Dawn’s Awakening (6 page)

Sherra had been stronger though. She’d had the memories of her mate, Kane, to hold on to. Dawn had only the nightmares that Dayan had preyed upon. And the fear.

“I didn’t know what he was doing to me,” she finally whispered, lifting her head, feeling the shame that filled her as Callan’s amber eyes darkened painfully. “The Council taught him well, Callan. That wasn’t your fault. You can’t take the blame for what he did anymore.”

For how Dayan had maneuvered the men of the pride, how he had built upon her and Sherra’s fears. Sherra had her memories though; Dawn had somehow managed to repress hers, and nothing she did now revealed them.

“He didn’t rape me, Callan,” she whispered.

“Yes, he did,” he said heavily. “He raped your mind, Dawn. If I could kill him daily for the rest of my life, I would. I’d make him suffer as he never could have imagined.”

Dayan had been his pride brother. Callan had risked his life for all of them, gave his life for them in the years he had protected them. All of them. And Dayan had betrayed him at every turn.

“It doesn’t matter.” She drew in a hard, deep breath. “The heli-jet’s waiting on me. I have to go.”

“Dawn.” His voice sharpened, stopping her as she moved to jerk the duffel from her bed.

“What, Callan?” she snapped back. “What more do you want me to say?”

“He’s going to want more from you than that part of you that refuses to let him go,” he warned her harshly. “Do you understand me? Seth isn’t a monk. He won’t take vows of celibacy for you. And running to him, restarting the mating process without the clear intention of sleeping with that man is wrong. I have half a mind to order you to stay here.” He pushed his hands through his hair in frustration. “Dammit, he doesn’t deserve this any more than you do.”

“He’s mine!” The cry ripped from her throat.

“And he will demand your presence in his bed,” he snarled. “I’m a mate, Dawn, I know what the mating heat does to a man. And God’s truth, I would have committed suicide rather than do to my mate what Seth knows he’s going to do to you. Let him go.”

“Is this why you’re here?” She felt her face contort in pain, her chest tighten with it, as she waved her hand at him in agitation. “To order me away from him?”

“He’s making a life for himself. A chance to be a man, Dawn. A husband. A father.”

She froze as she read the truth in his eyes.

“He has a lover.” Her throat felt closed off, as though she were strangling on her own pain and rage.

Oh God, he was touching another woman? Sleeping with her? Holding her.

“Dawn—”

She jerked her hands up, shaking, the pain rising inside her until she was surprised it didn’t bring her to her knees, didn’t send her into an agony so intense she was screaming from it.

Her flesh, every cell in her body, was raging in denial. It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen. He was her mate.

“He intends to announce his engagement during the gathering at Lawrence Island,” he told her softly. “He didn’t want to hurt you. He didn’t want to make this painful for you, Dawn. I want you to stay here. I want you to let him go.”

Callan stepped back slowly at the expression that contorted Dawn’s face, and the furious, inhuman growl that left her throat. She was shaking. He could see the muscles in her upper arms and chest twitching beneath the skin. Her upper lip curled back at one corner to flash those small, delicate canines.

Everything about Dawn was delicate, except the rage and pain that he saw flashing in her eyes, in her expression. Tears gathered and fell down her cheeks, and he stared at the sight in awe. Dawn had never cried. From the night he had carried her from the labs, to this second, Dawn had never shed a tear.

But two eased slowly down her cheeks now and he doubted she even realized it.

He could see the sense of betrayal she felt, and the agony. He knew himself as Merinus’s mate—if he ever realized the mating had reversed and she longed for another, he would have shed blood. His and the man who held his mate’s heart. It would be too much to be borne. And it was because of this that he and Jonas had decided to wait until Seth left to tell her what they had learned. What Seth hadn’t told them until he learned Dawn would be on Lawrence Island.

As he watched, her expression stilled, froze, and he expected her to do as she had always done. Go hunting. Go chasing explosives in caves or council soldiers somewhere else. He didn’t expect what came.

“My mate,” she said coldly. “He might have a lover now, but he won’t have one for long.”

