“Maybe,” said Larissa. “Maybe, but not as bad as before.”
Dana let out a little laugh. “This is like your lecture earlier. Saying that letting him rape me is turning him human.”
Larissa sat up straight. “Wait, he raped you? Is that why you have a child?”
Dana swallowed. “It wasn’t exactly… I mean, I wouldn’t be with him if I didn’t… Forget it.”
Larissa took her hand. “If he’s hurting you—”
“He’s not.”
“You can tell me,” she said. “I can help you.”
“It’s not like that.” Yeah, Dana was pretty sure that the TV would have been easier than this conversation.
Larissa raised her eyebrows. “You know, a lot of times women blame themselves for things that aren’t their faults. If a man does something to you that you don’t want to happen, then it’s his fault, not yours.”
“I know that.” Dana got up of the couch, pulling her hand out of Larissa’s.
“I don’t want you to get the impression that I don’t think rape is a big deal from my lecture. There’s a big difference between things that happen in fiction and things that happen in real life. A book never hurt anyone, no matter what it says inside.”
Dana went over to the window. She peered out at Larissa’s back yard. The grass needed cut. “So, you think your lecture only applies to books, then?”
Larissa sighed. “There are things about it that I’d like to apply to real life. The dual surrender thing would be nice. But, you know, what mostly happens is that one side surrenders and the other side doesn’t. So one side has all the power. Sometimes it’s the man and sometimes it’s the woman, but most relationships are lopsided.” She paused. “I think you can take back your surrender too. You can surrender at the beginning, but you can put all your walls back up slowly, one brick at a time. And then one day, you wake up, and you’re married, and you don’t touch, and everything that comes out of his mouth annoys you, and when you think of surrendering to something like him, you just feel disgusted.”
Dana turned away from the window.
Larissa smiled wryly. “I speak from personal experience.”
“Marriage isn’t easy.” God damn it. Avery. Was it going to hurt this bad every time she thought of him? Every time for the rest of her life?
Larissa put her hands in her lap. “I think we tell stories for lots of reasons. Some of it’s selfish wish-fulfillment, but sometimes it’s to show us the way things could be, in a perfect world. I think romance novels do that. Show us an ideal. Most people claim that they read them to escape, though, so I think we all know how much they’re actually like real life.”
Dana looked back out the window. She placed her fingertips against the glass. “In real life, surrendering to a beast-man doesn’t make him civilized. Instead, it changes you. It makes you a beast-woman.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Cole lounged in one of the easy chairs in Larissa’s living room. It was dark, and Dana sprawled out on the couch, asleep. She looked peaceful lying there. Peaceful and beautiful, and he watched her chest rise and fall with her easy breath, thinking that he wished she could always be that peaceful. Thinking that he was selfish to have thrust himself into her life, thinking of all the things he’d done to hurt her.
He was supposed to be asleep too, but sleep eluded him.
He’d spoken on the phone to an old acquaintance, and that person had told him Enoch funneled the kids to his sister Deedee. Apparently, it was what Deedee had wanted to do after getting out of the relationship with Enoch. She’d wanted a large group of kids to take care of, and so she was in charge of all the children from the SF.
It was good news, but Cole wasn’t sure of Deedee. He hadn’t spoken to her in years, and he’d always thought her heart was in the right place.
Of course, he’d thought that about Angela, too, and he remembered the cavalier way that Angela had dismissed Enoch’s SF whores. She hadn’t seemed to care about their suffering one way or the other. Still, maybe that was because of the way they’d grown up. Their father Jimmy was always adding new girls to his stable, and though the girls on Hunter’s Moon Farm weren’t physically harmed (except Tasha, except goddamned Tasha, and it was my fault), they weren’t respected either. They weren’t treated like people.
Thing was, he and all his siblings were screwed up.
He kept tabs on the children who’d been released from Hunter’s Moon Farm. Most were being shuffled around in foster care, but Cole was still convinced they were better off than they had been in that awful place.
He wanted to trust Deedee, and in the end, he’d made the only call he knew to make, which was to tell his acquaintance to pass along his contact information to his sister.
He hoped that Deedee would talk to him without involving Enoch, but he couldn’t be sure. Now that she had his phone number, she could pass that information off to Enoch, and Enoch could trace the phone. Enoch could be on top of them in days.
Cole had the phone that Deedee would use to contact him turned off for now, because his acquaintance had assured him that he wouldn’t be able to get in touch with Deedee until tomorrow. So, there was no chance of Deedee knowing until then.
Hopefully, she’d simply call Cole, and then he could set up a way to get Piper back.
If she didn’t, though, well, they couldn’t be near Larissa anymore.
It was one thing to be here with the SF breathing down their necks. If the SF discovered them at Larissa’s house, nothing would happen to Larissa. But if Enoch’s men found them here, they’d be likely to kill Larissa.
Cole planned on waking Dana up before dawn so that the two of them could leave quietly. He still wasn’t sure where they could go.
