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“Why the heli?” She rounded on him as he closed the door and turned to face her. “And why wasn’t I informed?”
He ran his hands over his short, black hair and breathed out roughly. “The heli is here to transport Miss Carrington back to her home. Seth is sending her off the island.”
Dawn’s lips curled in satisfaction. Seth might be in the witch’s room, but he wasn’t touching her. She knew he wasn’t. If she’d thought differently, there would have been no way to control the feral rage she could already feel brewing inside her.
“Sanctuary’s heli is being prepped on its pad as well. You’re to gather your gear and return to home base. You’ll be sent out on another mission the moment you arrive.”
The smile slid from her face as she focused that anger simmering inside her on the powerful Wolf Breed.
“I won’t be leaving.”
She watched as Dash crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at her broodingly. “You were given an order, Dawn,” he stated flatly. “I’m command here. It’s your place to obey it.”
“You don’t have the right to give that order.” She kept her voice calm, confident. “My mate is here. Mating heat has been established. You can’t order me to do anything that requires leaving Seth’s presence.”
She knew her Breed Law where the Bureau was concerned, and she knew Dash did as well. They couldn’t make her leave. Only Seth could make her leave.
She watched the subtle, almost hidden curl of Dash’s lips. He knew that, and she wondered at the point behind making such a useless order.
“I made a deal with Seth last night,” he stated then. “He would send Miss Carrington home, and I would send you back to Sanctuary. This is a very delicate time, Seth needs his wits about him, as do the Breeds protecting him.”
Dawn lifted her head as she felt her chest clench at the knowledge that Seth would make such a deal.
“Why would he do that?” she asked then, a frown pulling at her brow as she tried to hold back the pain of knowing that Seth would attempt to do such a thing.
Dash shook his head. “Ten years of mating heat, Dawn, that he managed to kick. Ten years without his mate. Without ease. I suspect he doesn’t want to revisit that hell.”
“But it would be worse now,” she said softly. “And I’m here. He’s not alone.”
Dash stared back at her calmly, compassionately. “Are you aware that ten years ago, Jonas and Callan showed Seth portions of the lab tapes that Callan found when they searched Dayan’s home?”
Dawn stepped back warily. If her chest had been tight before, there was a band of pure agony clenching around it now.
She licked her dry lips and fought to pull her eyes from Dash’s. She could see it in his eyes: the truth, the knowledge that Seth had seen her, as an animal. A creature snarling, spitting, screaming. Abandoned by the God she had screamed out to.
She shook her head slowly. “Callan wouldn’t do that.” Her brother would never—he couldn’t—do something so vile
to her as to allow her mate, the only man whose eyes she could bear looking into for long, to see the horror of what she knew had happened. What she knew, but couldn’t remember.
“I talked to Callan this morning,” he told her. “He’s more worried for you now than he was then, Dawn. He was desperate to give you time to find your confidence, to get past what Dayan had done through the years that you should have been free. He thought he was saving you.”
“No!” Her hands came up as she shook her head, blinked. “No. He didn’t do this to me.” Her cry was a ragged, feral sound.
Oh God, Seth had seen those images. The images the Council had placed in the files that Callan had managed to steal before their escape.
Her lips parted as she forced herself to breathe, forced herself to get control of the pain beating down on her. God, when would it end? When would the pain and the betrayals stop?
Her mate had a lover. Had considered marrying another woman, having children with her. Her brother had betrayed her by showing her mate her worst nightmare, her greatest humiliation, and her mate didn’t want her. Even now. Even after the pleasure they had shared the night before, he wanted her to leave.
“Those days were bad for the Breeds, Dawn,” Dash continued. “For Callan. He was fighting to keep his family safe, his pregnant mate secure, and trying to hold back the supremacist societies rising against him. And you were almost broken by Dayan. Callan had only learned what happened with Dayan’s death the year before. He was grief-stricken, guilty that he hadn’t protected you. He had to protect you. It was his place to do that as your pride leader.”
“Stop!” She pointed her finger back at him, and couldn’t look him in the eye. He knew. He knew what Seth had seen, he had probably seen it himself.
“Did you think I didn’t know what was on those tapes?” she growled furiously. “Did you think Dayan didn’t show them to me? Often?” She sneered at the memory of them. “He had no right. Callan had no right to do that to me.”
“He had every right,” Dash said gently. “As your brother and your protector.”
“I’m sick of his fucking protection and I don’t need yours,” she yelled out at him. She didn’t cry, she didn’t beg. Her voice rose in anger and in determination as her gaze met his. “You have no right to make deals with my mate and you have no right to conspire with Callan to keep me from him.”
