“Let’s sit down. Would you like a drink, Seth?”
Seth nodded, requested a whiskey, straight, and moved to the seating arrangement as he watched Elizabeth sit down slowly.
Dressed in tailored, cream-colored slacks and a sleeveless blouse, she looked more like Cassie’s sister than her mother. And he knew the why of that. It was the mating heat and the delayed aging it caused.
“Her eyes—” He stared at Elizabeth. “I saw her eyes.” He shook his head bleakly. “Hell if I know what to do now. I stayed away from her as they asked me to. I waited for her to come to me, and she never did.”
Elizabeth frowned and glanced at her husband. “Who asked you to stay away from Dawn?” she snapped, frowning darkly. “Dash, were you aware of this?”
“It happened before Dash came to Sanctuary.” He inhaled roughly. “Just before. I was trying to…” He grimaced. “I was trying to court her. Two of Jonas’s enforcers showed me to an office in the estate. They showed me what those bastards did to her.” He lowered his eyes as he took the whiskey from Dash.
“The videos the Council made.” He could still feel the rage tearing through him. “What they did to her.”
“Who did this?” Dash asked.
“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.