Wolf Breed Dash Sinclair had found her and her mother in the middle of a freak blizzard and rescued them from the monsters chasing them ten years ago.
She was still a virgin. She had never been wounded, slapped, beaten or raped. And she spoke more casually of death than any mature, lab-raised Breed ever had. Dawn jerked her shirt from the floor and wiped the sweat from her face before running the jersey material over her damp hair and shoulders. She needed a moment, just a moment, to get herself under control.
“I brought hot chocolate.” Cassie uncurled herself slowly from the chair and moved like a wraith, like the ghosts it was said she spoke to, to the small table by a window. She poured two mugs of the sweet, rich brew, turned back slowly and set one on the table beside Dawn. Dawn’s hands were shaking so badly, the effects of the nightmare still so much a part of her, that she couldn’t have held the mug if she’d had to.
Cassie retreated back to her chair, sat down and curled her legs under her once more. She was so tiny, Dawn thought. Barely five-three, delicate. She had so much damned hair flowing around her that sometimes Dawn wondered how she held her head up.
Dawn ran her fingers through her own short locks. She kept them hacked off. If her hair wasn’t long then there was nothing for the enemy to grip. To hold her down with. A woman with long hair might as well extend an invitation to every bastard out there that would hurt her. Hold her down. Force her. Bile rose in her throat.
“A new day is beginning,” Cassie said, looking toward the still-dark window. “Today will begin a new adventure.” A small, sad smile shaped her lips as she turned back to Dawn. “Every day is an adventure though, isn’t it?”
“Is that what you call it?” Dawn snorted as she glanced at her, slowly finding the control she had fought for so desperately over the years.
“Mom and Dad always give me the same look when I tell them that.” Cassie’s lips tilted in a strange, knowing smile. “Kenton rolls his eyes at me.” Kenton was her brother, barely nine, but already showing the advanced intelligence and strength of a Breed child.
“Cassie, now isn’t a good time.” Dawn sighed roughly. “I need to shower and get some things done.”
Cassie stared down at her own drink, steam rising from the cup as her lips tilted in saddened resignation.
“I hear that a lot too.”
Dawn knew she did. Cassie was an anomaly among the Breeds. Her DNA was Wolf and Coyote as well as human. She’d been distrusted and often avoided as she grew older and her eyes deepened to that hypnotic blue. Centuries before she would have been burned at the stake as a witch. Dawn cared for the girl though. She had been a regular visitor at Sanctuary over the years, first as a precocious child and now often as a prankster and teasing teenager.
“This is a bad time for me,” Dawn gritted out, knowing that sometimes Cassie needed explanations, despite the spooky air of knowledge she carried with her.
“That’s why I came.” Cassie suddenly smiled, as though Dawn had given her the invitation to stay, and that smile lit up her eyes, making their glow brighter. “I knew it would be bad. And the dreams always make you grouchy. Today, you have to look forward to the adventure, Dawn. So I came to cheer you up before you could begin stressing over what you don’t remember.”
Dawn swallowed tightly and couldn’t control the flinch at the reminder of things she didn’t remember.
“Cassie…”
“Dawn. You helped save me when I was little. You and Sherra put your lives on the line for me. You were hurt then just as you’ve been hurt over the years defending Sanctuary. Let me do this.”
“Do what?” Dawn shook her head in confusion. “What can you do for me, Cassie? Can you wipe the dreams away? Can you take away the past or change it? How in the hell do you think you can make this better? Sweetheart, if you want to make it better, go away and let me get control of myself.”
“Like everyone else does?” Cassie sighed. “Everyone goes away so you can think, so you can work, so you can sleep and so you can dream alone. Even Seth went away, didn’t he?”
Dawn stilled. She felt something inside her, something that had been relaxing, freeze. She didn’t want to hear about Seth, she didn’t want to think about Seth. He was better off away from Sanctuary and away from her.
“What does Seth have to do with anything?”
Seth Lawrence of Lawrence Industries, one of the Breeds’ greatest proponents and supporters, and he was one man she couldn’t afford to think about.
“He was here the other day, arguing with Jonas. Did you hear?” Cassie tilted her head to the side. “He doesn’t like Jonas much, you know.”
“No one likes Jonas much.” Dawn inhaled slowly, the irrational terror slowly easing inside her.
“Everyone likes Seth though.” Cassie waggled her brows as she uncurled from the chair and moved to the bed.
Dawn watched as Cassie Sinclair plopped at the bottom of the bed, crossed her legs and leaned forward intently.
“Seth ishawt ,” she drawled.
Dawn winced. “Seth is too old for you, Cassie.” She forced herself to keep her voice calm, unemotional. What the hell did she care who found Seth sexy? It was nothing to her. She wouldn’t let it become something to her.
“He’s still hot.” Cassie wrinkled her nose. “For an old man.”
“He’s not an old man.” And Dawn assured herself she hadn’t just gritted the words out.