Chapter 5

Seth couldn’t get the look on Dawn’s face out of his mind when Caroline ran to his arms with her obviously false tears and accusations. It was in that moment that he knew an engagement to the heiress wasn’t going to happen. Hell, he hadn’t even been in her bed for more than a month and the thought of going to it now was more than he could stand.

He sat in his suite, his head resting on the pillowed back of the couch, and stared at the ceiling.

In that one moment, he had seen so much agony in Dawn’s eyes that he had been shocked to his soul. Or what was left of it. It had burned in her eyes, like live coals stoked to a bitter flame. A pain he couldn’t bear seeing there.

Seeing it—he closed his eyes. Seeing it had destroyed him. He had thought Dawn had gone blissfully through the past ten years unaware of the hell he had endured himself, but looking in her eyes he suspected something far different.

His questions regarding the mating heat had gone largely unanswered over the years. The doctor that monitored the hormone in his blood and attempted to regulate it and bring the symptoms under control hadn’t answered his questions. Jonas had refused, and after that, Seth had just let it go. He had lived in hell; if Dawn had hurt the same, then she would have come to him. Cassie had warned him to let Dawn come to him. To wait. And he had waited, and waited.

He rose slowly to his feet and paced to the balcony doors. Dawn’s room was beside his, but he knew she wasn’t there. She had gone out with the rest of the team earlier to survey the island while Seth and his board of directors met together.

Lawe, Rule, Mercury and Dash had stayed behind to provide security.

Those meetings were finished for the day now, and he had nothing left to do but watch for her. Which wasn’t entirely true. He could have been with Caroline fulfilling his role as host. He could have been reassuring his board members, socializing and attempting to regain control of the company that thought it could outwit him.

A five-year-old could outwit him right now with no problem.

He needed answers and he needed them quickly, before she returned, before she stared at him again with that broken gaze and that soul-deep agony. Because another woman was in his arms.

He shook the image away before pushing his fingers through his hair and pulling himself up from the settee. He moved quickly to his door, left the suite and strode down the hall to where he knew Dash and his family had been assigned.

He knocked quickly on the door, not giving himself a chance to hesitate. If he hesitated, he might act first and ask questions later. And he was suddenly more terrified of adding to Dawn’s pain than he was of living the rest of his life alone.

Dash opened the door and stared back at him quietly. “Cassie said you’d show up.” He stood back and waved Seth into the small sitting room.

“Where is she?” This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to conduct in front of a teenager. No matter how grown-up she thought she was.

“She went out with Dawn.” Dash’s lips quirked somberly. “She’s worried about her.”

“Cassie’s not the only one,” Seth said quietly before turning to Dash’s wife. “Hello, Elizabeth.”

Black-haired and blue-eyed, she was a mature vision of her daughter, and just as lovely, though without Cassie’s more delicate build.

“Hello, Seth.” Her voice was gentle, compassionate. “Would you like me to step out of the room?” She indicated the bedroom next door. “You two could talk.”

He shook his head quickly. “I need to talk to both of you.” He needed to know. What was Dawn feeling? Why was she here after all this time? And why was it beginning not to matter to him why she was there?

“Let’s sit down. Would you like a drink, Seth?”

Seth nodded, requested a whiskey, straight, and moved to the seating arrangement as he watched Elizabeth sit down slowly.

Dressed in tailored, cream-colored slacks and a sleeveless blouse, she looked more like Cassie’s sister than her mother. And he knew the why of that. It was the mating heat and the delayed aging it caused.

“Her eyes—” He stared at Elizabeth. “I saw her eyes.” He shook his head bleakly. “Hell if I know what to do now. I stayed away from her as they asked me to. I waited for her to come to me, and she never did.”

Elizabeth frowned and glanced at her husband. “Who asked you to stay away from Dawn?” she snapped, frowning darkly. “Dash, were you aware of this?”

“It happened before Dash came to Sanctuary.” He inhaled roughly. “Just before. I was trying to…” He grimaced. “I was trying to court her. Two of Jonas’s enforcers showed me to an office in the estate. They showed me what those bastards did to her.” He lowered his eyes as he took the whiskey from Dash. “The videos the Council made.” He could still feel the rage tearing through him. “What they did to her.”

“Who did this?” Dash asked.

“Jonas, Callan.” He shook his head. “They knew what the mating heat would do to her, and once I saw it, I knew as well. It was already strong, Dash.”

“They had no right to ask you to stay away from her,” Elizabeth accused gently. “It’s been ten years. Too long for her to have to fight the effects of the heat alone.”

