Dawn's Awakening

by Lora Leigh

  He didn’t want to frighten her, didn’t want to make the nightmares worse. But God damn it if he could stand to see her this way.

  “Dawn, baby, wake up.” He reached out and realized his hand was shaking as he touched her hair then and had to clench his hands to keep from shaking her.

  “Oh God. Oh God. Oh please God…save me…save me…” The words whispered from her lips; desperate, guttural, tight, pain-filled sighs, a breath of sound, nothing more.

  “Dawn! Wake up!” he snapped, raising his voice, suddenly terrified.

  Her eyes flew open. She stared at the ceiling, her breathing harsh, her pupils dilated and she jerked as though attempting to free herself.

  It hurt him to watch her try to breathe, hurt him to see her gasping for air. He reached out and gripped her shoulders, unable to stop, breaking apart inside at the fear on her face, and pulled her to his chest.

  “Dawn, please, baby. Please wake up.” He held her head to his chest, his head bent over hers, and he wanted to cry. He wanted to kill. He wanted to spill the blood of the bastards who had dared to hurt her this way.

  “I’m okay.” Her voice was ragged, tearing past her throat in rough growls as her hands jerked up and gripped his forearms. “Get away from me.” She shuddered, shook as though freezing. “I’m okay.”

  But he wasn’t. He buried his face in her hair and held on to her. He couldn’t let her go. God help him. The feel of her against him, in his arms, against his chest—that was all he wanted. Right now, just this.

  “Did I scream?” Panic filled her voice now as she began to shake harder. “Please, did I scream?”

  Seth shook his head. “No. No, Dawn, you didn’t scream.”

  No scream could have been as tragic, as desperate as those frightened mewls, that desperate, whispered prayer that had fallen from her lips.

  “I’m okay then.” She shook off the nightmare with an ease that left him in shock. Her muscles lost their tension, and she relaxed in his embrace, breathing out softly. “Don’t let me go yet.”

  Let her go? Coyotes couldn’t pry his arms away from her right now.

  “I’ve dreamed of this.” She sighed against his chest, her nails kneading at the material of his shirt as she shifted from fear to sensuality.

  Seth gritted his teeth, and he tried to unlock his arms from around her. He tried to let her go. She was awake now, she would be okay, surely to God she would.

  He had never known torture like he knew it now. He remembered once, when he had been captured during a mission in his years in the military. One time, and the bastards had spent two days torturing him. That was nothing compared to this. The pain of holding her, the arousal building in his body like a fever, and feeling her slide against him.

  “It’s another dream, isn’t it?” she whispered. “I like these dreams. They don’t hurt.” Her lips touched his flesh where the shirt parted and he swore flames sizzled against the sweat he could feel building there.

  “Let me dream a little longer.” She pulled at the material of his shirt. “I hate it when you go away. When the dream just fades, right before I know what it’s supposed to feel like.”

  He closed his eyes, his palms flat against the light, thin T-shirt she wore to sleep in. He could feel her flesh through it, damp, heated, her muscles relaxing beneath the fingers that pressed against her.

  “Dawn,” he whispered against her hair. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  “It’s just a dream.” Her teeth scraped over his chest, those sharp little canines pausing to bite.

  And he let her. He let out a hard, desperate groan as her lips moved up his chest to his neck. She licked and his heart almost burst from the pleasure. Then those sharp little canines raked over the flesh at the base of his neck, and she bit down.

  “Shit!” His hand jerked to the back of her head and he had every intention of pulling her back.

  Instead, glutton that he was, he pushed her closer and tilted his head for her, let her have her way. Let her tongue lick and stroke as heat seemed to sink clear to the vein that throbbed beneath her lips. He would have let her tear his throat out if she wanted to, he realized.

  “I like this dream.” She moved in his arms, her lips still at his neck, moved and pressed into him until he was leaning against the headboard and she was straddling his thighs.

