Other dancers were pausing now, watching, avid curiosity in their gazes.
“Don’t touch me again.” She leveled furious eyes on him, the animal inside her reacting with a ferocity she couldn’t understand. She could smell his blood, beating hard and fast in his veins, and she wanted to see it spilling to the floor.
“Dawn.” There was an edge of warning in Seth’s voice and it pissed her off.
“If you want him to have a dance, then you dance with him,” she hissed, pulling away from him and casting him an accusing glare.
He knew the mating heat. He knew the symptoms of it by now. A mated female couldn’t tolerate another male’s touch during those first weeks and months of the bonding. Betrayal flashed through her as he watched her with a frown, and what she perceived as an edge of censure in his gaze.
“Excuse me,” she bit out between gritted teeth. “I think I’ll find a drink.”
“Hey, come on, gorgeous, I just wanted a dance.” Jason laughed. “I thought we were friends.” A male pout pursed his lips and it sickened her.
The mating heat was destroying her. Her nerves were strung as tight as a banjo string, and the animal inside her was clawing for freedom, almost a separate entity, attempting control.
“I don’t have friends,” she told him with deadly softness, making certain her voice carried no farther as rumor-greedy eyes tried to listen to the exchange. “I warned you of that before. Remember it.”
With one last furious look at Seth, she turned and moved across the ballroom as she motioned to Styx to cover Seth’s back. She couldn’t do it right now. Her emotions, her sense of balance were so
compromised she felt almost outside her own flesh. As though her spirit were gliding alongside her body rather than within it. And before her inner eye Jason Phelps’s face flashed back at her. Shock, surprise But how could he be surprised? He would know…
She stopped and shook her head before turning slowly and staring back at him. He couldn’t know about the mating heat, and he wouldn’t know about the reaction female mates had to touch from males other than their mates. A reaction the males were supposed to experience as well, but with female touch only.
Seth knew.
That’s why her reactions were so extreme, almost violent. He knew, and he had still attempted to curb her response as though—what? She was going to spill Breed secrets in the middle of his ballroom floor?
She shifted her gaze to Seth. Suddenly, the need for him swept over her. Her juices flooded her pu**y, instantly dampened her panties and had her forcing back a growl as she turned once more and stalked to where Dash and his family stood.
“Dawn, get a handle on it,” Dash muttered as she stopped beside Cassie.
“Yeah,” Cassie murmured. “Make certain you’re the one that gets a handle on it. It’s not their responsibility to do so.”
Dawn blinked at Cassie. She was watching the dance floor, her eyes restless, her cheeks flushed. The scents coming from the other girl were contradictory. Fear and confusion, anticipation.
“Elizabeth.” Dash’s voice was warning, the voice of a man begging his wife to do something with his teenage progeny, since he sure as hell didn’t know what to do with her.
“Dawn, you’ve walked into a family feud,” Elizabeth sighed as Dawn watched Seth finish his discussion with Jason Phelps before heading back to her.
Her eyes narrowed on him, and she didn’t understand why she was so furious.
“Don’t worry, Elizabeth, I think it’s something in the water,” she snorted. “All the men are acting weird around this place.”
Cassie smothered a laugh, and when her blue eyes turned to Dawn, there was a sense of thankfulness in them. Her father was obviously stressing over all the male attention she was receiving, and responding to the scents of his daughter’s confusion and awakened womanhood. It had to be hard on him. Every day that Cassie lived was a miracle to them. She had a price on her head set by the Council scientists, a price that would fund a small nation.
“Dash.” Seth nodded at the other man as his fingers loosely circled Dawn’s wrist. “If you’ll excuse us, Dawn and I have a bit more circulating to do before the evening is over.”
She glared at him as he gave her a hard look. “Circulating?” she asked sweetly. “Is that another word for flirting with the pretty boys you invited? What, Seth, I didn’t perform as expected?”
He stopped, his expression surprised, angry as he stared down at her.
Dawn grimaced, knowing she had gone too far. Knowing and not certain why. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t know—”
“Don’t.” He shook his head wearily then. “No apologies needed, Dawn. We’ll just say good night to a few friends and then go to bed.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll work it out there. All right?”
She wanted to cry. She knew there should be tears, but her eyes were dry, painful from the need to shed the poison that seemed to be consuming her.
“I’m losing my mind, Seth,” she whispered. “I can feel it.”