She was insane, that was all there was to it. Where the hell were these words coming from? Shooting out of her mouth as though she somehow controlled the situation.
No one spoke. Dawn could feel the tension building in the room as all eyes settled on her and Seth.
“You will not—”
“Let you walk out of here into a firing squad,” she snapped.
“Dammit, Dawn, I know what I’m doing,” he snapped back.
“Oh, do you?” she drawled. “Well, Seth, why don’t you just instruct little ole me and my team while you’re doing it. Because you’re not doing it alone. And you’re not doing it with another team.”
She wanted to be as far away from him as possible. Being in the same country with him was bad enough. Being stuck on an island, a sultry, heated island, was going to be hell. Dawn could feel the sweat beginning to crawl down her back, the fear that knotted her stomach and the arousal that throbbed deep inside her sex.
And she felt fear. Fear that someone, that something, would take him out of this world and then she really would be alone.
His lips tightened as his eyes swirled with anger, the gray darkening like a violent thundercloud.
“You heard me, Jonas,” he stated, his voice commanding.
“Callan, have you sent that enforcer after my travel bag yet?” she asked.
No one spoke, and she didn’t risk tearing her gaze from Seth’s long enough to see how far she had pissed her pride leader off.
“I’ll tell you what we will do.” Callan rose to his feet slowly. “We’ll leave you two alone to discuss this for a few moments before we return to finalize the mission.” His voice was carefully bland as the others rose to their feet and began to move toward the door.
Dawn could feel the amusement. Male amusement, of course, as she continued to face down Seth. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him, couldn’t make herself back down.
How long had it been since she had been close enough to really smell him? So close that his scent was almost a taste against her tongue.
So long. Too long. She had avoided him during the rare visits he made to Sanctuary. She had refused the occasional missions that would have placed her anywhere close to him. She had fought her need for him, her body’s need for him, and every demand that roiled inside her that she rub against him, stroke him and share the hunger that ate her alive.
She could have continued to avoid him, she told herself. This meant nothing. She was just concerned about him. He was her sister-in-law’s brother. That was it. She latched on to the excuse like a life preserver. Seth was family. She had to protect him. She would never forgive herself otherwise and neither would Roni ever forgive her.
Seth had to live. The thought of anything less terrified her.
As the door to the room closed, leaving her and Seth alone, she continued to stare back at him, refusing to break eye contact or the connection she could feel inside her. Even furious with her, he was connected to her. Why hadn’t she known that before? All the years she had watched him from afar, hoping to catch a glimpse of him even as she told herself she didn’t want or need him, why hadn’t she known what she was feeling when their eyes locked as they were now?
Instinct fought a battle with her conscious mind, the animal and the woman struggling to agree on their needs, what they could and couldn’t have. She couldn’t have him. But that instinctive part of herself, the animal, screamed out for the man it knew was her mate.
“You’ve grown more stubborn,” he said softly, breaking that contact, and she drew in a harsh breath at the loss of it.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers and regarded her solemnly. “You know this isn’t going to work, Dawn.” He shook his head, as though regretting that fact. “I would be too busy trying to protect you. Too busy worrying about you. I won’t be focused.”
“Then we’ll die together.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter.
She could feel the waves of anger pouring off him, despite his calm. Yeah, Seth was controlled. Nearly as controlled as she was, perhaps more. He was steel, inside and out, hard and strong, and sometimes, she thought, invincible. But he was still human. Still flesh and blood. And he could still die.
“You say that so casually,” he drawled. “We’ll die together. Excuse me while I sneer, sweetheart, but I think you’ve been watching too much television.”
“I don’t watch television.” She shrugged. “I don’t listen to romantic music, and I don’t tell ghost stories around campfires. What I do, and what I do well, is protection. You’ll not be the first spoiled little rich boy I’ve had to babysit.”
She expected an explosion with that one.
“I won’t be the one to get you killed either,” he stated coldly. “I’ll inform Jonas the mission is off.”
She stared at him furiously as he turned and moved to the door, something inside her breaking at the knowledge that he was serious.
Heedless of the consequences, Dawn moved around the table quickly and reached for him. But before she could touch, before she could feel, the warmth of his flesh through his clothes, he turned on her.
Dawn stared back at his face in fascination. The anger that tightened his features, the pure fury that darkened his eyes.
“Don’t touch me, Dawn.” His eyes were as cold as ice. “I’ve spent ten years getting over the effect you have on me. Ten years getting my own life back. I won’t allow you to destroy the progress I made.”
And it hit her then. She inhaled, her lips parting as she realized Seth was no longer in mating heat.
Dawn stumbled back at half step, the breath suddenly slicing into her lungs at the realization that she had lost him. Completely lost him.
“That’s not possible,” she whispered, suddenly horrified. “Mating heat doesn’t just go away.”
