Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within) (9 page)

Callie’s strawberry blond hair was piled high on her head and, even though she had on lots of makeup, she looked pale and unwell. Her dress was emerald green, skimming her knees in a silky froth. Its thin spaghetti straps sewn with rhinestones glittered under the soft glare of the Christmas tree lights.

Allerton had mentioned she’d suffered a series of miscarriages since becoming Alpha last year. I suspected she’d recently had another one. Her blue eyes were puffy and all the makeup in the world couldn’t conceal how tired and dispirited she looked.

Despite myself, my heart went out to her. We had ten years of history between us and it was hard to forget she wasn’t my friend anymore.

Peter and Vaughn hovered close to her. They all stared at me and Murphy, stopping a few feet away from where we stood.

There was an awkward silence, made even worse by Murphy’s unfriendly glower.

I was damned if I would break it. Murphy would kill me, for one thing, and they were the ones who should be ashamed of themselves for another.

Like a curious elf, Kathy looked between us all, waiting to see who gave in first.

It was Peter. Vaughn still clearly held a grudge and Callie looked as if she might burst into tears if she tried to speak.

Peter stepped forward, his face scarlet, and held out his hand to me.

“Hello, Stanzie. It’s goddamn apparent we were wrong and we owe you a big apology. You don’t have to accept it, but I wish you would.”

He was not a handsome man, but he had a definite appeal. He was built like a bull and he worked out all the time, which only enhanced what he already had naturally. I remembered the way he would lift me up and pin me against the wall with my legs wrapped around his muscular waist when we’d slept together. He’d made me feel as though I weighed nothing and he was two inches shorter than me.

Vaughn wasn’t classically handsome either, but he had pretty boy looks, as if he could have been in a boy band when he was fourteen. He was tall and thin and had a natural agility that turned heads when he walked into rooms. All the teenage girls at gatherings tended to flock around him and follow him around, giggle over him in corners. He’d been asked more than once to initiate girls through their first shift so they could participate in the Great Hunt at the Regionals. He always treated the girl with sensitivity and style, and watched after her in wolf form, guiding her through her first time with finesse.

I remembered him as a gentle lover, who always took care of me.

Peter and I had only had five encounters in ten years, but Vaughn and I had slept together several times a year. I liked to give Elena some space with Grey. We made an awesome threesome, in and out of bed, but I’d thought they’d both deserved some dedicated time together without me, just like Peter and Vaughn deserved one-on-one time with Callie.

“Hi, Peter.” I took his hand and, for a moment, tears burned my eyes. He was also affected. He had to clear his throat before he spoke again and he squeezed my hand more than he actually shook it.

“Stanzie, I’m sorry,” he repeated, his voice husky and shaking.

“You damned well should be,” muttered Murphy from beside me, and Peter flushed scarlet to the tips of his ears.

“I know,” he said, turning to him. “I’m Peter Gardiner, one of the Alphas of Riverglow. You must be Stanzie’s new bond mate.”

“Yeah,” allowed Murphy. He even shook hands, which was more than I thought he’d do. “Liam Murphy. Mac Tire.”

“Our new pack mates, Colin and Devon, come from Mac Tire. The English branch of it. Do you know them? I guess it’s an off chance considering the size of the pack, but maybe you do?” Peter was desperate to make a good impression and some kind of connection with Murphy, but he could not have tanked more spectacularly. I winced as Murphy began to glower and I thought it could only be a matter of seconds before steam burst out of his ears and nostrils.

“Him I know,” said Murphy and, amazingly his voice was controlled. No steam appeared. He was visibly hanging onto his temper, but that was no doubt because Jason Allerton had moved to stand behind the Riverglow pack mates, ostensibly to greet them, but also, I’m sure, to keep an eye on Murphy.

The doorbell chimed again and Kathy tripped off to answer it, cocktail glass in hand.

