Moon Dance (25 page)

“
I think he’s going to pull
through,” said Lenny. “I’m supposed to pick him up from Mitch’s
office later. Lucky he’s a wolf. He’s got a strong immune
system.”

Oh. Oh, well that was good. It was good
that Cole was alive.

Cole was alive, and Avery
was dead.

Fuck.

Dana took several shaking
breaths.

“
Why are you with Cole
Randall?” said Lenny. “I thought he tried to kill you.”

“
It’s complicated,” she
said.

Avery.
Her
Avery. He was dead.

* * *

Dana sat in
Lenny
’s office, staring at a TV that was on
the far side of the room.

It’s a grim scene here,
just outside of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, an area that seems to
in the throes of tragedy. Police are still searching for missing
campers Alan Beck and Theresa Jones, who never returned from their
trip to this seemingly quiet and peaceful town.

Pictures were on the screen,
and Dana blanched. Those were the campers she’d killed.

Now, this senseless
bloodbath at the eastern regional SF headquarters. Nearly a hundred
werewolves dead. Police are still baffled by whether this attack
was connected to the attack on the west coast or if this is simply
a copycat crime. After all, anti-werewolf sentiment runs high in
the nation, and many aren’t sorry about the attacks themselves. We
go now to Rick Meyers, head of the Anti-Werewolf League, who claims
that humans everywhere are only safe when werewolves are
dead.

Lenny glared at the screen
and then switched it off. “Been like that all morning. They talk
more about the missing campers than they do about all the deaths at
the SF. And then they cut to someone celebrating the fact that we
all got killed. It’s disgusting.” He went back to his computer
screen. “What about Margaret Patton? She’s a lawyer, but she works
exclusively for the SF. It says that she’s in the line of
succession for the president of the board.”

Margaret Patton? Why did
Dana know that name? Oh, right, she was the woman who’d
interrogated her in the internal hearing after the incident at
Hunter’s Moon Farm. “Did you really call everyone on the
board?”

“
Every single person,” said
Lenny. “Honestly, I think they’re dead.”

The board was housed in the
eastern regional headquarters. Lenny was probably right. But Dana
really didn’t want him to be right. Every person that she’d worked
with, been close to, they were all gone. Dead. It was surreal. She
couldn’t even process it.

“
You sure you don’t want me
to try the southern branch?”

“
Yeah, they’re not real fond
of me in the southern branch.” For some reason, they didn’t take
well to her, since she’d wolfed out and killed people. Never mind
that it hadn’t been her fault. Jimmy had forced her to shift, and
she’d been bonded to him at the time. “Honestly, Patton’s not real
fond of me either.”

“
Is
anyone
fond of
you?”

She sighed. “Call Patton, I
guess. But she’s in and out of the eastern branch too. She might
not have made it either.”

Lenny started dialing the
phone.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Lenny got in touch with Patton, and
apparently, she was on her way to the southwest branch.

In the meantime, Dana still
wasn’t allowed to leave. However, Lenny did move her out of the
large holding cell and into a smaller one with a bed. She still
didn’t have a window, and the bed wasn’t exactly comfortable, but
it was a step up, she supposed. Lenny said that he and the others
slept in cells like this when they had to stay overnight at
headquarters, so Dana didn’t feel like she could really
complain.

Cole came back, and she got
to see him. He was sleeping, and he was being pumped full of
antibiotics. He didn’t really look much better, honestly, but Mitch
the veterinarian assured Lenny that he was improving.

Dana lay on her narrow bed
in her cell, and she thought about Avery. She remembered the way
he’d been completely enamored with Piper when she was born. It was
a good thing, too, because Dana had been so exhausted and depressed
in those first few months. But she’d find tiny Piper snug in her
father’s arms, both of them asleep on the couch, and she remembered
how it made her heart swell. How perfect and beautiful they were
together. The knowledge that they were both hers. How much she
loved them in those moments. Too much. More than she’d ever thought
was possible.

She and Avery had spent
their entire adult lives together. He’d been her partner for
years—her best friend. And then he’d been her sometimes lover, and
then her husband.

It didn’t make any sense to
think that he wasn’t in the world anymore.

And when she thought of his
last moments, she was utterly wrecked. He would have done
everything in his power to protect the SF. He was trained as a
tracker, and he knew how to shoot. He was probably on the front
line of defense. He probably—

Oh, God, it was her fault
that he was dead.

And it didn’t seem
real.

The worst of it was not
knowing about Piper, however. She was sure her daughter was
alive—mostly sure, anyway—but she didn’t know how she was going to
find her. She didn’t know where Piper was.

The little girl could be hurt or scared
or alone. She could be captured by that awful Enoch and his
horrible people.

Dana shuddered.

She didn’t know what to
do.

Patton arrived the next day,
and she brought with her a group of SF workers. Apparently, she and
the others had escaped the attack because they’d been lobbying in
D.C. for better werewolf rights. Now, Patton was the highest
ranking person in the SF, and she was the de facto person in charge
for now.

She wanted to talk to Dana,
and she wanted Cole there as well.

Cole seemed to have
recovered a bit. He was conscious, at any rate, but he wasn’t yet
able to walk around. He was confined to a wheelchair, and Lenny had
to push him around.

It was the first time that
Dana had been able to talk to Cole since they’d gotten locked up,
and he seemed subdued. He looked pasty and haggard. He slouched in
the wheelchair, looking frail. She’d never seen Cole frail before.
It didn’t make any sense to her, and it frightened her. Everything
was upside down and topsy turvy. Avery dead. Cole too sick to
stand. Patton the head of the SF.

But Dana’s priority was her
daughter, and the minute Patton came into the room, Dana was on her
feet. “Piper. My daughter Piper. She’s alive.”

