find acknowledgment.
She came awake with a hard jerk as he let his eyes close. He didn’t want her to feel shame, didn’t want her to have to fight back her emotions because she knew he watched. She shouldn’t have to see the knowledge in his eyes, the memories she fought in his gaze.
Because he knew what they had done to her as clearly as she did. Dayan had forced her to watch the disc, and Seth had forced himself to watch those images in that office where Jonas and Callan had turned their backs on them.
He felt her rise, felt her move from their bed and slowly dress in the uniform she kept lying on the padded stool.
She wouldn’t leave the house; he was confident of that. She needed to run, to hunt, but she wouldn’t leave his security, his protection, long enough to do so.
The knowledge that she restrained herself for him in such a way was a grim reminder of the life she had led and the discipline she imposed on herself.
He lay still and listened to her finish dressing then leave the bedroom. She left the door open into the sitting room. A second later he heard her muted conversation with the Breed guard outside the door, then the door closed and he was alone.
He waited. She would need time. A little bit of time before he followed her. A chance to breathe and to find her balance. He understood the nightmares well.
He gave her half an hour. She wasn’t getting any more than that. The fact that he was able to lie there, to force himself to patience, was a testament to his control, not his patience.
Seth rose from the bed and breathed a weary sigh before dressing himself. He chose jeans and a T-shirt and tied leather running shoes on his feet before leaving the bedroom.
The guard came to attention as he opened the door, his amber eyes somber as Seth stepped outside.
Mercury’s expression was grim as Seth watched him for a long, silent moment.
“Where did she go?” he finally asked.
Mercury ran a broad hand around the back of his neck, rubbing at it in indecision.
“I won’t ask again,” he stated. He would simply go looking for her himself.
“Exercise room,” Mercury finally growled. “Let her work it out, Lawrence. She doesn’t need you down there.”
Seth tightened his jaw as anger lashed inside him.
“So who does she need down there with her, Mercury?” He asked sarcastically. “The ghosts she carries with her and nothing more?”
Mercury grunted at that. “The Breed whose gonna get his ass kicked. You don’t want to play that role tonight.”
Because the rage building in her was growing, and Seth knew it. It was lashing at her emotions and her control, and the only way Dawn knew how to fight it was by lashing out at something else.
“If you warn her that I’m headed down there, then I’ll kick your ass,” Seth told him, ignoring the Breed’s look of disbelief. “She doesn’t just need a fight, Mercury, she needs me as well. Deal with that however you need to, but keep your mouth shut.”
He didn’t wait on a reply but started down the hall, heading for the basement level where the gym room was housed. One wide section had been partitioned off for hand-to-hand combat practice. It was an exercise Seth often participated in with the bodyguards Sanctuary provided for him.
The house was silent, shadowed and dim. Even the household staff was in bed by now, having cleaned up quickly after the party and prepared the rooms for the next day.
Pushing open the door into the basement level, he could hear the sounds of combat coming from behind the netted screens at the other side of the room.
Shadows twisted behind the partition, blocked and struck as feral growls erupted and the sound of a male grunt could be heard.