About Face (Wolf Within) (34 page)

“My best friend gets stabbed, and you and I, we both start running. I went after that fucking old bastard, and you went to him, to Paddy. You did the right thing, the way you always do. I traded my opportunity to say goodbye for an empty, meaningless…” He couldn’t finish because tears wouldn’t let him.

He cried as if he had nothing left. Nothing at all.

The paralysis that had me rooted to the floor broke, and I ran to him. He went unresisting into my arms, but didn’t hug me back at first. It wasn’t until he felt my lips in his hair that his arms stole around my waist.

His mouth burned against mine. I dug my fingers into his hair and pulled him closer, so that our teeth clicked and our tongues barely had room to wrestle. I climbed onto his lap, and he slid his hands beneath my shirt. I let go of him only long enough to allow him to strip it off me.

He hissed when he saw the bruises on my throat, and such horror filled his dark eyes that he lost all momentum until I knocked him on his back and straddled him, one knee on either side of his hips. I kissed him again and his touch was tender at first, but soon enough he had me my on back, his fingers deftly unzipping my jeans so he could slide them down.

I thrust my hips up, desperate to connect with him, but he was still fully dressed. Frustrated at the barrier between us, I tore at the button on his fly. He took off his shirt as I found his zipper, and a moment later we both cried out as he slid inside me.

“Oh, God, I love you. I love you so much,” he told me between kisses. He burned a trail of them down the side of my face, to my neck, my shoulder, down my arm, to my wrist, and then he gently pried apart my clenched fingers so he could kiss my palm.

He found the Celtic knot, and I felt his chest hitch as fresh tears soaked in my skin.

“Liam.” I tried to say his name, but my voice would not respond. He traced the bruises on my throat with his tongue.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and dug my heels into the small of his back. We moved together, slow at first, and then faster and faster until I couldn’t breathe.

He screamed my name as he came. I buried my face in his shoulder and bit him as my own orgasm rocketed through my body. I found the indented scar on his arm left behind by my wolf and pressed my palm to it.

* * * *

We lay entwined on the bed. Legs, arms, fingers, anything we could wrap around each other.

Layer by layer, secret by secret, I was discovering Liam Murphy. His motivations, his past, his ideals, his demons. Love made it hard to breathe, hard to concentrate. All I wanted was to lie there in his arms forever.

“It’s very disconcerting, this strange, silent you,” he remarked as he stroked the skin of my hand with his thumb. I ran my foot up his calf and then back down again to his ankle. “But I think I’ll take what just happened as you telling me you’re not going to leave me.”

“Never,” I managed to croak, and his face lit up with indescribable happiness, even as he pressed his mouth to mine to shut me up.

“Don’t talk. It sounds like you have a throat full of broken glass. I don’t want you to hurt, Stanzie. Not more than you have to. Talk with your body, not your voice, okay?”

I smiled against his mouth and drew my finger along the curve of his ear. I reached my other hand between his legs, and he caught his breath for a moment and then chuckled. At least for a moment, until I straddled him and used my hand to guide him back inside me. He was rock hard the second after I began to move, and this time we took our time.

Chapter 22

It rained during the funeral. The faces of the people of Mac Tire ran with raindrops indistinguishable from their tears.

Although it was a complete travesty, Glenn Murphy and Paddy O’Reilly’s ashes were scattered at the same time. Declan Byrne’s had been spread across the earth earlier by his bond mate and his parents. Fee had not attended. Murphy and I had gone, but we’d refused to touch his ashes. We were there as witnesses only. So were Jason, Celine Ducharme, Etain Feehery and Ryan Kelly.

Ryan had regained consciousness, and although his memory was spotty, especially as concerned events just before he’d tackled Glenn Murphy and they’d both fallen down the stairs, he did recall walking around the corner to see Glenn with his hands wrapped around my throat. He’d thought I was dead, too late to save, and when I’d walked into his room hand in hand with Murphy, he’d burst into relieved tears.

We’d hugged each other for what seemed like hours. He didn’t remember telling me about the photographs, but he told the Councilors Glenn Murphy had been acting strangely and he’d been concerned. On impulse, he’d followed him one afternoon and saw him speaking with Declan Byrne. Saw him hand him the knife that Declan then gave to Grandfather Mick.

