Moon Dance (7 page)

“
Well, maybe I will.” Piper
gave her a defiant look.

Dana shrugged. “Okay, then.”
She crossed the room and switched off the light.

“
Not gonna sleep,” called
Piper from the bed.

“
Fine,” said Dana, shutting
the door to her daughter’s bedroom. Piper would be asleep in five
minutes. But Dana had learned that arguing with the little girl
about whether or not she was actually tired was an exercise in
futility. Anyway, children were fighting for independence from day
one. With every passing day, they got closer and closer to being
able to do things on their own, which was what they all desperately
wanted. Allowing Piper to feel as if she had agency over something
as small as a nap was probably not a big deal in the grand scheme
of things.

Dana walked up the hall and
began picking up toys off the living room floor. She still had the
lunch dishes to clean up, too. One room at a time. If she was
lucky, she could have the whole apartment spick-and-span by the
time Piper woke up to destroy everything all over again.

Dana deposited the toys into the big,
wooden toy box against one wall and then went back for another
armful. She gathered up dolls and blocks and a toy
phone.

There was a knock on the
door.

That was strange. No one
ever came to her house. Besides that, everything was a
mess.

Sighing, she went to the door, still
with the armload of toys.

It was Ursula King, her former
boss.

Dana felt self-conscious.
She was in a pair of ratty jeans with a stained shirt over top of
them. She hadn’t washed her hair in three days, and it was gathered
into a sloppy ponytail on top of her head. Plus, the house was
still reeling from Hurricane Piper. “Uh, King. Hello.”

Ursula smiled. “Hi, Gray.
Wondered if I could come in for a chat.”

“
Uh…” Dana moved away from
the door to let her in. “The house is a mess.”

Ursula waved it away as she
came inside. “Where’s Piper?”

“
Sleeping,” said Dana. “I
just got her down for a nap.”

Ursula nodded.

“
Please, um, have a seat.”
Dana gestured at the couch.

Ursula sat down. Something squeaked.
Ursula pulled a toy horn out from underneath herself.

Dana flushed, darting
forward to grab it. “Sorry, I just—”

Ursula smiled. “Oh, please,
Gray, don’t worry. I popped in on you unannounced. Besides, I think
your apartment is cleaner than mine, and I don’t have a
two-year-old to worry about.”

Dana seriously doubted that,
but it was nice of Ursula to say anyway. Dana stuffed the toys in
her arms into the toy box. Then she came back over to the couch and
sat down. “So, what can I do for you?”

Ursula clasped her hands
together in her lap. “I, uh, wanted to talk to you about doing
something that I know you’re uncomfortable with.”

Dana furrowed her brow.
“What are you talking about?”

“
Well, I’m talking about
Randall, of course.”

“
Oh.” Dana felt a jolt go
through her at the mention of Cole. “Avery said that you’d traced
his phone and picked him up.”

King narrowed her eyes. “Did
he say anything besides that?”

“
Uh… no, he was in a rush
last night to go and talk to him, and then he didn’t get back until
late. Then he just wanted to go to sleep. He didn’t want to talk
about it.”

“
So, he didn’t tell you that
Randall was asking for you?”

Cole wanted to see her. Her
heart leapt. But she forced herself to stay calm. “Well, I guess
that would be typical of him, wouldn’t it?”

“
Typical of
whom?”

“
Of Cole,” said Dana. “I
mean, he always wants to see me.”

“
So, Brooks did, in fact,
keep this from you?”

Dana smoothed the legs of
her pants. “Avery gets… worked out about Cole. There’s a lot of bad
history there. I wouldn’t imagine he would tell me
that.”

“
To be clear, though,” said
Ursula, “if you had known, would you have gone to see Randall?
Would you have helped us interrogate him?”

Dana swallowed. She got up
off the couch and began picking up the remaining toys. There
weren’t many left, just a few scattered blocks. “I don’t know. I
guess that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“
So it
would
make you feel
uncomfortable?”

“
Yes. Seeing Cole is always…
confusing for me.” She dropped the toys in the toy box, and then
she couldn’t help but reach under her shirt to finger the scar Cole
had given her. He’d ripped into her stomach with his claws. He’d
been trying to kill her.

“
Even if you knew that
talking to Randall might help save lives?”

Dana turned to look at
Ursula. “What do you mean?”

“
He knows something about
the attack on the west coast,” said Ursula. “But he won’t talk
about it. He insists on only telling you. And last night, when
Brooks was there, he managed to antagonize Randall so much that
he’s upped his demands. Now he wants a full pardon and to be
allowed to go free from the SF. And, of course, he’ll still only
talk to you.”

Dana felt uncomfortable.
“Could, um… I mean, is that really even possible? For him to get a
pardon?”

Ursula shrugged. “He wants
the same kind of thing we give wolves when they go through the
training. A DMC doc. He claims he wasn’t in his right mind when he
was killing. Something about the way he was raised. It’s bullshit,
of course, but it is within my ability to grant.” Ursula had the
authorization to issue DMC docs, because she ranked high enough in
the SF.

“
Would you?” said
Dana.

“
Honestly, I don’t know,”
said Ursula. “Really, I’d hoped that if you went in there, you
could get him to back down on it. He… does things for
you.”

Dana bit her lip. “So, you
want me to see him?” Her stomach was doing flip-flops. She wanted
to see Cole too. Badly. But she knew she shouldn’t. Seeing Cole
wouldn’t do anything but confuse her, and she had a life now. A
family. A daughter.

A daughter whose father is
actually—

“
I’d need to talk to Avery
before I could make a decision like that,” she said in a tight
voice.

