“Then you'll be going into tomorrow's Mabon ceremony unprepared, and you will very likely die.” She said it quietly, as a statement of fact rather than a threat. I felt a shiver run down my spine—call it a premonition, but it definitely wasn't good.
“I'm sorry,” I said, opening the door for her. “I shouldn't have acted that way. It's just…”
“Just that this is a world you've been trying to avoid for years, and now you find yourself thrust into the middle of it,” she finished for me. She glided past me into the bedroom and chose a straight-backed wooden chair that had been painted periwinkle blue to sit on. “It's a frightening thing, confronting your second nature, isn't it, Benjamin?”
“What would you know about it, Priestess?” I slumped on the bed and ran a hand through my hair. “You've never had to change. Never felt the moon contorting your flesh into some unnatural shape, bringing out the worst in you, the animal urges—the uncontrollable lusts…” I felt my stomach clench just talking about it.
“Please, call me Molly, everyone else in the pack does.” She smiled at me. “And I've never changed, that's true. But I've been the priestess for this pack for almost as long as you've been alive, so I do know a little something about it.” She leaned forward and tapped me on the knee with one sensibly short nail. “It's time you claimed your birthright, Ben.”
“I don't want to claim it,” I said. “I only came here to get Dani. Neither one of us wanted to get involved with the pack, or the Mabon ceremony, or the Hunger Moon ritual or whatever it is you have planned. We just want to leave.”
“I'm afraid that will be quite impossible. Your friend, Dani, has been designated as our Mabon queen for this year.”
“That's just great,” I said savagely. “Doesn't she have any say in that?”
Molly shrugged. “She did. Theodore asked her if she was able to raise power, and she said she could, effectively agreeing to raise power with him during the full moon.”
“I didn't mean it that way.” The bathroom door opened and Dani stepped out, wearing a fuzzy white bathrobe that must have been left there for guests. Her wet hair was slicked back from her forehead, and she looked very pale and fragile in the oversized robe.
“I'm sorry, my dear,” Molly said, sounding anything but. “But ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. You are committed to the ceremony one way or another. Whether you perform it with our Lead Wolf or someone else.” She gave me a significant look, which I met with a glare.
“If he touches her again, I'll kill him,” I said. I could hear the possessive growl building in my throat, and I didn't even try to stop it. It didn't matter that Dani didn't belong to me—that she didn't even want to belong to me. The animal part of me, the wolf part, still insisted that she was mine, and I would fight and die if necessary to prove it.
“You'll have to,” Molly said, not batting an eye. “Theodore is going to challenge you for the right to claim her, and it's going to be a duel to the death. It's kill or be killed—that's the law of the pack.”
“What?” Dani came to sit beside me on the bed and put a hand on my arm protectively. “But Ben and I aren't…I mean he shouldn't have to…to fight for me when we're not even really a…a couple, and…”
Molly leveled a stare at her that seemed to quell my usually unstoppable partner. “You're wasting both my time and your own with that kind of talk,” she said, pointing a finger at Dani. “No one that has felt the power the two of you can raise between you could doubt you have a connection—and a deep and powerful one at that.”
Dani got a stubborn look on her face. “That's ridiculous. Look, you have the right to believe what you want—it's a free country—but you don't have a right to drag Ben and me into it.”
“If you have no bond then how do you explain the way he healed you?” Molly's voice was quiet, but she was just about staring a hole through Dani.
“I…well…I mean, I thought that was just a werewolf thing. Just something they, I mean Ben, could do,” my partner stuttered at last.
Molly shook her head. “No. Ben would have been unable to heal you without a connection to you—without the love that he bears you.”
“Of course he loves me—he's my best friend.” Dani frowned. It was clear she didn't want to hear what Molly had to say—didn't want to admit there could ever be anything but friendship between us. Suddenly I felt tired—no, more than tired. I was weary to the bone.
