The bond between Cassie and her parents was absolute. It had been forged in steel, her mother’s connection to the Wolf Breed naturally including the child that had brought them together. Seeing her pain, seeing the same knowledge Dawn saw in Cassie, would be killing Dash and Elizabeth. The knowledge that their daughter was meeting death without a fight.
“I’ll become your radar.” He chuckled. “Now get your ass over here with us. We’re going home, baby. Where we can play all by ourselves.”
All by themselves. Dawn moved slowly across the room, praying the others stayed in place. She just had to get beside him, get in place and then she could jerk Cassie that needed distance to save her from a
bullet to her brain.
“To the left, Dawn,” Jonas directed her. “That will turn him where we need him.”
She moved to the left, still going forward, pretending to skirt around a couple huddled together as they watched Phelps.
“There’s a good little kitty. Come to Daddy, little girl.”
The bastard moved.
He leveled his eyes on the sight, readjusted and recalculated the odds. The shot would still strike the girl, but not as deep. He could only pray the wind stayed calm and the players before him stayed in place.
“Dawn, a little more to the left,” Jonas ordered quietly.
She moved more to the left, always advancing, one slow, hesitant step at a time, as Phelps followed her with his gleeful eyes.
He smiled. Yeah, that was better. Just a little more.
Dawn could feel her heartbeat, slow, steady. There was no panic, there was no fear. She knew this maneuver. She had trained with it, perfected it. Any hostage situation or variable imagined and she had gone through it. She needed to get close enough, to get in position. She would have to move swiftly, but Breed reflexes were faster than human, and for all his strength and experience at killing Breeds, the Council soldiers still hadn’t yet figured out that the Breeds trained now to adjust to the knowledge the Council had on them.
They didn’t fight as they’d been trained. They didn’t react as they’d been trained. She could feel Seth behind her; she sensed Callan a bit to her side. Both men were tensed and prepared to jump.
Just a little more, she thought. Be patient. Let me fight my own battles. Callan’s protection was absolute and she knew it. He would easily sacrifice himself to save one of the female Breeds under his care. Just as Wolf Gunnar would do, as Dash would do. They had their own mates, their own children, but the value they placed on all females and their protection would push them to extreme lengths.
She was several feet from Jason now. Frustration was lining his face.
“If you don’t hurry, bitch, I’m going to hurt her,” he warned. “I might not kill her, but I can spill her blood easy and get away with it.”
Yes, he could. But Dawn didn’t hurry. She stepped carefully, cautiously.
“I said now.” The gun shifted from Cassie’s temple toward Dawn and a roar sounded.
“No!” Dawn screamed as she tried to jump for Callan.
Horror flashed through her brain as the gun aimed and fired, the bullet slamming into Callan. And he kept coming.
As though it were a dream, slow motion, time slowing almost to a stop. Jason Phelps’s head exploded as Cassie jerked, blood spraying from the side of her head. She toppled forward, hand outstretched, her beautiful eyes closing.
Dawn felt that child’s life flash before her eyes. The little girl that bargained for chocolate, her smile flashing, her blue eyes gleaming with laughter. The child that saw “fairies,” ghosts Cassie had told her about not long ago. Shimmering forms of lives long past who came to her, whispered secrets to her. She had watched Cassie grow. Sanctuary had been the haven Dash had brought his family to when he needed additional protection for them.
Before Dawn’s eyes Cassie had grown from a child to a young woman, always laughing despite her feelings that she would never fit in, that she would never be accepted because of her dual genetics. And Callan. She stared at the blood pouring from his chest, his golden hair fanned out around him, his aristocratic, beloved features still and pale as Breeds rushed for him and Dash bellowed in white hot rage as he rushed for his daughter.
And it was Dawn’s fault.
“No. Oh God, no!” She froze; she didn’t know where to run, what to do. Screams were echoing in her head, orders barked furiously into the link about an unknown shooter, location and trajectory.
And all Dawn could see was Cassie and Callan. So motionless, so pale. Their wounds those that few Breeds had survived. Callan’s to his chest, Cassie’s to the head. God in Heaven. An enraged roar tore through her as Seth’s arms surrounded her, jerking her to his body as the pain struck in blinding waves through her head. She jerked from him, fury pumping through her as she fell on the body of the bastard that had hurt so many. Callan’s pale face filled her vision. The image of Cassie, broken, taken from them, filling her head as her hands sank into warm, rich blood and her head tipped back, her roar shaking her body. Oh God. All because of her. They were gone because of her.
“I have you, sweetheart.” Seth’s rough voice was in her ear as he dragged her back from Phelps’s cooling body. “I have you. I have you, Dawn.”
She collapsed in his arms, sobbing, holding on to him because she couldn’t hold on to herself anymore. She screamed Callan’s name as Breeds tried to staunch the bleeding, as she heard the wordslosing him ricochet in her mind.
No! They couldn’t lose him. They couldn’t. She hadn’t told him she was sorry. She hadn’t told him she understood why he had tried to protect her from Seth. He hadn’t hugged her. He hadn’t growled at her with that playful half-warning growl that assured her everything was fine between them. She was losing her brother. Her pride leader. She was losing him, and the agony that lanced through her had her holding tight to Seth. Begging him, begging God, because she didn’t know how to endure this guilt.