Dark Moon by REBECCA YORK Page B

charged forward. He didn’t know what was happening except that one of the guests had been attacked.
    He leaped toward the men on the ground just as the one in black raised a hand with a knife.
    Cole grabbed the arm, pulling it back, bringing a scream to the attacker’s lips.
    As he and the man grappled, he heard a scuffle in back of him. Another attacker materialized, and Emma leaped on him.
    Christ, no .
    Fear fueled his strength. Intent on immobilizing the ninja he was fighting, he yanked the man’s arm back, hearing bone crack.
    “Watch him,” he shouted to the people who had been lounging around the bar as he scrambled up and turned toward the attacker Emma had taken on. But she already had him down. With a hand in his hair, she slammed his face against the floor, then lifted his head and did it again.
    More men charged into the room, and Cole prepared for another attack.
    “The next person who moves is dead,” a hard voice said.
    Cole went still, as did everyone else around him.
    “What the hell is going on?” the voice asked.
    “Ben, thank God,” a woman said.
    The newcomer nodded to her before turning to Cole. “You, Mason, what the hell are you doing here?”
    It took a minute for Cole to realize the guy was talking to him, since he’d only acquired the name Mason a few hours earlier, strange as that seemed after so much had happened. He raised his head and saw the speaker was the man who had taken charge after the incident at the entry port.
    Before he could answer, Emma had started talking, her voice sounding high and shaky, and he knew she wasn’t faking her panic. “What are we doing here? I’d like to know! We were having dinner with Mr. Del Conte. Then the damn lights went off in the dining room and somebody started shooting. Cole and I were desperate to get out of there. We were fumbling along the wall, and a door opened, and we ran down a tunnel. It ended here. Then Cole walked into the waterfall and we were trying to figure out where we were—when these guys rushed in and started attacking everyone.”
     She stopped, dragged in a breath and huffed it out, giving a good imitation of a ditz brain who’d run out of steam.
    “That’s right,” one of the men said. “We were attacked, and this man and woman were trying to help.”
    “We’re Cole Mason and Emma Ray,” he said.
    “Get up,” Ben ordered.
    As Cole scrambled to his feet, guards rushed in and grabbed the men dressed in black and also Cole and Emma.
    “Not them. They saved us when the other ones attacked,” a woman protested.
    “We’ll sort it out,” Ben said.
    The guards kept hold of Cole and Emma, marching them across the room.
    They passed the area where he’d spotted the glint of metal and saw bars. A cage. For one of the animals that was supposed to have escaped?
    He looked more closely and saw a redheaded woman, standing with her shoulders against the far wall.
    His heart clunked inside his chest when he smelled her scent very strongly. It was definitely Karen Hopewell.
    As they approached, he tried to determine her condition. Her hair was coifed. Her face was made up, and she was wearing a white, see-through kimono and nothing else besides a butterfly clip in her hair. In the corner of the cell he spotted a bucket for her to use as a toilet.
    For a second, their eyes met. She couldn’t know who he was, but she seemed to be silently pleading with him to rescue her.
    There was nothing he could say to her. She was alive, but she was on display in a way that obviously terrified her—and sickened him. He evaluated his chances of breaking free from four armed guards and knew he’d only get himself killed—and maybe Emma, too. They’d have to get back here later.
    Still, the look on Karen’s face made him want to leap to the bars and yank the door open. Only logic kept him from doing it.
    He turned his head toward Emma and knew she had seen Karen as well. Like Cole, all she could do was walk past. Moments later,