“Dani's right,” I said, forcing myself to say the words. “We're writing partners and best friends. That's about it.”
Molly shook her head. “That kind of foolishness will get you killed, Ben. You're going to need all the power you can get in order to defeat the reigning Lead Wolf, and that includes the support of the woman you love. Statistically, the wolf the Mabon queen wants is the one that usually wins the duel and gets to claim her as his lover.”
“Excuse me, claim her as his what?” Dani had gone very pale, and her hands were shaking just a little bit. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.
Molly frowned. “I'm talking about the culmination of the Mabon Ceremony—The Great Rite. Now, the pack celebrates it a little differently than your coven, I'm sure, but—”
“Excuse me.” I held up a hand to stop her and looked at Dani. “Your coven?”
Dani shrugged uneasily. “I had to pretend I belonged to one in order to get Savage to believe me. Otherwise he would have killed me right there at La Bella Luna—I had to make him think I was worth more to him alive than dead.”
“So you lied about being a Wiccan? A Pagan?” Molly shook her head. “This gets worse and worse.”
“Yes,” Dani said with sudden eagerness. “Yes, I lied. So I'm completely unworthy to be the, uh, Mabon queen. Of course, I'm perfectly willing to step down and let someone else have my place, and that way Ben won't have to fight a duel for me, and we can all just forget about all of this, and…” But she trailed off because Molly was shaking her head again.
“As I said, my dear, ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. Wiccan or not, you are committed to participating in the ceremony.”
“But the only reason she's involved in the first place is because she had to lie in order to stay alive,” I pointed out, beginning to get mad. “Didn't you hear her? Thrash Savage was going to kill her otherwise.” I pointed a finger at Molly who still looked irritatingly calm and implacable. “I don't think this has anything to do with Dani and me, not really. It has to do with the power struggle going on between you and Thrash. Anybody else that happened to show up would have done just as well—you're just using us to get the upper hand in the pack.”
Molly shrugged, apparently unperturbed by my accusation. “It is true that you are being used to a certain extent, but not only by my will.” She looked at both of us. “The Goddess is at work here, although I cannot see the reason why at the moment. It was she that brought the two of you to us, just at the time when the pack needed you both.”
Dani stood shakily, using my shoulder for balance. “You don't need us and you can't keep us here.”
“There is no way you can leave,” Molly told her. “Five and fifty wolves stand ready to rip you to pieces if you try. Besides, have you forgotten that Benjamin here swore an oath? He cannot break it unless he wishes to stand against the whole pack. And he cannot do that and live to see another moonrise.”
“Ben's right. You're just using us to get rid of Savage,” Dani said. But she sank back down on the bed, and I took her hand between both of mine. Her skin was cold.
Molly sighed. “There is a very delicate balance in any pack between male and female—most often represented by the Priestess and the Lead Wolf. I admit that it has always been an uneasy balance between Theodore and myself, but lately, the friction between us has been growing. I have long suspected that our Lead Wolf has something in the works, something special he was planning just for the Hunger Moon, although I can't imagine what.”
Dani sat forward sudd
enly. “A female werewolf,” she said.
Molly and I both looked at her. “A what?” I asked. “There's no such thing as a female shapeshifter, Dani. At least, not that I've ever heard of. Like it or not, we're all male.”
“No, no.” She shook her head. “I mean that's what Savage was working on with Doctor Locke—that's what happened to McKinsey Cullen.” She went on to explain in great detail what she had seen in the back room of La Bella Luna before Thrash Savage had captured her.
Molly nodded. “At last I understand. If he could have found a way to make the female members of the pack, the wolves' mates, into shapeshifters as well, the balance would have swung decidedly in his favor.”
“You don't seem too upset about it,” Dani pointed out. “After all, he halfway succeeded, if that white wolf really is McKinsey.”
