Dawn’s Awakening (33 page)

She remembered. The memories were bleak and ugly, filled with pain and hopelessness, just as the images had been. But that wasn’t why she cried. She cried because as the memories flowed over her, so had realization.

She hadn’t been deserted. Not by God, and not by herself. She had hid from them. She had hid from the child she had been because she had sworn, vowed to herself and to God that she would kill the bastard that had tried to destroy her. She had sworn it to every child that died by his hand during their stay there, and she had sworn it to herself.

But she hadn’t killed him. His blood hadn’t soaked her hands. She hadn’t tasted her own vengeance, and that was part of what she couldn’t face. That and the fear that she was lost, never a part of the true circle of life. Neither human nor animal in the eyes of a supreme being.

“I’m sorry,” the half sob came as she tried to unclench her hands from his neck, tried to ease the desperate hold she had on him.

“Apologize to me for your pain, Dawn, and I really will spank you,” he snapped. “As God is my witness, if you take another helping of guilt on your slender shoulders then you’ll destroy my heart.”

She could do more than scent his pain now, she could feel it. His pain that she had suffered, his willingness to do anything, no matter the cost, to ease her. His complete, unquestioned dedication to her.

Her true mate.

Something inside her had shattered as he held her down, as he yelled at her, as he forced her to remember, to realize what she didn’t want to remember or to accept. She had smelled his pain, felt it blending with her own, tearing through her, breaking down the walls she had erected so long ago.

Those memories lived inside her. Knowing what had happened hadn’t helped her to know why she hid from it. Now she knew.

She knew, and knowing didn’t change anything. She had no identity to place to her rapist. There was no way to taste vengeance or to fulfill the promise she had made to God as a child.

If he would save her, she would kill. If he would just make the pain go away, she would shed that bastard’s blood and make certain he never raped another child, Breed or human.

She had failed, God hadn’t.

“I didn’t keep my promises,” she told Seth as he stepped past Mercury and into their sitting room.

She scented the other Breed’s compassion, and rather than shaming her, she felt thankfulness. The Breeds as a species, as a race, or however the world defined them, were worthy. God had given them a soul, no matter what the scientists believed. He had adopted them.

“I swore I’d kill him,” she whispered. “I didn’t.”

“Callan did it for you, Dawn.” He carried her into the bedroom, then to the bed. “You were a child. No one could expect you to do it all.”

He sat on the bed, still holding her, his arms so strong. He was so strong, so warm and so important to her very existence.

“I swore,” she whispered again.

“And He forgave,” he told her gently, his hand moving to tip her head back.

And then she saw the destruction of his tears. His expression was ravaged, heavy with grief, his gray eyes nearly black with emotions as he cupped her face in his palm.

“I love you,” he whispered, and her heart stilled in her chest. “I have loved you since the day I saw you, and the depth of that love can never do anything but deepen, Dawn. Whether you stay with me, or you walk away, I need you to know that. You define my soul.”

She blinked back at him, swallowing tightly.

“The mating heat…”

“Didn’t start until we touched,” he told her. “I loved you before I touched you. When I saw you, I felt my heart beat and I swear to you, I felt it beating for you.”

She stared up at him, feeling all the fears begin to lift, all the fears that he would reject her, even now, after the mating heat, after every touch he had used to show her how important she was to him.

“I wanted you then,” she whispered. “You left me alone, Seth.” Another tear fell. Another weight rose from her soul. “Callan was wrong. I didn’t want you to leave me.”

His lashes drifted closed as a pain-filled grimace twisted his expression. “It wasn’t time. You know it wasn’t time, sweetheart. As much as I loved you, you needed your distance, and you needed your strength.”

“And you had others,” she bit the words out. “You were going to leave me forever, Seth.”

His head shook, his gaze became rueful. “I forced myself to let go of you, or I would have withered away, Dawn. And that’s not your fault, it’s mine. But no matter what I wanted to convince myself of, Caroline was on her way out. She knew it, and I did as well.”

“She didn’t look on her way out.” Feminine fear, Dawn knew what it was, the fear of losing what she knew had to be hers.