He’d taken photographs of the exchange, although he hadn’t been sure why, and then when he’d heard Paddy had been stabbed, he’d been too damn scared and horrified to talk to Glenn about what he’d seen.

Miserable and conflicted, he’d printed the photographs and left them for Jason to deal with. He’d been sure Glenn’s motives had been good and that things had gone wrong even as the evidence pointed in the exact opposite direction. Much of the idealism had been knocked out of him, leaving him breathless. I knew that feeling so well and I hated that Glenn Murphy’s selfish acts had done such damage to those around him.

The Councilors declined to bring charges against him for withholding evidence. Even Celine Ducharme had not wanted to go for his throat. I was shocked and suspicious. The woman was up to something, and being lenient must serve her agenda. I refused to believe she had a compassionate bone in her scrawny body.

Alannah Doyle had not cried as she’d let the ashes of her bond mate drift to the ground. Her emerald-green eyes had been dry. She saw the Celtic knot next to my bond pendant, and the hatred that convulsed her face made her ugly.

The rain began as we’d walked with Paddy’s and Glenn’s urns through the woods surrounding the castle.

We formed a huge circle, more than one hundred and fifty strong, and those who went to the center to scatter ashes had to shout so their voices would carry.

Of course, I couldn’t speak, but I did step into the circle. Not too many of us did. Fee limited it to immediate family, their bond mates and the Councilors.

I couldn’t avoid Glenn Murphy’s ashes, but I did not want his ashes to come into contact with Paddy’s, so I picked up Paddy’s urn first. It was swirled in a blue-and-brown pattern reminiscent of his different-colored eyes.

I remembered how his eyes, glazed with pain, had stared at me as he lay broken and bleeding on the gravel. I heard him ask me if I believed in him again. He’d been dying, and he knew it.

“I’m scared,” he’d told me. “Don’t leave me.”

Tears scalded my face. The mourners in the circle became a blur.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Instead, I took a handful of gray ashes and carefully let them sift through my fingers. Rain battered them into the mud.

Glenn Murphy’s urn was white. I made myself stop crying before I picked it up. I knew everyone had to wait while I composed myself, but fuck them. I would not cry over this man. Not even for the innocent family he’d left behind.

We wouldn’t be here right now if not for him and his pride.

Why did men like Glenn Murphy and Paul Benedict get to live to bring up their children while good men like Paddy died before they ever had the chance to look at their baby’s newborn face?

Plastic gloves prevented me from touching the ashes with my bare skin, but I couldn’t get Glenn Murphy’s off my fingers fast enough. As soon as they were gone, I rushed from the circle, stripping the gloves off as I moved.

Murphy took me into his arms, and I shuddered against him. Although it was August, the rain made it cold, and goose bumps rose on my skin.

I didn’t listen to what the Councilors said as they scattered the last of the ashes, but the second Etain Feehery set down Glenn Murphy’s urn and began to strip, I let go of Murphy so I could undress, too.

He helped me with the zipper to my dress and we both made sure to tuck our bond pendants into our shoes to protect them.

All around us, people dropped to all fours. Murphy and I held hands as we knelt in the mud and the rain beat down on our exposed backs.

The shift swept through me first, but I clung to his fingers as long as I could, until my hands were more paws than anything else, and then I blinked into the other dimension. Once again it flashed silver, and then it was gone, and I was my wolf.

* * * *

Sad. I am still me, but today I am one with my pack. We howl our sadness together. Our Alpha is dead. We sing for him. We remember him. Friend leans against me. His voice is strong. Mine will not come. I have no song for my Alpha, but I try. I try so hard. Now we run, we run slow because Alpha Fee cannot run fast. She is big with young. We protect her. We keep her safe. We roll to her, give her our throats and bellies. We did not keep our dead Alpha safe. We have failed them both. We are full of sadness.

Alpha Fee takes my throat in her mouth. I wait for her to bite. I wait for punishment, but she does not make me bleed. She licks my muzzle and cries. I lick her back, get to my feet, let her lean against me. We breathe together. She cries in my ear. I try to sing, but I cannot. Friend leans against me, too. He cries so loud it hurts. He hurts. All come together, press together. We are Pack. We are strong together, sad together. Our song rises high to the clouds, but our dead Alpha does not hear. Never again.

