“A strong enough alpha can override a beta’s control,” said Cole. “Jimmy wanted us to go crazy, so we did.”
“Fuck that.” She started to sob. She looked down at her hands. There was blood under her nails, from where she’d used her claws against the helpless people.
“You didn’t mean to do it,” he said.
“But it’s still done,” she said through her tears. “Doesn’t it upset you at all?”
“I… Yes. Sort of.”
“Oh fuck you too.” Her whole body was shaking.
He rubbed her back. “Dana, take deep breaths.”
“No.” She turned on him. “Jimmy can make us do this whenever he wants?”
Cole’s turn to look away. “Yes.”
“Bastard.”
“No argument from me.”
She shook her head. “No. I won’t let it happen again. I won’t kill anyone else. I won’t be out of control of myself like this. Shift back.”
“What?”
“Shift back. We’re mating.” If she was an alpha again, she’d be free of Jimmy’s control. He couldn’t do this to her anymore.
His eyes widened. “Wait a second. When I threw that out before, it was only an idea. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said. It would make her out of control as well. She’d be crazily obsessed with Cole. Drawn to him. But she already was that, anyway, and at least being intimate with Cole wasn’t going to get anyone killed. “Yes. Shift.”
Cole threw his head back, and the wolf flowed over his skin.
* * *
“Wait a second, where was she?” Avery strode through the hallways of the southern headquarters.
“In Randall’s cell,” said Alan Meade, the interim head who’d stepped up to fill Isaac’s position.
“Fuck,” said Avery. Hadn’t he specifically told her to stay away from Cole? Hadn’t she agreed?
“We don’t know what happened, but somehow the two of them shifted and got out of the cell. Then they got out of the floor and up the steps and into an office room,” said Alan.
“Why didn’t someone tranq them?”
“We don’t know,” said Alan. “The guards down there didn’t seem to get to their guns in time. The office they got into isn’t staffed by workers who are armed. Basically a mass slaughter.”
“Fuck,” Avery said again. “So, they’re still loose.”
“No, they were sequestered in the office room. They’re still there. Last I looked, they were going crazy trying to get out of the room.”
Avery shook his head. “That doesn’t make a damned bit of sense.” What the fuck had happened? He remembered that last year, Dana had gone nuts one night and killed another wolf in Cole Randall’s house. He’d somehow set the whole thing up to show her how glorious it was to kill or something. Had Cole done something like that again? How deeply was that asswipe cemented in her brain?
“We’re just as bewildered,” said Alan. He stopped walking. “Well, that’s the office room up there.”
Avery looked to see the door. It had a glass window, which was smeared with blood. He grimaced.
“I don’t hear them anymore,” said Alan. “When I was last here, they were running against the door full force.” He turned to the guard who was standing a few away, gun at the ready. “What happened?”
The guard cleared his throat. “Well, um, they calmed down a little bit, and we didn’t hear anything for a few minutes. So, we went over to look, and they were, um…” He coughed.
“What?” said Avery, striding towards the door. He peered through the smeared blood on the window.
Oh, fuck no. Seriously?
* * *
Dana was in the shower. They’d escorted her to an apartment room when they’d taken her out of the office. She was locked in here. She knew that. She guessed they didn’t trust her. All that she knew right now was that she needed to get all of this blood off of her. She thought it was gone, but she couldn’t be sure, and she was scrubbing and rinsing, scrubbing and rinsing, scrubbing and rinsing—
The door burst open. “Gray?” yelled an angry voice.
She peered out from around the shower curtain. “Brooks?”
“What the fuck?” His face was red. He stood in the doorway to the bathroom. Every time he let out a breath, his nostrils flared.
Shit. He was pissed. She had to make him understand. “It was the only way. We had to break the hold that Jimmy had over us. He could make me shift at any time, and he was strong enough to keep me out of control of myself. I wasn’t going to kill anyone else.”
“That’s why you did it?”
“Jimmy forced both of us to shift. And I was aware of everything I was doing, but I had no control over it. It was horrible.” She pleaded with her eyes for him to understand.
Avery seemed to absorb this. He bobbed his head. “Okay. Okay, well that explains why you and Randall went nuts on those people. But it doesn’t explain why you fucking mated with him again.”
It didn’t? “I had to. Aren’t you listening to me?”
“I’m listening, but you’re not making any sense.”
She turned off the shower. “Let me get a towel.”
“Fine.”
“Can you leave?”
“Oh, now that you belong to Randall, you don’t want me to see you naked?”
“It’s just politeness, Brooks.”
“Whatever.” He stalked out of the bathroom.
She wrapped herself up in a fluffy green towel that hung on a rack next to the shower and left the room too.
Brooks was waiting for her in the living room. He was pacing. “You needed to break the bond with Jimmy. I get that. Did you have to do it right then?”
“Well, it seemed urgent,” she said. “Because I’d just killed like four people.” Was he not getting the fact that people were dead?
He paced faster. “But you probably weren’t going to shift again right away, were you? Did you even consider any other options, Gray? Did you think maybe we could lock you up so you didn’t hurt anyone else? Hell, did you ever think about waiting and asking me to mate with you?”
