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“Don’t you have a party to attend?” she sneered. “Go right ahead and take care of business, Seth. I’ll sit right here where I can’t embarrass you with my uniform and my lack of class.”
He almost snorted at that one. Instead he just tilted his head and watched her. She needed to get the anger out first and he’d be damned if he’d let her do it by fighting with him.
A furious growl left her throat before she clamped her lips shut and turned her back on him. A second later the tension left her shoulders enough that they seemed to slump dejectedly. And that broke his heart. He hurt for her, with her. His little Dawn. She didn’t understand Callan’s love for her any more than she understood how to handle the emotions that only built between her and Seth.
He forced himself to stand where he was, to let her work through that initial fire.
“Dayan made me watch those discs,” she finally whispered, and Seth flinched at the raw pain in her voice. “For years. Years and years, over and over again. He made me watch them. I never remembered what they did to me, but I remember watching those discs.”
Dayan had been insane. Seth thanked God he was dead; it saved him the trouble of fighting Callan for the right to strike the killing blow.
“After the escape, I went to sleep. Callan said I slept for days. When I woke up, I didn’t remember any of it. I remembered the labs, I remembered the beatings and the training and the pain. But I didn’t remember the rapes clearly.” Her voice was at a near whisper, confusion filling her tone. “How do you just forget something that molded you?” She turned back to him then, and the aching pain and loss on her face tore at his soul.
“Sometimes, God gives us strength, Dawn, where we only perceive weakness.”
She sneered at that. “God didn’t create me, Seth. Don’t pull that on me. He had nothing to do with this.”
He shook his head at that. “You can’t convince me of that, Dawn. Would you like to know why?”
“I guess you’re just going to tell me whether I want you to or not,” she bit out resentfully.
“Man can’t create a soul, Dawn, only God can. And you can’t live without your soul. You know that as well as I do. If what you’re saying is true, then the Breeds would be no more than the automatons the Council dreamed of creating, rather than free and fighting to live and to love.”
With those words he moved toward her. She stared back at him, denial and furious pain resonating in her eyes. Those beautiful eyes. Not the amber of Callan’s, but the color of sweet honey touched by fire. And they broke his heart with the shadows that filled them, even as the heat that seemed always present now simmered his blood.
She was a part of his soul now, and he wondered if she even realized how much a part of him that she was, that they were of each other. Earlier, as morning filled the sky and only the dimmest light pierced the bedroom, he had felt it. Felt it as she moved over him, as she purred for him.
“I wanted to come to you without those images between us,” she whispered hoarsely, refusing to shed the tears he knew lay trapped within her. “I wanted you to touch me without remembering that, without seeing another man touching me.”
The shame that curled inside her nearly brought her to her knees now. She had no idea what to do with the emotions ripping through her, the need for something that she couldn’t identify, and a sudden terror that the shadows she could feel pressing against her mind were memories she didn’t want to see.
“And do you think that’s what I saw, Dawn?” he asked her gently, his hands settling on her shoulders before running lightly down her arms. “I didn’t see another man touching you. I saw a monster attempting to destroy something so pure and so innocent that it defies my ability to describe it. And I saw its inability to do so. Because the soul of that child was too strong, and too well protected by the being that gave that soul to her. You’re pure. As innocent as a baby’s breath, and, whether you believe it or not, sweetheart, protected by the most powerful being in the universe.”
Dawn shook her head. She couldn’t believe that. Not again. Not ever again. Because if she dared, then she might trust again, and if she trusted in His help then she might as well trust in a coyote’s.
“Yeah, real pure and innocent,” she sneered instead. “So pure that you ran the second you saw it. Just took Callan’s word for the fact that I was too weak to be a mate. Too damaged to be your woman.”
“He loves you, Dawn. Like a brother. Like a father. Like the man who failed to protect you when he knew you needed him the most, and he was determined not to fail again. Will you punish both of you by refusing to forgive him for it?”
She jerked away from Seth, tossing him a resentful glare as she moved jerkily to the bar and pulled a water from the mini-fridge there. More as an excuse for time than out of any real thirst.
As she drank, she fought the logic he was using against her, as well as the heat beginning to build within her. She wanted to fight that logic. She wanted to fight Seth, Callan and Jonas. She wanted to tell them all to fuck off, to leave her the hell alone. And she couldn’t. She couldn’t because she loved both Callan and Seth too much.
“I should have had a choice,” she whispered as she capped the water and set it on the bar.
She hunched her shoulders against the pain driving inside her like a bitter blade. “Someone should have given me the choice.” The choice to accept her mate, to grow strong beside him rather than without him.
“Yes, we should have.”
He surprised her with his answer. It didn’t surprise her that he followed her, that he cupped her cheek and stared down at her, his gray eyes cloudy, darkening with emotion and with acceptance.
“You deserved the chance to choose for yourself, and I’ll take that blame on my shoulders Dawn. Callan shouldn’t have to. I was the one who walked away when I knew better. I walked away because I was terrified of putting fear in your eyes, and I knew I was too damned weak to bear to see it there.”
And she was weak. Too weak to listen to this. Too hurt and too unsettled by the emotions and the edge of panic she could feel rising inside her.
“Do you see fear?” she snapped back at him.
His lips quirked, sadly, wryly. “I don’t see fear, Dawn.”
