“No, sweetheart, not your mind.” He sighed, his gaze heavy and filled with regret. “Just your control. And, sometimes, that’s almost worse.”
CHAPTER 20
The party waned in the early hours of the morning, and the house took on a heavy silence, almost as though it were waiting for some unforeseen event.
Or he was.
Seth lay beside his woman, his mate. That term should have been uncomfortable, yet it wasn’t. She lay against his chest sleeping deeply, her breath light and easy against his chest as he held her and stared at the ceiling above her.
The dreams were there, he knew. He’d eased her from several of them, stroking her back gently until she lapsed into a more comfortable sleep.
He felt the heavy tension of the house in his heart, his soul. As though he were waiting on that final boom. For the storm to strike and wipe away everything that had come before it. The cougar was an incredibly strong, adaptable creature. It roamed the high places, the deserts and forgotten cliffs, the forests and boundaries that man tried to impose. It survived on its own rules, and Dawn had done the same.
She was as graceful as the cougar, as adaptable, as incredibly beautiful and dangerous as the creature she had been created from.
But even with that strength, he didn’t know if she could survive what he feared he had been the catalyst for.
He stroked her hair as she shifted restlessly in her sleep, a muttered growl, a sound that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck, coming from her throat.
Seth closed his eyes and fought the agony building inside him. He admitted he was terrified for her to remember that past, terrified of what it would do to the woman and to the future he could have with her. He’d had her now. He’d stroked that incredibly body, felt her passion and her hunger and carried the
primal mark she had never given to another man. He didn’t want to live his life without the woman who had given him those gifts. Hell, he couldn’t imagine life without her now. He hadn’t even realized how much she was a part of him until she stepped into his life and took her place in his soul. As though it had been waiting on her, and opened for her with an ease that amazed him.
“Oh God…Oh God…” The words whispered from her as he grimaced tightly and pulled her closer to him, stroking her back, his lips touching her forehead.
He couldn’t stop what was coming and he knew it, but his prayer echoed hers as she whispered the words.
She never called for God while awake. She never prayed; she avoided it with clear intensity. Because God hadn’t answered her prayers as a child. He hadn’t saved her from the rapes or the horror. She didn’t see her rescue as salvation, because Dayan had moved so easily into position and begun his own campaign to destroy her. She didn’t see Dayan’s death as a salvation or as an answer to her childhood prayers.
She didn’t see the strength inside herself, that strength that went clear to her soul, as a gift from God. She believed the scientists and soldiers in those labs were right. That God didn’t create her, and He didn’t claim her. She believed she was without grace.
Grief welled inside him. It tightened his throat and his chest, and left him aching with a depth he hadn’t previously believed possible. He ached to the core of his being, a pain he feared would never ease or find relief unless Dawn did.
“…Save me…” The words whispered past her lips, and he knew, in a second, she would wake up. He could feel her gathering for it, pushing herself back to consciousness to escape those shattered memories and the child determined to find acknowledgment.
She came awake with a hard jerk as he let his eyes close. He didn’t want her to feel shame, didn’t want her to have to fight back her emotions because she knew he watched. She shouldn’t have to see the knowledge in his eyes, the memories she fought in his gaze. Because he knew what they had done to her as clearly as she did. Dayan had forced her to watch the disc, and Seth had forced himself to watch those images in that office where Jonas and Callan had turned their backs on them.
He felt her rise, felt her move from their bed and slowly dress in the uniform she kept lying on the padded stool.
She wouldn’t leave the house; he was confident of that. She needed to run, to hunt, but she wouldn’t leave his security, his protection, long enough to do so.
The knowledge that she restrained herself for him in such a way was a grim reminder of the life she had led and the discipline she imposed on herself.
He lay still and listened to her finish dressing then leave the bedroom. She left the door open into the sitting room. A second later he heard her muted conversation with the Breed guard outside the door, then the door closed and he was alone.
He waited. She would need time. A little bit of time before he followed her. A chance to breathe and to find her balance. He understood the nightmares well.
He gave her half an hour. She wasn’t getting any more than that. The fact that he was able to lie there, to force himself to patience, was a testament to his control, not his patience. Seth rose from the bed and breathed a weary sigh before dressing himself. He chose jeans and a T-shirt and tied leather running shoes on his feet before leaving the bedroom. The guard came to attention as he opened the door, his amber eyes somber as Seth stepped outside. Mercury’s expression was grim as Seth watched him for a long, silent moment.
“Where did she go?” he finally asked.
Mercury ran a broad hand around the back of his neck, rubbing at it in indecision.
“I won’t ask again,” he stated. He would simply go looking for her himself.
“Exercise room,” Mercury finally growled. “Let her work it out, Lawrence. She doesn’t need you down there.”
Seth tightened his jaw as anger lashed inside him.