She opened her mouth to speak and no sound came out.
He stopped moving. He looked her over, disgusted. “I can’t figure you out. You claim you want me to commit to you, but you don’t want that at all. You want Randall, and that’s it.”
“I… I didn’t think you wanted to mate with me. Every time we’ve talked about it before, you haven’t seemed very keen on it.”
He thrust his hands into his hair. “Well, if the alternative is you mating with him, it changes things. But you didn’t even talk to me about it. You just did it. And now… now it’s like before. If I try to touch you…”
Oh. She’d forgotten about that. When she was mated to Cole before, she got physically ill when another man tried to be close to her. It was practically impossible for her to have any kind of intimate contact with Avery now. They might be able to kiss, but sometimes even kissing had made her feel bad before. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”
He advanced on her, his hands clenched.
Instinctively, she backed up, until she ran into the wall.
Avery got right up in her face. Close enough that he could kiss her. But instead he drove his fist into the wall next to her head. “You didn’t think at all.”
She flinched, shrinking from him. “I’m sorry, Brooks.”
“Sure you are.” He laughed bitterly. “Sure you are.”
“I am,” she said in a tiny voice. “You’re right. I didn’t think. I was so upset. Those people. I remember what it was like to bite them, and I liked it. All I could think was that I never wanted that to happen again. Can’t you understand that?”
“No.” His mouth twisted.
He was still so close. She could feel his breath on her face.
His voice came out bitter and harsh. “I can’t understand anything about you, Gray. Maybe you can help me. Maybe you can make me
understand. Why would you have sex with the man that tried to kill you? Why would you let him go when you knew that he’d killed before and that he would probably kill again?”
“Well, he hasn’t, though,” she said. “I mean, until today, when we both did. But that was because of Jimmy.”
He backed away. “So, you thought he was harmless because he made you get all tingly? Is that it?”
She picked at the towel. “Well, no.”
“So, why’d you let him go that night with Hollis?”
Right. Avery had thrown her indiscretions with Cole in her face when they’d talked before. “How do you even know that?”
“I figured it out,” he said. “I thought about it, and it was the only thing that made sense. There was no way you could have killed Hollis after he mated with you. And then when I talked to Randall, he pretty much rubbed it in my face.”
“Cole bragged about it?” She felt disgusted.
He laughed at her. “It’s like you don’t know him at all.”
She twisted her hands together.
“So.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Why did you do it?”
“I don’t know.”
He laughed again. Helplessly. “Well, that’s great. That’s fucking perfect, Gray.”
She wanted to make herself small. To shrink until she didn’t exist. “I can’t help but feel drawn to him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it because he saved your life? Did you get some big crush on him back then, and you can’t get over it?”
“No.” She couldn’t look at Avery. “I mean, maybe I was always a little bit attracted to Cole, but not like this. No, he’s the one who’s always been obsessed with me. I think he stalked me in high school.”
“Seriously? You sound upset about that, but yet you just mated with him.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Thinking, yes. We’ve established that.” He glared at her. “You know what? Fuck you, Gray. You are a royal bitch is what you are. You string me along like you’re actually interested, but you’ve got it bad for that… that monster. And it sickens me. You sicken me. I hate you.”
She drew back.
He turned on his heel and stalked out of the apartment.
Dana bit down on her lip and fought tears.
* * *
The door to Cole’s cell burst open and Avery stalked in.
Cole was at the sink, trying to clean himself up. They hadn’t deemed fit to let him have a shower, and he was covered in blood. He turned, the water still running.
Avery moved across the room, head down like a determined bull. He reached over and turned off the water.
Then he grabbed Cole by the throat and slammed him up against the wall.
Cole winced. “Hello to you, too, Brooks.”
“Shut up.” Avery tightened his grip, cutting off Cole’s air supply.
Cole choked. But he wouldn’t give Avery the satisfaction of struggling. Instead, he fixed him with a glare and refused to move.
Avery clenched his teeth, his face drawn together in anger or concentration. He squeezed Cole’s neck as hard as he could. “If I kill you, she’s free. I’m free. If you’re gone, this madness ends.”
Cole felt a sharp stripe of panic go from his groin to the top of his head. Avery was serious. Cole could see that in his eyes. And there was no way that Cole had a chance in hell of matching him physically. Maybe if he shifted…
But that wouldn’t be playing fair, would it? And if he injured Dana’s precious Avery, she’d never forgive him.
He reached out and put his palm against Avery’s face. He pushed.
Avery let up the pressure, enough that Cole could breathe.
“You know what I think is funny?” Cole managed.
“I don’t care,” said Avery, peeling Cole’s hand off of his face like it was an annoying bug.
“You’re here trying to kill me when it was her idea.”
Avery let go of him. “She didn’t want to mate with you, Randall. She only did it because she didn’t want to hurt anyone. She hates you.”
