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“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—
