“A lot of soaps then.” He smirked into the predawn shadows of the room. “If a scent made me think of you, I found a soap maker. Ireland in all seasons. Scotland during a highland summer beside a clear running stream. I thought of you there. I even bought the land. Paris, the countryside alive with spring. There was even this little town, somewhere in Egypt, where the scent of the desert sands met a private oasis. Damn, I got hard thinking of you there.”
A light laugh against his chest. “You had a soap made for me every time you got hard?”
“Hell, not enough rooms in this house to store that much soap.” He grinned. “Nah, I had to be someplace I thought you’d like. A scent I wanted to share with you. An emotion I wanted you to know.”
The grin turned rueful. “I wanted to share it all with you, and that was the only way I knew how to do it.”
“You never gave me the soaps though,” she pointed out.
“Because I wanted to bathe you with them myself,” he sighed, his hands running over her body. “I wanted to seduce you with scents and touch. Hell, Dawn, I wanted a reason to make myself believe I could have you. If I had the soaps, maybe you’d be curious about the scents. If you liked the silks and lace of the panties, maybe, just maybe,” his voice thickened, “you’d model them for them.”
“So you could seduce me?” Her voice was soft, and in it, he heard her joy.
“So I could seduce you. Forever.” He pressed her head against his chest.
“I love you, Seth. Until there’s no tomorrow, no beginning or end, I love you.”
And for a second his eyes closed, because the emotion that swamped him nearly undid him.
“And I love you, sweetheart. Until I’d wither away and die without you.”
And there, curled into each other, as dawn lifted across the sky, they slept. The ragged survivors of a tempest.
Cassie stared into the darkness of her bedroom.
The child was gone. It had slowly faded away hours before, but it had done so with such a look of hope that she had shed a tear and whispered a prayer that Dawn had finally let her in. Every Breed in the house had heard Dawn’s screams. Cassie’s parents still hadn’t returned to their room after rushing to the basement, but Cassie knew it wasn’t because Dawn was in pain any longer. Dawn had awoken, just as the new day was rising.
She rose from her bed and stared down at the evening gown she still wore. They hadn’t been back in the room long before Dawn’s screams had pulled her parents away. Her mother had been brushing Cassie’s hair. Sometimes her parents took turns brushing her hair, as they had when she was a little girl, despite the fact that she often protested it. Her father couldn’t seem to accept that she was growing up. And her mother, Cassie often thought, saw her daughter’s maturity with a sense of fear.
She moved from her bedroom to the sitting room, pausing in front of the doors, pulled there as though by an unseen force she couldn’t understand.
She didn’t dare walk outside.
She gripped the handle and breathed in deeply, the fear building inside her. She knew her own death was coming. Not how it would happen, or where, but she knew there was no avoiding it. If it happened here, then her father wouldn’t be nearby. Her mother wouldn’t see it. They would be safer.
She had known she would die here. She had dreamed it. The visions that followed her, the ghostly forms that had drifted away from her over the past months, had warned her of it. They had told her that this was her destiny, that only here, and only with her blood, would the future become what it should be. She didn’t want to die. She was only eighteen; there was so much that she wanted to see, wanted to experience. She wanted to dance and laugh. She wanted to know the truth of the shadowed vision of a man she saw in her dreams. Hear his laughter in life rather than just in sleep. She wanted to watch her baby brother grow, and she wanted to be a woman, rather than the woman-child she knew she was.
But here, she had been warned. Here, her blood would be spilled by the one that held the wavering form of a child bound in the past. He would set into motion the future for the Breeds, for Dawn, and lay yet another piece of the puzzle that would eventually form a strong, able Breed community. She would die by that man’s hand. And far better that she die alone, with none but her killer to see her fear.
She turned the door handle and slowly opened the door.
The sun was rising, casting a million shades of muted colors across the sky. Everything lay in shadow, and the shadows welcomed her as she moved onto the balcony. A clear target. And she knew someone had taken sight. She could feel it. Right there, the center of her forehead. She stared out into the thick covering of trees and ached. She ached for so many things, so many thoughts and dreams and a life she would never have. Because she was unique, her father said. The truth was, because she was a freak.
And whoever watched her knew. He knew what she was, and he knew she couldn’t be allowed to live, didn’t he? They wouldn’t want to take her in; in the Council’s hands she would be a lever against the Breeds, a shift in the balance of power. And at present, there were so few who wanted anything to shift. War was always profitable. Even a silent war such as was being waged on the Breeds. No, whoever was out there didn’t want to take her in. But his sights were on her, gun sights, steady. Clear. She stared into them, and with a mocking smile, mouthed the words,I dare you!
From his nest, he leveled the sights on the perfect face, right between those beautiful blue eyes, and imagined caressing her.
She was dressed in an evening gown, black, and it flowed around her like the night. He read her lips and his own quirked into a smile. His finger didn’t move for the trigger. Instead his eyes stayed on her, stroked over pale, luminescent flesh, and he drew in the scent of innocence. Pure innocence tinged with fear.
I dare you,she had mouthed.
He smiled at the challenge. One day, she just might dare him too far, but he doubted it would be a bullet he’d penetrate her with.
CHAPTER 22
The next afternoon, Dawn sat at the long table that held the meetings of the board of directors of Lawrence Industries and watched as each of them signed the agreements Seth had laid out for them. With the agreement to finance Sanctuary and Haven were agreements Lawrence Industries made to individual companies. A promise to restructure here, to strengthen there. Each board member was also the vice president of one of the sections that came together beneath the control and guidance of Lawrence Industries. Former owners or CEOs who had lost control because of bad management, buyouts or other varied reasons.
Because they had backed Seth, Seth in turn would reach out and support them more fully as well.