Dawn Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  Author Notes

  Dawn

  By

  Sherry Foster

  Dedication

  To the family I adore,

  my friends who keep me sane,

  and the readers who love to read.

  A special thanks to the man who

  continues to believe in me.

  I have some incredible readers.

  I want to thank each and every one

  of them for reading these books.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  All of the Characters, organizations, events,

  and places portrayed in this novel are products

  of the author's overactive imagination.

  Copyright © 2019 Sherry Foster

  DAS Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication

  may be reproduced, stored in a

  retrieval system, or transmitted

  in any form or by any means.

  February 2019

  Version

  ASIN: B07N16RS3W

  Chapter One

  “No Adam, I do not want to go see a movie. I do not want to go to the little restaurant and get something to eat. I do not want a book or a flower or any other damn thing you have to offer me. I do not want to do anything with you, or anyone else. I just want to be left alone. Is that so hard to understand?” snarling Dawn slammed the door in Adam’s face.

  A week had passed since everyone had fled the first prison. For the entire week Dawn had held on to the hope Kate had given her one night so many months ago. Share blood and create a bond Kate could use to find her if they were ever separated. The men had brought Dawn to another prison and dropped her off. Instead of being around all the time, the men came and went. Different guards were at this prison so the males from the other prison were more like visiting guests than anything else. At least, from what Dawn had been able to piece together. The facilities were better in a way than the last place. The last location was clearly a former prison, this one, was a freaking compound of a different order.

  Dawn leaned against the window. Since coming to this new prison she had not missed a sunset and today was not going to be any different. Sometimes the smallest things turn out to be the most amazing. Two years ago Dawn would never have believed she would get up to watch a sunrise or stand at a window to watch the sun set. If you saw one, you saw one and if you didn’t well, who really cared. Those priorities changed when you went almost a year in a prison with no windows in your room. No way to see a simple sunrise, or watch the sky turn brilliant pink and red and purple when the sun went down for the night. Her window faced to the north, so she did not get the chance to see the sun. The changes to the sky were enough to make standing at the window to watch worth while though.

  As the tear trickled down her cheek Dawn slowly reached up to brush it away. Shoulders slumped, she watched her seventh sunset of the year. Her hope had begun to fade. Hope was hard to hold on to when you were a prisoner and your friends had been left behind. Dawn had not felt so alone in almost a year. After losing her parents, and being rescued, she thought she would have a safer future. After rooming with Kate she had realized her saviors were her enemy and the reason she was without family. The first few days after leaving the first prison so abruptly Dawn had held on to the hope of rescue. Now, a week later, she had to admit Kate, Julie, and Allison were most likely dead. If they had survived, and Dawn had been serious about being able to find her anywhere, she would not still be in this new prison.

  When they fled the other place the helicopter had flown south for what seemed like hours. If Kate was right, and they had been somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona then it stood to reason they must be either near Mexico, or inside of Mexico. Dawn had not paid much attention as they flew, she was reeling from the shock of leaving her friends behind. The screams of Allison as she fell after jumping from the helicopter still echoed in her mind. Over the first few days she had pieced together a few things. The weather was still warm, a bit dry with a desert look to the area. Although she had never visited the southern states she was not completely ignorant of the geography. She reasoned they had to be in the southern part of New Mexico or maybe Arizona unless they had flown far enough south to make it into Mexico. She wasn’t sure Mexico had desert. Geography had not been her thing and she had so far refused to resume any studies in this new prison.

  Born and raised in the eastern states, only knowing lush greenery through most of the year, she felt the lack of greenery made the landscape bleak and unforgiving. She was more familiar with towering trees than with cacti and sand. Not that the desert area did not have a beauty to it, just not the kind of beauty Dawn enjoyed most.

  As dusk fell across the landscape a soft knock sounded at the door. Probably food, after the first day she had refused to eat with the others.

  Reality was hard to face. Maybe harder now than before the events of a week ago. When the last words of the mating bond ceremony left her lips, and she watched the two shadow wolves merge, hope had risen. If she had to give up all hope of rescue maybe it was time she made her own plans. She wouldn’t rely on anyone to come find her. Somehow she would rescue herself.

  She ignored the knock on the door as she planned. How does one escape a place where the guards could turn to wolves and track you. How do you outrun a wolf and most importantly, where would she go if she could get out? No money, no identification and no phone number of anyone who could help her. Oh, and one must not forget, no idea where she was or even is she was still in the United States.

