“I don't want to die either,” I said softly into her hair. “But I won't, don't worry.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asked, and there was raw fear in her voice.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said dryly. And then, more gently, “I'm not gonna die because I don't want to leave you alone. I'm going to be here for you, Dani, like I always have been. I swear it. Can you trust that?”
After a moment, I felt her nodding against my shoulder. After another long moment of silence, she said, “Ben?”
“Mmm?” I murmured, stroking her hair away from her face.
“I want you to know that I know what you want from me—what you need. I guess I've always known; I just never let myself see it before.” She sighed deeply. “And I can't tell you how sorry I am that I can't give it to you.”
“Dani—” I began, but she put her small, soft fingers across my lips, silencing me.
“No, listen,” she said. “I just want you to know there are reasons I've kept you at arm's length. Not just the ones I admitted to myself—that I don't want to screw up our working relationship, or that I'm scared of such a big change—but others, ones I didn't want to face. But, well…I guess I have to face them. Have to tell you.”
“You don't have to tell me anything,” I told her. I felt her shake her head against my chest.
“No, I do,” she said. She took a deep, trembling breath, and I wondered what it must be costing her to tell me what she seemed so determined I should know. “I…I told you my ex, Mitch, was abusive, but I didn't exactly tell you how,” she said. “He shouted at me. Hit me. Did things…things that have made it difficult for me to want to be intimate with anyone. With a man, I guess, no matter how sweet and kind and gentle he was. You are.” She sighed again and I felt like my heart would break. “He forced me to do things that…” She broke off and I felt her shaking her head again.
I stroked her hair soothingly. “You don't have to tell me this.”
“Yes, I do,” she said fiercely. “I want, no, I need you to understand. Ever since Mitch, the idea of…of being with a man that way has…has scared me to death. I don't like to be afraid, so I think I've been hiding that, even from myself. But that's what it amounts to. I don't even know how I've been able to go…as far as we went tonight, to be honest.” She shifted against me, and I could feel the cheek that was pressed against my chest getting warm—she was blushing.
“Dani,” I said softly. “You could have told me before. I wouldn't have thought any less of you.”
“I was embarrassed.” She gave an awkward little laugh that fell flat in the darkness. “You know me—I always want to be so self-reliant. So tough. It's hard to tell about a time when I wasn't so tough. A time when I let things happen to me that never should have happened.”
“None of that was your fault,” I told her, planting a kiss on her temple. “And you never have to be embarrassed around me. Not of anything.” I squeezed her and she squeezed me back.
“I know,” she said. “So now I want to say something that's kind of embarrassing, but I'm going to try not to be. Embarrassed, I mean.”
“All right,” I said. “I'm listening.”
Dani took a deep breath. “Tomorrow night, after…after you win the duel—and I know you will,” she went on hastily, making me smile. “Well, we're going to have to…have to…”
“Make love,” I said at the same time Dani said “Fuck.”
“Oh.” I felt her put a hand to her cheek. “I'm sorry, that came out all wrong,” she said. “But the point is, we're going to have to do it.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know. But what if we don't? What if I win the duel, and we refuse to do it?”
“You know they won't let us get away with that, and you can't fight the whole pack,” Dani said flatly. “Besides, what did the priestess, er, Molly say to you? That when the Goddess was upon you, you wouldn't be able to help it?”
“I thought you said all that was Pagan bullshit,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
Dani shook her head, her hair brushing against my chest. “I don't know anymore. Because there's definitely something going on here, Ben. Something that can't be explained logically, or scientifically, or any other way that makes sense to me. Think back to what you saw when you were a boy. During the, uh, Great Rite, did it look like everyone was participating voluntarily?”
I thought of what I had seen and shivered at the idea of taking her, of using her the way the Lead Wolf had used that long-ago Mabon Queen. I would never do that to the woman I loved, I told myself, would never force myself on her, no matter how strong the pull of the moon or how insistent the call of the Goddess.
“Ben?” Dani's voice reminded me that I still hadn't answered her question.
“No,” I said in a low voice. “No, I don't think it was exactly…voluntary.”
“So…” Her voice was resigned. “Whether they do it with some kind of group hypnosis, or there really is some kind of deity that enjoys being worshiped through sex and violence, we have to assume that it's going to happen.”
“Yes,” I said, unable to say anymore. I was terribly afraid she was right.
“Well, I just want you to know…” Dani paused for a long instant before taking the plunge. “I want you to know that I'll do my best to be open to it. I mean, I'm going to try to put my, uh, past behind me and…and enjoy it.”
“How can you enjoy being raped?” I said, and the words tasted bitter in my mouth. The minute I'd said them I wished I could call them back—it definitely wasn't what Dani needed to hear just then. But to my surprise, she took it in stride.
“If it's with you,” she said softly, “It won't be rape. You're my friend, Ben. My best friend. The man I trust most in the world.” She felt for my mouth with her fingertips in the darkness and lifted her head to press a chaste kiss against my lips. “I want you to know that no matter what happens, nothing's going to change that. We'll always be friends. Okay?”