Ursula rubbed her forehead.
“Well, I suppose that’s a ‘no,’ then. We both know that Brooks
doesn’t want you anywhere near him.”

“
I… I hurt Avery in the
past. If it’s a choice between helping the SF and destroying my
marriage—”

“
I think it’s a choice
between finding the monsters responsible for mass murder and
putting a bit of strain on your marriage,” said Ursula.

“
No. You don’t know how
Avery would react.”

“
Yes, well that concerns me
as well.” Ursula took a deep breath. “He’s been a bit erratic the
past few years. He never used to be this forceful and angry. I’ve
had complaints for the wolves he trains. They say he pushes too
much. You’re the genetic werewolf expert, Gray. Does an alpha bond
change personality?”

“
You… you know about
that?”

“
I should have figured it
out earlier.” Ursula eyed Dana seriously. “Is he
different?”

Dana felt flustered. She looked at the
floor. She twisted her hands together.

Ursula got up from the
couch. She put her hand on Dana’s shoulder. “Gray. Are you
okay?”

Dana pulled away, laughing.
“I’m fine.”

Ursula was quiet, peering at
her.

“
Really, I’m fine. I swear,”
said Dana.

It was quiet.

Then Ursula squared her
shoulders. “Well, if you won’t talk to him, maybe I can convince
him with just the pardon. Whenever I think about all those dead
wolves out there, it breaks my heart. And if their murderers are
never caught, I don’t know if I can handle that.” She raised her
eyebrows. “Would the pardon bother you? After all, he doesn’t seem
to have killed in years.”

“
No, I don’t think he has.”
She fidgeted again. “For what it’s worth, his upbringing was very…
It wasn’t good.”

Ursula nodded. “All right.
Listen, Gray, why don’t you just think about it? Maybe you don’t
have to tell Avery. Maybe you could come down and talk to Randall
secretly. I wouldn’t make you face him alone. But if you
could—”

“
No,” said Dana. “I don’t
think… I don’t think I should see him.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Dana thought about it. It
was all she could think about, the knowledge that Cole was down in
the depths of headquarters, and that she could see him. King wanted
her to see him.

She remembered years ago,
when Cole was locked up here for the first time. Back then, it had
been an obsessive draw that pulled her. She’d been powerless to
resist it. But she and Cole had been mated then, and now she didn’t
feel anything quite so crazy. Her bond to Avery was strong, after
all, so the only thing she felt for Cole was a memory of their
connection.

That memory was pretty intense,
though.

She knew that Cole was bad
for her. When she was with him, she didn’t seem to have good
judgment. She’d allow him to do things to her that would generally
disgust her. She was never quite sure of him. She trusted him not
to hurt her, but there was an edge of danger to being near him, the
slight bit of fear that he might snap at any minute. That terrified
her, but it was exhilarating at the same time.

No, there was nothing about Cole that
made sense.

But he… he was devoted to
her. She tried to imagine Cole being angry about a messy
house.

She couldn’t imagine it. But
then she couldn’t really imagine Cole living in a house either. Not
exactly. Not the way she and Avery lived.

And Cole was possessive of
her—deeply possessive—but it was different that Avery’s mad
jealousy. Cole was very confident. He didn’t like her being near
Avery, but he also always seemed self-assured that she belonged to
him. She couldn’t imagine him forbidding her from seeing Avery. It
would convey a sense of neediness and insecurity than Cole didn’t
seem to have.

Not that Cole didn’t have
his own ways of influencing her. Avery might demand things, but
Cole cajoled and manipulated.

No, it wasn’t as if she were
caught between a good man and a bad man. They were both a bit bad,
weren’t they? Bad in different ways, good in others.

And she was convinced that
Avery’s goodness outweighed his badness. But she had to admit that
Ursula’s assessment of Avery’s anger worried her. Worried her, but
didn’t quite surprise her. She had noticed a change in him as well,
and she attributed it to his status as alpha.

The wolf bonds were
barbaric, and Dana had always known that. She’d been mated to three
men, and one of them had been a man she truly hated. Hollis Moore.
He’d raped her and forced her and taken her—and yet—she’d still
felt bonded to him after it was done. She remembered musing that
the wildness of the wolf took away her agency. It made her a slave
to her nature.

And if she was honest with
herself, she wasn’t sure how much that wasn’t true even now. The
line between Dana Gray the human and Dana Gray the wolf was so
blurred now as to be nonexistent. In fact, if she didn’t get to go
out and run in her wolf skin often enough, she felt
lost.

Cole had done that to her.
He’d started the whole process of turning her into a
wolf-woman.

But both her wolf side and
her human side loved Avery. They didn’t have a perfect marriage,
but no one did. She didn’t want to hurt him worse than she already
had. He was her mate, and when he hurt, she hurt.

She was working on dinner when he came
home from work.

Piper was in the living
room, playing on the floor with several teddy bears. Piper was
prattling on in a high-pitched voice, but Dana wasn’t paying much
attention to her. She needed to talk to Avery, and she didn’t know
exactly how to go about it.

Avery came into the kitchen
to give her a kiss and comment on how good the food smelled. Then
he went into the living room to sit down with Piper.

Dana sprinkled spices over the meat and
vegetables that were simmering together in the skillet. She was
making curry.

Behind her, Avery and Piper
were talking, and now she listened in.

“
You playing with bears?”
Avery asked.

“
Yup,” said
Piper.

“
What are they
doing?”

“
The mommy and daddy bear
fighting, because the mommy bear lazy and never keeps the house
clean.”

Dana set down the spice
container and shut her eyes. Suddenly, she couldn’t keep it in any
longer. She turned around jerkily and threw herself across the room
towards the breakfast bar. “Pipers?”