  He was a strong man, he had always told himself. He did the things he had to do whether he liked doing them or not. He understood his responsibilities, and he fulfilled them to the best of his ability. And he knew, he knew Dawn couldn’t handle the sexuality that fucking heat bred inside him.

  But was he moving away from her? Or was he touching her, helping her to slide down until the blazing heat of her pussy was riding the hard ridge of his cock with nothing but her panties and his slacks to separate them.

  And he was dying from the pleasure of it. The feel of her lips against his neck, the feel of his hands on her bare flesh. And he had to have more. If he didn’t have more, he was going to die.

  If it was another dream, then she didn’t want to know. Dawn knew she couldn’t be dreaming; she knew she was awake, knew Seth was holding her, knew that she was grinding herself against the thick length of his erection, and she couldn’t stop. Even though she knew he didn’t want this. He had come to her though. She had awoken and he was there. She had come out of a pain-filled darkness and he had been waiting on her, holding her, his arms wrapping around her and chasing the horror away.

  “I like this dream,” she whispered.

  “This dream is going to kill both of us.” His voice was strained, and she almost smiled, but her tongue was thick in her mouth, the hormone filling it spilling from the small glands. And she needed to share.

  She lifted her head from his neck, from the bite she had given him, and pulled his head down to her. He was so big, so hard and broad. In his arms she felt cocooned, protected against the darkness.

  “Kiss me, Seth.” She stared up at him, drugged, drowsy with the need. “Burn with me. Don’t make me burn alone this time. Don’t leave me again.”

  And she burned worse. He could see it in her, feel it in her.

  “Sweet heaven, you’ll destroy us both.”

  A man could only be so strong. He couldn’t deny the sweet taste of her, and he couldn’t deny her need. He could have denied his own. He could have fought it, he could have pushed himself from her, but he couldn’t deny her hunger.

  His lips covered hers, his tongue parting them, and he sank into bliss.

  The hormone was like a narcotic, but her lips, her lips were silk and satin, and the stroke of her tongue against his was ecstasy itself.

  He couldn’t help but lift against her, to grip her hips and press her into the desperately hard length of his cock. He wanted inside her. He wanted to peel the clothes from both of them and let her take him just like this. Pull her down and impale her on the impossibly hard flesh as he took her with a kiss just like this. Hungry and searching, a melding of lips and tongues and a single breath that they fed to each other.

  He felt his shirt slide off his shoulders to catch at his elbows, because he wasn’t letting go of her ass. Hell. Fuck. His hands were clenched around the cheeks of her ass, teaching her how to move against him, how to make him insane with lust.

  He was teaching her how to destroy him.

  “I want you naked, Seth. Just like my dreams. Naked against me.”

  No. No. Hell no. He was not getting naked with her. He wasn’t going to let this happen.

  Her hands, silken, heated, pulled his belt free as he bucked against her. The snap loosened and she was easing back, wiggling against the grip his hands had on her, pressing into it as he felt his zipper slide free.

  And was he doing a damned thing to save himself? He was a fool. Mindless. A mindless fool, and he deserved anything that slapped into him at this point.

  “Can I touch you, Seth?” Her breath whispered over his lips and fed his lusts.

  “Dawn, bad
idea.” He was fighting to breathe, drawing in her breath and dying in pleasure.

  “I dream of touching you, Seth.” Her voice was the sexiest sound to ever brush across his senses.

  “I’m not letting go.” His fingers flexed against the curves he held captive.

  “Do you like my ass, Seth?” the temptress whispered as he nipped at her lips before she leaned away from him.

  He opened his eyes and knew he should have left them closed. There she was, her hair mussed and wild around her sensual features. And her hands were moving, gripping the hem of her T-shirt and pulling it up. Up.

  “Ah hell, Dawn.” He was staring at her breasts, her nipples stiff and reaching out to him.

  His hands clenched on her ass again and he bared his teeth in torment as she lowered her hands and released his poker-hot, iron-hard dick from its confinement.