I swallowed a lump that seemed lodged in my throat. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, how much I needed her and would always need her. I was very possibly going to die the next day—it seemed like I ought to be making deathbed confessions about how she was the only one for me and had been from the moment I first laid eyes on her, so beautiful and angry and fragile, standing in the newsroom of the Sun Times. But none of it would do any good.
“Friends,” I said, and the word had a hollow ring in the darkness of the room.
“Friends,” Dani whispered and kissed me lightly on the cheek before snuggling close and putting her head on my chest again. “G'night, Ben.”
“Good night,” I said, but it was a long, empty time before I could sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
Dani
I had expected the Mabon ceremony to be held in the same big, empty ballroom with the glass ceiling, but it wasn't. When my guards and Molly escorted me out of the blue bedroom, we left the house and traveled about a half mile into the woods that surrounded it until we came to an open glen, about half the size of a football field. There was a ring of trees surrounding the roughly oval space, and right in the center was a flat rock, carved with the same symbols that had been on the altar the night before. I wondered if I was going to be tied down again, but the two weres on either side of me simply led me to it and left me there.
There were three stone steps that led up to the altar, which was as big as a king-sized bed, and Molly told me to go up and stand in the center. I did what she said because protesting and fighting wouldn't have done me a bit of good. Maybe if I had had only myself to think of I might have tried to get away, although trying to outrun a pack of angry werewolves sounded iffy at best. But they had Ben too, somewhere, and there was no way I was leaving without him.
I stood on the flat rock, which was rough beneath my bare feet, and shivered. I was wearing a silky, red robe, which was so thin and sheer I felt more naked than dressed, and of course, I had no underw
ear on. I thought for the thousandth time that I would have cheerfully committed murder to get back into my own clothes, but it was clear that wasn't going to happen. I had no idea what had become of the white shirt and black skirt I'd been wearing when I first got caught in the back of La Bella Luna by Thrash Savage, or Theodore as Molly liked to call him, but I suspected I would never see them again.
Around my neck was a pale choker made of thumb-sized opals that glittered in the moonlight. I didn't know if they were supposed to represent the moon or if they were just part of the outfit because it was tradition, and Molly hadn't volunteered any information as she fastened them around my throat. It was just another part of the incredibly involved cleansing ceremony I had gone through, which involved being washed in mountain water, river water, and three kinds of milk, after they had separated Ben and me.
The guards had come to take Ben around noon, after a light lunch that had consisted of smoked turkey breast sandwiches and water. Apparently you weren't supposed to eat too much before the Mabon ceremony. Ben had started to take the turkey off his sandwich and just eat the bread, then decided not to.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, as he took a big bite of the sandwich, turkey and all. “I thought you were a vegetarian.”
He shrugged. “I am—was. But it's not like I went veggie for religious reasons or because I didn't like the taste of meat. It's just that not eating meat helped me control the change.” He looked grim. “Tonight I'll have to change for the first time in three years. I'd eat a T-bone if they'd bring me one. It might help.”
“Do you think…it's going to be hard?” I asked, picking at my own sandwich.
“Well, it's gonna hurt like hell, I know that much.” Ben sounded resigned. “Because I haven't changed in so long.”
“What does it feel like? Changing, um, into a wolf?” I still wasn't sure I could completely believe that until I saw it.
“Like your entire body being turned inside out,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Ben,” I said, unable to help asking the question that had been on my mind. “Do you think it's true what the priestess said? Do you think I'm the reason you haven't changed in so long? Am I the reason you've been denying your nature?”
He frowned. “Please don't tell me you fell for all that guilt crap. Look, I've never liked what I am. As for you having an influence on me controlling my change, well, there might be some validity in that. I certainly never wanted you to find out about it—about what I am, I mean.”
“Why not?” I had put down my sandwich and put my hand on his.
Ben sighed. “For the same reason I never tried to kiss you, never took a chance on asking you out as more than a friend, I guess. I didn't want to scare you off.” He gave a humorless laugh. “I guess I could've saved myself the trouble, huh?”
“Ben,” I began, but he shook his head.
“No, that wasn't fair. I'm sorry.” He picked up my hand and kissed it, just a brush of his lips across my knuckles, but it still made my heart pound, though I didn't know why.
It was just then that the four large guards, presumably other members of the pack, had come to claim him. I hadn't known that they were going to separate us, and I didn't want to let him go. But Ben didn't seem at all surprised.
“Be strong,” he had whispered in my ear as I clung to him, my arms tight around his neck. He pressed one last kiss to my cheek—maybe the last kiss I would ever get from him—and then I had to let him go.
Now, standing on the flat altar stone in the middle of the field with the moon just rising on the horizon, I put my hand to my cheek and thought of that last kiss. Had I been a fool to pretend to myself for so long that Ben and I were only friends—that friendship was all he wanted from me—needed from me? Had I wasted years we could have been happy and in love because I was too afraid of what might happen to try and overcome the ghosts of my past? If I had, it was too late now—the show was about to begin.