His head snapped up, his jaw clenching as he stared back at her suspiciously. “The doctor, Ely. She said the heat wasn’t in full effect without the exchange of a full kiss, or more intimate contact than what we had had.”

They were staring at him; Dash’s expression was dark, Elizabeth’s shocked as she looked to her husband.

“Ely has known better than that for several years,” Dash told him. “And I know for a fact Dawn has been in full heat for as long as I’ve known her, Seth. I knew you were her mate, but I also knew that other female Breeds had taken longer to struggle against their pasts enough to go to their mates. I didn’t ask questions.” He shook his dark head sharply. “I should have, but I didn’t.”

Seth came violently to his feet. “She’s suffered like that?” he demanded roughly. “As I did? All these years?”

“Probably worse,” Elizabeth answered him then. “It’s always harder on the women, whether they’re Breed or not. And I can tell you from experience, there’s nothing worse than being in full heat alone. But why would Callan do this?” He watched as she turned to her husband again in disbelief. “He loves her like his own child, Dash, why would he not let Seth know?”

“Unless they thought it would recede in her as it had in Seth.” Dash leaned back in his chair and watched Seth with narrowed eyes. “How intimate was the first contact with her?”

Seth shook his head as he stalked to the doors, much like his own, that led out to the enclosed, private balcony. “Not much. Barely a brush of lips, a touching of hands.” He shrugged. “I was…courting her.”

“Impressive, considering your reputation at the time,” Dash pointed out in amusement.

Seth shot him a glare as he ran his fingers through his hair again.

“What now?” He shook his head at the thought. “I’ll be honest, I don’t want her here. It’s too dangerous, and I’m…” He frowned, fighting the knowledge even within himself. “My control is shot, Dash.” He turned to the other man, frustrated and aware of his own weakness. “I don’t know if I can hold back with her here, in the house.”

Dash sighed roughly. “Jonas and Callan had no right to show you the footage taken from those labs.”

Seth frowned. “I needed to know. The heat was already getting hard to deal with. I would have made things worse.” He wouldn’t have stayed away, and he would have only made her nightmares worse.

“What are you going to do now?” Dash asked.

Seth stared back at him fiercely. “I’ll break off my relationship with Caroline tonight. But I want you to get Dawn back to Sanctuary. Order her back. Kidnap her and lock her in her room. I don’t care what you have to do, Dash, but get her away from this island.”

Dash was silent for long moments. Finally, he nodded his head slowly. “I’ll order her back to Virginia.”

Dash’s compliance had been too easy. There was no argument, no attempt to persuade him otherwise. Seth nodded again in relief. “Thank you. I’ll let you enjoy some peace then, before the party tonight.”

He left the suite, rubbing his chest as he did so, aching at the sense of loss he already felt.

Dawn’s tongue was itching. Her tongue and the fingers that rested on the sidearm strapped high on her thigh as she watched the couple moving gracefully through the crowded ballroom.

Seth Lawrence and his hostess. She snorted silently. Hostess her ass, that woman wanted in his bed so bad that Dawn could smell the stink of her arousal even across the crowded ballroom.

And once again, it was close to destroying her control and her mind. If she thought for a moment that Seth had had sex with the Carrington witch anytime recently, she would have to tear the witch’s throat out.

But it didn’t change the fact that Seth was hanging on to her like a baby to a pacifier. And it wasn’t changing the pain that was growing in her by the moment.

“Lawe, move in on Lawrence, see if you can’t keep him inside,” she ordered the enforcer standing by the doors that led into the cool, sheltered gardens.

“The gardens are secure, Dawn,” Lawe reminded her quietly through the earpiece she wore.

“I don’t care if they’re ringed shoulder to shoulder with guards, do as I said,” she snapped into the wire-thin mic that curved over her cheek as she continued to survey the crowd. “We can’t afford to lose him or his prissy miss.”

Her fingers curled over the butt of her gun as her eyes narrowed on the woman’s bare back. The dress she wore was little more than a scrap of cloth covering her ass. And Seth’s hand was riding on the bare flesh of her lower back as they moved through the crowd.

Were his fingers caressing the woman’s flesh? Her eyes narrowed on the strong hand touching another woman, and the growl that rumbled in her throat couldn’t be held back.

She glanced around quickly to make certain no one else had heard the sound, then she grimaced furiously. She shouldn’t be watching Seth. She was supposed to be watching the crowd, directing the enforcers assigned to guard Seth Lawrence’s ass while he made a fool of himself romancing the hostess with the mostest bare flesh showing.

