Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within) (5 page)

I hadn’t played the harp since the accident. I didn’t even own one anymore.

After the funeral the pack had gotten together for a somber gathering. I had definitely not been invited. I’d taken a cab home, wishing we’d get into an accident even as I’d clung to the little strip of leather above the passenger door, skin coated with a cold sweat of terror. All I’d thought about during the funeral was how I’d wanted to go home and play my harp. I’d wanted to channel my grief and anger through the strings and release some of the more toxic elements of it through the notes. I’d wanted to mourn through music.

The front door of our rented house in New Britain had been yawning open and inside the living room and the bedrooms had been a shambles. My harp had been strewn around the living room carpet in hacked-up pieces along with Elena’s computers, Grey’s CD collection and nearly everything else we’d owned.

Upstairs in the master bedroom, the bed pillows and the mattress had been slashed with a knife, stuffing and feathers everywhere. Someone had taken ketchup and mustard and squirted both all over the walls and ceiling. The stains had still been wet and dripping. The damage had been done during the three hours I’d been gone for the funeral.

My clothes had been ripped to shreds. Even worse, so had been Grey’s and Elena’s.

I remember sinking down to the ketchup-encrusted floor with one of Grey’s flannel shirts. It had been in tatters, but it had still smelled like him. I could smell his hair on the collar and his cologne in the sleeves. I’d rocked and cried like a fucking baby.

* * * *

All of this flashed through my mind as we stood on the front steps of the safe house and waited outside the imposing white door with the brass knocker in the shape of a wolf’s head.

One of the Regional Councilors, a woman named Kathy Manning, answered the door. She was a petite brunette with gray-blue eyes that tilted seductively. Her hair was cut pixie short, lending her a sort of elfish quality. Arrestingly attractive rather than conventionally pretty, she wore a pair of gray wool pants and a white blouse with a gray vest. A long gold chain looped several times around her throat and hung between her breasts. Tiny gold studs winked from her earlobes.

“Hello, Stanzie,” she said with a real smile. I smiled back, but mine was strictly cordial. Although she’d been one of the more sympathetic members of the Regional Council during my ordeal, she’d voted against me when the time came. I wondered if she regretted that now, although she evinced no guilt, merely friendly welcome.

She introduced herself to Murphy when I failed to do so and he shook her hand with reserve, obviously taking his cue from me. Nevertheless, he still charmed her. Women usually fawned over him. All he had to do was smile and they were hooked. She came up to the hollow of his throat and had to tilt her head to meet his eyes.

“Councilor Allerton is in the small conference room. I’m making a pot of coffee. Do you want some?” Her gaze traveled between the two of us.

I was cold, and coffee did sound good, so I nodded and once I did, Murphy did too.

An elaborate coat tree stood in the foyer decorated with winter outerwear and Murphy and I hung ours up too. We made sure to wipe our boots on the prim mat in front of the door so as not to track prints on the spotless parquet floor.

In the front room to the left of the hallway just past the foyer, a massive Christmas tree twinkled with lights in front of the bow window. It was adorned with silver and gold glass balls and a stiff, curled gold bow sprinkled with silver glitter held pride of place on the top.

Red poinsettias, six deep, were arranged artfully under the tree and along the shallow shelf beneath the bow window.

The room was filled with the scent of fresh pine and sap. I also smelled the coffee brewing down the hall in the small kitchen.

Murphy followed me down the hallway to the open second door on the right just before the formal dining room which, in turn, led to the kitchen.

Inside the small conference room, three of the four walls were covered with off-white wallpaper flecked with gold. A small crystal chandelier hung suspended over an oval-shaped cherry wood table with carved, scrolled legs. Ten cherry wood ladder-back chairs were arranged around the table. Each had a plush gold cushion for the seat and the back.

Dark, built-in bookshelves lined the far wall, broken only by a large multi-paned floor to ceiling window that overlooked the side yard and a parking lot for the small, brick office building on the next lot. Massive red velvet curtains were looped back with gold-braided tassels to allow access to the wintry sunlight.

Flames crackled and leaped behind the grate of a dark-green marble fireplace. Above the mantel hung a somber oil painting depicting a whaling schooner setting off to sea. The sky in the painting was the same ominous gray as the sky outside the house. It was a compelling painting, but it was not comforting.

Councilor Jason Allerton sat the head of the table with his back to the window. A hardcover book was propped on the table in front of him and his dark head was bent so he could read.

When he heard us at the door, he deliberately finished the paragraph he’d been absorbed in before he lifted his head to smile at us.

“Constance, Liam, it’s good to see you.” He rose to his feet, impeccable in a dark-gray Ralph Lauren suit with a white shirt and a subdued, yet powerful red tie. The jacket to the suit was draped across the back of his chair and his tie was loose. His shirt sleeves were rolled to just below his elbow.

In contrast, I wore a pair of faded Levi’s paired with a black turtleneck sweater I’d bought at Target for twenty bucks. My hair was pulled back into a messy bun. The wind at the rest stop had tugged several strands free and I’d pushed most of them behind my ears rather than redo the bun.

Murphy also wore jeans, only his were Armani, paired with a cashmere crew neck sweater of a burnished copper color. The wind had mussed his hair but he’d combed it in the car before we got out. Even though we were both casually dressed, I think he pulled it off with way more style and elegance than I managed. For one thing, he never shopped at Target. From Houston to Boston, he’d pushed the bright red cart around the various stores for me and turned up his nose at every men’s shirt or sweater I’d held up for his inspection. He wouldn’t even buy underwear there, the snob.

Allerton grasped Murphy’s hand and gave his forearm a meaningful squeeze. It was a handshake that expressed more than simply business. It was also a gesture of amity and fondness.