“She wasn’t sleeping in my bed,” he reminded her. “And she wouldn’t have been. No other woman has slept in this bed, Dawn.”

And that she knew was the truth. There was no scent of feminine lust permeating the room, no taint of another woman’s hunger for his body.

“I didn’t want to remember,” she finally said. “I knew what had happened. It wasn’t the memory of the rapes I was scared to face.”

“It was the memory of feeling deserted.” His thumb brushed over her trembling lips. “Of having no hope, no promises to believe in. And the memory of betraying the vows to yourself.”

She nodded. “I hadn’t kept the promises I made to Him. Why should He keep the promises I read of? Each time it was over, I swore the next time I’d kill. And I never did.”

But the promises had been made. Another realization she had hid from herself for so many years. The agony had stopped, and eventually, freedom had come. And then, there had been Seth.

“Come here.” He lifted her until she stood between his thighs, shaking, trembling as her body realized how incredibly tired it was.

There was no adrenaline rushing through her, no anger or fury spurring her to fight against the darkness she always felt inside her.

And now she was tired.

The sun was rising; she could feel it in her blood, heating her despite the weariness as Seth slowly undressed her.

He didn’t caress her as a lover would. He caressed her as a mate. Loving, soothing kisses where she was bruised. A murmur of regret at a scratch to her flesh.

He had no idea that this was the least damaged she had ever been in a fight with Stygian. He rarely gave quarter, and he taunted her in the bargain. But it had never drawn free the primal fury that Seth had drawn from her.

Because no other Breed had been allowed to restrain her; Callan forbade it. Seth didn’t kowtow to Callan, and he didn’t fear him. He had staked his claim there in that room, on a mat that dampened with her sweat and her tears. And he had given her the gift of making her whole.

Dawn wasn’t a fool, and she knew Seth wasn’t either. There would be other nights when she would cry, because when she awoke from the nightmares, the memory of them would be there. But she knew he would be there to hold her. He would shelter her, and her tears would be welcome.

“I need you,” she finally whispered as he stood and stripped his sweaty shirt from his body.

“You need a shower, then you need to rest.” He finished undressing and turned to lead her to the shower.

“No, Seth. I need you.” She dug her heels in, staring back at him, the confidence of a lover, the woman that belonged in his soul rising within her. “The shower can wait. I need your touch.”

Dawn leaned forward and touched him. She licked over his chest, let her teeth rake over it.

His muscles jerked beneath the touch as a hard hiss left his lips.

She liked that sound. Male frustration, and male pleasure. Seth’s pleasure.

She pulled her wrist free of his fingers and let her fingers rake through the curls that covered his chest. The lighter brown almost blended with the deeply tanned flesh and fascinated her.

Breeds didn’t have body hair below their necks. Some Breeds could grow a beard and mustache, but it was extremely rare. Hair grew quickly, and brows and lashes were natural, but there was no crisp, silken chest hair on the males. No covering growth between the thighs.

Seth’s body hair continually drew her touch. It was light, sexy, soft and warm. She leaned forward and rubbed her cheek against it, feeling the purr that came to her throat when she meant only to give a whispery moan of pleasure.

Her hands pulled at his belt, the metal buttons of his jeans as she felt him toe his way out of his running shoes. She pushed the denim over his hips, carefully lowered it over the thick length of his cock.

The hard flesh stood out from his body, throbbing, flushed, heavy with need.

She dragged the material down his muscular thighs then let him deal with the rest of it. She had what she wanted. That gorgeous cock, full to bursting, a small bead of pre-cum dampening the tip.

She went to her knees, ignoring his strangled groan as her lips covered the flushed crest.

She needed the taste of him in her mouth. His pleasure racing inside her.

She drew his cock head nearly to her throat, sucked and licked as her hands, both hands, cupped around the shaft and stroked.

The muscles in his abdomen stood out clearly, his thighs bunched powerfully.

“Dawn, I won’t last long with this,” he groaned. “Come here, sweetheart.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and tried to lift her. “Let me love you.”

A growl met the tug on her hair, a light raking of her teeth.

“You’re spanked.” The hard retort was a sound of extreme pleasure.