She hated this. She had no business dealing with this man; he made her insane, he made her want to claw his eyes out and taste the blood of that vapid little witch he kept laying his hands on. If he didn’t stop—

She forced herself to inhale, to control the pain burning inside her. She didn’t have a choice. Seth had made his feelings clear, and he clearly didn’t want her.

“Excuse me, Mr. Lawrence.” Lawe’s voice sounded in the earpiece once again. “Agent Daniels has requested that you remain inside.”

Dawn winced. She was going to have to have a talk with Lawe about the best way to handle these situations, especially with Seth.

“Has she now?” Seth drawled, his voice coming through the link and sending a surprising shiver racing down her spine as she heard the mockery in it. “Please inform Miss Daniels that I specifically required that the entire island be well secured. If she ignored that request, then she can personally play escort as Miss Carrington and I enjoy the gardens.”

The son of a bitch.

Dawn gritted her teeth as she moved along the side of the room, aware of the bodies that slid quickly out of her path and the wary looks she was given as she passed by. She made people nervous, she knew she did. Especially non-Breeds. They watched her like they expected her to turn and snap at any moment. Just as she had earlier when that Carrington person had surprised her.

“Merc, do you have him in sight?” Dawn murmured into the mic as she headed for the doors Seth had passed through.

“In sight.” Merc’s gravelly voice came across the line. “He and Miss Carrington have taken the stone path toward the pond.”

To the grotto and the intimate little padded bench set beneath a vine-covered arch.

Dawn’s stomach tightened at the knowledge that Seth had every intention of marrying that woman. That he wasn’t Dawn’s. It was inconceivable that he wasn’t hers any longer. Especially when every part of her cried out for him.

She slid past the garden doors, ignoring Lawe’s mocking look as she took the stone path with a determined stride. She could hear the murmur of their voices farther ahead, and her lips thinned with irritation at the seductive drawl Seth used. His voice was edging into arousal, she could hear it. It was ripping through her. She didn’t know how to bear this pain. It took everything she had not to howl out in agony.

“Mr. Lawrence.” She kept her voice smooth, emotionless, as she rounded the curve of the path to find them standing next to the grotto.

Her hand clenched on the butt of her weapon again. Seth was leaning against the arched shelter, one elbow braced on the wooden post as he brushed back a stray strand of raven-black hair from Miss Carrington’s cheek. The other woman flicked her an irritated, enraged glance. Anger filled the air here. Blazing, furious rage, and for a moment Dawn wondered if it was her own.

Dawn smiled back, satisfaction thrumming through her as the woman’s gaze flickered warily at the sight of Dawn’s canines flashing in the early evening light spearing through the sheltering branches overhead.

“Miss Daniels.” Seth lifted his head, his gunmetal gray eyes flickering over her uniform, the hand on her weapon, then to her eyes.

She met his gaze with a cold smile. “I believe the chairman of Foreman Motors is looking for you inside, Mr. Lawrence,” she announced, a blatant lie. “I told him I would be more than happy to hunt you up and send you right to him.”

Seth’s lips quirked bitterly. “I see,” he murmured before glancing down at the too-lovely Miss Carrington. “It appears our discussion will have to wait, Caroline. Would you like to accompany me inside?”

“Well, I don’t want to stand out here alone with her.” Caroline’s red lips thinned in displeasure. “Really, Seth, I’ve been here for days and each time we get a moment alone, we’re disturbed.” She flicked Dawn an accusing glance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was all her fault. Dawn crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at the other woman coldly, and fought to remind the bitch that she had just arrived today. If she hadn’t been able to screw Seth in the days before, then that was her own fault.

She didn’t like Miss Caroline Carrington. The woman was the worst sort of opportunist. And she was ovulating. Dawn narrowed her gaze, inhaling slowly. And she wasn’t using birth control.

Dawn began to shake, and fought to hide it.

Son of a bitch. She had been trying to get into Seth’s bed tonight for a reason, and it wasn’t just lust. She was fertile. She thought she was going to trick Seth into giving her a child? Forcing him into marriage? Of course, Seth would marry the bitch.

“Dawn, are you growling?” Seth was staring at her in surprise.

Dammit. “No I’m not growling, Mr. Lawrence,” she bit out. “I’ll escort you back inside.” She gave him another tight smile.

Seth’s gaze narrowed on her. “Come on, Caroline, I’m sure we’ll find time to talk after the party.” His voice was harder now, determined.

