Hunger Moon Rising Read online

  “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