Dawn of Eve Read online

  Table of Contents

  DAWN OF EVE

  COPYRIGHT

  DISCLAIMER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  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

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  OTHER BOOKS BY PAM GODWIN

  ACKNOWLEGMENTS

  ABOUT PAM GODWIN

  Copyright © 2017 by Pam Godwin

  All rights reserved.

  Interior Designer: CP Smith

  Proofreader: Lesa Godwin

  Cover Artist: Okay Creations

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article, without written permission from the author.

  Visit my website at pamgodwin.com

  DISCLAIMER

  This is the final book in the TRILOGY OF EVE.

  It is recommended that you read these books in order.

  TRILOGY OF EVE

  Dead of Eve (#1)

  Heart of Eve (#1.5) - FREE

  Blood of Eve (#2)

  Dawn of Eve (#3)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Twenty-Two Years Post-Apocalypse

  Hunger leaked into his eyes. I knew that look. Knew it and felt it as if I were staring at my reflection. Except where his need to tear open my throat stemmed from bloodlust, my hunger was methodical and honed through training. I was bred to kill.

  The frigid wind lashed my cheeks and gnawed at my fingers. I tightened my grip on the nocked arrow, the bowstring stretched beside my face. Heart thundering, breaths quickening, fueled by adrenaline, fear, excitement, I adjusted my aim to his head. Eliminate.

  Fifteen feet away, the hybrid blinked glassy eyes at the fire-red braid that had fallen from my hood. If he took a step, I would release the arrow, and he knew it.

  “Daughter of Eve.” He spat the words, but a tincture of dread serrated his voice.

  Of course, he knew who I was. Not because these creatures put up posters of my face with the headline Daughter of Eve—Do not bite. But because my golden eyes and crimson hair were dead giveaways. Also, human women didn’t leave their heavily-guarded sanctuaries without an army of men. They were too rare and crucial to the continuation of our species.

  But I wasn’t a normal human woman.

  My mother had delivered me into this wretched existence with a promise—a promise to the world that I would make it a lot less wretched. No pressure. So while our women remained protected and hidden behind barricaded walls, I fought in the open. While they produced life, I took it away.

  Humans weren’t the only species that subscribed to the prophecy of Eve. The hybrids believed I was put on this planet to eliminate them. But they didn’t know my weaknesses, didn’t know how very human I was. In fact, the hybrid staring at me now had no idea that if he drained my blood, he would live and I would die.

  Bundled in layers of tattered clothes, scruff on his jaw, pronounced cheekbones, and tangled hair, he looked like a desperate twenty-year-old man. But he was more monster than human. The fangs pressing against his lower lip were all the proof I needed.

  I released the arrow, and he dropped to the ground. Crimson splattered the pristine snow, the arrow protruding from his eye socket.

  With a sigh of relief, I yanked the feathered shaft from his skull and scanned the Yukon landscape for the next threat.

  The low sun reflected off a blanket of glittery white. Beyond the frosty tundra lay forested wilderness and mountainous terrain bristling with evergreens. Branches sagged beneath heaps of snow, creating deep shadows beneath the canopy. The perfect place for hybrids to hide.

  “Dawn!” Eddie bellowed from a distance behind me.

  Dammit, why was he still here? I’d given him an order.

  “Hurry the fuck up!” His voice echoed across the wintry plain. “More are coming.”

  There were always more. Even in this forsaken part of the world, hybrids outnumbered humans.

  An arctic gust shivered through me, cutting into my bones despite the fur pelts and heavy boots. Another violent tremor attacked my body, and I swore I felt my arteries ice up.

  Canadian winters could bite my bony ass. I didn’t leave the Nevada desert and travel all this way to freeze to death. Or bleed to death. Odds were on the latter, given the silhouettes emerging from the tree line about a mile away.

  “Return to the women,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Get them to the camp. I’ll catch up.”

  If I ran, I would lead the hybrids to the survivors we’d just taken from them. I needed to end this here. Now.

  My teeth chattered, and my hands burned against the unholy chill in the air. I was outnumbered, physically weaker and slower, and exhausted from the endless shivering. But I was the supposed prophecy, the one who would save humanity. I had a helluva lot of shit to do before I died.

  “Come on, suckers.” I trained the arrow, waiting for the hybrids to reach my forty-yard range limit.

  Eddie’s boots crunched across the frozen ground behind me, approaching rather than retreating.

  He never listens.

  I was the leader of the Resistance, the highest human position in the new world, feared by every man, woman, and hybrid. Except Eddie. Thank fuck for that, because that would be weird.

  Stopping at my side, bow at the ready, he flashed his don’t-be-hatin’ grin. The one that glimmered in his brown eyes and softened his sharp cheekbones.

  “You’re disobeying me, you bastard.” I smiled to myself and pulled back the arrow, training it on the first of six approaching hybrids. Almost within range. “Seriously, Eddie. I need you looking after the women.”