She jerked her duffel bag from the bed.

“And if he loves her, Dawn? What then? Do you love Seth enough to let him go? Or just enough to make both of you miserable?”

She paused, her back to him, the muscles jumping beneath the skin.

“Would you walk away?” she asked. “Could you?”

He debated lying to her. She sounded lost, lonely, more so than he believed he had ever heard in her voice. She deserved nothing less than the truth.

Callan sighed wearily. “If Merinus had suffered the hell you’ve suffered, I wouldn’t have a choice. Her happiness would mean more to me than the knowledge that I could claim her without giving her the benefits of that claiming.”

“He’s mine,” she whispered again and he heard the tears he knew she was now hiding from him.

Her voice was ripping his heart in half though. God, she was the baby of their family, the one most abused, the one he had wanted to shelter the most. She was more to him than a sister, nearly as dear to him as his own son. And the broken, agonized sound of her voice made him plead to God to ease her path, because he knew she wouldn’t.

“Dawn. He deserves more than a claiming,” he said gently, hating Seth Lawrence now more than he had ever hated him, for the pain Dawn suffered over him. But the man deserved more, just as Dawn did. Unfortunately, Callan feared Dawn would break rather than accept the memories she hid from.

“He started it,” she cried out, and the sound of her voice was painful to hear. “He touched when he was warned not to. He touched when I whispered the risks to him. He touched me…” Her voice broke. “Now he can suffer as well, by God. Because I’ll be damned if another woman will steal what’s mine.”

She jerked the strap of the duffel over her shoulder and strode from the room. The little warrior, that was how he always thought of her. Dressed in her uniform, too delicate to do the things he knew she did. She fought full-grown Breed males and she could put a hurting on them. She faced explosives and Council soldiers and drew blood with a sneer. But she couldn’t face her own past.

He lowered his head and shook it before moving from the room and entering the hall. There he saw Jonas, standing silent and solemn as he watched the stairs Dawn had disappeared down.

The other man sighed heavily, ran his hands over his short black hair and shook his head as though weariness had settled over him.

“Call Dash,” Callan ordered the other man. “I don’t want this getting out of control.”

“I should have killed Lawrence ten years ago,” Jonas bit out. “I nearly did. I had him in my sights and had my finger on the trigger. I could have saved her from this. I wanted to save her from this.”

Callan felt a chill race up his back. He knew Jonas could be cold, efficient, and took the preservation of the Breed society as a whole with exacting seriousness. Seeing it though, hearing him speak so easily of killing an innocent man, grated on Callan’s sense of honor.

Jonas looked at him and smiled mockingly. “You would have never known, and neither would she. But she wouldn’t be suffering now. And neither would you.”

With that, Jonas followed behind Dawn as he jerked his sat-phone from the clip at his hip and contacted Dash.

Callan stood where he was, feeling Merinus near him, then feeling her arms sliding around his waist, her head settling comfortingly against his back.

“I can’t save her this time.” His voice was rough, husky with the knowledge that Dawn had to save herself now.

“She’s grown, Callan.” Her hands tightened against his stomach, holding him close to her. “Let her do what she has to. She’ll never forgive you otherwise.”

He turned to her slowly. “How do I forgive myself if she fails?”

Merinus’s lips trembled as she reached up and cupped his jaw. “You won’t,” she admitted. “But you’ll know you did all you could to protect her. Everything you could, Callan. A man can’t ask any more of himself than that.”

A man couldn’t ask more of himself than his own honesty, honor and pride.

Seth stood on the upper balcony of the two-story, sprawling mansion situated in the middle of Lawrence Island, just off the California coast, and stared into the ocean of blue that surrounded them.

He was a man who had everything other men wanted, but the core of sadness that had cemented inside his soul never abated. The mating heat had gone away; the torturous arousal for a woman he couldn’t have was no longer like a cancer growing inside him. But a man didn’t stop loving with the same ease. And Seth had never stopped.

