Moon Dance (17 page)

“
Dana. Yours?” She was
huddled against the wall, her knees against her chest. The handcuff
that held one of her wrists didn’t afford her a lot of movement,
but she could still wrap both her hands around her
knees.

“
Kirsten.” The woman scooted
forward. Her face was dirty, and she looked frightened, but her
eyes were bright. “Where did you come from? Do you work for the
SF?”

“
I do,” said Dana. “Do
you?”

Kirsten nodded. “We all
worked at the west coast branch. But I don’t know you. You don’t
work there.”

“
No, I work in
Pennsylvania.”

“
Oh.” Kirsten bit her lip.
“Did they strike there too?”

“
Not yet,” said Dana. “I’m
here to try to stop them, but… well, I’m not sure my plan is going
very well.”

“
Then they know about this
group? They know what they’re doing? They’re working to stop
them?”

“
Yeah,” said
Dana.

“
Does the SF know you’re
here?”

“
Well…” Dana looked around.
“We went on this mission to get Enoch’s location. If…” What should
she call Cole? “If my, um, partner still has his phone, then
they’ll be tracking it. They could be here soon.”

Kirsten breathed out an
audible sigh. “Really?” She turned to the other women. “Did you
hear that? They’re going to get us out. We’re going to be
rescued.”

The other women looked up,
but none of them looked particularly excited by the news. They all
had wary, beaten looks on their faces. Dana couldn’t handle looking
at them for too long. She rested her forehead against her knees. It
didn’t take a genius to figure out why these women were here and
what had been done to them. She wanted to reassure them that they
would be rescued, and that nothing else would happen to them, but
she had to admit, she was too worried about herself to be
reassuring at the moment.

A bad thought had occurred to her. A
horrible thought.

These were the wolves that
Cole used to be close to. They’d been in communication with him
while he was imprisoned in the SF. And she knew Cole’s philosophies
about killing and werewolves. He thought that wolves were meant to
run free and be predators. If they needed to kill humans, then so
be it. Cole saw it as population control. Even after everything
she’d been through with him, he’d never taken that back. He still
believed it.

So, what if all the things
he’d said to Ursula were just posturing? What if Cole had actually
captured her to get back into Enoch’s good graces? What if she
really were a prisoner here? What if Cole had brought her here on
purpose?

She didn’t want to believe
that it was true. But it was hard to think hopeful thoughts when
she was chained up and naked. When she was surrounded by broken
women who had dead eyes.

Was that going to happen to her
too?

Suddenly, it was important
that she understand exactly how bad it was down here. “Kirsten?”
she said.

“
Yes?”

“
How many of them have been
hurting you? How often?”

The brightness in Kirsten’s
eyes dulled. “Maybe six or seven these days. It was worse right
afterward. There were more of them then. But since we traveled out
here, their numbers seem to have dwindled. It’s not as bad now, but
it’s still pretty regular. Nearly every night there are a few of
them.”

Dana didn’t like the sound
of that. But Cole wouldn’t let that happen to her, would he? No
matter how much he despised her, she couldn’t imagine him standing
aside and letting other men rape her. He might not respect her, but
he always desired her. When he was tying her up earlier, she knew
he’d wanted her just as badly as she’d wanted him. He wouldn’t let
anyone else have her, would he?

And she was mated, so if it did happen,
it would be extremely painful.

Having sex in human form
wouldn’t break her wolf bond—she had to be in wolf form to do
that—but it would be agony.

She shuddered.

Kirsten gave her a
sympathetic look. “Maybe the SF will get here before
then.”

“
Maybe,” said Dana. She
wasn’t sure the SF was coming anymore. When they’d gone to meet
Geoffrey, Cole had said it would be better if she didn’t have a
cell phone. He said it might raise suspicion as to why he hadn’t
taken it from her. So there was only Cole’s phone to track. And she
didn’t know if Cole was really on the SF’s side or not.

She should have listened to
Avery, when he tried to tell her not to trust Cole. But she’d been
blind.

You don’t know that Cole
isn’t following the plan,
she chided
herself. Maybe Cole was in a bad position right now. Maybe he was
doing his best to get her out of here.

“
Listen,” said Kirsten, “if
not, it’s best if you just try to pretend it’s not
happening.”

Dana turned to her
sharply.

“
It’s only your body, you
know,” said Kirsten. “It doesn’t mean anything. Just take your
brain away, imagine you’re someplace else. That’s the best way. Of
course, the first time, you’ll probably fight. We all tried.” She
looked out at the other women. “But it only means you get hurt.
Take it from me. Just go limp and think of something
else.”

Well, that really wouldn’t
be possible. Not with her alpha bond. The pain would make sure she
was present for all of it. It was yet another reason that the wolf
shit was barbaric and horrible. Wasn’t being raped punishment
enough? But that was the way nature worked for the wolves—one more
way to ensure that packs stayed together, she supposed. Keep the
female alphas in line. Make sure they don’t stray.

And she was straying, wasn’t
she? Wasn’t that the whole reason she was in this
situation?

Couldn’t be happy with your
husband and your daughter and being a housewife, could you? Well,
making dinner and cleaning up messes on the floor is looking pretty
good right now, isn’t it?

Dana felt ashamed of
herself.

CHAPTER TEN

Hours
later
—well, Dana thought it was hours, but
she couldn’t be sure, because there was no way to tell the
time—someone came down into the basement. Dana steeled herself for
him to be followed by more men. In her mind, they looked like
cartoon caricature bad guys with heavy brows and sneering lips. She
supposed that imagining them that way helped to lessen the horror
somewhat. After all, these men where conducting organized sexual
abuse, and she couldn’t fathom what kind of men did that. They must
be horribly evil. Through-and-through morally bereft.

