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The black fury toward this man had settled inside her, hardening into a knot of resolve in her soul. She had made a vow, one that had meant so much to her that she’d had to forget it to live. She had vowed, to herself and to God, that she would wash her hands in this man’s blood.
“Don’t talk like a nasty whore, little girl,” he snapped back at her. “I’ll teach you better once I have you alone. You’ll bow for me. You’ll go to your knees and beg for me.”
Dawn widened her eyes. “What a little fantasy world you live in. Shall I tell you my fantasy?”
The link crackled at her ear. “Be careful, Dawn. We can’t lose Cassie to a madman’s bullet,” Jonas warned her.
He wouldn’t kill Cassie. Jason knew what she was worth alive, with her virginity intact. Whatever plans the Council had for her involved that innocence. But Dawn knew well how they used innocence against the female Breeds.
The guests were watching the scene that played out before them in horror. Cassie had made an impression on all of them, with her laughter and wry sense of humor, her teasing jokes and her habit of drawing out even the shiest of the group.
They had known she was a Breed, but there had been no one who had been able to resist her appeal. They watched her now, as Dawn did, their hearts in their throats.
“Let her go, Jason,” she warned him again. Softly. “Number one, you’ll never make it out of here alive with her.”
He smiled. “I could blow her brains out right now, be out that door and gone before any of you could recover from the shock.”
Elizabeth’s muffled sob tore through her.
Dawn shook her head. “We’re too well trained. The second she dropped, you’d be dead.”
He watched, his finger caressing the trigger, a growl threatening to give away his location as Breeds raced for a position to get a bead on the man holding the dark-haired girl.
He was in the perfect position. High enough to see everything going on through the ceiling-high windows, his sights trained on the back of Jason Phelps’s neck. He could take the shot, he should take the shot, but the risk held him back.
If he did it, at this angle, the bullet would tear through the spine at the back of the neck, releasing Phelps’s grip on the gun as he fell. But there was a 90 percent chance that when the bullet tore out of the front of the neck, it would tear a slice through Cassie Sinclair’s scalp.
It wouldn’t kill her. Maybe.
He grimaced, tested the wind again, and prayed it held. He was high enough to hide his scent from the Breeds below for the time being, except, perhaps, one. The one several branches below him trying to get the same bead that he had.
Hell, why did the bastard have to grab that particular female? The one guaranteed to weaken him, to make him caress the trigger rather than shoot.
Dawn would have been a regrettable casualty, but his fascination with her wouldn’t have held him back as this one did.
He lowered his eye to the sights and adjusted again. He couldn’t let this one young woman change the course of the battle between the Council and the Breeds.
If Phelps escaped with her, Dash Sinclair would move heaven and earth to take her back. He would slice through suspected Council members like a swath of overriding fury, and the Breeds that followed him would wash in the blood he shed.
The Breeds would forget political maneuvering and show the world the savagery they were capable of. That couldn’t be allowed.
He inhaled slowly, forced back the tension that would have gathered inside him and lined up the shot. Just one small shift was all he needed.
“Dawn, we just need a small shift,” Jonas spoke softly through the link. “We have sight, we just need more room. You have to maneuver him.”
She glanced around the room. Callan was there as well, Jonas’s words causing him to tense and bounce on his feet. She knew what he would do. He would place his own life in the path of a bullet to force Jason to move that needed quarter of an inch.
He was their pride leader. His safety and the safety of his family was uppermost. She couldn’t allow him to make that move.
“Let her go, Jason.” She moved closer, lowered her voice, watched him carefully. “You can get out of here with me. You can never escape with Cassie. They will kill her first. Cut your losses.”
“So you can kill me the moment we step into the night?” He laughed. “It’s not going to happen, little girl.”
Cassie was pale, her eyes large, the tears shimmering on her face. There was no way to get a message to the girl, though Dawn knew, she knew, Cassie’s training was better than this. Cassie should have already disabled him, should have already made a way for Jonas to get a shot. Unless she knew something, sensed something none of them did.
“You were easy, Dawn,” Jason chided then. “The minute you thought your precious Seth was in danger, you came running. You should have run right back to Sanctuary instead.”
She let a ghost of a smile touch her lips. “But if I had, I would have never remembered you, would I?” she pointed out and watched his eyes widen with surprise, almost in fear.<