  He was a dead man, that was what he was. He might as well blow his own head off rather than wait for an assassin to do it for him. Because her hands, butter-fucking-soft hands, were wrapped around his cock, stroking it between their combined bodies, sending his senses exploding with pleasure. So much pleasure. Sweet God in heaven, he had never known pleasure like this.

  “Seth?” the temptress whispered.

  “What, baby?” He had to grit his teeth. “What? Anything. Dawn, sweetheart, don’t stop.”

  He opened his eyes and there were those sweet, cherry red nipples again. And he liked cherries. No, he loved cherries, and the ripest, sweetest ones in the world were right there for him to taste.

  His head lowered. His lips opened, and a second later he was drawing succulent, heated flesh into his mouth. He was sucking her nipple like a man starved for the taste of a woman, lifting her against him and drawing as much of that sweet breast into his mouth as he could consume.

  “Yes. Seth.” She arched into him. She wiggled that tight, sweet ass into the palms of his hands, and right there, he wondered if he would die with the pleasure of it.

  Her hands were on his cock, her nipple in his mouth. He was drunk, drugged, dying with the feel of her.

  “Seth. It’s so good.” She lifted, she moved. She undulated against him, and a second later he froze. Stock still, his head falling back to stare at her as he felt the head of his cock meet blazing, slick, wet flesh.

  And then he saw it in her eyes, like a shock of cold, icy water. He watched her eyes dilate, watched the realization and the haunted fear begin to build in her gaze.

  He swallowed tightly, his hands gripped her tighter, and then he lifted her, slowly, so fucking slowly and with agonized regret, away from the painfully erect flesh of his cock.

  “No.” She clutched at his arms. “What are you doing?”

  Seth shook his head; hell, his entire body was shuddering as he pulled her away from him.

  “Don’t stop.”

  He sat her on the bed jumped from the mattress and forced the unruly flesh back into his pants as her gasping breaths sounded behind him.

  “How can you do this?” Furious, hurt, the question that broke from her lips had him turned, shrugging his shirt over his shoulders as the bite at his neck burned like wildfire.

  “I won’t take you in fear, Dawn,” he growled furiously. “I won’t take you while you’re staring at me with fear in your eyes. I can’t fucking do it.”

  Dawn blinked in shock as he turned on his heel and stalked out of her bedroom, back to his own room. She came from the bed in a furious burst of energy, anger and lust zipping through her veins in equal parts as she jerked her T-shirt from the floor, pulled it over her head and stomped after him.

  “How dare you!” she snarled, catching up with him in the sitting room. “Damn you, Seth…”

  She stopped, the scent of blood whipping through her system as Seth suddenly turned, tackled her and threw her across the floor.

  Bullets slammed into the walls. The ping ping ping of silenced, automatic gunfire nearly without sound until a mirror shattered, raining glass around them.

  “Are you hit?” she screamed. “Seth. Seth.”

  She tried to roll him off her, terror lending strength to her muscles as she smelled the blood, so much blood.

  “Seth!”

  “Dammit, Dawn, stay still. I’m fine.” He grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the door before she could regain her feet, threw them into the hall.

  Bullets slammed into the door behind them.

  Then they were on their feet, moving swiftly through the hall as Dash’s door jerked open.

  “I need a link.” Dawn slid into the room with Dash, scrambling to the side bar where she knew Dash’s link lay, while he rushed for another.

  “Report. We have gunfire in the main room. I repeat, gunfire slamming into the main room. Report.”

  Her unit reported in instantly. All present and rushing to locate the source.

  “Weapon is silenced. Gunfire came from the north through the balcony doors. Suspect night vision and long distance,” she ordered fiercely as she caught a wrap Elizabeth threw at her as Cassie moved silently from her room.

  Dash was checking the locks and the blinds on the balcony doors to the room and arming himself quickly.

  “Cassie, I need clothes,” she snapped before turning to Dash. “I need your secondary weapons and utility belt.”

