About Face (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  ABOUT FACE

  AMY LEE BURGESS

  LYRICAL PRESS

  http://lyricalpress.com/

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/

  This one is for Kim Murphy. She has been one of my most staunch supporters and loyal beta readers. Whenever I need technical help, especially when it has to do with all things Irish, she’s the one I go to. If I need a shoulder to cry on, she’s always there for me–whether it has to do with my current book or my life in general. And, remember, Kim–I named Murphy for YOOOOOU!

  Acknowledgements

  As always, thank you to Lyrical Press for all the hard work and believing in me and my Stanzie novels. Special thanks to Antonia Tiranth who stepped in to edit this one. Editors never get enough credit and theirs is a pretty thankless job. People like me really need them. Eternal gratitude to my beta readers Nerine Dorman, Kim Murphy, Portia Scott Palko and Chris Wilbanks. You guys rock!

  Chapter 1

  “You don’t look happy.” Lauren’s first words after she and Jason dropped the bombshell, possibly added up to the understatement of the frigging century.

  “You’re damned right I’m not happy,” I snapped—and cursed when Lauren cringed in her seat and her hyacinth-blue eyes filled with tears. If she let them fall, this would be the sixth—no, seventh—time today she’d cried.

  I beat a fist against my thigh when the first tears dribbled down her cheeks.

  “You’re going to ruin your makeup,” I said.

  With a choked gasp, Lauren leaped from her chair and raced out of the dining room. I held my breath and waited for her to fall and break her ankle. She wasn’t used to platform pumps with four-inch heels. My father had preferred more sensible, lower-heeled shoes.

  Jason Allerton watched her, too, his fingers tight around his soup spoon. I knew if she fell, I’d be in deep shit with him. I stole at look at his handsome face. Deeper.

  Half the diners in the private room of the small seafood restaurant also watched Lauren’s floundering progress.

  They were all Pack, shape-shifters, like me, so no doubt they’d overheard everything, but with true Pack discretion, they all paid scrupulous attention to their appetizers. To most of them, the news would not have been a bombshell, but, rather, good news. This was a Regional Gathering and people expected announcements like the one Lauren had just made.

  The table next to ours, full of members from Nightclaw, the premier pack in Connecticut, made no pretense they hadn’t overheard. Perhaps they considered themselves exalted and therefore exempt from the conventions of lesser packs. They eyed me askance as if I’d done something ridiculous by objecting to what they would have considered an honor.

  Let them think what they wanted. Lauren wasn’t their mother.

  I sat at the table in my new silver-pleated chiffon cocktail dress and fancy new silver sandals, my hair curled into waves that brushed my shoulders. Up until forty-five seconds ago, I thought we were having yet another of our friendly dinners.

  Lauren was radiant in a grape sequined V-neck dress. I’d picked out her shoes—Jimmy Choo sparkling anthracite platform pumps. If I hadn’t, we’d still be in our motel room while she agonized over every pair of shoes we had between us, still unable to make up her mind.

  The problem with Lauren was that she could not make a decision. At least she couldn’t unless I gave her an hour and patiently listened to her fears and doubts and dealt with tears and pleas for me to do it for her.

  This was not entirely her fault. Thirty years under my father’s pack bond and his refusal to let her think for herself was to blame. But sometimes I suspected she’d always been weak. Other times I just thought she needed time.

  What she didn’t need was another man in her life to tell her what to do, especially a man like Councilor Jason Allerton.

  “What exactly are your objections?” Jason set down his spoon and regarded me with his cool blue gaze.

  I put down my own spoon and lamented the fact the clam chowder was ruined for me now. It had been damned good, too. Why wouldn’t it be? We were in Providence, Rhode Island, within spitting distance of the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, if I glanced to my right I could see the waves—pewter gray in the twilight—as they curled to the rocky shore right outside the back windows of the seafood restaurant.

  It was the first Friday in August and this was the kick-off dinner to this year’s New England Regional Gathering for the packs that held territories here.

  Jason and I were attending because of Lauren and my past association with two of the New England packs. He was from Silverlake, the premier pack in Montana, and, for the moment anyway, I belonged to Mac Tire of Dublin.

  Since his bond mate died of a stroke, he’d had three months to find a new one, by Pack law, in order to retain his pack and Great Council status. He’d obviously arranged to extend it so he could take advantage of the New England Regional and my mother as well.

  At the bonding ceremony tomorrow night he and Lauren were going to become bond mates, and she would leave Mayflower in favor of Silverlake.