The full moon was climbing in the sky, like a huge, silvery ball, and I had never seen it look so big. So hungry. Its light seemed pure somehow, icy and exact as though it could pick out the smallest detail like the sun at noon. The shadows around me were so sharp they looked like they'd been cut out of black construction paper, and the wind that stirred through the trees brought me the scent of the wild lands at night, green and fresh, and feral. There was something in the air. I don't know if you'd call it magic, exactly, but it was definitely something I could feel. Some sense of anticipation, half horrible and half wonderful. It filled me, and I felt my hands tremble with a need I couldn't describe or understand.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt the strange pull of the moon. Molly had been standing at the side of the steps that led up to the stone altar and talking quietly with two of the pack members. Now she stepped forward and said in a loud, clear voice, “It is Mabon, the time of the Autumn Equinox, and I call the pack. Do you hear me wolves?”
From the circle of trees that surrounded the clearing, I heard fifty or more deep, masculine voices respond to her. “We hear, oh Priestess.”
“It is the night of the Hunger Moon, when the Goddess makes flesh her appetites, and we, her creations, must satisfy her lusts. Do you hear me, mates of the pack?”
This time it was female voices that answered, the women who had bound themselves to the pack by mating pack members. “We hear, oh Priestess,” they sighed, sounding like a wind through the trees.
“Then come forward and greet the Goddess, clothed only in her light, as she sent you into the world and as you shall depart it.” Molly's voice rose, and she stepped forward so that she was in front of the rock altar that I was standing on. Raising her hands above her head, she shed the simple white robe she had been wearing, leaving her body nude in the moonlight.
All around me, I saw shapes emerging from the shadows of the trees. Powerfully built men and the smaller, slimmer forms of women were becoming visible in the light of the pale, full moon. All of them were naked, the silvery light gilding breasts and hips and thighs, but it wasn't their bodies I was looking at—I was scanning their faces, looking for Ben. But he was nowhere to be seen.
“On this night of Mabon, we offer sacrifice to the Goddess, first in blood, then in lust,” Molly intoned. From somewhere she produced a deep metal chalice filled to the brim with red wine that looked black in the moonlight. “The female element is here tonight,” she said. “I call upon the male element to present himself.”
“The male element is here.” Thrash Savage strode out into the moonlit center of the circle, completely naked and looking more like an animal than a man. I bit my lip when I saw him walk up to Molly, a long silver dagger clenched in his huge fist. He had muscles on top of muscles, and large, ropy veins encircled his biceps and ran down his legs like snakes. A huge cock, uncut and evil looking, swung between his thighs.
I know a lot of women that would say there's no such thing as a man that's too muscular, but they weren't facing the prospect of being raped by a seven foot tall, three hundred pound, Conan the Barbarian look-alike. Savage's long, greasy hair was hanging lank and loose around his shoulders and his slotted, yellow eyes looked even more inhuman in the glow of the moon. There was a tension thrumming through him, as there was with all the male pack members. They were waiting to change—waiting to become something else—I could feel it.
I watched him as he walked across the grass to Molly and prayed silently that Ben was up to the task. My partner was a big guy, but Savage was absolutely huge. The only advantage I could see was that the Lead Wolf didn't so much walk as lumber. He had fast reflexes, faster than human, anyway, but was he as fast as another werewolf? For Ben's sake, I hoped not. Of course, I had no idea how fast or strong my best friend really was, since he'd spent almost the entire time we'd known each other hiding that part of himself from me. I felt a stab of guilt at the thought, but the show going on within the circle of the pack soon distracted me.
“We offer sacrifice to the G
oddess.” Molly held the chalice up to the moon as if in blessing, then lowered the metal cup and held it between her breasts.
“We offer sacrifice to the Goddess,” Savage growled, echoing her words. He lifted the dagger high, the icy moonlight skating along its silver blade, and plunged it downward in a violent thrusting motion.
Molly didn't flinch a bit, but I bit back a gasp, thinking he was going to stab her. But at the last instant, the Lead Wolf held back and slid the blade of the dagger almost gently into the red-black wine that filled the chalice.
A cold shiver ran through me. The symbolism of the dagger plunging into the chalice was unmistakable. Male into female. Steel into wine. The Goddess demanded blood and lust from her followers and she would get both.
Savage withdrew the dagger and planted it in the turf at his feet. He stood back, his arms crossed over his chest and watched as Molly took a small sip of the now consecrated wine. She stood on tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the lips and passed the chalice to him. He took a swallow and passed it, with a kiss, to the next person in the circle, who happened to be a petite, blond woman.
As the chalice made its way around the circle, Molly took another step forward and began to speak again.
“Listen, then, oh Wolves, to the words of the Goddess,” she intoned in a clear, strong voice.
“I who am the beauty of the green earth,
and the white moon among the stars,
and the mysteries of the waters,
I call upon your soul to arise and come unto Me.
For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.
From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.
Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices.
For behold! All acts of pleasure and desire are My rituals.
Let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion,
honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
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