Free Dawnbreaker by Jocelynn Drake Page A

hurting from the deaths that had plagued his people recently.
    “Two of my brothers have been slaughtered in as many months! A third of my pack has been decimated by nightwalkers. My own mother and sisters have been forced to hide in another city while we die at your hands!” he shouted, finally losing his temper.
    “Your pack attacked us,” I said evenly. I wished I could show him more sympathy and compassion, but I had my own people to protect. I was afraid of saying something here and now in a moment of compassion that would only trap my people at a later date.
    “Because we’ve been under the control of the naturi.”
    “And what do you expect us to do? Let you kill us because it’s not your fault?”
    “I thought you were supposed to be doing something about the naturi. I’ve talked to the other packs and not one has had the trouble we’ve had. Some lycans have gone missing, but the body count is nothing like what we’ve experienced.”
    I stepped away from the desk and closed the distance between us by a few feet. “Barrett, they’re trying to separate us,” I said softly. “They want us fighting amongst ourselves instead of fighting them.”
    “We are fighting each other, and my people are losing! We’re trapped, fighting you, fighting the naturi. Why? Why here? Wh—” Barrett’s rant was suddenly cut off as he stared at me. In that horrible moment he realized exactly why his people were being slaughtered. The naturi were hunting me, using the lycanthropes as cannon fodder. In my battles with the lycans, I had managed to avoid killing any of them, but it was becoming more difficult. The naturi were growing desperate, throwing more and more shifters at us in an attempt to overwhelm us with sheer volume.
    “They’re still hunting you, aren’t they?” Barrett demanded in a low voice that scraped across my skin like sandpaper. “They were hunting for you at the Dark Room two months ago, and they’ve been hunting for you since you returned here more than a month ago.”
    “They need me dead,” I admitted, balling my hands into fists, hating to say the words aloud. “I can stop them from opening the door that will set all of their kind free.”
    “But why come back here? Why not stay surrounded by your own kind? Can’t your Coven protect you?” he countered, taking a step toward me.
    “I’ll not be run from my home by the naturi,” I snapped.
    “But you’re killing my people!”
    “Don’t do this to us, Barrett,” I cautioned, feeling myself getting boxed into a corner, though he had yet to move. “We’ve worked well together over the years. Our people have learned to respect each other.”
    My only warning was a low growl before Barrett crossed the distance between us in a couple long, quick strides. He grabbed both of my upper arms and kept walking until he slammed me into the cinder-block wall behind me. Stars exploded before my eyes as my head hit the wall, just before darkness threatened to swamp me.
    “Respect! Why haven’t you shown my people a little more respect? You’re responsible for each and every death because you’ve—”
    “Because I’ve what? Refused to lay down and die for you? My death won’t stop the naturi. It won’t save your mother or your sisters or your pack.”
    “It would buy us some time,” he snarled, his brown eyes turning the same shade as liquid copper.
    “To do what? Fight back?” We both knew how effective that would be.
    His hands tightened on my arms for a moment, threatening to break bones before loosening again. “Why did you have to come back?” he whispered. He was beyond frustrated. His people were dying and there was little he could do to stop it.
    “This is my home. I have nowhere else to go,” I admitted, feeling as if something was tearing in the back of my throat. It was a truth I’d been reluctant to face. I no longer had a safe haven from the world other than my home in Savannah. Two of the other three members of the