“I’ll need to meet with you first, Mr. Lawrence,” Dawn informed him. “There are a few security matters we need to discuss when you have the time.” She flashed the woman another cold smile. “If Miss Carrington can do without you that long.”

“If I must.” There was a challenge in the other woman’s brown eyes, one Dawn recognized. She was staking her claim on Seth, which was fine and dandy, but first she had to get through the Breeds that were going to be placed around him like a living barrier. She would be damned if she would let Seth walk into such a trap.

Roni, his sister, would never forgive her. She would make Dawn’s life hell if she allowed it. And Roni was her friend. Dawn had known her forever. Roni would pout for years if Dawn allowed Caroline Carrington to end up tricking Seth into knocking her up.

She was doing this for Roni. And for herself. Otherwise, she would end up killing Miss Caroline Carrington.

She followed the two back into the party. As Seth moved through the crowd, she glanced around to make certain she wasn’t overheard.

“Keep Lawrence and the bimbo from doing the nasty at least until after the party,” she growled into her mic.

Lawe snorted into the line. “Hell, let the man get some, Dawn. It’s been a long dry spell for him, hasn’t it?”

Her lips thinned. Fat lot he knew. “Who’s lead on this little party, Lawe?” she snapped. “According to my information, I’m commanding here, not you.”

“Didn’t know Seth’s sex life was included in your area of jurisdiction,” he stated mockingly. “But sure, I’m all for fun and games. I’ll keep him high and dry until you can meet with him.”

She caught her lip on the edge of a snarl before her gaze tracked the room again, only to be snared by Seth’s. He was standing next to the president of Foreman Motors, his gray eyes watching her with mocking knowledge and an edge of anger. She could see the anger in the tight curl of his sensual lips, in the narrowed, dangerous gaze.

Her heart began to race, her mouth dried out and her tongue itched. It itched to the point that she ran it over her teeth to ease the irritation. She was jumpy, agitated and too aware of the way Seth continually glanced at her. There was a hint of retribution in his gaze, a promise of retaliation in the hard set of his expression.

He was angry with her, and he had good reason to be. She avoided him like the plague whenever he came to Sanctuary, and through the years had fought every assignment Jonas had tried to give her in Seth’s vicinity, until now. Because she knew the danger in being around him. She knew the nightmares, the fears and the incomprehensible pain of turning away from him. But could anything hurt more than this? Right now?

He affected her, and she couldn’t allow that now, because he didn’t want her.

He made her flesh tingle, her tongue itch to kiss him, and her body ache for his touch. And Dawn didn’t enjoy touch. No one’s touch. And it had only grown worse over the years. It was irritating. It made her flesh cringe and old nightmares resurface. She couldn’t stand the nightmares. She couldn’t face them.

But she also didn’t know if she could live another day without his touch. Without his tongue along hers, his body pressed against her flesh.

She fought back another shiver as Seth’s gaze raked over her black uniform, pausing at her breasts, her thighs, before moving back to her eyes. She could feel the response beating through her bloodstream, tightening her nipples and her sex, making her clit awaken with the dampness that only he could call forth, to torment her.

Sexual response. She knew what it was. She knew and it terrified her even as it sent blood pounding through her veins as though in anticipation. Anticipation of something he had no intention of giving in to now.

She forced herself to turn away, to return to the party and the headache of ensuring his security. Seth wasn’t big on helping with that. As one of the Breeds’ leading proponents and supporters, the Breeds took his security very seriously. His death, right now, would be a major inconvenience.

She ignored the little voice inside her that howled in fury at the thought of anything happening to Seth. Her palms were sweating, her instincts going into overdrive. Nothing could happen to Seth. It was her job to protect him; she didn’t fail. Not anymore. She had failed when she was younger. Failed to protect herself and to warn others of the danger coming. Failed to find the strength she needed to fight back.

She was strong now. She knew how to fight back. She knew how to protect herself and those she was assigned to protect. And Seth could hate it, and her, all he wanted to. But she would protect him. With her life, if need be.

The door closed with a bang that would have caused a lesser woman to flinch. Dawn merely glanced at it, then at Seth as he tore his tie from around his neck and glared at her from the center of his home office.

“What the hell was so damned important?” he snapped at her, his gaze roiling with anger.

Dawn’s lips thinned. “Your precious Miss Carrington just slipped naked into your bedroom. Were you aware of this?”

His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know it, but what business is it of yours?”