Cole massaged his throat. Internally, he was panicking, but he wasn’t going to let that show. He laughed. “You’d like that to be true, wouldn’t you? You’d like it if she wanted someone like you, the stalwart type, football quarterback with a tranq gun.”
Avery started for him. “Stop talking.”
Cole dodged. “But that isn’t what she wants. She’s not sweetness and light. She isn’t satisfied by a clean-cut Ken doll. She wants me.”
Avery started to shake. “I will kill you, Randall.”
“I don’t think so.” Cole put more distance between the two of them. “I don’t think you will, because I’m not worth it.” He grinned.
Avery started to go after him, but he hesitated.
“Think about it. How will it look if you kill me? What will your boss say? How will you justify it?”
Avery’s jaw twitched. “Oh, fuck that, Randall. No one will care. I’ll say you jumped me, and it was self-defense.”
“Maybe they’ll buy that. But what about Dana? You think she’ll buy it?”
Avery looked away.
“Face it,” said Cole, “as much as either of us might want to destroy the other, we can’t. Because of her.”
“She’d get over it,” said Avery. “She wants rid of you. I know she does. You and her don’t make any sense.”
“And you and her do make sense. All the sense in the world. And that’s why she’ll never want you, Brooks. Not the way she wants me. Because making sense is not sexy. Not for Dana. She needs something more. Something you’ll never be able to give her.”
Avery rushed him, propelling him backwards.
They collided with the opposite wall.
Cole chuckled. “You know I’m right, don’t you? You’ve seen it in her eyes. You know the way she looks when she talks about me, and you know she’s never looked at you that way.”
Avery pinned Cole to the wall, his elbow at his throat. “Because you disgust her. Because she loathes you.”
“Loathes me?” Cole laughed. “She practically drops her panties at the sight of me.”
“Shut up,” said Avery through clenched teeth.
Cole just smiled at the other man. And that was when he noticed Avery’s cell phone peeking out of his pocket. Hmm… That might be useful. Cole used his head to push off the wall. He pressed his body into Avery’s, one hand going for the phone.
Avery recoiled. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Cole hid the phone in his palm, putting his hands behind his back. “Getting you to take your grimy hands off me.” There were no pockets in his prison pants, but he managed to slide it in the waist of them, the hard plastic against his skin, held in place by the elastic waist of the pants.
Avery shook his head. “I should kill you.”
Cole shrugged. “You never gave her a second look until she was already mine.”
“Right. Because she was an alpha.” Avery laughed suddenly. “It’s all fake, isn’t it? Nothing I feel is real.”
“That’s what you think?” Cole took another step closer to him.
Avery backed up.
“Near as I can tell,” said Cole. “You’ve got it backwards. It’s the wolf feelings that are real. Those feelings are strong and intense and overwhelming. The human shit? That’s what’s fake.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dana paced her apartment, trying desperately not to think about the fact that Avery hated her.
Avery was her partner. Her best friend. Even if the two of them had never attempted to have something resembling a relationship, she wouldn’t have wanted him to hate her.
Everything was so messed up. If Cole hadn’t arrived here, then things would be simpler. Avery wouldn’t have started thinking things through. He would have remained blissfully ignorant, and everything would be okay between the two of them.
Except that wa
sn’t really true, was it?
Because Cole had been part of this from the moment that Adam and Chase had brought him up, blaming him for the massacre.
She’d nearly forgotten about all of that. She’d been so distracted by Jimmy and the wolves at Hunter’s Moon Farm.
But Adam and Chase had brought her here, yelling her name and throwing themselves against the doors of their cells.
Wait.
The truth of it washed over her in horror.
No.
It couldn’t be true, could it?
* * *
“How did you get a phone?” said Earl Lowell.
Cole lay on the bed in his cell, holding Avery’s phone up to his ear. “That’s not important. What is important is the fact that I can help you.”
“I highly doubt that,” said Earl. “Look, I know all about you. I know that you’re dangerous and that you’re clever. You’d have to be to escape and stay hidden for as long as you did. Of course, I guess you aren’t that clever, considering you came back here and basically turned yourself back in to us.”
“This wasn’t about the SF,” said Cole.
“Right, it was about that Gray woman,” said Earl. “What’s going on with her, anyway? She have some kind of magic pussy that stands up and does tricks? That why you and Brooks are both running around chasing her tail?”
Cole thought that was probably intended to make him angry. He debated. Should he rise to the bait? Would that make him seem like a normal, red-blooded American male and thereby secure Earl’s trust? Or would it make him appear unstable and untrustworthy? He wasn’t sure.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“Let’s leave Dana Gray out of this,” said Cole.
“Struck a nerve, did I?”
Not really. Cole didn’t care if guys like Earl made comments about Dana’s genitals. He was protective of her, but he didn’t see how words were particularly harmful. Whatever. Maybe it was good if Earl thought he’d found Cole’s weakness. “I came here for Jimmy.”
“Your dear old dad.”
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with in there.”
“I don’t?”
“It seems to me that everyone’s playing nice with Jimmy. But he’s not someone who plays nice himself.”
Bad Moon Rising (Cole and Dana) Page 22