  As the knocking continued Dawn plotted. By her reasoning if a person was at the compound, and they were not a prisoner then they were the equivalent to human trafficker. The goal of these people was to find females, kidnap them until they came of age and force them to bond their lives with a male not of their choosing. If the couple were mated then the male had all rights, by their eyes, to force the female to be a mate in every sense of the word otherwise they could not have a child. Therefore, Dawn would just have to look at her captors as human traffickers and not worthy of life. If she could keep that thought in her head then she could possibly make the plans necessary to escape her captivity.

  The gentle knocking had stopped. Dawn turned her head away from the window for a moment. She had explained to these people multiple times she did not care to be bothered while she watched a sunset. Narrowing her eyes, lips curled, she turned her head away from the door again. The brilliant pink in the sky was not to be missed this evening.

  As a result she missed seeing the door slowly open. She did not see the head peep around the edge of the door. She never noticed the body ease into the room. So caught up in her thoughts and plans she didn’t hear the tiny click as the door closed behind the intruder.

  The intruder stood for a moment watching the girl standing at the window.

  Chapter Two

  Trevor looked around the r
oom in appreciation. The detailed woodwork had a soft glow showing someone did not just build it and forget it. Someone took great care of the carvings around the room. If someone in the pack had done the work in this little cafe they were a master craftsman. He wouldn’t mind taking back some of the work to his house. He made a mental note to ask about the woodwork later. Maybe what he was about to propose would net him a master craftsman, at least for a while.

  “I appreciate the invitation to visit. Tell you the truth, getting an invite from another Alpha in this day and age is about like trying to muster kangaroos.” Trevor sat his beer down on the table and looked at Marcus.

  “Well, you had two things going for you. William vouched for you and my brother enjoyed his honeymoon with his mate thanks to you.” Marcus shook his head, “I didn’t realize it until just now. That invitation was planned wasn’t it?”

  “Well now, I wouldn’t say planned so much as strategically issued. When William called about getting your Beta and his mate a vacation around my territory I had already spoken with Jules. I would be a fool to pass up an opportunity to get on Jules’ good side. And to have the Beta of a pack I didn’t know about owing me a favor, well let’s just say I have been called many things but a fool was never one of them.”

  “So why did you want an invitation to, as you put it, a pack you didn’t know about? And why did you want my Beta to owe you a favor?”

  “I believe we should bring some of the old ways back. Send males out to visit and learn from other packs. Take males in and teach them what our pack knows.”

  Marcus stared at Trevor as he thought over the words. He could hear the sincerity in the words, he knew every word spoken had been true, but somehow he felt there was more to what Trevor was asking.

  “Bullshit. No one invites males from other packs into their pack anymore. Not strange males. Not unless you have someone you know who will vouch for the males. There is more to what you are asking than you have said. Lay your cards on the table and let me see if I want to play a hand.”

  “Well it’s like this, I have some males in my pack without mates, like every other pack around the world. In the old days we would travel for trade and along the way we might get to meet females from other packs and find our mates. Those days are long gone but I want to bring them back. You can’t have a mate for every female you have born in your pack no matter how few you have. I don’t care if you are only getting one a year or even less, the law of averages just isn’t going to work out that every single female will mate to someone in your pack. I would like to set up a visitation of males in our packs.”

  “A visitation? You are wanting to send males from your pack to see if they are true-mates to females in my pack despite the fact you don’t even know if I have any unmated females in my pack?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “I see. So I assume this means you have females in your pack.”

  “Probably do mate, probably do.”

  “So what, you want me to send you some males, and you will send me some males and then we just send ‘em back? Sound like that could get expensive pretty fast. Especially if you have to send all your males a few at a time to my pack if we have a female born.”

  “No Marcus, I was sincere about the learning. For instance, look around you. This room is a showcase of woodwork. Did someone in your pack do all this?” Trevor swung his hand around to indicate the carvings around the room.

  “Yeah, but he is mated. Happily mated. You can’t have him.”

  “No, but he could teach right? If I send him a male he could teach him. I know this stuff takes a lifetime to learn and prefect. Hell man, look at it. I said I am no fool so I don’t expect I could send your man someone and get a master back. But he could teach him how to learn the craft. How to create such beauties. It’s how we did in the days before the world went to shit. For fucks sake, we live a thousand years or more. You can learn a shit-ton of stuff in a thousand years. More if you mate someone younger and their life extends your own.”

  “Let’s say for a moment I am willing to go along with your suggestion. What would your first move be in starting this partnership?”

  “My first move? I have ten males I would like to send to your pack for training. You have a seeker pack and I have no one trained to be a seeker in my pack. I know it requires special skills. I have some who have those skills but no training in using them.”

  “Ten? You want to send ten males at one time? Damn man you don’t ask for much do you?”

