Dawn’s Awakening (30 page)

Her husband was a bit more portly, but he had a friendly smile and warm hazel eyes when he wasn’t arguing with Seth over some ball team they both seemed to have a stake in.

What, did these men own the known world? The twelve board members were practically the Who’s Who on the National Registry of Arrogant Billionaires or something. And Seth was in his element.

She listened to him argue the team’s stats, the players’ weaknesses and strengths, and realized he did it with the same daring and confidence that he had used when relating financial figures and company information during the board meetings.

“They could talk about that ball team all night.” Lillian Bartel smiled as she caught Dawn’s eyes. “And he promised me a dance tonight.”

Dawn glanced at Seth. “He wasn’t the only one that promised.”

She turned and looked out at the dance floor, watching with a smile as Dash, Elizabeth and their daughter, Cassie, stepped into the ballroom.

Every male eye in the room turned, and the scent of male lust flowed in the soft breeze that wafted in through the open French doors.

Dash scowled over at his wife, Elizabeth, who merely smiled in return.

Cassie was a vision. All that long black hair rippled and curled around her face and to her waist. Strands were pulled back from the sides to the crown of her head and secured with a gleaming gold comb that cascaded with strands of diamonds on golden chains. The gold and diamonds gleamed beneath the chandeliers within the midnight darkness of Cassie’s hair.

Her evening gown was black, the Empire waist doing nothing to detract from the fragile delicacy of her lithe body.

“She’s a little freak. It’s so sad,” Lillian whispered, and Dawn tensed at the words. “Such a beautiful little girl to be so worthless.”

Dawn turned back to the older woman. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t you know? She’s one of those little Breeds running around here. A mixed Breed even. What do they call those?” She frowned at the thought. “Ah, yes. A mongrel.”

Dawn curled her fingers into the silken material of her purse.

“There’s another tramping around here somewhere.” Lillian shuddered. “Be careful, I heard she had her eye on Seth. She’s already forced his lover off the island. You’ll be next, no doubt.”

She needed to dress up more often, Dawn thought. Evidently a nice dress, a little makeup, and no one paid attention to anything but the boobs on display or, in the women’s case, the jewelry on display.

“Tramping around here, is she?” She arched her brow, careful to keep the other woman from seeing the canines that were aching to bite her.

“Squalling like a cat in heat.” Lillian grimaced as she kept her voice too low for Seth or her husband to hear. “Craig doesn’t want to understand how horrible it is that Seth is dirtying himself with that trash. When we get home, I’ll set him straight though.”

“Of course,” Dawn murmured.

How she hated women like this. She hated their vindictiveness, their judgmental attitudes and their lack of compassion.

“You know she’s merely after his money.” Lillian sighed. “How sad. Caroline would have made such a perfect match for Seth.”

Dawn nearly saw red. She promised herself she would control the anger flowing through her. This was Seth’s world, just a very small slice of it.

“Excuse me,” she said before turning to Seth and drawing his attention. “Dash and Elizabeth have just arrived with Cassie.” She nodded to the couple. “I think we should go help him.”

Craig Bartel chuckled. “She’s a beautiful little girl. Dash and Elizabeth should be very proud of her. I hear she was accepted into Harvard last year?”

“A law degree.” Seth nodded. “She’s taking her classes via remote link and doing wonderfully. And Dawn’s right, we should go help Dash.”

Because there were several unattached men moving in on the young woman and Dash looked murderous, despite his wife’s glare.

“If you’ll excuse us then.” Seth nodded to the couple, and at the last moment Dawn flashed Lillian a smile. It was all teeth.

The other woman gasped, then paled, her eyes widening as the full implications of what she had just revealed to Dawn flashed across her face.

“That was very naughty,” Seth murmured in her ear. “I might have to spank you later.”

“What did I do?” She widened her eyes as she flicked him a look before turning her attention back to the room.

“Whatever you were leading Lillian in over,” he said softly. “What did she say?”

There was more than curiosity, and the amusement was blatantly fake.

“Girl stuff.” She shrugged.

She glanced over her shoulder. The middle of her back itched, and she could feel the hairs at the back of her neck lifting in primal warning.

“Dawn.” His voice was warning. He wanted answers; he wasn’t a man that was used to being denied either.

“Seth, I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself.” But she couldn’t find the source of unease pulling at her. She could feel it, like a lost word on the tip of her tongue.

She looked around again, ignoring Jason Phelps as he tried to get her attention, just as she ignored several other men who tried to catch her eye.

“Dawn, I’m a bigger boy and I’m going to spank your ass if you keep up the silent act.”

Her lips twitched. “I’ll be sure to pretend I don’t like it. I’d hate to spoil all your fun.”

Sizzling, heated lust filled the air then. It swirled around her, flowing from Seth and seeming to sink inside her flesh as his fingers pressed a little tighter against her lower back.

She could still remember his voice, the scent of his need, the expression on his face when he 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.