Moon Dance (10 page)

“
Piper?”

“
Oh, hello, Dana.” Sherry
Franco stood up from the couch. She was a neighbor who worked as a
secretary for the tracker office. A picture book was dangling from
her hand. “I didn’t think you’d be back so soon. Avery said you two
might be out all evening.”

Piper was on the couch next to Sherry.
She was sitting primly, her hands in her lap, looking very well
behaved.

Dana was out of breath. She
took a few deep draws of air, telling her heart to calm down. “I’m
not back. I just wanted to check on you guys. But you look fine.
So, I’ll leave you to it.”

“
Sherry reading me a story,
Mommy,” said Piper, her eyes shining.

“
I see that.” Dana smiled.
“You be good for her, Pipers.” And then she backed out of the door
and into the hallway.

God, why couldn’t Avery have
just
told
her
there was a babysitter? Did he have any idea how much he’d
frightened her?

But she was glad to have the
time to herself. She was going to go on a run. The wolf inside her
was itching to get out, and everything would be clearer and simpler
if she could shed her human skin for a little while.

* * *

Avery was livid. He shook
Ursula
’s hand off of him as they went down
the hallway to her office. “You let him go. He’s a serial killer.
What the hell were you thinking?”

“
You’re the one who
said he wasn’t
really
a serial killer.” She didn’t look back at him, just kept going
down the hall. She was annoyed too.

“
I didn’t mean you should
let him go.”

She stopped at the door to the tracker
office and opened it. She went inside, holding the door open for
him.

He followed her.

She slammed the door behind
him. “Let me explain something to you, Brooks. The SF is primarily
an organization to help werewolves. We’re not particularly good at
the punishment part. We’re barely equipped to handle wolf
criminals. We only got roped into it because the humans are afraid
of contamination in regular jails—wolves biting everyone in
sight.”

“
That’s not a reason to let
Randall go. He’s dangerous—”

“
He’s dangerous to you,” she
said. “And don’t act as if it’s got something to do with your worry
over Dana’s safety, because we all know that he couldn’t hurt her,
and he hasn’t tried since.”

“
He’s a criminal. We
shouldn’t even be having this discussion. Does the board know that
you’ve pardoned him? Because first thing tomorrow, I’m going
to—”

“
The board?” She laughed.
“Do you want to know what the board’s reaction was when they found
out we’d captured Randall again?”

Avery furrowed his brow.
“What?”

“
They don’t like him here.
Especially not after what’s gone on out west. They’ve got enough on
their plate. The last two times that we’ve had Randall in custody,
SF workers have been killed. Either by Randall’s pack, or by that
Jimmy man forcing his wolves to shift and kill people. Fact of the
matter is, they don’t want him here. They were all scrambling for
ideas about how we could cut him loose. He’s not something they
want to deal with right now. I only convinced them to keep him
around for a bit because I thought he might know something about
the attack out west.”

Avery shook his head. “That
can’t be true, King. He’s a monster. He killed so many
people.”

“
No, not really,” she said.
“Except for the people that he killed before he got picked up, he
only causes problems for us when he’s here. When he’s out, it’s
like he doesn’t exist. The board likes it that way. It might not be
‘justice,’ Brooks, but we’ve all wolfed out and hurt people.
Everyone has. Maybe Randall’s serial killing really was the same
thing.”

“
It wasn’t. He’s devious.
He’s… unbalanced.”

She shrugged. “I’m only
trying to get you to understand the situation.”

Avery dragged a hand over
his face. “Okay. Maybe I understand. And maybe I don’t really want
him locked up a few floors beneath Dana anyway. But you can’t be
serious about this shit about sending her out with him
somewhere.”

“
To find the location of the
people who killed everyone in California? To save us from an attack
here? I don’t know, Brooks, it seems like it’s worth
it.”

“
It’s not. Not to me.” He
folded his arms over his chest. “Besides, Dana isn’t even
technically employed by the SF anymore.”

“
Well, then I guess it
wouldn’t even need to be officially sanctioned, would it?” Ursula’s
eyes flashed.

Avery took a step away from
her. “You’re out of your mind with this.”

“
I knew people out there in
California, Brooks.”

“
Well, so did I,” he said.
It wasn’t uncommon for people to transfer to that branch. Living in
California was more exciting than Pennsylvania.

“
Knew them well. Was close
to them. There was a woman out there who’d I consider my best
friend.”

“
I know that’s got to be
painful, King, but—”

“
No, you don’t.” Ursula
glared at him. “It’s like the only thing you care about in the
world is Dana.”

“
She’s my wife. I think
that’s normal.”

She narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t screw this up any more than you already have.”

* * *

Dana was free. She streaked
through the underbrush, the wind in her fur, and her muscles sang
with the joy and perfection of running. Everything in the world was
wonderful. She could smell the scents of spring on the air, and she
could hear the sounds of the forest around her. She belonged here.
She was part of this. She had a role to play in the forest.
Everything here was connected. Everything ate or was eaten, and it
was all a beautiful circle, each thing knowing its part to
play.

Right then, she was hoping
for some small prey. A rabbit. Maybe a squirrel. Anything tiny and
furry with marvelous crunching bones. Dana wanted her jaws in it,
wanted her teeth in it. She wanted it all. The chase. The catch.
The meal.

It was who she was, and she
never felt anything more right than when she was the
wolf.

She gloried in it, sniffing for
something to spring on.

