Dawn’s Awakening (24 page)

Carrington wasn’t impressed.

“Mark my words, Seth.” His finger pointed imperiously toward Seth. “You’ll regret this, even more than you will otherwise. I’ll block you. Codicil or not, you won’t do this.”

Seth straightened arrogantly, staring down his aristocratic nose, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

“That codicil holds other clauses as well, Carrington. I suggest you and your lawyer go over them closely before you threaten me further. My father may have been ill-advised in his backing of the Council before we learned what it was. But we know now, and he ensured, when he sold the shares to the company and before his death, that nothing interfered with what I needed to do to protect his family and future grandchildren. Don’t underestimate my determination to do just that.” No one could underestimate the determination and the steel will behind his voice.

Children. Dawn refrained from placing her hand against her stomach. The hormonal treatments she had been receiving for years would block any pregnancy…perhaps.

She focused on Carrington instead and scented the indecision and the banked fury brewing inside him. He was greedy, but the anger he felt over the dissolution of Seth’s and his daughter’s relationship was more than apparent and it was swaying his decision to back Seth.

The frustration was evident in Carrington’s eyes, and in his face. His gaze flicked to Dawn then, and she saw hatred. Pure, malicious hatred. This man would have known what the Council was, who and what he was backing. And he despised the benefits now going to the Breeds, the creations he felt should have willingly given their blood and their dignity to the monsters that created them.

She hated him right back. But she didn’t have to like him, and she didn’t have to deal with him. Seth did. And as long as she was standing at Seth’s side, Carrington would never back down.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, and I’ll let you talk.” She ignored the tightening of Seth’s hand at her hip and moved away without rushing, without showing regret. Though she regretted.

She regretted losing the warmth of his body, the stroke of his heat along her flesh. It eased the need building inside her and calmed the animal that fed her hunger.

Seth watched as she walked away, her back straight, her shoulders stiff as she moved toward the hall. She would be close; he knew she wouldn’t go far. But that didn’t ease the need to touch her, to hold her.

He turned back to Carrington, staring at him coldly.

“Insult her again, and I’ll force the sale of your shares,” he kept his voice low, though he didn’t give a damn who heard what he had to say.

He watched the sweat pop out on Carrington’s forehead, a clear indication that the other man was becoming increasingly concerned. Let him worry. Let him twist in his bed at night worrying about future profits. Seth twisted mentally every fucking night, remembering what the Council had done to Dawn, remembering and hating the bastards for every second of pain they had put her through as a child.

“This has nothing to do with business,” Carrington snapped. “Weren’t you the one that warned me to keep it separate?”

Seth stepped closer. “Do you have a soul, Carrington?” He growled. “Let’s see if you have one. Go back into that room.” He pointed to the meeting room. “Reload those discs and watch them. Watch them and know they’re the truth. Imagine the lash of those whips on your own flesh as a child. A fucking baby, too young to defend yourself. And imagine the discs you didn’t see in there. The ones where they raped children to death.” He clenched his fists at his sides to keep from using them on the other man. “Imagine your child, your precious Caroline, staring back at a camera in death, as every atrocity that could be committed against her young body was committed.” Rage was burning inside him.

Before Seth could stop himself, before he could contain the brutal talon-sharp fury tearing at his mind, he gripped the sides of Carrington’s jacket and jerked him close, nose to nose, and let him see the murderous emotions burning inside him.

“Do you have a soul, you spineless little fucker, or are you just as fucking demented as those bastards you helped fund for all those years?”

Carrington lost all color in his face. He stared back at Seth, horrified.

“They didn’t show you those babies they raped, did they, Carrington?” he snarled brutally. “All those years they sent reports to those certain few who fully backed them, they never showed those poor, pitiful, bloodstained bodies. But you know what? Those that survived? Some of them were made available to the monsters that backed them. Were you one of them?”

Carrington was shaking his head, slowly, almost shocked. “That was propaganda,” he wheezed. “The Breeds, they lied.”