  That was the bombshell. Jason Allerton, my boss, member of the Great Council, was going to bond with my fragile, damaged mother. Just when she’d taken her first tentative steps to reclaim herself, he was going to bond with her and I knew she’d defer to him the same way she’d always deferred to my father.

  She still had a month before she lost her Mayflower status, but it hardly mattered if she did. Unlike Jason Allerton, she had nothing to lose.

  “One of them is that you’re rushing her so you won’t lose your seat on the Great Council or your pack status and land in Silverlake.” I glowered at him across the table and he glared back. Jason Allerton rarely glared. A shiver ran down my spine, but I refused to back down.

  “Another is that she’s finally starting to find herself and now she’s going to lose it all so she can cater to you. Everything she’s accomplished in the past eight weeks is going to fall to pieces. Congratulations, Councilor, you’ve got yourself a doormat you can wipe your feet on and order around instead of an equal and someone with her own mind. Good job.”

  “Do you really think I’d undo all her progress simply because I became her bond mate?” His question was sincere, but his blue eyes were glacial. “You think I’m doing this for expedience’s sake and not because I genuinely care about Lauren?”

  “That’s exactly what I think. You’ve known her two months. How can you possibly care about her? You’re in a rush to get a bond mate. You didn’t expect Kathy Manning to turn you down. Now you’re scrambling and my mother is the convenient pawn in your game.”

  Jason became very still. The anger radiating from him was white-hot but I was past caring. This was my mother we were talking about, not some stranger. He’d blown it with his mistress, Kathy Manning, and now my mother would be sacrificed on the altar of his power. This was so not fucking right.

  “She said yes when I asked her to bond with me.” It was a warning to back down, but I ignored it.

  “Of course she did. What else could she say?”

  “Are you saying I coerced her?” His eyebrows drew together in a dark slash.

  “You’re like the godfather making her an offer she can’t refuse. This is Lauren we’re talking about. And you’re a Councilor. How’s she supposed to say no?”

  “Do you dare suggest I used my position to force her into this?” His voice was frigid. “Constance, you are overstepping your boundaries with me and I suggest you back off now.”

  “You see? You’re using your position with me right now. You do it by default, like you’re on autopilot. Jason Allerton, Councilor. You’re not Jason Allerton, potential bond mate t
o her. How could you be? She doesn’t know you.”

  “We’ve been virtually inseparable for the past month.”

  “Oh, hell, twelve dinners and a handful of lunches are not the basis on which you make the decision to bond together for life.”

  A small voice whispered inside my head that I’d used even less of a basis to decide to bond with Liam Murphy. I hadn’t known him even one week before I’d joined with him during a bonding ceremony at the Great Gathering in Paris last November.

  And look how fucked up that idea turned out to be. Guilt and a surge of painful love seethed inside me and my stomach roiled.

  Jason’s angry, clipped voice brought me back on target. Focus on Lauren.

  “Pack law gives us three months to bond again after the death of, or separation from, prior bond mates. How long do you suggest we wait before you are comfortable? Four months? Seven? Two years? Meanwhile, life goes on, and all our pack benefits are stripped so we can make a decision we could have made in the allotted time just to allow you some dubious peace of mind. Lauren and I are both well into our fifties, we’re not inexperienced youngsters.”

  “For all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what Lauren is. She bonded with Paul when she was twenty and he’s all she’s known for over thirty years. You generously gave her two whole months to get over that? How magnanimous. She’s not in any rush to join a new pack. She’s got me and the condo in Boston. You’re the one who’s in the rush, and you know it. Don’t make her suffer for your agenda.”

  “What do you suggest I do? I have found the woman I wish to bond with, and we both wanted your blessing. But make no mistake…we don’t need it, and we will go on with our plans, regardless of your objections. You’ve already said enough to me. Please spare your mother your vituperative comments and at least attempt to be gracious.”

  “You’re not listening to me at all, are you?” Tears scalded my eyes. “What is the point of asking me for my objections if you don’t intend to pay any attention to them at all? Why don’t you just tell me to shut the fuck up and deal?”

  “Shut the fuck up and deal,” he said.

  It was quite possibly the first time I’d ever heard him drop the f-bomb, and it brought me up short for a moment.

  “You do this and I quit. I won’t be your Advisor if you go through with this bullshit bonding,” I declared, and Jason’s face darkened.

  “So be it. You are released as my Advisor,” he said. And just like that our nine-month association was severed. Everything I’d accomplished for him and the Great Council all meant shit next to his pride and his determination to bond with my mother.

  I threw my napkin on the table and jumped to my feet.

