Dana squeezed her eyes shut. “Please don’t throw things.”
“What?” said Avery.
“Not you. Piper,” she said. “She’s destroying the living room.” When it came down to it, Dana still hadn’t gotten the dishes from breakfast into the dishwasher, and it was already time for lunch. She’d spent most of the morning on the phone with Avery.
Avery chuckled. “Tell her Daddy loves her.”
It wasn’t funny, at least Dana didn’t think so. “Well, you can tell her yourself how much Daddy loves the mess she’s made.”
“Oh come on, Dana, she’s a kid.”
Piper perked up. “Daddy?”
Dana sighed. “Look, Avery, I had a thought.”
“Daddy on phone?” said Piper, crawling onto the couch and reaching up for the phone. “I wanna talk. I wanna talk.”
“Oh, I can hear her,” said Avery, and Dana could hear the smile in his voice. “Hey Pipers.”
Sighing again, Dana relinquished the phone to Piper.
Piper sat down on the couch, holding the phone to her face, grinning like a loon. “Hi, Daddy.”
Dana got up and began picking up all the coasters that Piper had tossed around the room. She stacked them back into their container and then placed them up on the breakfast bar, out of Piper’s reach.
“When you coming home?” Piper was saying.
Dana went into the kitchen and began shoving dishes into the dishwasher. Avery could go on his she’s-a-kid spiel all he wanted. The fact of the matter was that if the house was messy when Avery got home, he’d flip out. He hated it when the house was disorderly, and he blamed Dana, not Piper for the state of it, which was rich, considering Piper was the source of all the mess.
“No,” said Piper. “Mommy not playing with me. She in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast.”
Don’t tell him that. Jesus, that’s the last thing I need. She could just hear Avery when he got home, scolding her about not getting anything done before noon, when—as Dana knew full well—she was supposed to be making lunch.
Hell, before this whole baby thing, Dana had cooked a meal once every two weeks. She’d lived on frozen meals and takeout. But now that she was a stay-at-home mom, she supposedly had so much more time to prepare food.
“Mommy,” called Piper.
“What?” said Dana, exasperated.
“Daddy says you behind schedule.” Except she didn’t really pronounce schedule properly. She couldn’t say the “sk” sound.
Dana rolled her eyes.
Piper laughed loud and bright.
Dana stalked back into the living room. She held out her hand. “Give me the phone.”
“No,” said Piper. That was her new favorite word.
“Piper Alice Brooks, give your mother the phone.”
Piper just laughed again.
Dana reached down and snatched the phone out of Piper’s grasp. The toddler promptly burst into wailing tears.
Dana walked away. “Avery?”
“Why’d you take the phone from her, babe?”
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “I had a thought. About what Cole said about all of us being in danger.”
Piper, still crying, was trailing after her. “Want to talk to Daddy! Want to talk to Daddy!”
“Why are you bringing that shit up?” Avery sounded annoyed.
“Because maybe this is what he was talking about. Maybe whoever attacked the SF out west is going to attack us here.”
“Daddy!” Piper screamed.
Dana rounded on her. “Quiet.”
“Don’t yell at her,” said Avery.
Dana sucked in air to keep from yelling at Avery. “This is important, okay? And she’s so loud, I can’t even think.”
“Well, then comfort her or something.”
“She’s only screaming because she wants to get her way.”
“You didn’t even let her say goodbye to me,” said Avery.
Okay. Okay, fine. Dana handed the phone back to Piper. “Talk to Daddy if you want. When you’re done, hang up. I don’t need to say goodbye to him.”
Piper hiccuped, cradling the big phone in her tiny hand. Her face was red and there was a tendril of snot running out of her nose.
Great. Should she go get a tissue now and start the wrestling match that it would take to wipe Piper’s face, or should she just let it go?
Maybe she’d let it go. There were dishes, after all.
Dana went back into the kitchen and continued loading the dishwasher, listening to Piper’s quavery voice on the phone with Avery. “Mommy took the phone from me, and I want to talk to you.”
Dana banged a plastic bowl against the counter. It was always like this. It was always Avery and Piper against her. Avery gave into every single one of Piper’s whims, and she always looked like the bad guy. And no matter what happened, she was never good enough. Never patient enough, never clean enough, never “on schedule” enough.
It was going to drive her insane.
She hadn’t planned to have children. It was very rare for werewolves to conceive, and it wasn’t something she’d spent much time worrying about. None of her former co-workers had any children, so none of them understood. But when everyone found out she was pregnant, they were all so excited for her, because it was such a big deal for there to be tiny werewolf babies, and they all said, “Oh, you have to stay home and take care of the baby.”
Dana didn’t really want to stay home. She had liked her job as the Pack Liaison Branch head. Sure, it would have been a tough job to do with a small child, considering it took a lot of travel, but she could have found ways to make it work. The novelty of her child made it easy to find willing babysitters.
