“You said it’s a more intense romantic bond,” said Ursula. “I don’t know what lengths you’d go to in order to make sure Gray and Randall don’t mate again. That would take her away from you, wouldn’t it? It would shatter your alpha status and break the bond you have with your child?”
Wow. Ursula hadn’t forgotten a thing about werewolf packs, had she? “It isn’t about me,” he said. “It’s about Dana. She said she didn’t want to see him.”
“You promise me that’s the case?”
“I swear to God.”
* * *
Dana tucked Piper into her little bed.
“I no wanna take nap.” Piper stuck out her lower lip.
“Yes, you do,” said Dana. “You’re tired and cranky, and I can tell. You need a nap.”
“I not cranky.” Piper screwed up her tiny face.
Dana sighed. “Okay, then. Well, you don’t have to go to sleep. All you have to do is lie here with your eyes closed until I come back for you, okay? You can stay awake the whole time.”
“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 earlie
r.” 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?”
Piper looked up. “Huh?”
“I’m not lazy.”
Piper looked confused. “Yes, you are. Daddy say it all the time.”
“Yeah?” said Dana. “Well, Daddy’s going to stop saying it.”
Avery stood up. “Dana, listen—”
“No,” she said. “You listen. I don’t know what’s happened to you, Avery Brooks, but you’re not the same man I fell in love with. You know, even if this house does get messy sometimes, it’s not that big of a deal. You’re going to find some way to let that go. You’re going to find a way to go out running with me, and you’re going to let me help you with this wolf stuff.”
“What are you—”
“Because even King has noticed that you’re self-imploding. Plus, you’re keeping things from me, and you’re controlling me, and it’s not cool.”
He took a deep breath. “Maybe we could talk about this later. Not in front of our daughter.”
“We’re going to talk about it now,” she said. “Because you insult me in front of her all the time.”
“Dana—”
“You’re going to agree to this, Avery, and we’re going to fix things between us. You’re going to agree to it now. Because I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you, but we’re unbalanced right now. I spend all my time trying to please you, and it’s never enough.”
“That is not true.” His nostrils flared. “I spend all my time trying to please you, and you’re never satisfied.”
“Agree to it, Avery.”
“Agree to shifting into a wolf and running through the woods with you? No, I’m going to. I’m not a wolf. I’m a human being. I don’t need—”
“You’re an alpha wolf, and it’s eating you alive, begging to be let out. If you don’t give into it a little bit, you’re going to eat me alive.”
“Bullshit, Dana. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Avery, no swear words in front of the baby!”
“You wanted to have this conversation in front of her. I think you asked for it.”
Dana dragged her hands over her face. “You know what? Forget it. I can’t be here right now.” She stalked over to the door.
“You’re just leaving? You can’t leave.”
“Watch me.” She flung the door open and hurled herself out into the hallway.
* * *
Dana was going to do it. She was going to see Cole. She wasn’t sure when she’d decided it. Maybe when she was walking out of the door to her apartment. Maybe when she was running up the ha
llway.
She’d thought she’d go into the woods and run—just run it all away, let the sweet peace of the wolf take over her body and fix everything.
But then she knew she wasn’t going to do that.
She was going to see Cole.
That was what she wanted. That was what every fiber of her being was screaming for her to do.
And when she decided it, she got scared. But then she got excited, and the two emotions began a complicated dance inside her torso.
I’ll just talk to him, she thought. I won’t touch him. I won’t lead him on. I’ll be very professional. But I have to see him.
She almost headed down to the bottom level of headquarters right away. She didn’t know if her access badge still worked, but she nearly threw herself into the elevator and shot herself right down to him.
She imagined all the times before. Times in the middle of the night, easing into his darkened cell. His voice would wash over her like melted chocolate and his hands—oh, his hands. She remembered his hands on her skin, the way he seemed to force her body to respond in ways she hadn’t even known were possible.
But she stopped herself.
I better not go see him alone. I can’t trust myself with him alone. I know that. Every time we’ve ever been alone together, I’ve let him touch me, and I can’t do that.
No, someone else had to be there with her.
She might be angry at Avery, but he was her husband, and she wasn’t going to allow herself to be unfaithful to him. And when it came to Cole, well, she was never in control of herself. Cole could convince her to do anything on earth—even kill for him. He’d done it before. He’d set it up so that she’d have to kill another wolf, and…
And it had been glorious. Like the way it felt to take the rabbits in the woods. She remembered the smell of the blood, the tremor of a pulse beneath the skin. Ripping and tearing her jaws—
Better not to think about that. Better not to think about it at all.
No, she was only going to see Cole to help the SF. It had nothing to do with the fact that she hated her life, that she spent all day wondering why she mattered, if she mattered, and how she was going to keep going. Nothing to do with the fact that Cole had always made her feel so god damned important.
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