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CHAPTER 8
That night, Dawn dropped her clothes to the floor and collapsed into her bed before curling into a tight ball. Her womb was twisting inside her belly, convulsing as fire poured through her veins and the taste of the mating hormone filled her senses with dark arousal.
She lay atop the sheets, the temperature control in the room turned down to the fifties, and still she was sweating. Sweating and exhausted. So weary from lack of sleep, from fighting the mating heat and herself, that she was praying for sleep. For once in her life the nightmares weren’t as frightening as lying here night after night, awake, and needing Seth with a bitter intensity that she was suddenly afraid would pour free.
She had stayed far away from him as much as possible throughout the day. She stared blindly into the darkness of her room, her eyes dry, the tears locked inside her. She couldn’t force herself to be around him, even to breathe in the scent of him that she needed so desperately. Just the scent of him.
She locked her arms around her stomach and tensed against a wave of gnawing pain. She couldn’t look him in the eye, because he had seen—
She swallowed tightly against the sickness rising inside her. She didn’t want him to see her, she didn’t want to see that knowledge in his eyes again. Because she had seen those discs, she knew, frame by frame, the images they contained. And he had been the one person she was certain, to her soul certain, hadn’t seen them.
And she had been so wrong.
She rolled over on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, feeling the need that tore through her like a hungry beast. The arousal, the aching desperation for his touch. It hadn’t changed for her. She hadn’t lost the need as he had; this was just another night, another torment to add to the others.
How could Callan betray her this way?
She pushed her fingers through her hair as waves of red-hot mortification and confusion whipped through her mind. She had depended on Callan that first year, she knew that. After Dayan’s death. After Callan killed him. She had let him protect her, let him draw her beneath his wing and help her find her way.
She shouldn’t have done that, she saw now. She shouldn’t have placed that burden on Callan’s shoulders.
You’re weak, Dawn. Look how weak you are. So weak you couldn’t endure what the rest of us learned how to live with. Look at that, Dawn.
The girl on those discs fought. Feral. Enraged. And she prayed. She prayed, and Dayan had laughed at it, laughed because he told her God didn’t care. He had proved it by taking her mind and leaving the animal to fight.
And Dawn felt no more for the memory of the images he had showed her than she did for any other image she had ever viewed of any other Breed. She felt regret, compassion for that child. And she felt humiliated, dirty, because Seth had seen it. He had seen her pray, and he had seen that God had turned the other way.
She blew out a weary breath and closed her eyes. She had to sleep. She couldn’t afford to leave Seth’s protection to a broken, exhausted woman. Just a few hours. She set her mental clock, her inner defenses, to awaken her in time to keep the dreams from slipping into her head like the malevolent creatures they were.
Not that she ever remembered the dreams. But she couldn’t let that animal free again. The one that awoke Sanctuary with feral, enraged feline screams. God help her if Seth ever had to see that, because she didn’t think she could bear that humiliation.
Sleep. She forced herself into the sheltering darkness, shut down her thoughts and made herself rest. As she had done so many times before.
An imperative, though slight, knock sounded at the bedroom door. It was muffled, but it didn’t stop. Seth snapped his lips together as he rolled from the mattress and padded in his sock feet through the bedroom and into the sitting room.
He didn’t have to pause to dress, because he was still damned well dressed. Slacks, shirt and socks. He wasn’t about to take his clothes off and feel the sensuous slide of the silk sheets against his flesh and remember how much softer Dawn’s flesh had been.
Hell no, he wasn’t going to try to sleep. He was going to stare at the damned ceiling all night long. Again.
He jerked the door open, then paused in shock at the sight of Cassie. Her face was paper white, all those curls hanging around her and flowing to the waist of the long, white gown and robe she wore.
“Seth.” Her voice sent chills up his spine. “You have to do something, Seth. She’s waking up.” Her eyes were huge, neon blue in a face parchment white.
“Dawn.” His gaze jerked to her door. He knew she hadn’t left her room. “What do you mean, Cassie?”
A tear fell from her eye. “She’s waking up, Seth. You have to go to her. Now. You can’t let her wake up alone. Please, Seth. Please.”
He clenched his fists at his side then ran his fingers through his hair.
“Cassie,” he groaned in frustration. “Dammit, I can’t go to her.”
“Seth. Don’t you love her anymore?”
Love her? He had never stopped loving her.
“This isn’t about love, Cassie.”
“But it is, Seth. If you love her, you’ll be there when she begins to wake up. You have to, Seth. You have to, or she’s lost to us forever.”