For some reason Peter either didn’t notice Murphy’s reined-in rage or was deliberately ignoring it, maybe in hopes if he didn’t acknowledge it, it would go away. He obviously didn’t know Liam Murphy.

“Well, that’s awesome. You’ll get a chance to hang out with him again tonight. He should be here any minute. That might even be him at the door.”

“I can’t wait,” deadpanned Murphy, and Allerton cleared his throat.

Everyone turned to him and he shook Peter’s hand then Vaughn’s.

Callie approached me, her blue eyes huge in her pale, unwell face. “Hi, Stanzie,” she all but whispered. “I’ve missed you.”

Murphy didn’t say a word, but I could just about read his mind. I knew he was cursing her out in Irish. Of course, I don’t understand Irish, but I could still get the gist.

“Hi, Callie,” I said. She moved forward as if to embrace me, but I held out my hand. I didn’t think I could bear to hug her.

She half grimaced, half smiled, and shook my hand.

“This is Liam Murphy, my bond mate. Murphy, this Callie Olstrom, one of the Alpha triad in Riverglow.”

“Evening,” said Murphy. His jaw had to ache, the way the muscles bulged from him grinding his teeth.

“Nice to meet you, Liam,” whispered Callie. “You’re very lucky to have a woman like Stanzie for a bond mate.”

“I know,” he agreed, and he even thawed enough to take her hand and halfway smile as he did. “Your loss was my gain, it seems.” Allerton cleared his throat again.

My heart did a sick little stutter in my chest as Jonathan and Nora walked in, trailed by Kathy.

Jonathan swaggered, and I heard Murphy mutter something foul beneath his breath. Allerton moved to stand beside him and I took a step closer to Murphy myself.

He surprised me by putting his arm around my waist. I took advantage of that and pressed myself against him, so close I could smell his cologne. And his anger.

Jonathan was dressed to the nines in a navy blue pin-striped suit with a blindingly white linen shirt and a fancy black tie. His shoes were cheap, though. Cheaper even than his suit, which was off the rack, probably the clearance rack at that. Obviously, he thought he made quite the debonair figure in it.

He was attractive, but his looks were cheap as his suit and I knew when he moved into middle age and beyond, he’d get jowly and rough. Now, in his prime, he had an obvious sort of handsomeness but he knew it and that killed most of his appeal for the majority of women.

His hair was so black it had blue highlights and it was evident he had some Native American blood in his ancestral tree. He was tall and almost as muscular as Peter, with a barrel chest and a narrow waist. He had a flashy silver wolf’s head belt buckle that he wore with every pair of pants he owned. I hated that damn wolf buckle. It was as bargain basement obvious as he was.

By contrast Nora was emaciated, her collar bone jutting out so sharply it hurt to look at it. Her cheekbones were hollowed and prominent, her wrists so thin I could have encircled them with my thumb and forefinger and had inches to spare.

She tried to disguise how painfully thin she was with a geometrically patterned black-and-white dress in an Empire style. It swam on her, and I wondered how long it had been since it had fit. Her legs were like sticks and her dark hair looked brittle—in need of a deep, penetrating conditioner.

There was hectic color on her pale cheeks and she clung to Jonathan’s arm as if she might fall if not supported.

As she wobbled closer and I saw her unfocused gaze and slack mouth, I realized she was well on her way to being shitfaced drunk.

I’d be damned if Jonathan wouldn’t have embraced me in a bear hug if not for Murphy’s arm around my waist. Instead he gave me a great big wet kiss on the cheek and boomed, “Hello there, Stanz! Long time no see, eh? Guess we were wrong about you, weren’t we? I have to say though, things looked pretty black against you and all along it was my senile old grandfather who fucked everything up, not you. Well, shit happens, huh?”

Murphy cocked his head as if he were trying to replay the words Jonathan had just uttered because he couldn’t possibly have heard right the first time around.

Nora tittered a high-pitched yelp of laughter, which only made things worse.