In some ways, it was easier
for her to think of a rapist as a lone prowler, someone who knew
his urges were abnormal and wrong, someone who tried to hide them.
That individual was divorced from social bonds. He was an
aberration.

But this? Out in the open?
Keeping women chained up in a basement? All of the men
participating, like it was an institution or something? It didn’t
make any sense. Didn’t one of them—at least
one
of them—know what they were doing
was wrong?

She supposed organized rape
was just as barbaric as the wolf bond. It was something that
ancient barbarians did—traveling marauders going from village to
village. They’d even had a phrase for it, right? “Rape and
pillage.”

Just another reason that
Cole was right. Humans and werewolves were all animals—deep
underneath any semblance of civilization, both races were nothing
but savages, and they gave in to their primal urges in terrifying
ways. Dana was caught in some kind of power struggle. The renegade
wolves rising up against the SF. And it was just as primitive as
the ancient barbarians struggling to take as much land and as many
women and as much power as they could. Nature spoke in a coarse
voice. It directed things on a brutal scale.

She loved feeling part of
nature when she shifted into the wolf. But she’d gone too far last
time. She’d killed those campers. She wasn’t any better than the
men who were going to rape her. She struggled to fight against her
own wild nature, and she lost.

Or maybe she was only thinking cynical
thoughts because she was having trouble finding the hope in this
situation.

She waited for the group of
men to follow on the heels of the first man.

But the man that came into
the basement came alone. He was a tall man with burly muscles and a
thick neck. He had a tattoo on his shoulder, but in the darkness,
Dana couldn’t quite make it out. She thought she saw teeth etched
into his arm.

He knelt down in front of
her, and he didn’t look like a bad guy at all. He had a very
pleasant face—a baby face. Upturned nose, dimpled chin. His
eyelashes were very long. He smiled at her. “Hi there, Dana
Gray.”

He knew who she was, but she
didn’t know him. She was naked and chained, and he was clothed and
free. He had all the advantages.

Dana decided there wasn’t
any point in her speaking.

“
I’m Enoch. It’s nice to
meet you.”

She just stared at him. So
this was Enoch. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. This man
with the pretty face and the lethal body fit the bill, she
supposed. What was he going to do to her?

He leaned forward. “Sorry,
sister, I know we haven’t really had a chance to get to know each
other yet.” He put his nose into her armpit, and he sniffed. Then
he leaned back. “Hmm.”

Why was he smelling her? It
was some wolf thing, Dana supposed. She had to admit that she
didn’t know very much about the things she could smell. She’d been
a tracker, and they’d used their ability to scent out rogues, but
she’d never used her sense of smell in other capacities.

“
You’re mated,” said Enoch.
“That dog. No wonder he was freaking out about you.”

He could smell that? Dana shrank from
him.

Enoch shook his head. “See,
I wondered why all my guys were so upset when I said not to touch
you. But now it makes sense. An alpha bitch. Everyone wants to fuck
an alpha bitch.”

He was right about that, but
Dana had been an alpha for so long that she hardly remembered what
it was like not to be hit on by all the lone wolves. And, of
course, she now spent most of her time alone with Piper, so she
never saw any other—

Was that why Avery had been
so adamant that she stay home with the baby? Had he been trying to
keep her away from other wolves?

Enoch was tapping her free
arm. “Move this, sister. Put your wrists together.”

She glared at him. She
wasn’t going to do anything he wanted her to do.

He laughed. “Move your hand,
Dana Gray. Otherwise, I’m going to leave you down here, chained to
this pole, and I don’t know if my guys are going to be able to
resist that sweet alpha bitch scent you got there. They might just
decide to disobey me.”

She lifted her chin
defiantly.

He raised his eyebrows. “You
ever been fucked over and over again by different men? One right
after the other? Maybe two at once?”

She felt sick. She moved her
hand.

“
Good girl,” he said. He
tugged a key out of his pocket, and worked quickly to move the
handcuff from the pole to her other wrist. Now her hands were
handcuffed together, but she was free. She would have made a run
for it, but Enoch grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. “Come
on.”

Dana let him lead her out of
the basement. She looked over her shoulder at the other women, who
were all watching her be taken away. Apparently, this wasn’t the
way things usually went.

Enoch pulled her after him,
up the stairs. They emerged into a darkened house. There was an old
smell of burnt wood. The floor was covered in broken boards and
shattered glass. Dana picked her way gingerly over it, but Enoch
didn’t seem to care that her feet were bare.

Within a minute or so, they
were out of the house. Dana could now see that it was a ruined
farmhouse. Part of it had burned down. Outside, it was twilight.
The sun was hanging heavy in the sky, and everything was bathed in
purplish-blue light. The air was a little chilly, and Dana wasn’t
wearing clothes. She shivered, goosebumps appearing all over her
body.

Enoch dragged Dana forward.

They walked across a field,
heading towards a cluster of RVs. Where was he taking her, and why?
She thought about stopping, refusing to move her legs, demanding
that he explain it to her. But she didn’t. She didn’t feel like she
had a voice, not without her clothes. She was chained and naked,
and her dignity had been stripped from her. Maybe that was the
worst of it.

Of course, she hadn’t
actually been raped yet. Maybe she shouldn’t speak too
soon.

Then she realized that she’d
just thought of being raped as an eventuality, something that was
definitely going to happen in her future.

Fresh horror washed over her. What the
hell was happening to her?