Dawn’s Awakening (16 page)

“Civilian forces are fascinated with the female Breeds. Hopefully, these will be too. Let’s not show how slick our women are if we can get by with it.”

Dawn’s lips almost twitched in amusement. Even the Council had never known what they had created when they stepped into creating the female Breeds. The females’ delicate builds, at times preternatural beauty, and air of delicacy had been a disappointment in the labs. The females were naturally cunning though, in ways the males weren’t. Instinct had perfected that ability.

So few of the females had survived though. The males numbered in the hundreds, the females only a few dozen. But those who had survived were more dangerous than even the male Breeds wanted to admit. And were filled with such fury, such hatred, that even Sanctuary worried about their survival.

Like Dawn, the torture the females had endured had scarred them psychologically in ways the males hadn’t been. It had created killers that even the Breed Cabinet didn’t understand, in ways that the females never shared with any but their own kind.

Like the Lionesses Dawn had commanded at Sanctuary. They had formed groups. They hunted in groups and they killed with deadly efficiency.

Women were supposed to be the gentler sex, but the Council had ensured that all the gentleness was raped, maimed and tortured out of their females before they ever reached maturity.

It was another secret the Breed community kept closely guarded. They kept their females as tightly within the compound as possible, protected them when they no longer needed protection, and fought to preserve the belief in the civilian population that their females were no more dangerous than any civilian-trained female.

There were times it was laughable. Because the females that had come from those labs were more feral than any human woman Dawn had ever encountered.

She played her role. She stood back, watched the men and few women investigating and used shy looks and a soft voice. She fooled the men, but she knew the women suspected. Instinct to instinct, she felt that connection and let it pass.

Her demeanor and unthreatening air allowed her and Dash to negotiate for information and concessions. What they wouldn’t give Dash, they were more willing to agree to with her.

As she worked, she was aware of Seth watching her, his eyes narrowed on her and the scent of his arousal and his jealousy flowing around her. He didn’t like seeing her in the midst of these men, working their ignorance and their superiority. And that was too damned bad. Because this was his life. If it wasn’t, she would have left Dash to deal with the species-superior bastards who stank of their prejudice and their hatred.

They didn’t care why Breyer had been murdered. As one of the detectives stated, “Play with fire and someone will try to burn you.”

Seth was playing with the Breeds, and evidently that was reason enough to die in the eyes of these men.

By the time the body had been bagged, the evidence collected and the statements taken, the sun was rising over the island and the guests were wandering slowly to their beds.

Dawn stood beneath the shelter just past the heli-pad the authorities had used to land, and she watched their heli-jets lift slowly into the air, bank and head back to the mainland with the body and Breyer’s family.

“They’ve been corrupted by the Council.” Mercury stepped from the darker shadows of the small radar and control room used to bring the jets in.

Dawn nodded slowly. She had sensed it more strongly in the head investigator. Whoever had planned this already had their cards in place and was waiting for that winning hand.

Mercury leaned against the doorway of the electronic room, his gaze narrowed on the rising sun, the savagely hewn, lionlike features tight with disgust. “Makes a Breed want to go hunting.”

Dawn watched him carefully, seeing the glitter of death in his dark eyes. “You’ve been around Jonas too long.” She sighed.

And he grinned with a flash of savage, sharp canines. “Maybe Jonas has been around me too long.”

Shaking her head, Dawn moved from the heli-pad and strode across the cement walk that led back to the main estate grounds. She was careful to stay in the shadows or within the lush patches of vegetation that afforded cool comfort beneath the heated rays of the sun.

She watched the area closely, her senses reaching out—sight, smell, instinct. She sensed something, but couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t get a scent or hear anything to place with it.

She paused next to one of the low-branched sheltering trees and watched closely, cautiously. Was it the heat making her feel off balance? Making her feel as though she were too easy to see and someone or something was curious? Perhaps dangerous?

She narrowed her gaze and swept it over the areas where an assassin or sharpshooter could be hiding with a line of sight. She couldn’t sense anything, couldn’t feel anything moving but the breeze.