  “I have them.” Elizabeth was pulling them from a bag she had carried from the bedroom, and Cassie rushed from her own room with clothes and shoes.

  Dawn grabbed the clothes, rushed into the bedroom and within seconds had dragged them on and tied the hiking boots Cassie had brought her on her feet. The shoes fit perfectly; the jeans and top were a little snug.

  She jerked the utility belt on, secured the weapon and rushed back to the sitting room as she secured the link back on her head.

  And she came to a full stop.

  “No!” Terror gripped her in blinding waves. “You lied to me.”

  He was hit. She watched as Elizabeth tried to staunch the blood running in rivulets down his arm.

  Seth’s head jerked up, and she realized he had been listening to the reports coming through another link. He held a weapon in his hand, one of the heavy handguns Dash carried that were equipped with laser bursts.

  She moved to him quickly, ignoring the silent, warning look he was giving her. As though she had no right to be angry with him.

  “We have bigger problems.” His jaw clenched furiously.

  “Bigger problems than you bleeding to death in front of me?” she snapped.

  “Much bigger.” He rose to his feet as Elizabeth tied off the bandage. “It wasn’t just my blood you smelled in there. We have a body. One of my board members, and one of the few who supported me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Dawn crouched by the body and lifted her gaze to watch Dash’s expression as he surveyed the dead board member as well.

  “Seth has contacted the authorities on the mainland,” she murmured. “They’re on their way in.”

  Dash nodded slowly, his amber eyes narrowed as he stared at the blood that stained the carpet and the expression of blank shock on the dead man’s eyes.

  His name was Andrew Breyer. He had a wife and two children who were currently being comforted by Elizabeth and Cassie in another room. He was fifty-two years old, robust and in good health, and he had three holes made by a high-powered, silenced rifle buried in his chest, dead center to his heart.

  “He’s close to Seth’s height, though wider, a bit thicker in the middle,” Dash murmured. “There’s no doubt the shooter was after Seth.”

  Dawn swallowed tightly. That shooter had managed to lay a gouge along Seth’s shoulder before he had thrown them both to the floor.

  She stared around the sitting room, feeling the bile gather in her stomach and in her throat. The shades were drawn across the balcony doors now, the windows closed tight, but Dawn knew that if an assassin could get his hands on a silenced high-powered rifle then one with penetrating night vision could have easily p
icked Seth out through something so paltry as shades.

  “There are storm shutters at the side of all the windows and doors.” She rubbed her hand over her face and stared around the room again. “He won’t leave his suite; we can secure it. That would ensure his safety here.”

  “Did your team find the shooter’s nest?” He lifted his head, his gaze penetrating, icy.

  Dawn shook her head tightly. “It couldn’t have come from the island, Dash. My team has checked everywhere. The angle of the gunfire, the complete stealth. I suspect one of the tour ships that leave the mainland and pass by. The shooter had to be there. There’s just no way to achieve the same angle in a smaller craft.”

  “There are plenty of trees, plenty of cover around the house,” he pointed out.

  Dawn nodded. “That’s true, but neither Styx nor Noble can find a hint of the scent. And you can silence a weapon, but you can’t cover its scent, especially once it’s fired. It would have been there, somewhere. The entire team has canvassed the area and there’s nothing. I’ve called Callan and asked for reinforcements. We’re going to have to have another team out here. We don’t have enough agents.”

  He stared at her silently for long moments. She was only second command, but she was in charge under his supervision. Calling in more agents was her prerogative, but she knew if he felt they weren’t needed, they would be called back.

  Finally, he nodded. “You’re right. We need two full teams to cover this. Amazingly, none of the other board members or their families are requesting transportation off the island. Rabid curiosity.” He shook his head. “God save me from it.”

  Dawn shook her head and moved back from the corpse to get a better look at the middle-aged board member. She had met him the night before, wandering the gardens alone. And now he was here, dead.

  Lowering herself, body flat, she ignored Dash’s curious gaze as she inhaled the scents closer to the floor.