His lips twisted mockingly. “Not when mates are together, perhaps. Not when they touch, when they love. Not when there’s something more binding them together than the brief little contacts we had, Dawn.” His gaze flickered over her, regret shimmering within the anger. “There wasn’t even a kiss to bind us, was there, sweetheart? Just my determination and arrogance. That doesn’t get a man far, does it?”
But she was still his mate. The thought was disjointed, unconnected, as her gaze went over him, her senses reaching for him. There was none of her scent on him, no sign of the mating heat or of arousal. She was only barely aware of the furious little growl that came from her throat.
“There you go. Another reason you won’t be part of this operation. Because I’ll be damned if I let your effect on me destroy me again. Do us both a favor, Agent Daniels. Stay the hell away from me.”
He jerked the door open and stalked out of the room, brushing past the others while she stared at his back in horrified awareness.
He wasn’t her mate any longer. She felt her nails biting into her palm as Jonas turned slowly to stare at her.
“Delay his departure,” she snarled.
The corners of his eyes twitched, as though he had only barely held back the widening of them.
“If he’s refusing protection, Dawn, there’s nothing we can do,” he told her reasonably.
Dawn didn’t want to hear reasonable. She didn’t want logic and she didn’t want an argument.
“Delay his departure an hour. Let him think he won. Lie to him, I don’t care, you’re good at that. But do something.”
“And where will you be?” he asked.
“I have to talk to Ely.” She had to stop shuddering. It wasn’t showing on the outside, but on the inside she was coming apart and she couldn’t handle it. “I have to talk to her now.”
She brushed past the group, barely restraining a flinch each time her flesh came into contact with their bodies, reminding her that Seth might have gotten over her, but she was a long way from being cured.
She was aware of his eyes on her as she stalked through Mission Control. She knew exactly where he was, standing to
the side, where he discussed one of the satellites he had given the Breeds free use of. His voice was low, but she heard him. Heard him beneath the other voices that filled the cavernous room as she hurried through it.
When had this happened? When had Seth stopped reacting to the mating heat that she had been warned had begun in him ten years before? It had to have been recently. As Cassie had stated, he hadn’t aged a day in ten years. The mating heat slowed down the aging process considerably. He still looked in his early thirties. He was still strong and powerful, but he no longer carried her scent.
It was all she could do to keep from running from the communications bunker back to the estate. When she reached it, she slammed into the back door, ignoring the women sitting at the table, the children laughing and playing as they ate.
There were three Breed children now, and Tanner’s wife and mate was carrying twins to add to them. Dawn hadn’t thought she would want children, had never given them consideration. But regret sliced deep as well. She felt bombarded from all sides, rage and pain, regret and aching need racing through her as she made her way to the basement level of the estate house and pushed her way into Dr. Elyiana Morrey’s office.
Ely looked up in surprise from the files she was reading as Dawn slammed the door behind her.
“It’s not time for another treatment, Dawn.”
It had become a battle between them. The hormonal treatments had had to be adjusted almost weekly to keep the effects of the mating heat from driving Dawn insane.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The words rasped from her throat, hollow and filled with pain.
Ely blinked back at her. “Tell you what?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had found a cure for my mate?” she sneered, enraged. “You can cure him but you can’t cure me?” The accusation was unfounded, and it wasn’t the point.
The animal part of her was screaming in pain, in rage. It didn’t want a cure. It wanted the mate. The touch, the bond, the connection to what belonged to it. To her.
Ely sighed heavily and shook her head as she rose to her feet and carried a file to the large wood cabinet on the other side of the room.
“I didn’t think you would be interested, just to start with.” She shrugged before brushing the thick strands of her dark brunette hair back from her face and adjusting her glasses on her face. “And it’s an anomaly I’m still studying.”
“How long have you known?” Something inside her was breaking apart, shattering.
Ely took a deep breath. “Almost a year for certain. The hormonal levels began leveling off in him nearly four years ago. There are only minute quantities showing up in his system now. Within a few months, I expect his system will be completely free of the heat.”
Dawn sat down slowly in the upholstered chair closest to her and stared back at Ely. “Why not in me?” she whispered, feeling strangely hollow now, alone, in a way she hadn’t felt in ten years.
“I don’t know, Dawn,” Ely said softly. “I suspect it’s because it began in you. Your Breed physiology may not allow for the hormone levels to recede.”
She stared back at Ely, her breathing rough, while inside—inside she felt the Cougar that so often lay dormant rising furiously. It snarled. Rage tore through the instinctive Breed synapses and shot through the woman’s mind.
She wasn’t just a woman. A woman who had lain alone, ached and fought the nightmares of a past that she couldn’t escape. She was also a mate, and the man she had claimed so long ago was breaking the bonds that held them together.