Part of him wished he could leave her behind. Not because he wanted to be away from her—he didn’t. He never wanted that. But simply because he was worried for her safety. He didn’t want her hurt any worse than she’d already been hurt. He wished he had someplace safe to sock her away, so that he could go and get back her daughter. Then he’d reunite them, and he’d walk away, leave them to themselves.
But for now, it was too dangerous for Dana to be alone. So, he had to bring her along. After all this was over, then he’d find some way to make sure she could be safe. But first, he had to get her daughter back.
Footsteps behind him. Larissa was coming down the hall.
He peered around the edge of the chair and saw her in her pajamas, her hair in a sloppy bun on top of her head.
She saw him too. “You’re still awake?”
He got out of the chair and went out into the kitchen. “I am. So are you.”
She sighed. “Guess I’m still keyed up after everything that happened today. Besides, you did make me take a long nap in the middle of the afternoon.”
Cole looked down at his feet. His shoes were off, and he was barefoot. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
She eyed him, her hand on the door to a cabinet. “I was coming down to get myself a glass of wine. Sometimes that helps me fall asleep. You want one?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
She got the wine out of the cabinet. “She’s the one you used to talk about it, isn’t she? The girl from high school?”
Cole furrowed his brow. “I talked about Dana?”
She took a corkscrew from a drawer and began to twist it into the cork. “Only once or twice. I didn’t make the connection until earlier this evening, when you said something to her, and I heard the way your voice changed when you said her name. Then I remembered. She was important to you. She’s always been important to you.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “She’s the only important thing.”
Larissa poured wine into the glasses and walked over to the table, setting them down. “I remember you telling me that no one was important to you.”
He went over to the table and picked up the glass of wine. He took a sip. “I said that, huh?”
She sat down, tak
ing a sip of her own wine. “You said that interpersonal connections muddled the natural order of things. You said that humans only sought to pair bond because of our extremely helpless young, but that we had evolved improperly and that our urge to mate was stronger than our urge to love.”
Cole snorted. ‘Yeah, that sounds like something I might have said.”
“Well, I agreed with you. I haven’t been very lucky in love myself. I don’t see much use for it.”
“And yet you study literature about epic love stories. It’s ironic.”
“I don’t think so. I think that I can understand love better from the outside. I can observe it, and it doesn’t cloud my judgment.”
He took another sip of wine. “Really?”
“You disagree?”
“No, not necessarily. I don’t know much about love one way or the other.”
It was Larissa’s turn to snort. “You’re in love with Dana.”
Cole made a dismissive noise. “No, I’m not. I don’t know how to love things.”
“Yeah, it’s probably not necessary to understand love in order to feel it.”
He drank more wine. “Well, she could never love me, so it doesn’t matter.”
Larissa raised her eyebrows. “What did you to her?”
He fiddled with the stem of the glass. If it had been daylight, maybe he wouldn’t have answered. But it was dark, and the wine was making his stomach pleasantly warm, and it seemed easier to speak. “I tried to kill her. I kept her chained up in my basement and forced her to shift back and forth between her human form and her werewolf form. I stalked her. We ended up mated, and I preyed on that. I preyed on her attraction to me. I forced her…” He shook his head.
“Forced her to what?”
He looked down into his wine. “Why are you asking me this?”
“I don’t know.” She gulped at her wine, and her fingers were shaking. “I wasn’t expecting you to say things like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s only that you were so quiet and calm with me. So controlled. Even when we had sex, I felt like you were holding back. Is that what you were holding back, Cole? Violence?”
He ran his tongue over his teeth. “I would never have hurt you. I’m not going to now.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” She caught his gaze with her own.
He tried to look into her eyes, but he couldn’t. He looked down at the table. “Yes. I suppose that’s what I was holding back.”
“And you don’t hold back with Dana?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t hold back with her. I’ve never been able to. She makes me feel… unchecked.” He picked up his wine glass. “I guess she gets all of it. All of me. The good parts and the bad parts. But she… she takes it. And she always comes back for more. And I try… I try to stay away from her, but I…” He took a drink of wine. “It’s not love, Larissa. It’s obsession.”
* * *
Cole woke Dana up while it was still dark outside. His breath smelled like wine, but she didn’t say anything about it. She was afraid of what it meant. When she saw the two wine goblets in the sink, it was like a stab in her heart. Larissa and Cole. Drinking wine together.
She didn’t like that.
But she didn’t say anything, because she thought of Avery, of the way he’d begged her not to go away with Cole. The way his face had twisted when he’d told her that she would break him if she slept with Cole.
Whatever had happened with Cole and Larissa, Dana was fairly sure she deserved it. She wasn’t even going to ask, because she wanted to imagine the worst and wallow in her punishment for all the wrong things she’d done. She took the stabbing feeling, and she cultivated it, forcing herself to sit with the feeling, knowing it was justified.