Seth threw him back. “Is that how you salve your conscience?” he bit out, then stared at the incredulous expressions of the board members watching the scene. “Is that what the Council and their fucking puppets cutting my throat with you are telling you? Propaganda? Let me tell you propaganda. Let me tell you how they fucking destroyed babies.” His expression contorted, the images of what they had done to his Dawn, his woman, flashing through his mind. “How many of you paid for the privilege of helping? By God, let me find out one of you, just one of you, did, and I’ll destroy you. Pray to God, get on your knees and beg him not to let me find out any of you were involved so deeply, or I promise you, hell hath no fury like that which I’ll visit on you. Every last fucking one of you who dared.”

“They proved those discs were false.” Carrington was still shaking his head. “The Breeds did that themselves. They proved it. The Breeds don’t disprove it. They refuse to address it.”

“Tell you what, let some bastard rape your daughter until she’s mindless with the pain. Until her blood is flowing from her body and her eyes turn glassy, and see how many of your good buddies you want to see it, Carrington.” His chest was tight, his rage thundering through him. “Any of you. Those who survived, do you think they want you to see their pain? Do you think they care at this point what men like you believe? Those who supported those fucking monsters? Fuck you. Every damned one of you. Negotiations are off. My lawyers will contact yours next week. I don’t negotiate with pedophiles or those who defend them. Get the fuck off my island.”

He turned and stalked from the group, his body vibrating with a killing rage as Dawn stepped from the hall and stood watching him, her eyes dark with pain, her face pale. And concerned.

She glanced back at the board members, and for a moment, just a moment, he thought tears glittered in her eyes before she blinked them back.

“Seth, wait.” Dane was behind him. He caught Seth’s arm and pulled him to a stop as Seth reached Dawn.

“Back off, Dane.” He jerked his arm out of the other man’s grip and turned again.

“Let me talk to them now, Seth,” Dane hissed softly. “Listen to me, you have them scared now, let me pull them in. We’d have no fight if we strike now.”

“Listen to him, Seth.” Dawn dug her heels in, her voice soft but resonating with pain. “Don’t go to war unless you have to.”

He paused, his body vibrating with the need for just that. War. All but a few of those board members had personally supported the Genetics Council over the years. A few he knew would never turn against them, but if they could get a majority, if they pulled in the right vote, then those few would have no choice but to follow them.

“I won’t back down.” He felt murderous. He wanted to tear the bastards apart, he wanted to go back, he wanted to wipe out every fucking scientist and soldier who had dared to touch Dawn or any other child in their care.

“Let me mediate this point,” Dane urged him again. “Let me work them now that you have them running scared. This, my friend, is what I’m good at.”

Seth nodded sharply. “No negotiations, Dane. Negotiating is over. I want the full concessions that I asked for. Period. Or they can get fucked.”

With that, he pulled Dawn closer and moved her toward their room. He didn’t want them to look at her, he didn’t want them to see her or to breathe her air. They were an insult to her presence, an insult to every child breathing, Breed or not.

Dawn was his. His woman. His breath. He hadn’t realized that until she came to him. He hadn’t realized how long he had waited, how hard he had hoped that she would come to him. He’d be damned if he would back down an inch now. Dawn and her people weren’t the only ones depending on him. The children he would have with her needed him to stand for them now. If he didn’t, who would stand for them later?

Dane watched Seth and his mate disappear around the corner of the hall. He pushed his fingers through his hair and glanced back at the board members watching him in concern as he appeared undecided.

Appeared, as he wasn’t in the least undecided. He had expected this to happen, he had planned for it. Anyone with an ear to the ground where the Breeds were concerned knew that Dawn was Seth’s mate. Especially anyone with Dane’s senses. Breed senses, senses made stronger by the human blood that flowed through his veins.

Dane was the worst sort of predator. He preyed on the emotional weaknesses of his enemies. Their greed. Their lust for power. He preyed upon it, helped to weaken it, then built it back as he needed it. He needed these men in place, but not at the risk of destroying the Breeds they benefited.

Exhaling roughly, he played the part of concerned businessman and reluctant mediator. That role he knew very well.