Ten years was a long time to grieve over the loss of one woman. A long time to obsess over the things he couldn’t have. Though, he admitted, she had grown in those ten years. She hadn’t been timid during that meeting at Sanctuary. She had been strong—a smart-ass, but strong. And it had turned him on. Even without the mating heat, with nothing abnormal or preternatural, he had been so fucking hot for her he’d nearly melted his chair.

But those shadows were still in her eyes, and there was still a hint of fear there. And she was still the one woman he couldn’t have. All he had now was this and, maybe, the hope of someone to leave it to later. A child perhaps rather than a fucking board of directors.

The island was lushly vegetated, private and fairly large. Cliffs fell into the ocean from the north, while the southern edge was a tropical paradise ringed by white sand beaches.

Helicopters were landing on the eastern edge, along the helipads, and the additional house servants were collecting the guests in four-wheel-drive all-terrains, which would negotiate the rough roads to the house.

Except for once every two years, Lawrence Island was a retreat rather than an entertainment center. Then, every two years, each room in the mansion and outer guest buildings was filled.

They were filling up now, even as he watched. The pool behind the house was already in use, the billiards and cinema center being prepared for the arrival of the families of the board members, as well as the guests invited to enjoy the island.

His father had begun the tradition of inviting more than just board members to the island during the meetings, and it was one Seth knew he wouldn’t keep up long. He was already looking at scheduling the next meeting at the home offices of Lawrence Industries in New York City rather than using the island any longer.

He leaned his arms against the smooth railing that ran the length of the upper story, clasped his hands and watched as the Breed heli-jet settled on the private helipad closer to the house.

Dash Sinclair and his family were arriving. He watched as Cassie climbed out behind her father, the waist-length trails of thick curls whipping in the wind as she stared up at the house.

He couldn’t see her expression, but he knew she was staring directly back at him. Next came Elizabeth. Seth knew the Breed had left his young son at Sanctuary, his preferred location for the protection of his children when needed. He couldn’t understand why he had brought his daughter.

He wiped a hand over his face and fought back the regret that burned through his mind like wildfire. Dawn could have been here, where he had dreamed of seeing her over the years. She could have filled his mansion with her spirit, and her haunted sadness.

Fuck. Ten years.

He stared out at the ocean again, the blue so intense it almost hurt the eyes, and imagined her there with him as he had a thousand times over. By his side. In his bed. Sharing his life and his passion. That had been his dream, his hope, and it had followed him even after those horrifying minutes that he had stood and watched the graphic, nightmarish proof of the life she had led in those labs.

Which was one of the reasons the board members were now bucking the amount of time and money Seth was putting into Sanctuary and the fight against the supremacist groups rising against them. Because of what he had seen. Because of what he had lost.

He moved a hand to his chest and rubbed at it absently. Right there over his heart, where the ache centered. Where he couldn’t forget the years he had spent so tied to her that his flesh had crawled with the need for her touch.

“Darling, your guests are arriving. We should greet them.”

He didn’t tense when Caroline moved to him and pressed her barely covered breasts against his back, her arms snaking around his waist and burrowing beneath the loose white cotton shirt he wore.

His flesh no longer crawled at another woman’s touch, and he no longer stalked away, unable to draw so much as an ounce of interest in a sexual relationship with another woman.

In ten years he hadn’t aged, but the other effects of the mysterious mating heat had slowly worn away with the absence of the woman who had initiated it.

Caroline was but one woman among many that he had taken to his bed in the past years. Someone to warm the nights, to spend the excessive sexual release he needed more often than he had before meeting Dawn.

He was considering a more permanent relationship with her. He had given himself these two weeks as his deadline to make that decision.

She was young enough to have children, was socially adept, and would be an asset among his business contacts. If he could only force himself to actually spend a full night in her bed rather than just a few hours.

He moved from her touch, placing several inches between them, unconsciously drawing away from her even as he caught himself.

And she noticed it as well. She always noticed it. Her lips tightened in anger, and rather than deal with the tantrum he could feel brewing, he placed his hand at the small of her back and led her toward the outside staircase to the first floor.