For me he had a hug, but I was stiff in his embrace. He gave my back a gentle pat before releasing me.

“Sit down.” He waved at the chairs around the table and resumed his original seat.

Murphy and I sat next to each other, facing the fireplace. Its radiating heat was warm on the side of my face as I turned my head to look at Allerton.

“I’ve arranged a dinner tonight here with Riverglow,” he informed us. My stomach knotted at the thought of having to eat with them. I’d seen them nearly three months ago at the Great Gathering in Paris, but they had snubbed me.

I still burned with humiliation at the way Callie’s, Vaughn’s and Peter’s eyes had glazed over and they’d pretended not to see me when I’d called out to them in the reception area at the chateau. It had been an instinctive greeting, born of past familiarity. For a second the two intervening years had been wiped away and it had been like seeing family.

I’d expected to be snubbed by Jonathan and Nora, but not the others. I don’t know why, because they’d been explicitly clear after the accident that they’d blamed me, but somehow I’d hoped that they’d had second thoughts, that maybe when they saw me they’d think family too.

“There have been some changes in the pack membership and leadership since you’ve left them, Constance.” Allerton’s blue eyes met mine across the gleaming conference table. When I refused to be drawn, he smiled a little and continued as if he’d never paused to allow me an opportunity to participate.

“The main reason they went to the Great Gathering was to find some new blood for the pack. Nora had a stillborn son last year and Callie’s had several miscarriages since she, Vaughn and Peter took Alpha status. It was the same thing the first time they were Alpha, when you and Grey joined the pack. You remember. It was after one particularly bad miscarriage that the triad stepped aside as Alpha. You and Grey were approached but I recall being told you turned it down.”

Beside me, Murphy shifted in his chair so he could stare at me. Passing up an opportunity to be Alpha was probably not something he’d ever contemplated before. In big packs such as Mac Tire, the position was highly coveted and campaigned for because not every female would get the chance before her fertility cycle ceased. Bigger packs tended to have shorter Alpha timeframes—five years was the usual span. However, smaller packs such as Riverglow tended to rotate the Alpha status. It wasn’t unheard of for duos and triads to have multiple opportunities. Grey had turned down Alpha status because of Jonathan’s jealousy. He’d known the position would eventually come to us and we were young, in our early twenties, and had plenty of fertility time left.

Pack women could only give birth once. Live or stillborn, if they carried a pregnancy to the end, they would become barren after the birth. Twins were slightly more common than singles.

While triads could be made up of two men and one female, most of them consisted of two women and one man in order to give two women the opportunity to bear a child at the same time. Only Alphas could have children. All the other women in the pack took birth control or had to have abortions.

I think it was both evolution’s and our own cultural way to avoid detection by the Others. Our population stayed small and underground. Secret.

Again Councilor Allerton waited for me to say something. I admit I felt a surge of sympathy for both Nora and Callie. Callie was over forty, near the end of her childbearing years and Nora, who was three years older than me, was now barren.

They were at risk, of course, of losing their bond mates, who still had the chance to bond with a fertile female and become Alpha so they could procreate. A lot of us created such strong connections with our bond mates, very few left in search of a chance to be Alpha and to have a child. The ambitious ones would, but normally love conquered ambition.

I knew Peter would stick with Callie. He loved her with a steady and deep adoration. I wasn’t sure about Vaughn. I was never quite sure of his feelings for her. He and Peter were close as brothers, but I wondered if that was enough to keep him bonded.

Jonathan, the bastard, I could see him ditching Nora in a millisecond if someone better came along. He was such a coward, he wouldn’t do it until he was sure. I’d bet he’d spent the better part of the Great Gathering looking for just such an opportunity. The fact that he was still a member of Riverglow proved he’d failed. That afforded me some small satisfaction.

Again, after he was sure I was declining his invitation to make a comment, Allerton continued. “They were able to convince a pair from Mac Tire to leave that pack and join this one with the understanding they’d be Alpha when it was quite sure Callie was past her childbearing window.”

“Mac Tire?” Murphy stirred in his chair. “Paddy never mentioned that.”

Allerton held up a hand. His nails were professionally manicured and he wore an expensive Cartier wristwatch with a chased silver band around his wrist. I could hear it ticking if I tried hard enough.

“They’re from the English branch.”

For some reason Murphy’s eyes darkened and he went very still. I was confused because, while I expected Murphy to know the members of his pack in Ireland, I didn’t think his personal knowledge would extend all around the UK. Mac Tire was a huge pack, but each country had separate Alphas who presumably knew each other and interacted, but I hadn’t thought it trickled down to the entire membership.

“I believe you know them. Him at least,” said Allerton, his expression bland enough, but something in his voice made me come to alert.

Murphy’s gaze was flat and hostile.

“Colin Hunter and Devon Talbot.”

Murphy reacted to the names like gasoline poured on fire. “Oh hell no,” he snarled, pushing back his chair. “Oh, fucking hell no. You could’ve told me this on the phone, Allerton, leaving me the opportunity to decline your invitation. Now I’m just gonna have to friggin’ walk out.”

I leaped to my feet too, grateful for an opportunity to escape.

Murphy saw me and snapped, “You sit back down. I’ll be back for you tomorrow, Stanzie.”

He’d promised to stay with me. He told me he would be with me when I had to confront Grandfather Tobias and listen to what he wanted to tell me. Now he was halfway out the damn door all because of some man named Colin Hunter, and I hadn’t the slightest clue who he was or why Murphy despised him so much. Hatred was all over his face and in the barely controlled violence of his movements. He was one step away from breaking something. He would have attacked Allerton if he’d dared, but he was putting distance between them instead.