  The bitter cold had chafed his mocha skin and cracked his lips, but he looked as fearless and handsome as ever in his ink-dyed leather hides. The threaded seams stretched around his muscled arms, and the tailored fit accentuated the sex appeal that seemed to affect every woman but me.

  “They’re in good hands.” He breathed in, out, mirroring my position with his bow.

  The four soldiers who accompanied us on this mission were more than qualified to lead twenty survivors to camp. But they weren’t Eddie.

  “I gave you an order.” Without shifting my cheek from the bow, I slid him a sidelong glare.

  “Not leaving you, Red.”

  His rumbling tone was casual, his grin playful. But I knew my best friend better than anyone. He would die for me without hesitation.

  I needed to remind him I was in charge. “If you don’t—”

&
nbsp; “Your threats mean fuck-all compared to what your fathers will do to me if I return without you.”

  Yeah. There was that. No human alive would risk disappointing the three legendary guardians. Not even me, their only child.

  The chance to argue my position disintegrated as the hybrids moved into shooting range. Six males, armed only with their agility and fangs. Killing one close up was a pain in the ass. But forty yards away? They moved faster than the speed of an arrow. To accommodate for that, I tried to predict which direction they’d weave and released the shot.

  It sliced through the air behind them. Son of a bitch!

  Steadying my breaths, I fired five more, hit a leg, a torso, but failed to land a kill shot. With their fast healing abilities, the only way to take one down was to damage the brain.

  “They’re not coming closer. We need to move in.” Eddie volleyed another arrow.

  His target ducked, and the shot sank into a snowdrift. My pulse elevated.

  The hybrids stayed back, maintaining a range that would force us to blow through our ammunition. Once we ran out, they would attack.

  Eddie’s quiver held about twenty arrows, same as mine. Probably enough to take down half of them, but not all six. Time for a different strategy.

  I dropped the bow, unbuckled the quiver’s strap, and secured it to his back.

  “What are you doing?” He pulled back an arrow, eyes on the threat.

  “Cover me.” I whirled away, racing my crazy ass straight toward the horde.

  “Oh, fuck no!” He continued to yell, but the roaring wind and clomp of my boots on the hard-packed snow muffled his voice.

  With each step, my insides coiled tighter and tighter. I was a better archer than him, but one of us needed to be the bait, the blood-scented distraction that would trigger their instinct to chase. I was immune to their venomous bite. Eddie was not.

  The hybrids formed a menacing wall of muscle and fanged smiles. They might’ve been mindless with hunger, but they were intelligent creatures, educated in survival and weaponry, their mental capacities equal to humans. Add to that their superior strength, speed, and health, and I was, without a doubt, the underdog. One sharp fang in my jugular and I’d bleed out like any other human. Which was why my stomach felt like a boulder and why Eddie was screaming and sprinting after me.

  Without slowing, I wrapped a scarf of wolf skin around my throat and gripped the dagger hidden beneath the folds of my fur cloak, the hilt scratched to hell and worn down by my mother’s hands. It was one of the few keepsakes I had of hers. If I lost it, I would never forgive myself.

  Locking my fingers around it, I lurched to the right and hauled ass. The hairs on my nape lifted as the hybrids pounced after me. I had no hope of outrunning them, but they were most definitely distracted.

  Eddie’s arrows riddled the snow around me as he raced to take down my pursuers.

  I slid to a stop, spun around, and lunged at the first male. With brute force, I buried the blade in his temple, the steel sinking through bone thanks to hours of sharpening. As he slumped to the ground, I held on to the hilt, yanked it free, and turned toward the next attacker.

  Fangs filled my vision, followed by the hungry eyes of a hybrid. He clutched my shoulders and wrenched me against his chest. No amount of writhing and stabbing would break his iron hold.

  An arrow flew past my head, and he swerved to evade it. His pupils dilated with the instinct to bite, but he seemed to be restraining himself, his pale face taut with uncertainty.

  Despite the rumors, I wasn’t poisonous to them, evidenced by the countless bite marks marring my body. Though my blood didn’t kill them, no one had ever bitten me and lived long enough to debunk the popular legend. Thank fuck for that, because in his moment of indecision, one of Eddie’s arrows sliced through his skull.

  I shoved him away and released a ragged breath. Another dead hybrid lay a few feet away. Three left. Where—?

  Something fast and huge slammed into my side. The air whooshed from my lungs, and my back crashed against the ground, jolting unbearable agony down my spine. Shit, shit, shit. I couldn’t lift my limbs, couldn’t breathe.

  Hands, legs, and heavy bodies pinned me down. All three of them were on me, scrambling over each other like a pack of wolves. I angled my head and found Eddie crawling to his feet about twenty yards away, his bow nowhere in sight. Fuck, this wasn’t good.

  Tangled in fur pelts, I dodged a mouthful of teeth, swiped the knife, and sliced through a throat. Blood sprayed everywhere, but the fucker didn’t slow, snapping his jaws inches from my face and clawing at my chest, feral in his need to feed.