Cole drove the car into the sunrise. The sky was lightening, and there was just a hint of the rising sun. The sky was stained the faintest shade of pink.
But she was a liar, and she was weak, because she only made it about a half hour on the road before she turned to Cole and demanded he explain about the wine glasses.
He was surprised. He laughed. “Are you jealous, Dana?”
She hunched down in her seat, daydreaming about punching him. What was the use of denying it? “Yes.”
“Do you really think that I could have done anything with her?”
“You did in the past.”
“Before us,” he said. “I haven’t been with a woman besides you since this all got started.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You haven’t?”
“It’s not as if you can say the same thing.”
“Well, no, I’ve never been with a woman at all.”
“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”
She sighed. “You’re right. I’m the one who’s an unfaithful whore here. I’m the one who slept with you right after finding out my husband was dead.”
“You’re not a bad person, Dana. Stop that.”
She knew he was wrong. She was a bad person. But somehow, she couldn’t help but want to be happy anyway. She fought against feeling awful, even though she deserved to feel that way.
Cole explained to her that they were driving away someplace, hoping to hear from his sister Deedee about Piper, but prepared that Enoch might come instead. If it was Enoch, they’d fight him off, kill him if they had to, and then they’d get to Piper. Cole said nothing was going to stop him from finding the little girl.
And Dana believed him. “So, we’ll just drive around until then?”
“I guess,” he said.
She looked out the window. “Cole, aren’t we close to your old house?” The one where he’d kept her prisoner, the one where she’d killed for the first time, the one where Hollis had died.
“Yeah, it’s only a few miles away.”
“What happened to that house? Did you sell it?”
“No, I still own it, I suppose. I couldn’t go there when I was on the run from the SF. Too obvious.”
“Right,” she said. She considered. “Maybe we should go there now.”
He gave her a funny look. “Really?”
“Maybe it’s perfect. It’s so obvious that they’d never look there for us. Besides, if they thought of it, they probably already cleared it.”
“Maybe,” he said. “It wouldn’t bother you to be there? After everything you went through there?”
“No,” she said. “In fact, I’d like to see it again.”
* * *
The house looked worse for wear. From the outside, the yard had gotten overgrown, grass overtaking the stone walkway to the door. It was locked up tight, and Cole didn’t have a key anymore, but they were able to break in through a window in the living room.
Inside, the place was covered in dust, but everything was just the way that Dana remembered it the last night they’d been there. The couch in the living room still sat against the wall. The couch where she and Cole had made love for the first time.
She remembered his body over hers, his voice soft and deep. Give yourself to me.
Seized by some force, she was compelled out of the living room. She ran to the door in the kitchen that opened onto the steps into the basement and flung it open.
“Dana?” Cole’s voice sounded far away.
She felt around for a light switch, but of course, there was no power in the house. So, she began descending into the darkness, one step at a time.
“Dana.”
She turned around.
Cole was at the top of the steps. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer. She turned back and continued her descent into the belly of his house. The place where she’d awoken all those years ago, arms chained above her head, fear pulsing through her like a live thing.
As she went lower and lower, deeper and deeper, her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and she could see her surroundings. There was a small window near the ceiling, grimy and dirty, but letting through gray light.
> Nothing had been touched. There were the chains. Hollis had used them to chain her up again, sneering at her that the only way a guy could make time with her was to tie her up.
And there. The smear of dark red on the concrete. Hollis’s blood. Cole had killed him right there.
She stepped around it and went over to the chains. She picked them up, fingered the cold metal. It was smooth against her skin.
“Dana.” Cole stood at the bottom of the steps. His voice was tattered.
She didn’t look at him.
“I’m going to find someplace for the two of you,” Cole said. “For you and Piper. Someplace that no one will ever find you, where you can be safe. And then you won’t see me again. I promise. This time I really will leave you alone.”
She dropped the chains, and they hit the floor with a clatter. “What?”
“You were right,” he said. “You were right to keep her from me, and to stay with Brooks. All I’ve ever done is cause you pain.”
She turned to look at him. “That’s not true.”
“We both know it is.”
She swallowed.
He was talking again, his hoarse voice echoing against the cold walls down here. “When I was gone before, you were happy with Brooks. You were raising your daughter. And then I crashed back into your life and—”
“I wasn’t happy.” Her mouth twisted. “You knew it. You said—”
“I’d say anything to have you.”
“Something happened down here, Cole. I’m not the same.”
“Yeah, I ruined you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether or not I’m ruined. Maybe I was better before, but I can’t go back to that now. I am what I am.”
He shook his head. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t think I want you to leave me alone.”
He winced. “Dana, you can’t… I don’t deserve… I’ve done terrible things to you, and you’ve never done anything to me.”
“Is that the problem? You want us to be even?”
He licked his lips. “What do you mean?”
“Come here.” She beckoned.
He hesitated, and then he lurched forward.
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