Rye, Ryan Desalvo, his bodyguard and friend, met him halfway.

Dane lowered his head to Rye’s ear. “Bring the discs.”

He felt Rye tense. “Seth will cut your heart out.”

“And dine on it for dinner, I’m certain,” Dane drawled. “Bring the discs.”

They had brought the discs as insurance, just in case. Just in case this happened. Just in case the votes needed didn’t appear forthcoming. Because the majority of those men didn’t know the true scope of the atrocities the Council had committed, and they clung to the hope that it was indeed Breed propaganda that claimed it had happened.

As in so many events in the past, those of evil and malicious intent twisted the truth to suit their own purposes. The discs and images of the true scope of cruelties committed against Breed females were hidden, for the most part, within the Breed strongholds. But Seth was an enterprising chap. He’d found many of them. And they were needed now.

Lawrence Industries and Vanderale Industries were the Breeds’ major supporters. If they fell, so many others would fall as well.

As Rye moved along the hallway, turned and headed for their rooms, Dane moved back to the board members.

“He’s surely not serious,” said Brian Phelps, owner and CEO of a large import/export business that Lawrence had taken under their wing and refinanced. Phelps had been given a seat on the board, while the import/export business had become a part of Lawrence Industries at a drastically reduced amount.

“I believe he may be,” Dane admitted with a sigh. “Let’s reconvene, gentlemen, and see what we can do to draw Seth back to the table.” He glanced back in the direction Seth had gone as though worried, when in fact he was damned near gleeful that Seth had finally pushed the board members to resolve this. Now they would learn who their allies were and who was backed by the Council.

Seth had been serious, and the members of the board had seen it. Seth rarely became upset; he never walked away from negotiations, preferring to fight them out instead. Dane remembered the year of hell that he had worked to get on this board. Drawing Seth in had been nearly impossible. The other man had made him sweat, and it hadn’t been pleasant.

“Let him enact the codicil,” Theodore Valere, the member that worried Dane the most, inserted arrogantly, and too smugly.

Valere owned the majority of Spain’s pharmaceutical companies; unfortunately, he had made the supreme mistake of allowing his brother a large share of those companies. The brother had sold them to Aaron Lawrence when Valere refused to bail him out of a rather large gambling debt.

Hence the reason Valere was on the board to begin with. He couldn’t take the shares back; all he could do was give his input or vote on how the majority profits of Lawrence Industries were used. And then only if Aaron or Seth were willing to negotiate. The codicil to the major shareholder agreement was completely legal and enforceable.

“Theodore, if Seth enacts that codicil, we could all be shitting with our thumbs up our arses the next time we’ve a problem facing our own companies.”

“It’s not as though it will affect Vanderale. Lawrence Industries is no more than a pet project of yours, Dane, admit it,” Carrington snapped. “The holding Lawrence bought from you was in no way attached to Vanderale.”

“Father can be a shade possessive of his holdings.” Dane sighed as though he were the reckless playboy he was perceived to be. “He’s going to expect results from me here, and he does have a soft spot for the Breeds. Disappointing him here would not be in my best interests.”

Or those of the others. The world was no longer such a small place and Vanderale Industries had always had its sights toward that. It had a finger in many pies, just as Lawrence Industries did. Many of those pies were now staring back at Dane, sweating, uncertain if they should stand their ground or allow Seth’s measures to continue to back the Breeds.

Backing Sanctuary and Haven was a smart business decision, as Dane well knew. Callan Lyons and the Wolf Breed leader, Wolf Gunnar, were excellent leaders and strategists. They would lead the Breeds into a future that would one day see them not just secure, but completely profitable and self-supporting.

“Ah, here’s Rye,” Dane murmured then and glanced back at the board members. Yes, the members of Seth’s board of directors were about to receive a very rude awakening. “A few discs I’ve managed to attain myself from some very greedy Council soldiers. Should we go view them?” He extended his arm to the meeting room as the others watched him with almost fearful curiosity.

Valere was quiet, but in his black eyes Dane glimpsed the evil that he could smell hovering over the man like decayed flesh.