But after the fuss everyone made, she felt guilty doing anything except staying home. It wasn’t as if she and Avery couldn’t afford it, after all. The SF took care of them. And she did want to spend time with her daughter. She wanted to be a good mother.
But this…
Twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week with a little being who couldn’t have a proper conversation, who threw things and made messes, who screamed anytime she didn’t get her way…
Well, it was harder than she thought it was going to be. Sometimes, Dana wished that she’d never gotten pregnant with Piper. Sometimes, she wished the little girl had never been born.
And then she felt horribly guilty for thinking that. What kind of mother was she, anyway? Mothers were supposed to love their children.
But… hell, she did love Piper. More than life, more than anything on earth.
Still, she didn’t know who she was anymore. She never saw anyone besides Avery and Piper. She never left the apartment except to go grocery shopping, and that was a highly difficult task to do with a two-year-old. She felt like she didn’t matter.
And the worst of it all was that…
When Cole had called her yesterday, she’d had this memory, a flash of what it had been like with him. Cole wasn’t exactly boyfriend material, and she’d always known that. But Cole had been utterly obsessed with her. When she was in the room with Cole, she knew he wasn’t paying attention to anything besides her. She remembered the way he would suck in breath at the sight of her naked skin, the way his voice sounded when he called her “beautiful.” Cole made her feel… important and cherished and special.
And right now, she felt like a glorified maid.
No, not even a glorified one. A maid who really ought to be fired because she was doing such a terrible job, one that her employers kept on because they didn’t have anyone else to fill her position.
She wasn’t sexy Dana Gray anymore.
Instead, she was just Mommy. She showered every three days, kept her hair in a sloppy bun, and was usually wearing stained clothes and picking up after her toddler.
Dana shoved the rest of the dishes into the dishwasher and closed it. She took a deep breath.
“Mommy?” Piper was back in the living room, hanging up the
phone.
“Yes?” Her voice shook.
“I hungry.”
Of course she was.
* * *
After Avery hung up the phone with his daughter, he smiled to himself for several minutes, thinking about how adorable she was and how much he missed her. He couldn’t understand why Dana didn’t feel grateful to be able to spend so much time with the little girl.
But thinking of Dana reminded him of what she’d said about Cole. Much as he hated to admit it, she might be right. However, he wasn’t convinced that Cole knew anything about the massacre out west. Still, he did have Dana’s cell phone, and he’d been planning on having it checked out. Her theory was as good an excuse as any.
He really wanted that bastard locked up.
So Avery popped in to the IT office and went over to Jeff Moore’s desk. “Hey, buddy.”
“Brooks,” said Jeff. “How are you?”
“Well, you know, reeling,” he said. “And you?”
“Yeah, just wishing I had something to focus on other than the attack out west, man.”
“Might have something for you, then,” said Avery, pulling Dana’s phone out of his pocket. “It might be connected, I’m not sure, but even if it’s not, it’s a lead.”
“Lead on what?”
“Cole Randall.”
Jeff raised his eyebrows. “I thought he was dead.”
“You and me both,” said Avery. “But I talked to him yesterday. He called my wife on her phone. I know it’s a long shot, but maybe you could trace the number, see if you can get anything on it?”
“This the phone you spoke to him on?”
Avery nodded.
Jeff held out his hand for it. “What did he say?”
Avery handed him the phone. “He said that we were all in danger, and that we should get out of the SF headquarters.”
Jeff’s lips parted. “You don’t think…?”
“I don’t know,” said Avery. “Maybe he’s connected to that madness out west. Maybe the people doing it are planning on doing it again. I can’t be sure. But it seems like something we should check out.”
“Definitely,” said Jeff. “I’ll get right on it. Let you know if I find anything.”
* * *
It was easier to be a man on the run when everyone in the world was convinced you were dead. Cole had done it the other way, in which the SF had known he was out there and had actively hunted him. This way was definitely preferable. After he’d escaped from the SF the first time, he’d gone into hiding with Enoch Borden and his group of werewolves. Enoch and the others had even been instrumental in getting him out, talking to him through the walls using their wolf hearing.
Back then, he’d been on board with everything that Enoch and the others thought.
It was partly the discussions he’d had with Enoch and others like him that had driven him to attempt to create a pack in the first place. Creating the pack had led to some failures—certain wolves who wouldn’t submit. He’d had to kill those wolves so that they wouldn’t be able to identify him, and because of that, he’d been dubbed a werewolf serial killer.
Once Cole had a pack, he’d intended to use it against his father, James David Hadley, who ran a cult-like farm and preyed on young women.
But after Dana Gray…
Well, everything had been confusing after Dana.
Anyway, his father was dead now, so he didn’t need a pack for that reason. And his other reasons, the reasons that tied him to Enoch and the others, those reasons didn’t seem to make nearly as much sense. Cole was no longer sure that werewolves were some kind of superior race or that they should wipe out humanity.
He wasn’t nearly as bothered by killing as “normal” people might be, that was true. More often than not, Cole saw death as part of the cycle of nature. If werewolves killed according to their instincts, then that was what nature dictated. He knew that most people saw it as a tragedy, and Cole wasn’t denying that death was painful.
