Hunger Moon Rising Read online

  Then I realized what I was thinking and how ridiculous my possessive feelings were. Dani wasn't mine and never would be. She hadn't called me once since I had left her at home in her bed on Sunday night—hadn't even changed the ring tone on my cell phone. If I hadn't been sure of where I stood with her, the continued silence between us would have let me know without a doubt.

  When I got to the last building on the block I saw that, sure enough, the door was standing open, and I could hear rustling and the low murmur of voices inside. So she wasn't alone. I felt the short hairs on the back of my neck begin to prickle. Who was she in there with and what were they doing?

  “…fascinating. I mean, uh, he really seemed to believe that he was going to be able to change people into wolves.” Dani's voice floated out to me as I stepped into the darkened hallway that led to the lab.

  “He was crazy all right,” agreed a male voice that sounded vaguely familiar. “I can't understand half of this crap. This one report especially—'Lunar Cycles in the Adult Male Were.' What the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway?”

  “Just put it in the pile,” Dani told her male companion, whoever he was. “I'll go through it when I get a chance. Or, no, wait. Here—let me see it.”

  I rounded the corner to see her standing in the middle of the lab almost knee-deep in a drift of paperwork. The shiny, obscure equipment was still in place, but Dani had obviously dug into the stacks of filing cabinets that were standing at the back of the room. Apparently Doctor Locke had been a big believer in having a hard copy of his work—or else he was just computer shy.

  She had her back to me and there was a man standing close to her—much too close in my opinion—with his hand on the small of her back. They were facing away from the doorway, and both of them were bent over something he was holding.

  “Find anything interesting?” I said, or rather, growled. The sight of the man's hand on her back had sent a possessive fire through me that was completely irrational but utterly undeniable. I wanted to rip his arm out of his socket for daring to touch her, but I forced myself to hold my ground instead.

  They both jumped and Dani turned to face me, a look of guilt stamped on her delicate features.

  “Ben?” She put a hand to her chest as though to still her heart. “God, you scared the crap out of me.”

  “Uh, hi, Mister Davis,” her companion squeaked. It was Pete the copyboy, I saw, and his fair face was flushed dark red with embarrassment. I looked pointedly at the placement of his hand on Dani's back, and he yanked it back abruptly, as though he'd been burned.

  “What are you doing here?” I took a step toward them, and Pete backed up so quickly he nearly tripped over a pile of papers.

  Dani's green eyes flashed. “The same thing you are, presumably. Covering the disappearance of Doctor Locke, the prominent research scientist. Only I got here first. This is my story, so back off, Davis.”

  Davis? Since when did she call me by my last name instead of my first? I crossed my arms over my chest. “Your story, huh? And what are you doing out working on your story when I know damn well you called in sick today?”

  Dani flushed. “Craythorne knows I'm here,” she said. “I just thought it would be easier if you didn't.”

  “Oh, I see.” I strode forward, and Pete gave another squeak and backed up again. I could feel the rage bubbling up inside me and from the terrified look on Pete's face I must have looked fairly scary, but Dani held her ground.

  “You don't see a Goddamn thing,” she said flatly, crossing her arms over the tight red sweater that covered her full breasts. Breasts I had caressed and stroked until she gasped. Breasts I had sucked on until she moaned for more. I shook my head to get rid of the thought. She hadn't really wanted more. She had wanted me to get what we had to do done and then leave her the hell alone.

  “I see you're here alone with Pete.” I jerked my head at the cowering copyboy who looked almost green by now.

  “He's here to help me go through all this.” She gestured around at the stacks of papers. “When I came down here yesterday, I realized there was no way I could do it alone.”

  “So you were here yesterday too?” I frowned at her. “Have you been sick at all this week?”

  “For your information, Monday and Tuesday I was so weak I could barely get out of bed,” she flared. “Not that you called me to see how I was doing.”

  “You didn't call me either,” I pointed out. “I thought you didn't want to talk to me after…” I broke off and stared pointedly at Pete.

  “Pete, go wait for me by the car. Mister Davis and I have a few things to say to each other in private.” Dani dug in her jeans pocket and tossed the wide-eyed copyboy the keys to her Infiniti. He snatched them out of the air and fled, giving me a wide berth as he went out the door.

  “I hope you're happy,” she said, staring after his retreating back. “You scared the crap out of the poor kid.”

  “That 'poor kid' was touching you,” I said. I could hear the possessive, accusing note in my voice, but I was helpless to stop it. “What were you teaching him besides research methods, Dani?”

  “You son of a bitch!” She stepped forward and drew back her hand to slap my face. I caught her wrist in mid-swing easily and held it firmly despite her struggles to be free.

  “I'm a werewolf, Dani,” I said. “That means supernaturally fast reflexes—which I don't have to hide from you anymore now that my secret is out. What did you tell Pete about that, by the way?”

  “Nothing,” she said through gritted teeth. “He thinks werewolves are mythological creatures and that Doctor Locke was crazy.”

  “So you're going to prove otherwise?” I asked. “Are you doing an expose on me and my kind? I can see the headline now—'I Worked with a Werewolf.'”

  “How about 'I was Fucked by a Werewolf?'” she hissed. “How's that for a headline?”

  I dropped her arm abruptly, feeling sick. This wasn't how I'd wanted my first meeting with her to go at all. Why had I accused her like that? As if I had any room to accuse her of anything.

  All the anger I had been feeling dissipated like a cloud of smoke on a windy day. “Dani,” I said. “I…oh, God, I'm so sorry about that. About everything that happened. Everything I did.”

  She had turned so I couldn't see her face but her voice was choked. “You don't have to say anything, Ben. That's…it's all in the past now.” I saw her swipe at her face with quick, angry motions, and when she turned back to me her cheeks were dry even though her eyes were red. “I came here to try and find a way to turn McKinsey Cullen from a wolf back into a girl. She's still technically missing, you know. That's what started all this in the first place. Remember?”

  “I remember,” I said heavily. Apparently Dani didn't want to talk about what had happened between us any more than she had before. She wanted to put it out of her head and pretend none of it had ever taken place. In a way, that was worse than if she'd accused me of hurting her and demanded that I give an account of myself and my actions. I wanted to say that I was sorry again, wanted to tell her that I loved her so much it was like a knife in my heart and that I would pay for the rest of my life for what I had done to her. But she obviously didn't want to hear it—didn't want to talk about it.

  “Ben?” Dani was frowning at me.

  I sighed deeply. “Okay,” I said. “So what did you find?”

  “Some pretty amazing stuff, actually.” Dani was clearly making a great effort to sound normal. She took a deep breath and began digging through the piles of paper. “Did you know,” she said, keeping her eyes glued to the report she had unearthed instead of looking at me, “that the cause of lycanthropy is a gene that's carried on the X chromosome? It's recessive unless a female carrier gets pregnant by a male with the same gene on his X chromosome and then any male child they have is bound to be a were. Doctor Locke seems to think that there are lots of women who have no idea that they're carriers because none of the males in their immediate family are weres. An