But she could feel the heat. She could feel the swollen folds between her thighs, her clit throbbing, her juices building once again around the sensitive little bud.

Her nipples were so tight and hard they were painful beneath the soft cotton of her tank top. They rasped against her bra and sent a shiver racing over her flesh at the remembered feel of Seth’s mouth devouring them.

She shook her head and moved quickly back to the house, keeping low and within shelter, watching her back even though she wasn’t certain there was anything there. And all the while her flesh ached for Seth’s touch, for the man she was certain didn’t really want her, despite the lust tearing through him.

He had never loved her, she thought sadly. Otherwise, the heat wouldn’t have receded from him, and he could have never taken another woman.

She shook her head at another pang of betrayal and couldn’t manage even to work up the anger against it. But as she stepped into the house, she couldn’t help the sense of complete and total isolation that swept through her. Her mate wasn’t really her mate, and the brother she had loved so dearly had betrayed her in ways she couldn’t comprehend.

She could understand Seth’s reaction to the renewed heat, and even his inability to love her. But Callan—she couldn’t accept what Callan and Jonas had done. And accepting that Seth had seen that disc and walked away had been one of the hardest things she had ever done.

He had walked away when he should have fought for her. She would have fought for him. Through hell or high water, Coyotes or a brigade of Council soldiers, she would have fought for him. Just as she was fighting for him now.

She was unaware of the fragile, broken sound of pain that left her lips at that thought. But there was someone that heard the sound as it drifted along the breeze. Eyes narrowed, lips tightened.

As she moved into the house, he lowered the gun sight and blew out a silent breath, too soft for even the earth itself to feel.

If he wasn’t watching, waiting, if he wasn’t the shadow drifting around the Lawrence Estate, he would have shaken his head at the sound of the broken child. It was a sound he had heard many times, and it still had the power to effect him.

As he watched, a lone figure stepped out from an upper room. Dressed in snug jeans, her cropped shirt conforming to full young breasts, her flat belly glistening in the morning light as long, pitch black curls whipped in the wind.

Her scent carried to him, and his eyes narrowed. She was and yet she wasn’t. The fabled half-breed, sought after by every Council scientist in existence and rumored to be psychic. The bounty on her head was horrifically high. A man could live three lifetimes on the money to be had in securing this one, tiny young woman.

And she was tiny. Fragile in appearance, but he sensed the strength in her, the steel core of determination and stubborn resolve that filled her.

And he felt something more. He felt the dark sensual side of his nature as it gave a curious, heated stretch.

And she was staring right at him. Dark brows were creased into a frown, her lips parting as something akin to fear flashed across her expression.

And a muted cry slipped past her lips. One of fear.

A second later, Dash Sinclair whipped past the doorway, his large body blocking sight of her as he swept her against his chest, sheltered her and rushed her back into the house.

He tilted his head and watched curiously. There were many players here, many targets with bounties on their heads higher than the income of some nations. All in one place.

He smiled, a tight, hard smile that kept his canines hidden, kept the sun from flashing against them. He sniffed the breeze and closed his eyes at the smell of sweetness, of innocence only subtly marred by feminine fear.

That girl had every right to feel fear. She was marked as no other Breed in existence was marked. Sought after, searched for, the bounty paid only if she was delivered alive and with her virginity intact.

She was a weakness he was surprised other Breeds hadn’t already disposed of. Of course it was said her father, Dash Sinclair, protected her ruthlessly.

Interesting. Very interesting, he thought. And intriguing.

He couldn’t afford to be intrigued at the moment.

He placed his eye against the site of his weapon once again and resumed his scan. His target was here; he just had to find him.

Dawn stepped back into the house and tried to shake off the vague, discomfited feeling she couldn’t make sense of. Only to have it return tenfold as the refrigerator door closed and Jason Phelps grinned at her from across the room.

“Things are getting bloody around here.” He snapped open the top of a beer. “Uncle Brian, one of Seth’s board members, is having an aneurysm over old man Breyer’s death. Can’t figure out what the hell he was doing in Lawrence’s suite.”