And then…

She caught another scent. A
tangy smell, bright and coppery. Blood. It was muted. There wasn’t
much of it, but it was distinctive, and Dana was drawn towards
it.

She went off in the direction of the
smell, slowing now, creeping through the underbrush
soundlessly.

It might be a wounded deer
or something large and filling. It would mean that she’d lose the
thrill of the catch, but that would be okay, because she’d have so
much meat.

The blood smell was closer. She let it
fill her senses, and it consumed her.

Now she was nothing but a creature who
wanted that blood. She was drawn to it, her entire purpose
singularly focused on nothing but meat.

She crept closer and closer,
the smell getting stronger and stronger.

And then…

There it was. The blood. The
meat.

Something inside Dana sent
shocks of alarm through her. It was her buried human side, the part
of her that she’d discarded when she shifted.

That part of her was trying
to stop her, sending words at her—human words, words that the wolf
struggled to even make sense of.

Tent. Campfire. Bandage.

The human part of Dana was
screaming at her to stop. Telling her that this meat wasn’t good
meat. This meat was forbidden meat.

But the wolf part of Dana had become
nothing more than one concentrated movement. Blood. Taste.
Lunge.

Rip. Tear. Kill.

And it was too late for the
human part to stop it. The ancient predator dance was already at
work within Dana. It was in motion, and there was no halting it
now. She was compelled to fulfill her purpose.

And so…

She did.

CHAPTER SIX

Cole walked out of the SF
headquarters, thoroughly bemused. He
’d
never expected them to actually give him a pardon.

He’d learned when dealing
with Earl Lowell that the SF was slippery, that they’d lie to
achieve their objectives, and that they weren’t to be trusted. So,
he wasn’t sure what to make of this pardon, and he wasn’t sure what
to make of the fact that he’d just walked out.

But no one was after him. No one seemed
to be stopping him.

He was still wearing the
blue jumpsuit that they made him wear as a prisoner there, on
account of the fact that he didn’t have any clothes. When they’d
taken him, he’d been in wolf form, so he didn’t have anything else
to put on.

He wondered if the jumpsuit was going
to be a problem.

But before he could think on it too
long, he smelled Dana.

He whirled, and he caught
sight of her darting into the woods. The SF headquarters was
surrounded by a big chain link fence, and then the forest beyond.
Dana used to run inside the fence. He remembered that. But now she
was outside the fence, running into the woods.

Where was she going?

He went after her, but by
the time he got to the spot where he’d seen her, he only found a
neatly folded pile of clothes.

His nose told the rest of
the story. She’d shifted.

She was running through the woods as a
wolf, then.

He could smell that scent as
well—Dana’s wolf smell. It was still Dana, but it was more intense.
Wilder and freer. The way Dana was meant to smell.

He breathed it in for a long
time.

And then…

Well, he wasn’t exactly
proud of himself, but he bent down to examine her clothes. He
remembered being trapped in the SF and taking Dana’s bra from her
once. It had been a flimsy sort of thing, made of pink lace. Cole
had always been intrigued by women’s undergarments. They seemed so
foreign and female—delicate and not quite functional.

But she didn’t have anything
like that now. Her underwear were plain cotton with a wide elastic
band at the top. Her bra was a simple tan piece of cloth. There was
more structure to it than the pink lacy thing from earlier in
Dana’s life.

Cole didn’t care. He touched
both of them. Smelled them. The trapped scent of Dana’s sweat
aroused him. It made him think of having her body bare beneath him.
It made him think of being inside her.

He shoved the undergarments
into his pocket, knowing it was a bad idea. She’d notice they were
missing, and she’d probably suspect him of taking them. But it was
worth it. He didn’t have her, after all. That idiot Avery did, and
he got to smell her, put his hands all over her, have her whenever
he wanted.

Cole didn’t like
it.

He’d never liked it, but it
had seemed easier to take before, when he didn’t get to look at her
and smell her. With her so close, it made him remember how badly
he’d always wanted her. She’d almost been his once. He didn’t lie
to himself that fucking her a few times meant that she belonged to
him. Hell, mating with her didn’t even mean that, since she’d
fought so hard to get free of their bond. But there had been a
period of time, back in Brockway, when he was waiting to go and
face his father, and during that time, he’d thought he might stand
a chance.

Stupid of him.

He should have known that
someone like Dana could never be with someone like him.

If he had a shred of
decency, he’d just run now. He’d dart off into the distance, get as
far from the SF as possible and never think of her
again.

But…

Well, there was the fact
that she hadn’t gotten herself safely away from headquarters. She
was still living here, and Cole knew for a fact that Enoch and the
others would be attacking soon. Judging from the job they’d done in
California, it would be a massacre. No one would get out alive. At
the very least, Cole needed to convince Dana to get away from this
place.

Or he could follow this
half-hatched plan he’d outlined to Ursula King. Try to infiltrate
Enoch, work with the SF to take the whole group down. It was
ridiculous, of course. He didn’t know why he’d suggested
it.

No.

He did know. It was a chance
to be alone with Dana. Any reason to have her close—

Cole sniffed the air.

Blood.

Human blood. A lot of human
blood.

His wolf rattled inside his
body, clawing up his spine, whining to be let out.

Cole tamped it down. He
couldn’t shift with that much blood around. He had control over his
wolf, but there were limits to that control, and it was better not
to tempt fate.