Moon Dance

Moon Dance

a Cole Randall and Dana Gray
novel

Book
Three
by V. J. Chambers

Dana Gray loves her husband
and her two-year-old daughter, but her life is far from perfect.
Domestic strain weighs down her marriage, and her role as a
stay-at-home mom cuts her off the rest of the world.
It
’s a thankless, never-ending job, and her
only escape is shifting into a wolf and running beneath the trees
and sky.

When Cole Randall is
captured again, he leverages his knowledge about a threat to the
werewolf community in exchange for a pardon. And he’s got a plan to
neutralize this threat. He and Dana will go undercover. She’ll have
to pretend to be his prisoner.

Dana knows that her draw to
Cole is irrational and unwise. She knows that her life is far more
stable without him in it. And she knows this plan of his is
dangerous—not only to her safety, but to her relationship with her
husband.

But she can’t resist
Cole.

She can never resist him.

MOON
DANCE
© copyright 2014 by V. J.
Chambers
http://vjchambers.com
Punk Rawk Books

Smashwords Edition

Please do not copy or post
this book in its entirety or in parts anywhere. You may, however,
share the entire book with a friend by forwarding the entire file
to them. (And I won
’t get mad.)

Moon Dance
by V. J. Chambers

“
He who makes a beast of
himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

-Samuel Johnson

CHAPTER ONE

Cole Randall stared down at
the phone number written on the piece of paper, and then he
crumpled it with one hand. He wasn
’t going
to call Dana after all. He’d gotten her phone number from the
Sullivan Foundation’s website. Even though she’d apparently taken
extended maternity leave, she was still listed as a consultant for
the Pack Liaison Branch, and her phone number was there for anyone
to see.

For all Cole knew, it was a
dead-end number, anyway. One that would connect to voicemail in an
office. And he sure as hell wasn’t leaving her a
message.

No, he wasn’t going to call
her at all.

He didn’t owe her
anything.

She’d played him. She and
the other members of the SF had used his knowledge of Hunter’s Moon
Farm for their own ends. They’d told him that he was pardoned, but
they’d had no intention of ever letting him go free.

They were all hypocrites,
and she was the worst of them.

Worst because he knew she
felt it. Deep inside, she knew what it really meant to be a wolf,
to be connected to trees and the dark sky and the fat, full moon.
And still, she hid behind the structure of the SF, hid behind her
whitewashed marriage to that boyscout Avery Brooks, hid behind
their child together, their perfect, average family. She hid there
and pretended she didn’t know. But she…

Oh, hell, maybe she didn’t
know. Maybe Cole had always just wanted to believe that she did. He
remembered whispering things into her naked skin, telling her how
she felt. He thought he’d been revealing to her an inner self—the
self she was too stubborn and frightened to face. But maybe he’d
only been projecting onto her, making her over into something she
had never been.

In the end, did it really matter what
happened to her?

If she died, he’d be
free.

And anyway, he already was
free.

He hadn’t seen her in over
two years, and he never thought about her anymore.

Right. Never.

Which was why, when he’d
found out about Enoch’s plans, his first thought had been that he
had to warn Dana.

Cole smoothed out the
crumpled paper. He sighed. Fuck it. He was going to call her,
wasn’t he?

He took a deep breath, and
then he got out his phone. He dialed the numbers on the paper and
put the phone to his ear.

He waited.

It rang.

It
was
going to be an office phone,
wasn’t it? It was just going to go to voicemail after two more
rings, and that would be that, and then—

“
Hello?”

Cole was stricken at the
sound of her voice. He hadn’t expected his stomach to turn over,
his chest to feel tight. He couldn’t speak.

Silence on the other end.

“
Hello? Is anyone
there?”

“
Dana.” His voice came out
choked.

More silence. And when she
spoke again, her voice was different too. It had dropped to a
whisper. “Cole?”

“
You’re in danger,” he
said. It was important to get it all out, just lay it out there for
her. He didn’t want to catch up or exchange pleasantries. None of
that mattered. When it came down to it, this woman hadn’t chosen
him, had never even
considered
choosing him, even though he’d always been certain
that—when it came to the two of them—there was no such thing as
choice. They were meant to be, or so he’d thought. Something
powerful drew them together, something deep and primal and bigger
than anything else on earth. “You need to get out of there. You
need to take your family and leave the eastern regional SF branch.
It’s not safe there.”

“
W-what?” She still sounded
stunned. “Cole, what are you talking about?”

“
You just need to leave.”
And he needed to hang up now. He’d delivered his message, and there
was no reason to stay on the line. But he didn’t. He wanted to hear
her say something else. He wanted to listen to her speak for a
little longer.

There was another voice,
something muffled in the distance, coming through the receiver.
“Who are you on the phone with?”

That would be Avery Brooks,
wouldn’t it?

Dana’s voice. “Avery, can
you hold on—”

“
Randall?” Avery’s voice
came on the line. “Is that you? I knew you weren’t dead, you
asshole.”