  I kicked my legs, trying and failing to ward off the other two while making fumbling stabs at one near my neck.

  Fingers pawed at my lower body, separating the layers of fur. No, no, no! Images of them biting, raping, and killing me propelled me to kick harder. Frigid air penetrated my suede leggings as I tried to squirm free.

  Blinding pain exploded through my inner thigh, vicious and all-consuming. I screamed in anguish, tears burning my eyes. I’d been bitten.

  With one hand around the male’s throat, I slashed the blade at the others, twisting and jerking my leg from the fangs, certain a chunk of my skin had been ripped off in the process.

  The scent of iron invaded my inhales and roiled my stomach. I couldn’t wrestle away, couldn’t stop them if they tried to bite again. They were too fast, too strong, too fucking relentless.

  Panic rose, sharp and crippling. What if this was it? My final fight? The end of the prophecy? The extinction of mankind?

  I gritted my teeth and swung the knife with every ounce of vigor I had left. I missed, adjusted, and tried again and again, grunting as I pierced the back of the hybrid’s head.

  He fell off me, and my energy drained, trickling away with the blood seeping from my leg. It was all I could do to fight off the remaining two, my movements defensive, desperate. And waning.

  The air stirred with an incoming arrow. The hybrid at my throat fell limp, a feathered shaft sticking out of his head. Oh sweet mother, thank you. Only one left.

  He crawled up my body, fangs gleaming. A teenage male with hypnotic blue eyes. Arrows pelted the ground around us, but he nimbly veered side to side, taking a shot in the arm and flashing me a pained smile.

  In the next breath, he yanked me to my feet. With my chest against his, he whirled around in a macabre dance, using me as a damn shield against Eddie’s barrage.

  The movement sent shock waves of pain through my leg. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, my attention clinging to the knife where it still protruded from the skull at my feet.

  When the arrows stopped flying, the hybrid lowered his greedy gaze to my throat.

  I jerked just as his mouth made contact, and his teeth hit my shoulder. But the thick furs prevented him from breaking skin.

  With a guttural growl, he grabbed my jaw and shoved down the scarf. My heart banged against my ribs, and my lungs labored for air.

  “Dawn!” Eddie ran closer, circling a few feet away with an arrow poised. “I can’t get a shot.”

  I hated the terror in his eyes. Hated that I couldn’t hide the fear in my own eyes.

  The hybrid held me in front of him, knowing Eddie wouldn’t risk hitting me. I continued to kick and thrash, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break free. I needed the knife.

  He dipped his head, going for my throat again. My heart rate skyrocketed, and I tucked my chin, my focus landing on the arrow jammed in his bicep.

  I reached for it, twisted it free, and jabbed it into his eye socket. Not hard enough, evidently, because he was roaring, clawing at it, still fucking breathing. But it was enough to make him stumble. Enough for Eddie to deliver a deathblow, his arrow piercing the center of the hybrid’s forehead.

  The body crumpled to the ground, and the sudden release of tension in my muscles sent a wave of dizziness through me. I swayed, shook it off, and staggered over the snow to collect
my mother’s dagger.

  Eddie caught me around the waist, holding me up. “Swear to Eve, you’re going to give me a fucking heart attack.”

  “You know I don’t like when you use my mother’s name like that.” I gripped his arms for support.

  He cupped my cheek with icy fingers, lifting my gaze to his. Nineteen years of love and loyalty shone in his eyes, and I knew mine returned the sentiment.

  “Thank you.” I squeezed his wrist and stepped back, searching the bodies for the knife. “I was kind of getting my ass kicked, so it’s a good thing you stayed, huh?”

  A smirk touched his lips as he strapped my quiver and bow to my back.

  I spotted the dagger and returned it to the sheath at my hip, feeling a thousand times more relaxed now that I had it back in my possession.

  As we collected the arrows, each step spiked a blaze of agony through my thigh. I kept my expression neutral, but Eddie, being Eddie, didn’t miss a beat.

  “You’re hurt.” His gaze swept over my body, pausing on my wounded leg.

  “I think half my thigh was chewed off.”

  “Want me to look at it?” His dark brows pulled together, expression creased with worry.

  “I’ll check it out.”

  I couldn’t imagine living in a world where I wasn’t nursing at least one injury, but since I hadn’t face-planted yet, the bite probably wasn’t as bad as I thought. Regardless, it was going to be an agonizing three-day walk back to camp.

  “I kept one of the horses.” He rubbed his hands together, huffing breaths on his fingers.

  He should’ve left all the horses with the women. Having just been rescued from a hybrid breeding facility, they were in no shape to walk over frozen terrain. With the women doubled up, there were just enough horses to go around.

  I snatched the last arrow from the ground and limped away, headed in the direction of the others. They were probably an hour ahead of us.

  “Don’t get all pissy.” He jogged after me. “One of the girls refused to ride, so I made a judgment call. A damn good one given the way you’re wobbling.”