Patton raised her eyebrows
at Dana. She made her way over to the table set up for her. She was
flanked by other workers. Lenny was there too, along with other
workers from the southwest branch.

Patton sat down and leveled
her gaze at Dana. “There were no children’s bodies found. That’s
all we know. That’s true of the attack out west as well. They don’t
seem to be killing the children.”

“
Why not?” said Dana. “What
are they doing with them?”

“
We hoped you’d know that.
According to Ursula King’s notes, you know who’s responsible for
these attacks,” said Patton.

“
We didn’t see any children
at Enoch’s camp,” Dana said. “Of course, I didn’t see much of it.
Did you see anything, Cole?”

Cole cleared his throat, but
when he spoke, his voice was still raspy. “Enoch wouldn’t kill
kids. He does have a moral code. Doesn’t match yours, but there are
things he wouldn’t do.”

Patton eyed him. “So, you’re
Cole Randall.”

Cole gave her a wry smile.
“Yeah.”

She looked back and forth
between the two of them. “I have to admit I find this whole
situation very confusing. I’ve gone through King’s notes, and I’m
aware of your past, considering I spearheaded the inquiry into the
incident at Hunter’s Moon Farm. But we really thought you were
dead, Mr. Randall. We thought Ms. Gray here conspired to kill
you.”

“
She probably did.” Cole’s
gravelly voice was even.

“
And yet the two of you were
working together under the banner of the SF,” said Patton. “Is
there an easy explanation for that?”

Dana fidgeted. “I fail to
see how this is important.”

Cole laughed, but it sounded
painful. “Sure, there’s an easy explanation. It’s pretty simple.
Dana and I have really great sex. So great that I’m willing to
practically get myself killed for it.”

Dana felt her face flush.

Patton looked amused. “I
see.”

Dana sat up straighter in
her chair. “Is this really why you came all the way out here? To
talk about Cole and me?”

“
I knew you were sexually
involved with him before,” said Patton. “But you blamed that on a
werewolf alpha bond. And you claimed you weren’t bonded to him
anymore, which we assumed was because he was dead. So, are you
still bonded to Mr. Randall?”

“
I really think that we need
to be searching for Enoch,” said Dana. “Let’s talk about trying to
find him. I want to help any way I can, especially because of my
daughter. Maybe Cole can find some way to get in touch with him
again.”

“
I seriously doubt that,”
said Cole. “No, my bridge with Enoch is definitely burned at this
point.”

“
Why are you dodging the
question about the bonding?” said Patton. “Is it true? You are his
mate?”

“
No,” said Cole. “It’s not
true. We’re not mated.”

“
And how was the mating bond
dissolved?” said Patton.

“
Why are you asking this?”
said Dana.

“
I don’t know if I can trust
you,” said Patton. “I know I’d be an idiot to trust to Mr. Randall
here, but I’m not sure about you, Ms. Gray.”

Oh, what the hell did it
matter now? Avery was gone. Dana placed her hands in her lap and
studied them. “My bond to Cole broke when I mated with my husband
Avery Brooks.”

Patton nodded slowly. “Oh,
so it was like that.”

Dana swallowed. “Once you
get involved in pack structure, there’s no way to get rid of it,
exactly. You can only switch roles within the pack. Maybe if your
entire pack was killed, you’d lose your status—”

“
You’re thinking about it
the wrong way,” said Cole. He turned to Patton. “Listen, all wolves
are innately primed to be part of a pack.” He gestured to the
gathered SF workers. “So, you all are just lone wolves. You’re the
ones who are broken, not us.”

Dana glared at Cole. “I
don’t feel that way.”

“
If you weren’t mated to
him, why did you consent to go on this mission with him?” said
Patton.

“
To protect the SF,” said
Dana. “He said he couldn’t do it without me, and I had no other
choice.”

“
That’s right.” Cole was
sarcastic. “It was all very noble on her part.”

“
And you?” said Patton. “You
wanted to protect the SF?”

“
I wanted to protect Dana,”
said Cole.

Patton narrowed her eyes.
“So, you got her away when the attack happened.”

Cole smirked. “You think I
had something to do with the attacks on the SF?”

“
He didn’t,” said Dana. “He
acted in good faith.”

“
It doesn’t seem to me that
his actions necessarily point to that conclusion,” said Patton.
“After all, from what Lenny tells me, the date you gave him for the
attack was wrong.”

“
Well, but they must have
done that because of Cole and me. They must have accelerated their
plan, because they were afraid we’d do something to stop them with
so much lead time,” said Dana.

Lenny spoke up. “Well, maybe
they fed you an incorrect date so as not to rouse your
suspicions.”

Patton glared at Lenny. “I’m
conducting this interview, if you don’t mind.”

Lenny bowed his head,
turning red. “Sorry.”

“
Anyway, they didn’t feed us
bad information,” said Dana. “Trust me, what we went through to get
that date wasn’t staged.”

“
What did you go through to
get the date?” said Patton.

Dana felt sick.

Cole took a rattling breath.
“Dana, I didn’t have anything to do with the attacks.”

She turned to look at him.
“I know that.”

“
Look,” said Cole. “I
thought I
had
to
do that to you, and that’s the only reason I did
it.”

“
Had to do what?” said
Patton.

Dana turned back to her. “Do
you want our help finding Enoch or not?”

“
You know what I think?”
said Patton. “I’m not even convinced this Enoch person
exists.”

“
What?” said Dana. “He
exists. I saw him. He’s got women from the western SF branch
captured and chained up, and he’s letting the men in his camp do
whatever they want with them. He’s horrible. And we need to stop
him.”