Cole shut his eyes, gripping
the phone tighter.
Hang up, idiot. Hang up
now
.

“
You don’t get to call her,
you know,” said Avery. “She doesn’t want anything to do with you.
You need to leave her alone—”

“
Just get her out. Take your
child and get out of the SF headquarters. It’s not safe there, and
you’re all going to be killed if you don’t leave.” Cole jerked the
phone away from his ear and forced himself to hang up.

His heart was pounding in
his chest, and he was assailed by memories of Dana Gray. Her body
chained up in his basement. Dragging a wet sponge over her skin.
The way she responded to him, even then, even when she was afraid
he was going to kill her.

Her body beneath his, her
legs wrapped around him, sighing as he drove himself in and out of
her.

The way she looked when she told him
she hated him.

The way she felt in his arms when she
was asleep.

The curve of her waist, the dip of her
neck, the swell of her lips.

He jammed his phone back
into his pocket and clenched his hands into fists.

I shouldn’t have called. I
should have left her alone.

Nothing good was going to
come of this. Cole had always known that things between him and
Dana Gray could never end well, and he’d thought that ending was
already past. Calling her… calling her only dug up all the feelings
again. Feelings he was sure he’d buried.

Still… as much as he wanted
to forget about her, he knew he didn’t want her hurt.

I had to call. I won’t let
her die.

* * *

Dana Gray watched as her
husband Avery lowered the phone from his ear. His movements were
slow and deliberate, and she could see from the way that his jaw
was twitching that he was angry.

She and Avery had been
married for over two years now. Though she’d kept her maiden name,
she was deeply connected to him, and she understood his moods as
well as her own.

They were in the master
bedroom of their apartment in the headquarters of the eastern
regional branch of the Sullivan Foundation. Behind them, the covers
of their bed were still pulled aside, rumpled and askew even though
it was early evening. Dana hadn’t found time to make up the bed
today, which probably would have annoyed him in and of
itself.

But this...

She tried desperately not to
make Avery angry, but sometimes he blew up anyway. She couldn’t be
sure, but she thought that his temper was worse since the two had
mated as wolves. Before then, Avery had seemed easygoing and
affable. After, his emotions had sharpened. He seemed to react
badly to anything that made him think he wasn’t right or in
charge.

And Cole Randall…

Well, that was a person they never
discussed. Ever.

“
How long have you known he
was alive?” Avery’s voice was strained.

She swallowed. “I spoke to
him once years ago, baby. He told me he was going to leave me alone
and let me be happy, and he has. I haven’t spoken to him since
then.”

Avery glared at the phone in
his hand. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

“
Believe what?”

“
Believe that you haven’t
spoken to him in years.”

“
Well, it’s the
truth.”

He shook his head. “That’s
not the way it is with you and him. You can’t resist him. You’ve
shown time and time again that you’re willing to screw up
everything in your life just to do what he tells you. He’s
bad
for you,
Dana.”

“
I know that. I’m not…” She
sighed and held out her hand. “Can I have my phone
back?”

“
No.”

“
No?” She couldn’t believe
he’d just said that.

“
No, I’m not letting him
have a way to get in touch with you. He’s got your phone number,
and we’re going to have to get it changed.”

“
But that number is public.
It’s posted on the website so that pack wolves can call me if they
need—”

“
You don’t even work
anymore. Someone else can handle that.” Avery put her phone in his
pocket. “Besides, I’m going to go through your call history to see
if you’ve been in contact with him.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s not
fair.”

“
Not fair because I’m going
to find pictures of his cock on here or something?”

She flushed in spite of
herself. There was nothing going on between her and Cole, but
somehow thinking about Cole’s… genitals made her feel hot all
over.

Avery saw her reaction and
clenched his jaw. “Just
tell
me. I’d rather hear it than be broadsided with
evidence on this phone.”

“
There’s no evidence on the
phone. Nothing’s going on. I haven’t spoken to him in years. That’s
the truth.”

“
Yeah, well, forgive me if I
don’t believe you.”

“
I haven’t given you any
reason not to believe me.”

He barked out a harsh laugh.
“Are you kidding me? You’ve given me so many reasons I don’t even
know where to start. You remember the time that you went down to
his cell to question him about why he made you kill that wolf in
his house? But later I come to find out that while you’re there,
he’s sucking your tits. And then there was the time that you
started fucking him right after you found out he murdered your
mother? You remember that?”

Dana glared at him. “Not so
loud with those words. Piper will hear you.”

He rolled his eyes.

“
You can’t take my phone
from me like I’m a teenager who’s been misbehaving. I’m an adult.
I’m your wife. That’s my phone, and I won’t let you—”

“
It’s for your own good.
Even if you haven’t been talking to him, he’s started contact now,
hasn’t he? And once you start talking to him every day, God knows
what you’ll start doing.”