I wiped my cheek with my fingers, disgusted and pissed off.

He’d been drinking too. Stupid asshole. One of them had driven a car here and they’d been damned lucky to get here unscathed. The irony, of course, was not lost on me but I took the high road and held my tongue.
 

Murphy’s grin was absolutely terrifying. It made me nervous as hell even though it wasn’t directed at me.

“Liam Murphy, Stanzie’s bond mate.” He took the initiative to introduce himself but did not hold out his hand.

Jonathan held out his but Murphy made no move to take it and, after an awkward moment, Jonathan let it drop to his side.

“I guess you know me,” he said and Murphy grinned ferociously.

“Narrow squeak you had getting out of that thing with that German guy at the Great Gathering, huh, Stanz?” Jonathan made matters even worse with that statement.

Jonathan referred to Rudi Grunwald who I’d promised to bond with at the Great Gathering in Paris three months ago. He’d been poisoned by the grandmothers and grandfathers involved in the conspiracy. I’d been blamed at first but Allerton and Murphy had rescued me. His death was pretty much the whole reason why Murphy and I were bonded.

Murphy’s maniacal grin almost gobbled up his face and I slipped my arm around his waist to hold him back. Although I would have dearly loved to see Jonathan’s face beaten to a bloody pulp, Murphy was an Advisor and had to be above such petty actions, deserved or not.

“His name was Rudi. Funny how that should escape your memory, Jonathan,” I said. He’d opened himself up for this and I intended to eviscerate with words and spare Murphy from having to do it with his fists.

“Is it?” Jonathan blustered. Yeah, right. As if the bastard couldn’t fucking remember. The shifty way he kept glancing out of the corners of his eyes and never at me gave him away.

“Well, the way you came up with that nickname for him at the Great Gathering in New Orleans, I thought for sure you’d remember him.”

“That was him?” Jonathan said with unconvincing astonishment.

“Please.” I shook my head.

Everyone in the room hung on our exchange with varying degrees of fascination and dread. They all thought Jonathan and I had met for the first time when Grey and I had joined Riverglow. Instead, we’d met as teenagers when we’d both belonged to our birth packs. For a decade we’d pretended the meeting had never taken place, but I was damned if I’d stay silent one night longer. What did I have to lose anymore?

“Rudi the Cutie, remember?” I said with a saccharine smile. “You came up with that and hounded him with that name until everyone else in our group called him that too. Except me.” I stopped smiling.

“Well, he was one of those asshole pretty boys and he couldn’t speak English for shit. There was more to it than that as well. He obviously pissed me off about something only I can’t remember now what it was. He deserved it, and anyway, we were kids, Stanz. What were we? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

Murphy’s ferocious grin became positively gloating. I’m sure he halfway suspected the reason behind Jonathan’s animosity. Everyone else also had a fair idea, so I almost didn’t have to say it, but I’d come this far and I’d waited years to do this. In the past, I’d always held back because I hadn’t wanted to jeopardize my chance to join Riverglow. Then later Jonathan had been named the Alpha of my pack. I had no further allegiance to him or to his pack and I was free to say what I wanted. And I wanted to say this. It explained everything, the whole reason why Jonathan hated me and had made my life in Riverglow as miserable as he could.

“You were nineteen,” I replied. “And you didn’t like him, Jonathan, because he stole me right from underneath your nose. Remember?” I gave him a nasty grin and his eyes became very black.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, obviously pretending it was all coming back to him after all. By everyone else’s expressions, he fooled absolutely no one. “You were really into me, Stanz. I remember that now. Always trying to drag me into corners to make out. And then that goddamn pretty boy pulls the wounded, ‘I’m a foreigner and I’m lost and lonely’ act and you fell for that. You always were a sucker for the pretty boys with moody eyes.” He looked at Murphy and grinned insinuatingly. He also managed to ding Grey’s memory with that pronouncement too, the asshole.