  Thankfully Seth was in the hall with the other board members. If he had been closer, her senses would have been so swamped with him that she could have never sifted through the scents here.

  She wanted to turn the body over, wanted to do her own investigation. She was hampered by the authorities, who had demanded preservation of the scene. As though Breeds didn’t know how to conduct an investigation. Prints had already been dusted for; ultraviolet had already swept the room, and a collection of fibers, hairs and other assorted evidentiary items had been collected.

  Her eyes narrowed as her gaze was caught by something lying close beside the hand that was tucked partially beneath the victim’s body. She could barely make out the tiniest hint of a piece of paper.

  “I have something here, Dash. Paper. It’s under the body.”

  Dash growled at the inconvenience of the position. They couldn’t touch the body in any way and risk the authorities’ ire in this matter. The situation was too tricky.

  Dawn adjusted the latex gloves on her hands and waited until Dash could move in beside her. He flattened himself to the floor and peered at the area Dawn was pointing to.

  “Merc, get the forceps from my bag,” Dash murmured.

  A second later the surgical steel forceps were in his hand and Dash flashed her a smile. “Never know when you might have to extract something in our line of work.”

  Then he was wedging the forceps beneath the body and slowly pulling the paper free. They were lucky; the dead man wasn’t gripping the paper. It had fallen from his hand as he fell, and it was marred by only a spot or two of blood, sheltered as it had been between the arm and the body.

  “Here we go,” he muttered, taking it from the metal grips and slowly unfolding it.

  Dawn read it, then looked back at Dash in concern.

  Tell Seth now! the note read.

  “Someone is paranoid,” Dash said softly. “Hard copy rather than e-message. I’d suspect Breyer found this note in his room rather than having it passed to him.”

  Tell Seth now. Tell Seth what? Dawn rose to her feet beside Dash as he had the note stored in an evidence bag, then tucked it easily into the inside, hidden pocket of his military-style shirt.

  “Dash, Callan just contacted. He’ll have four additional agents flying in within the hour.” Merc’s leonine features were harsh, the dark, gold brown eyes flat and cold. “Satellite also pinpoints a large vessel anchored within line of sight of this room, for four hours prior to the shooting. It pulled anchor and moved out just after the shots fired at Seth and Dawn. We have no reports of the vessel docking at any of the nearby harbors, and all indications are it was stealth equipped. It wasn’t on our radar.”

  “Not a tour ship but close to it,” Dawn snapped, furious. “Son of a bitch, how were they able to stealth equip such a large vessel?”

  “They couldn’t, unless it was military,” Mercury rasped. “We almost missed it with the satellites, and identification of it is going to be impossible.”

  “Council.” Dawn pushed her fingers roughly through her hair as fear began to brew in her stomach. The Genetics Council still had ties to the military in every section of the world.

  “Why would the Council target Seth?” she growled, looking back at Dash. “He isn’t the only one funding Sanctuary. Why him and not others?”

  Dash’s eyes were narrowed as he stared around the room.

  “Merc, Dane Vanderale is in residence. See if you can convince him to get his people to loan us one of the Vanderale sats. If we combine it with the Lawrence sat we’re using, then we can possibly keep this from happening again.”

  “They’ll find a way onto the island next,” Dawn muttered. “This didn’t work, so they’ll be pissed. They’ll come in closer.”

  “And when they do, we’ll have them.” Dash’s smile was cold. Hard. “I want this suite secured, doors and windows shielded at all times. And you’re off the team now.” He turned to Dawn as she blinked back at him, shock and anger slicing through her.

  “Not because of performance, Dawn,” he snarled quietly. “I want you close to Seth at all times. I want your attention on him, your focus on him. Besides the fact you’re now in full heat and that compromises your focus, I know if you’re with him his chances of surviving this increase. You’re at his back, watching every breath he takes. Is that understood?”

  She swallowed tightly. He was right. Her focus was compromised and she knew it. Already she could feel her insides shaking, her need for Seth’s touch, his smel