“Dawn, you should be happy for this,” Ely told her gently. “I know it’s bothered you that Seth suffers…”
“He’s mine!” She came out of the chair in a burst of furious energy.
Ely stared back at her in surprise for long seconds. “Not any longer, Dawn. Seth is no longer your mate. And hopefully, in time, the mating heat will recede from your system as well.”
CHAPTER 3
Dawn remembered, ten years before, when Seth and his father had arrived at Sanctuary to claim Taber’s mate, Roni, as their family. She was Aaron Lawrence’s daughter and Seth’s half sister. They had been searching for her for years, and had found her during a newscast that reported that Roni Andrews, a known associate of the Breeds, carried a mark on her neck similar to that which was rumored to be a mating mark.
They had crashed through the gates of Sanctuary, and Cassie Sinclair had run through the Breeds surrounding their limo, careless of her own safety, and jumped inside to ensure that these unknown people were protected.
Dawn and her team had been assigned to guard them in one of the guest houses during that week, and she had gotten to know Seth in a way she had never known another man.
His dominance and power lay beneath the surface of the man. He was steel hard on the inside, but he knew how to smile and how to laugh. He knew how to tease her gently, how to brush against her or touch her without making her stomach contract with terror.
He had been the perfect gentleman, to a point. What he didn’t say or act on was always in his eyes though. A simmering heat, a promise of wicked lusts, of a man that knew all the ways of pleasure.
Dawn didn’t know pleasure. She had never known a lover’s touch, never felt a lover’s kiss, until Seth. Until his lips had brushed against hers and for the first time in her life she had been close to a man without being sick with fear.
And then everything had gone to hell. The chauffeur/bodyguard Seth had with him had been a Council spy, and he’d caught her and Seth by surprise. He had managed to knock Seth out and secure Dawn to a chair under the threat of killing him.
And then he had touched her. While Seth had watched, enraged, he had fondled her breasts, slapped her, taunted Seth and threatened to rape Dawn in front of his eyes.
But it wouldn’t be the first time she had been raped, the man had sneered at her. Wasn’t she no more than a plaything for the guards at the lab she had been created in?
And she had seen Seth’s eyes when he said it. Seen the flash of horror and of pity, and she had hated them both. Before he left, the chauffeur had decided to make certain she was defenseless by hitting her in the head with something. The butt of his weapon she was told. She was unconscious for days. When she awoke, the nightmares began again, and she learned that the simple brushing of Seth’s lips against hers, the touch of his hand against her neck, had begun the mating heat.
And she had cursed it.
Until now.
As she packed her travel bag the next day, a heavy duffel nearly half her size, rage was beating a harsh tattoo in her views. Jonas had sent Mercury, Lawe and Rule, along with the rest of the team he had chosen for her to command, with Seth to his little island estate.
And horrifyingly enough, Dash Sinclair, his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Cassie, were going to be in attendance as well. The two-week-long biannual meeting was no more than an excuse for a huge house party. It was going to be a nightmare. Why in the hell Dash would take Elizabeth and Cassie there, she didn’t have a clue.
And tonight, Sanctuary’s heli-jet would fly her in. She would be taking command of the team under the watchful eye of the enigmatic Dash Sinclair, and pulling that one off had taken a lot of fancy talking.
Dash was one of the few Breeds who hadn’t been raised completely within the Council labs they were created in. He had escaped at the tender age of ten, been placed in the foster system and joined the army at eighteen. When he found his mate and her daughter, he had taken the skills he had learned and used them to benefit the Breeds, and Sanctuary. He had been a major force in aligning the Feline, Wolf and rebel Coyotes together into a power that was slowly being accepted within the world.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Dawn?” Callan stood in her open doorway, his expression creased into lines of worry as she swung around to face him.
She shoved an extra weapon inside the bag, and stored the clips of ammo in the side before answering him.
“Ely said
he’s not my mate anymore.” She was grieving and she knew it. Just as she knew she had no right to grieve.
She had stayed as far away from him as possible over the past ten years, suffering, knowing he was probably suffering too. Knowing he hadn’t been just pissed her off now. She had suffered alone. Hurt alone. She had been alone, just as she always was.
“Dawn.”
She flinched as he touched her arm, then moved away from him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked her again. “You’re not focused.”
“I’m second command.” She shrugged. “And with Jonas’s team there, I feel more confident. I…” She swallowed tightly as she avoided his gaze. “I can’t not go.”
“Dawn, why didn’t you tell me what Dayan was doing to you?”
She flinched violently. It was so long ago. In a life she didn’t want to remember. Her pride brother, Dayan. He hadn’t been sane, but he had hid the insanity so well. He had worked them all to one degree or another. Playing Callan against the soldiers sent after him, betraying his whereabouts to them so he spent more and more time away from the home base they had established. And while Callan was gone, he had worked insidiously to destroy her and Sherra.
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.