“It is not the will of the Goddess.” Molly sounded serene. “In all things she favors balance. Consider, my dear,” she said to Dani, “within every man there is a beast, an animal that must be tamed, and I do not speak only of weres or shapeshifters—it is simply more obvious in them. It is the woman's job to tame the beast. Every were in the pack but the very young or the very old has a mate—it is the Goddess's way of keeping some of her most savage and feral creations from acts of violence and destruction too horrible to contemplate.”
“Ben doesn't have a mate,” Dani pointed out. “And he's managed to control his beast just fine. He told me he hasn't even changed into a wolf at all for the last three years. How do you explain that?”
Molly gave me a startled look. “Is this true, Ben?”
I nodded, feeling half ashamed, half defiant. “I haven't had an uncontrolled change in five years. And I haven't had a controlled change—haven't had to give in to the, uh, call of the moon at all—in over three years.”
“And he did that entirely on his own,” Dani said. “With no mate or pack or anybody to help him.”
Molly frowned. “You say this as though it was something to be proud of,” she said to me. “Now I understand the will of the Goddess in bringing you here—your debt to her is heavy indeed. You dishonor her greatly by rejecting her gift.”
“It's not a gift,” I said bitterly. “It's a disease—a disorder I've learned to live with and control.”
“By himself,” Dani emphasized again.
Molly pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. “If you'll forgive me asking, Ben, when did you first meet Dani?”
“About five years ago,” I said. “We've been working at the same paper for at least that long.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded. “And when did you first know you loved her?”
I looked down at my hands, unwilling to answer that.
“I told you—” Dani began hotly but Molly ignored her.
“I thought as much,” she said to me. “It was from the moment you saw her, wasn't it? You knew. Weres always know.”
“Look, what is this? Some kind of twisted couples therapy?” Dani demanded.
Molly gave her a severe look. “I am merely pointing out, my dear, that Ben's extreme control of the other side of his nature began when he first met you. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are the reason he denies and represses what he is. You are what is keeping him from claiming his true birthright and giving the Goddess her due. He fears to lose you and in so doing, he has lost himself.”
“I…he…” Dani seemed at a loss for words, but I wasn't.
“None of this is her fault,” I told the priestess, feeling the old protective anger rise in me again. “I've never wanted to be what I am—not since my grandfather brought me here for my first pack meeting when I was a kid and I saw…what I saw.”
“Ben?” Dani looked at me, fear in her eyes. “What exactly did you see?”
“You saw a Mabon duel and the ceremony that followed, didn't you?” Molly said quietly. “You saw our version of The Great Rite.”
Stiffly, I nodded. “Yes,” I said, closing my eyes. I could still picture it—the blood and violence and gore…And after that the feral lust that seemed to sweep over the pack like a savage flame, consuming all of them, but especially the Mabon queen and her champion.
I remembered the way he had mounted her—driving into her as though he wanted to pound her through the altar they were laying on—and the way she had screamed and writhed beneath him. There was something horribly erotic in what I had witnessed, some taboo being broken that I couldn't name, even to myself. The images were burned on my brain like a brand on flesh, drawing me and sickening me at the same time. I still woke up in a cold sweat some nights when I dreamed about what I had seen during that gathering.
I looked at Molly, who seemed to be waiting for me to speak. “I won't do that to Dani,” I said hoarsely. “I won't.”
“Do what to me?” Dani looked at me wildly.
“Rape you.” I looked away, unable to meet her eyes while I said it. “I can't do that. I'd rather die.”
“If you die, it will be in the duel before The Great Rite,” Molly said without emotion. “And someone else will do what you cannot. Is that really what you want?”
“One way or the other, I won't do it,” I said.
“Ben,” she said. “You will do it. When the Goddess comes upon you—comes upon all of us—you won't be able to help it.”
“Wait a minute.” Dani took my hand in hers and squeezed convulsively. “Is there really no way around this? This…this Great Rite always ends in sex?”