“She’s ovulating and she’s not on birth control. Fuck her and she’s going to end up conceiving.” Her fists clenched at the thought.

“For God’s sake, do you think I leave such protection up to the women I fuck?” he asked her incredulously, his voice rising as he glowered down at her, his sharply defined face set in savage, arrogant lines. “And I’ll ask you again, what business is it of yours?”

Dawn could feel the anger, and the arousal, rolling off him in waves now. It stroked over her flesh, heated it, made her jumpy. This was why she hated being around Seth; he made her jumpy. Made her too aware of the fact that she was indeed a woman, and that she had never touched a man in pleasure. Had never known a lover’s touch.

She stepped back. “You’re right, not my business.”

Something exploded in her head. Some sensation, some instinct that she couldn’t make sense of. She shook her head, feeling her lip twitch into a snarl as a blistering curse left Seth’s lips.

“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” His dark voice was colder, more arrogant now.

Dawn could smell the arousal coming from him, and it pissed her off. She had no right to be angry with him. She had no right to care whom he fucked.

“Eager to head to your bed, Mr. Lawrence?” She was shocked at the snarl in her voice then, at the anger that surged through her. “A willing sacrifice to Miss Carrington’s plans for impending nuptials?”

“Well, I’m not getting any younger, Agent Daniels,” he sneered in return. “And I’m sick and damned tired of a lonely fucking bed.”

Dawn flinched at the accusation in his voice even as something primal, something she couldn’t understand, began beating in her heart. The blood was racing through her body, awareness spiking in her head. He was going to do it. He was going to go to that woman’s body, spill his seed inside her. He was going to actually let another female touch him.

She didn’t try to stop the growl that pulled from her chest this time.

“No.”

“Excuse me?” He arched a brow as sarcasm echoed in his voice. “You have no say in the matter, Agent Daniels. Your job is to keep me from being kidnapped during the act, not keep me from the act itself.”

Her fingers clenched, itched. Her tongue felt thick, swollen within her mouth. A strangely spicy, heated taste began to fill her senses as she tried to draw enough air into her lungs to keep from strangling on her fury.

“She doesn’t love you. You don’t love her,” she hissed.

He laughed at that, a jeering sound that raked over her nerve endings like shards of glass.

“Love isn’t required,” he informed her.

Heat spilled to her womb, spasming through it as denial raced through her brain.

It wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it.

“If there’s nothing else you require, Agent Daniels,” his voice was clipped, tight with anger, “I believe I have someone waiting on me.”

Someone waiting on him? A fertile bitch with every intention of sucking his seed from his body and conceiving a child that would bind him to her forever?

“No.”

His lips thinned as his eyes darkened ominously. Seth might not be a Breed, but he was still dangerously powerful. An ex–Special Forces soldier who took over his father’s company, he had learned how to fight in the most violent gutters of the world.

He shook his head as his lips thinned with disgust. “Jonas made a mistake assigning you here. Go back to Sanctuary.”

She was shaking her head. She couldn’t believe this. She couldn’t believe him.

“You would let her trick you like this?” Her voice was unrecognizable, even to herself. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. A haze seemed to fill her vision, her mind, making it hard to find the hard-earned control she had fought to achieve for eleven years now.

“It’s only a trick if you don’t know about it,” he pointed out mockingly. “I’m not getting any younger, Dawn, and I’m damned tired of going to bed horny. At least she’s woman enough to go after what she wants.”

He turned away from her.

He was leaving. He was going to walk out? Go to that ovulating cow waiting naked in his bedroom?

The hell he was.

She didn’t know who was more surprised by the vicious snarl that left her chest, Seth or herself. He turned to her quickly, surprise flashing across his expression as her hands gripped his upper arms, powerful arms, muscular and steel-hard. She was on her tiptoes, against his chest, one hand gripping his neck and pulling him to her.

Her lips met his. They were parted just enough to allow her tongue to slip past them. Spicy heat filled her mouth and she shared it. Sweeping over his lips, against his tongue as she felt his arms surround her, jerking her to him as he bent his head closer. His lips caught her tongue, and a shattered cry filled her throat as he began to draw the fiery hormone from her.

It filled both their mouths. It pumped into her bloodstream, sent lust tearing through her system, pleasure quaking through her body. She wanted to crawl inside him. No, she wanted him inside her. She wanted his hard body covering her, the thick length of his cock, which was presently pressing into her belly, fucking into her.

She wanted him now. Hard. Hot. Deep.

She wanted her mate.