  “What would your answer be then mate?”

  “Trevor, my man, ten at once is a lot of males to ask another pack to accept. I can’t and won’t accept so many, even for training, unless I have the backing of my pack. If they accept your proposal, without knowing the conditions behind the female situation, then I will accept your partnership. But, and this is the key, they have to accept your males for the sake of furthering relations between packs. I won’t bring the female mate search into the proposal because every single male here would go for the partnership for that reason alone. The safety of my pack is worth more to me than the slim hope of letting my pack be invaded by others so they might find a mate.”

  Trevor shrugged, “I wouldn’t ask you do to it any other way. The way I see it the more pack members who accept the partnership for learning and trading skills the better the partnership. If they find a mate during the process then I will be happy. I know we would probably lose a male here and there but to have a true mate for even one of my males is the price I am willing to pay. Can you say the same?”

  “Do you propose to offer the same deal to Trey and Santiago’s packs? ‘Cause I am thinking, I don’t know the size of your pack but sending thirty males away seems a recipe for disaster to me.”

  “I have thought of that. Well, I didn’t know of Santiago’s pack but Jules belongs to Trey’s pack so your two packs and Gammon’s were the only ones I had thought to approach at this time. And Gammon was going to be a different proposal of sorts. I don’t know too much about what Santiago or Trey’s pack can offer as far as trading of skills. I was depending on William to help me out here. But what with everything going on up in Alaska right now I figured butting in a reunion would be bad timing on my part.”

  “Yeah, that situation has surprised more than one of my pack members. Now Trina wants to run off to Alaska to meet her Uncle Gammon’s new found brother. I think she is just being nosy but hell, I can’t blame her. Everyone who knows Gammon even in passing, and since Trina came to my pack everyone has met the man, wants to meet this new guy.”

  The door slammed open behind Trevor.

  “Marcus you have got to talk to Craig!”

  Before the voice had completed the sentence Trevor had shifted, shedding his clothes in the manner favored by most shifters. As the hair on his back stood on end he turned toward the voice. His growls echoed around the small cafe. The rest of the pack had stayed clear of the cafe while their Alpha met with the Alpha from Australia.

  “Whoa Cujo, you have about two seconds to back down before I unleash the fires of hell on your ass.”

  Trevor watched as a golden wolf rose from the female in front of him. He struggled to reign his wolf in and shift back. Getting on the bad side of this pack was not high on his to-do list. Unfortunately his wolf had gone into protective mode as soon as the voice penetrated his hearing. He knew that voice. He knew that voice in his sleep. His nightmares were full of that same voice. When he was once again in control, he dressed while he kept a wary eye on the young female. He didn’t know who she was but clearly she was not the one from his past. She looked a bit like her, she sounded exactly like her, but she was too young. The golden wolf watching him spoke volumes. He wasn’t sure what this pack had gotten themselves into but he needed to rethink sending any of his males to this pack. His wolf was not making things easy on him either. His wolf was confused about the smell of the new female standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. His wolf wanted to
claim her as an almost mate. How the hell did one get an almost mate. He should have stayed his ass in Australia.

  Marcus stood between him and the female and a few other males he had not met had slowly eased into the small cafe. They gave the female as wide a berth as possible while watching him. He took time to gather his composure and noticed the males were watching the golden wolf a bit more warily than they were watching him. He thought he could use that in his favor if he was going to recover any possible chance of joining other packs in partnerships. This pack was probably off the list after seeing the golden wolf.

  “Kate, I will talk to Craig, again. Right now I want to find out what just happened here and Trevor is the only one who can give me answers. Talk to your parents and see if they can get through to him any at all. Jaden, Jamie, I would appreciate you staying here and sitting in on this meeting. The rest of you, go home. The day I can’t handle a minor dust-up like this is the day I hang up my title.”

  Chapter Three

  “Oh my god, what is that smell?” Dawn turned from the window. The sky had slowly darkened and the brilliant pink and purple was a memory to be stored and dreamed about later. She tried to breathe through her mouth but that was almost worse. Now she could taste the foul smell. Gagging a little she rushed to the door. When she opened it the smell seemed to increase. She sent a longing glance at the window. If she could open it she would but one of the first things she had noticed about the window were the nails sealing it shut. After slamming the door shut again she grabbed a shirt off the bed and covered her mouth and nose with it but even that did not help.

  She heard gagging sounds coming from the hallway just before a knock sounded at the door. This time when she opened the door she didn’t care if it was Adam on the other side or some other idiot as long as they had an explanation for the smell. Well, an explanation and a fix because no way could she imagine getting to sleep with the smell permeating everything in her room.