Dawn’s eyes narrowed at the certainty that he was fishing for information from the dumb little female Breed. Her hand rested on the grip of her weapon within its holster.

“I’m sure we’ll find out,” she told him. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Why don’t you like me?” He lifted the beer and took a long drink.

Dawn watched his throat convulse as he swallowed, and she had to shake away the need to see blood there. The heat was affecting her mind, there was no doubt. She had never felt so bloodthirsty, so close to violence.

“I don’t dislike you, Mr. Phelps.” She disliked most men. It was a part of her, as natural now as the color of her hair and eyes. It couldn’t be changed, only temporarily hidden.

“I wish you liked me.” He shook his head as a charming male pout crossed his lips. But it was his eyes she watched, not that there was anything different about his eyes. A little bloodshot, a little amused.

He stank of too much drink, and little else.

“I don’t know you.” She smiled tightly. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to return upstairs. I still have things to do today.”

“Yeah, none of us got much sleep last night.” The tentative friendliness in his voice and demeanor didn’t sway her in the least.

“Hopefully we will this morning.” She nodded again and left the room before he could delay her any longer. But her hand stayed on her weapon, and her senses stayed alert. Until she hit the upper floor and scented Seth’s lust.

CHAPTER 10

Cassie stared at Seth Lawrence as he stood talking to her father, her senses gathering the information she needed, processing it as she tried not to watch the pitiful shadow of the child hiding in the corner of the room. That ghost of what was dying inside Dawn. If the child was lost then Dawn would be lost as well.

She was still shaking from whatever she had sensed outside, just before Seth’s arrival. She had been drawn to the balcony, some sense, some awareness pulling her outside though she knew better than to go there. She wasn’t a stupid little girl, and she wasn’t ignorant of the danger to her life at every moment.

But something had been out there. Something she was certain she couldn’t miss. But she had felt…scared. Not in danger, but frightened on a level she didn’t understand. So frightened a cry had come unbidden from her lips and drawn her father’s attention.

She gave herself a mental shake and focused on Seth again. He hadn’t taken Dawn. She had marked him. The mark was prominently displayed at the bottom of his neck, the little wound clearly Breed-made. The scent of the marking filled the room, the scent of Seth and Dawn, though the two hadn’t mingled yet to form that unique smell that combined the two mates and changed them forever.

She frowned at that knowledge. Dawn would start remembering soon. Cassie wasn’t certain why the memories would start emerging here, or why it was so important that Seth made love to her before it began, but she knew it was imperative.

The child whimpered again from the corner of the room. A sound of loneliness and pain that had Cassie whimpering. She glanced to the corner. The fragile image was huddled in on itself, weak, lost. Terrifying in the complete isolation that surrounded it.

When the memories began returning, if Dawn didn’t wake up and accept the child she had forgotten, then she would never heal. And she would never be able to save Seth.

“Too bad no one will be there when Dawn wakes up.” She looked at Seth, angry at him now, knowing the risk he was taking. But if she told him, if she explained, then it wouldn’t be Seth’s choice. And she couldn’t do that to Dawn. Callan had betrayed her in showing Seth those discs; she had heard Dawn’s rage and pain when Dash told her of it. She wouldn’t betray Dawn further by guilting Seth into the other woman’s arms.

She had warned him; there was nothing more she could do.

“What do you mean, Cassie?” he asked her then, his eyes narrowing on her.

She frowned back at him. “I can’t tell you everything, Seth. I’m only eighteen and I’m not a damned seer.” The uncharacteristic anger shocked Seth as well as her father. It shocked her. “But it’s too damned bad, if you ask me, that you can’t see what’s right in front of your face. And if you’re not man enough to see it, then I wouldn’t point it out to you even if I did know.”

She turned away from them and moved quickly to her own bedroom, aware of her mother following her, those maternal instincts reaching out to her daughter. But she didn’t want her mother, she didn’t want her father. For some strange reason, she wanted to return to the balcony.