But lots of things were painful.
No matter what happened, life was pain.
What was the point in trying to avoid the pain? Trying to stop the pain from happening? Nothing would ever make everything okay. So there didn’t seem to be much reason to try, at least Cole didn’t think so.
Death happened. Killing happened.
Still, Cole hadn’t killed anyone in years.
There wasn’t any point in avoiding killing people. But, near as he could figure, there wasn’t any point in doing it either.
The way Cole saw it, life happened, and he didn’t see any point in trying to alter its course.
Except for the fact that he’d called Dana and tried to save her.
See, it was her. She confused everything.
He could conduct his existence in perfect consistency with his worldview except when it came to her. She threw him off balance. She shook his foundation.
Anyway, these days, he steered clear of Enoch and the others for the most part. He steered clear of everyone. He lived out in the woods on top of a mountain, miles from civilization. He had a shack that he’d built himself. It was just a room with a bed, a sink, and a wood stove. He didn’t bother to bathe or even to dress most days. Sometimes he cooked food the human way, but he spent more than half of his time in wolf form.
He prowled the forest, killing his prey and eating it raw, prancing in the darkness, howling at the moon, resting in the brightness of the day.
He liked being the wolf better. It was simpler.
When he was human for too long, he’d spend time thinking about Dana. He’d think about how she’d almost made him believe he could be human and normal. But that wasn’t to be. Cole was a beast. He was a predator. He belonged in the wolf skin, and when he was human for extended periods of time, it itched.
He had a few things to tie him to civilization. One was a cell phone. Service out here was spotty, and he barely remembered to keep it charged. He had electricity by way of generator when he cared to use it, which wasn’t often. Another was a car. He did most of his traveling in wolf form, sometimes carrying clothes on a pack on his back so that he could get dressed when he got to his location. But occasionally, he needed transportation, and the beat-up Subaru was good for that.
From time to time, he’d go out and find a job. Something transient to make a little money. He didn’t need much, but it was impossible to cut himself entirely off from the world.
There was still a spark of something human in him. No matter how long he spent as a wolf, something drew him back.
Still, he preferred his solitary existence, and he didn’t have any desire to have it disturbed. In fact, he didn’t think that any other person had ever been out to his shack.
Until today.
He heard the car plowing its way up the mountain road when it was nearly a mile away. Even in human form, his hearing was sharp. It wasn’t even really a road, not exactly. It was two tire ruts running between the trees. Grass grew in between them, and in the winter, it was impossible to get in or out using the road.
It was a tribute to his confirmed wildness that he was more curious than alarmed. He’d been alone too long, had forgotten that there were things out in the world that wanted to hurt him. So, it wasn’t until the men were getting out of the car with their tranq guns that he realized who they were.
SF trackers.
The phone call.
A long time ago, he remembered that he used a different disposable phone every time he called Dana. But this time, he hadn’t even thought about that.
Was it because he’d trusted her?
He should have known better. She wasn’t to be trusted.
He lunged, shifting in midair. He thought he’d try to run from them.
But they shot him before he even hit the ground. Two tranq darts burrowed into his pelt.
As sleep claimed him, he wondered if this would mean that he’d get to see her again.
He wanted to see her.
CHAP
TER THREE
That afternoon, Dana had to give up on cleaning, because Piper went into one of her clinging spells. The little girl did that sometimes.
Most of the time Piper was a big ball of energy, running around and gleefully destroying things. She liked to get into drawers, pull out all of the clothes, and scatter them over the floor. She liked to yank books off of bookshelves and use DVDs as blocks. She especially liked throwing things. Hurling anything she could across the room was basically her favorite pastime.
But occasionally—and generally whenever Dana was trying to do something—Piper would suddenly decide that what she wanted was to be close to Dana. She would cling to Dana’s legs and whine to be picked up. Sometimes, Dana fought her, but today, she’d been feeling so guilty for having that brief moment in which she wished Piper was never born that she immediately whisked her daughter into her arms.
She cuddled on the couch with the little girl. Piper wrapped chubby arms tight around her and laid her head on Dana’s chest. And the two of them just curled around each other there until they’d both fallen asleep.
Dana didn’t woken up until later, when Avery had come home.
He climbed onto the couch with the two of them and put his arms around them both.
That was perfect, as far as Dana was concerned. She liked it, and the wolf liked it. This was her pack, and she loved being close to them, all of their bodies smashed into each other. She liked the warmth. She liked the togetherness.
Avery was home early because he’d been at the office since before the sun came up. He didn’t make any comments about the messy house. Instead, he held them close, and it was peace and bliss.
Until Piper woke up and started crawling over both of them. “I hungry, Mommy. I hungry,” she said.
Of course she was. Piper was always hungry, but whenever food was set in front of her, she threw more of it than she ate.
“Maybe we should order something,” said Avery.
Moon Dance Page 3
