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“I’m fine,” she whispered. “I’ll be fine.”
And he had to believe it, because he couldn’t order her back to Sanctuary, no more than Callan or Jonas could. Breed Law forbade interfering with mates. And despite the reversal of the hormone, Seth and Dawn were still mates. Though it was Dash’s guess that that reversal was making a sudden turn to renew itself. He had smelled the scent of the hormone on Seth’s flesh, and he had seen the flinch Seth couldn’t control as Caroline threw herself against him.
“Dawn’s awakening,” he heard his daughter whisper behind him, and he turned to her quickly, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as a single tear slipped down Cassie’s pale face. “She’ll wish she had continued to sleep.”
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.