Promises, promises, she thought without lifting her lips to speak the words. Maybe one of these days he would actually get around to making good on it.

She swirled her tongue over the pulsing crest, licked and purred. God, he tasted so good. He tasted like life, like a miracle, like love. And she needed all of it to warm the places in her soul that had been cold for so long. To ease the shock of the revelations inside her and, quite simply, because he made her hot.

He made her horny.

He made her want to knead his flesh in pure joy.

Instead she sucked. She sucked and licked and heard his groans, his growls, his muttered oaths and, finally, felt and tasted the hard, deep spurts of his semen filling her.

She eased back, stared up at the glitter of lust gone mad in his gaze and licked her lips slowly. Satisfyingly. Because he tasted so damned good she knew she would need more, often.

“My turn.” He lifted her.

Dawn didn’t protest it; it would have done her no good to, because her body was burning for his touch now. She had erogenous zones where there weren’t supposed to be erogenous zones.

As he laid her back against the soft spread, the caress of the material on her back made her arch. But when his hands gripped her thighs and parted them, the pleasure was like a tidal wave, consuming her and sucking her into a vast ocean of sensation.

She was lost within it as his head lowered to the heat of her pussy and his tongue worked slowly through the ultrasensitive slit.

He set fires in her that she knew would never be completely sated. They could be banked, nothing more.

Her hands slid into his hair, she twisted beneath him, arched and cried out in ecstasy as his lips surrounded her clit and sucked her to climax. Then he pulled her to him as he went to his back, dragging her over him and pulling her head down for his kiss.

His cock pierced her pussy as her tongue slid into his mouth. He sucked the hormone gathering in her tongue from her as she sucked him into the heat and snug depths of her sex.

They moaned together, moved in a dance as ancient as time, and they loved.

Dawn had never felt sensations as she felt them now. As though by confronting the worst that her past had to offer, she could now accept her present with a joy she had never known before. And she did more than accept it now; she demanded it.

She straightened until she rose above him, her body consuming his as his hands held her hips in a viselike grip. Sweat beaded his forehead, his chest. A small rivulet rolled down his abs to where their bodies met, and that just turned her on. It made a purring little growl leave her throat as she shifted her hips, stroking him internally with the flexing of her muscles.

“I love your body.” She ran her hands up his hard pecs, slid them over his shoulders as he watched her from hooded eyes. “Every hard inch, inside and out.” She shifted her hips again and watched his teeth clench.

“You’re being bad,” he groaned. “Driving me crazy is very bad, Dawn.”

“Yes. And one of these days, you’re going to spank me for it.” She smiled down at him. “Promises, promises.”

His eyes narrowed on her. As his muscles bunched as though to move, Dawn moved instead. She lifted, her breath catching as his erection slid against the sensitive flesh, stroked and heated her. She lifted until he barely penetrated her, barely heated her before lowering herself slowly, steadily, and taking all he had to give her once again.

She shook her head, feeling her womb clench and convulse as he stretched her, burned her. The pleasure-pain of each impalement was almost enough to make her orgasm instantly. She was dying from the pleasure; it raced over her, stroked her flesh even where he didn’t touch her, and left her gasping, crying for more.

She felt as though she were burning within the center of a flame of pure sensation, pure emotion. Twisting within spirals of rapture and needing it to last forever.

“Seth. It’s like the sun,” she cried out, feeling the heat gathering and burning inside her. “You’re inside me like the sun.”

“Fuck! Damn. Dawn, sweetheart, you’re the fucking sun.” He was straining beneath her, his muscles tight, vibrating and trembling with the need to hold back.

Dawn was fighting to hold back too. She wanted more pleasure. Hours of it. She wanted to hold it inside her forever and feel this, just this. Oh God, she wanted to feel held like this, loved and pleasured, just like this, for eternity.

“Seth.” She cried his name because she couldn’t find a center other than him.

Her head was spinning with the pleasure. Her vision dark, dazed. She was moving faster, harder, and it was never enough. It wasn’t enough to still that fire, to throw her past the boundaries of her body and into an ecstasy that defied description, defied need, hunger or desire. A fire that poured into her soul.