Molly nodded. “The Mabon queen, who is picked to represent the Goddess, has relations with the Lead Wolf, or, in the case of a duel, with the champion who has won her. It honors the Goddess and we satisfy her desires as we satisfy our own.” She leveled a stare at Dani. “I think in this case, my dear, you would prefer it to be Ben rather than Theodore.”
“No.” Dani dropped my hand abruptly and began pacing the room, her arms wrapped around herself in a gesture of fear that twisted my heart. “I would prefer not to have to have sex in front of a group of strangers at all, no matter who my partner is supposed to be.”
“Dani.” Molly got up and went to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I see that you have pain,” the priestess said softly. “And from your pain stems your fear. You've been wounded both inside and out. But you have to believe me when I tell you that on Mabon night when the Goddess manifests within you, none of that will matter anymore.”
“What are you saying?” Dani shrugged the hand off her shoulder and rounded on the priestess. “You're saying that one night of religious ecstasy is going to cure me of all my neuroses? That I won't mind getting fucked on a rock in front of fifty plus strangers because I'll be filled with light and goodness and Mother Earth or whatever the hell it is you people worship? Oh, and let's not forget that Ben could…could die, trying to win the right to be the one doing the fucking. Do you have any idea how patronizing and sick you sound?” Her voice rose higher and higher and ended in a choked off sob. I went to her and put my hand on her back.
“Dani,” I said, but she pushed me away.
“No, Ben. Don't you get it? They're forcing us to do this and…and you could die. I could lose you.” She looked up at me with wet eyes. “I don't want to lose you.”
I felt my heart twist again. “You're not going to lose me,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.
Dani swiped at her eyes. “That is such…such Pagan bullshit!” she said, in a low, shaking voice.
“I understand your fear.” Molly went to stand by the door and put her hand on the knob as though preparing to leave. “But the only way past it is through it. You must both face your fears.” She looked at me. “Ben, you must claim what is rightfully yours, both within the pack and outside of it.” She looked at Dani. “Dani, you must learn to trust again. Let the past be past. You've put your future on hold long enough.”
“This is insane!” Dani yelled, her fists clenched at her sides. “Why can't you just let us go?”
Molly gave us one last inscrutabl
e look. “It is not the will of the Goddess. Good night.” She left, closing the door behind her, and I heard a click that told me we were locked in for the night.
* * *
Much later we lay in the dark together, me still in my jeans and Dani still wearing the white robe. We shared the bed by mutual consent, but there wasn't going to be any repeat of our earlier performance, also by a mutual, if unspoken, agreement. In fact, I thought Dani had probably already put it out of her mind, or at least was trying to. I had thought she might cry again, but apparently she was done with tears. We had talked for hours about possible ways out of the situation, but the innocent-looking blue door was solid reinforced steel with silver rivets—werewolf-proof, in other words. There were also steel and silver bars on the windows. And even if we could have gotten out, we knew we were being guarded constantly. There was literally no way to escape.
Dani was lying in the crook of my arm with her head on my chest, her damp hair tickling my bare skin. Her fresh, warm scent filled my senses, and she felt soft and yielding in my arms. It was the way we usually laid on her oversized couch while watching monster movie marathons into the wee hours of the night, and it felt comfortable and safe to both of us, I think. It used to surprise me how close we could get physically while still maintaining a strictly platonic friendship, but over the years I had gotten used to it. Now it was all we had.
Dani had been quiet for a long time, and I thought she might have gone to sleep at last. The moon had set outside and the need to control myself had lessened considerably. I was even beginning to think I should get some sleep myself. After all, if you're gonna fight a duel to the death, it's much better to do it on a full night's sleep.
“Ben?” Dani's voice in the darkness startled me. She'd had her eyes closed and her breathing was even. I was sure she had drifted off.
“Yeah?” My own voice sounded deep and unhappy, but then, that was pretty much how I felt.
“Ben,” she said again. “This is all my fault. I'm so sorry I didn't listen to you and got us both into this mess. I…I don't want you to die.”