* * * *

In dry clothes, with a mug of honey-laced tea, I gazed at the harp. It was very old. Would it be in tune? I hadn’t had time to rehearse, but it didn’t matter. I could take a few moments if I needed them.

The pack was subdued, and the whiskey flow had turned many of them maudlin, especially the ones who hadn’t thought to bring dry clothes.

I was worried Fee was going to collapse. Maureen O’Shea’s bond mate, a tall man with a pleasantly homely face, argued with her in a corner. As I watched, he gestured to Jason, who moved adroitly through the sluggish crowd.

A consultation, I decided, as Jason took Fee’s hand and instead of giving it a squeeze of commiseration, instead placed his fingers against the underside of her wrist and took her pulse. It clicked suddenly. The tall man must be Andrew Brody, the pack doctor.

Murphy was close by with Paddy’s mother, Maureen, who sobbed helplessly while Murphy held her.

It wasn’t just Fee who turned to Murphy in a grief-fueled crisis. So many pack members seemed to want to touch him, speak to him or simply be close to him. He was Paddy’s proxy. Maybe they remembered when he’d been their Alpha. I understood then what a good Alpha he’d been to them and that he knew and touched the very heart of Mac Tire.

I moved a comfortable chair closer to the harp and began to make my way toward Fee. She’d wanted to listen to harp music. Maybe I could persuade her to sit down and listen, and Andrew Brody would be satisfied.

“…upstairs and lie down just for an hour, Fiona, please,” I heard him say as I approached.

Someone cut me off and blocked my path. Siobhan Carmichael. Her ravaged face bore an uncanny resemblance to her son’s.

Impulsively, I tried to hug her and offer her some comfort. She stiffened and pushed me away.

“Don’t ever touch me unless I reach out first.” Her tone was furious, as if I’d done something heinous.

“Sorry,” I whispered through my bruised, aching throat, and tried to step around her, but she moved with me.

“Stay away from my daughter,” she ordered. “Today is for family. Go play the harp and make yourself useful.”

Hurt, colored with humiliation, washed through me. I reminded myself I’d indirectly caused her bond mate’s death. Only she wasn’t supposed to know that part. Did she? If I’d had my voice, I would have asked her.

Instead, I took as deep a breath as I could, which still hurt my throat, and retreated to the harp.

People were grieving. They said and did things in that state they were sorry for after. I should let it go and do what I could to make things better.

Tears pricked at my eyes. I
was
family. Wasn’t I?

I let my fingers choose the song and closed my eyes at first so the music could flow within me and out.
Carolan’s Farewell.

Some of the people here had heard it the first time I’d played at An Puca, but most of them had not.

The low murmur of voices ceased as attention focused on me, only I was beyond it, ensnared in the musical shimmer of the notes as they burst like bubbles from the strings.

I thought of Paddy and pictured his face as I played. I heard him tell me I was the pack’s new bard.

A teenage girl of perhaps thirteen crept close as she dared. Her green eyes sparked with grief mixed with incredulous delight. I saw her fingers twitch as she listened, her head tilted so her fiery red hair fell away from her face. She played, I could tell.

Did the pack’s bard teach the children how to play music? I hoped so. I’d never taught anyone how to play the harp, but I remembered Lauren teaching me. She’d told me one day I would teach my own daughter or son how to play, and I’d believed her then, before my wolf had complicated the issue.

I chanced a look in Murphy’s direction. He was with his mother and Fee, one arm around each of them. His wistfully sad smile tore at my heart. He looked as if he was listening to something beautiful he couldn’t share.

Don’t worry
, I wanted to tell him.
Paddy
heard me play this before.

* * * *

Three songs later, the red-haired girl brought me a frothy glass of Guinness and a plate of cheese and fruit. Shy but eager, she offered them to me, and I accepted both.

“I’m Gwenith,” she introduced herself as she watched me sip carefully at the beer.

“Stanzie.” My voice was a shredded whisper. A black scarf tied strategically around my throat covered the bruises, but there was nothing I could do to disguise my ruined voice.