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“That’s the most tactful description I think I’ve heard of him.” Seth chuckled as Dawn’s gaze began to move around them once again. “Normally, the language gets much more colorful.”
“Not to mention threatening,” Brian admitted. “I think I threatened to rip his throat out for him during a meeting last month.”
Dawn jerked her gaze back to the portly, charming board member in surprise. This little man had threatened Dane Vanderale? Dane wasn’t a man that even Dawn wanted to meet in a fight.
“I was a little irked,” he informed her with a deep chuckle. “Dane has that effect.”
She smiled at that, her lips parting to speak, when she felt him. She smelled him. That touch of evil was so deep, so invasive she felt pummeled by it.
She stiffened, aware of the growl the rumbled in her throat, of Seth stiffening and Brian watching her with narrowed eyes.
He was here. The one from her dreams. She could feel him watching her now and she realized she had felt him the entire time she had been on the island.
She had known him, but the block within her memories had hid the knowledge from her. The smell of liquor and smug satisfaction. Of malicious pleasure and depraved lusts.
“Dawn,” Seth murmured at her side, forcing her into a position where he could protect her, rather than the other way around.
She searched the room. He was in the room. That brief whiff of his evil had been enough to assure her of that. She turned, scanning the crowd, knowing, fearing the worse.
He wasn’t outside. He was here, in the room. He wouldn’t be unarmed; he would know better than to ever go unarmed. As the scent reached her again, she tensed further, the various layers of smell sorting through her mind as she tried to identify him.
She had smelled him before, though there had been other scents around him at the time. Scents guaranteed to throw off the Breed senses. Liquor and drugs, they temporarily affected the body’s chemistry, and their basic scent hid him. Her memories had returned though, and with them the memory of his scent beneath the liquor and drugs.
Her eyes were restless, her mind working, ignoring Seth’s demand for an explanation as it began coming to her, slowly. So slowly.
The soldier who raped her had used drugs to maintain an erection. Even then. He had been young, in his early twenties, she had sensed that much about him. He drugged himself for the added pleasure as well as the added length of time it afforded him to torture the children he enjoyed.
He still raped. She could smell the scent of that depravity, the subtle smell of the pain he had inflicted that still clung to his body now that he wasn’t attempting to disguise his scent.
“He’s here,” she murmured.
“Who’s here?” Seth’s hand was in the pocket of his jacket, his fingers curled over a weapon she had watched him place there earlier.
“He is,” she whispered again.
There was a long, strained silence as Dawn searched the faces her gaze touched upon.
“That’s not possible.” Rage burned in his voice now.
“It’s possible,” she told him quietly, ignoring Brian Phelps, knowing she couldn’t worry about him now. Wherever his wife was within this crowd, she would have to worry about him.
“Where?” Seth snapped out, motioning several Breeds closer.
Dawn was aware of his every move, just as she was suddenly aware of every guest within the room. She could feel their heartbeats, smell their emotions. Many were so oblivious, but there was one. One that was waiting, watching.
His scent hit her again, her eyes widening, her lips parting as the fear nearly overwhelmed her. Her gaze jerked to Dash’s table, her heart nearly stopping in her throat as it returned to the room.
And then she found him.
Her heart slammed in her throat. He had worn contacts when she had seen him before. Colored contacts to shield the hue of his eyes. He hadn’t bothered tonight. And he wasn’t drinking tonight.
The smell of liquor was still a part of him, but his system wasn’t affected by it. He wouldn’t be slow, he wouldn’t hesitate to use the young woman who danced in his arms.
Dawn took a step, intending to rush across the room, to jerk Cassie from his grip. The sight of that bastard’s hand at Cassie’s waist sent rage tearing through her.
At that moment, his head lifted. His eyes were filled with triumph, and before Dawn could move, before she could gasp, Jason Phelps swung Cassie around, jerked a gun from his jacket and had it at her temple.
He smiled then. The curl of his mouth so familiar, so hated that Dawn snarled as guests gasped, screamed and rushed out of the way.