  “Stanzie.” Maybe there was a glimmer of regret in his eyes, but it was too late. He’d said it. Just as my bond mate Murphy said it to me almost four months earlier when he’d walked out on me and just as my Alpha, Paddy O’Reilly said it to me when he’d left with Murphy.

  Three for three. No job. No bond mate. No pack. I was alone. Again.

  * * * *

  Two hours later I stopped my mindless trudge across the cold, wet, packed sand and calculated my bearings.

  My sandals dangled from my fingers and the strap of my expensively flimsy evening bag wouldn’t stay lodged on my shoulder.

  Night had descended and the lights from the beachfront hotels, homes and businesses cast a yellow light over the sand, but where I was at the water’s edge was shrouded in shadows.

  The briny smell of the sea clogged my nostrils. I sidestepped a glistening, dark strip of seaweed only to step squarely on a goddamned pointy rock.

  “Shit.” I swiped at the tears that had streamed down my face for the last half mile or so. I was such a baby and an idiot. I’d just cut off my last lifeline to the Great Pack.

  I was still Murphy’s bond mate, but my birthday was in ten days, and it was my chance to break the bond. Pack law gave everyone the right to reassess relationships and break bonds on birthdays. I could wait and let him do it on his birthday but why should I humiliate myself even further by letting him break our bond when my birthday came first? Once I did, the clock would start to tick on my membership within Mac Tire because no unbonded adults over the age of twenty-six could remain in the pack.

  I would have three months to find a new bond mate. By mid-November, if I wasn’t in a new relationship, I lost my pack.

  “Been there, done that,” I muttered and wiped my eyes again.

  He’d let me go. Jason Allerton had insinuated himself into my life since Paris. He’d given me sanctuary and a job as his Advisor and interested himself in my life. He’d been the one to maneuver me into bonding with Murphy.

  Ostensibly, he put us together so we could investigate the weird, untimely deaths of young pack members worldwide, but also another agenda, a more personal one. He’d wanted us to bond together and be happy after we’d both suffered the deaths of our original bond mates.

  Amidst everything I’d been through in the past nine months, Jason Allerton had been a comforting father figure.

  And just like that, in the span of three seconds and one sentence, it was all undone.

  I’d trusted him with my mother. When he’d taken a hotel room in Boston after my father had been exiled and I’d taken Lauren back to my condo, I’d thought he was looking after me.

  He’d seen me struggle with Lauren as I’d tried to give her space to reclaim herself and yet keep my sanity at the same time.

  Every decision was agony for her. What to wear. What time to get up and go to bed. Which flavor of jelly to spread on her toast.

  He’d taken us out to dinner more nights than not. I’d cooked for him.

  His calm, comforting, authoritative presence had become a given in my life over the past eight weeks.

  To think I’d been grateful when he’d suggested he take Lauren out to dinner on his own so I could stay home and relax. Or go out.

  Yeah, right. With who? My best friends, Vaughn and Jossie, lived in Vermont and my cousin Faith and her bond mate, Scott, were two hours away from the city.

  I’d expected to see more of them the past couple of months, but people got busy. Faith was pregnant and had a pack to rebuild after my father nearly destroyed it.

  Jossie was convinced I wanted to bond with her and Vaughn and make a triad—and invented excuses to keep us all apart.

  So I spent those nights alone. I had time for a luxurious soak in the bathtub with a delicious murder mystery. I could watch a movie while curled up on the sofa as the lights of the city glowed through my living room window. I had opportunities for walks around the block in the summer darkness so I could ease the tension out of my shoulders and take deep breaths as I marshaled the inner strength to deal with Lauren another day.

  Now after this Regional was over, she’d go to Montana with him and start her new life, and I’d have every night alone in Boston. Every morning and midday, too.

  “You selfish bitch,” I whispered to myself in amazement and for a clouded moment wasn’t sure if I referred to me or Lauren.

  The lights and music from a waterside bar attracted my attention. It was a small place, gray shingles, a wooden deck in the back so patrons could watch the ocean as they pounded down beer and shots and figured out who they would go home with that night. It was full of Others, not Pack, but screw it. No way I wanted another night alone. Those would start soon enough.

  * * * *

  My eyes felt gritty and full of sand when I fluttered them open the next morning. I had no idea where the hell I was or why the sunlight had a weird dappled effect across the sheet that covered my nude body.

  My head thumped, and my mouth tasted sour. I held still, afraid I might be sick, until the queasiness passed.

  Someone’s bare foot brushed my ankle. I jerked away in shock, clutching the sheet to my neck like a virgin in a bodice-ripper.

  Holy shit, it stank. The man in bed with me reeked and his scent was all over me. I was fucki
ng disgusting.

  The smell decided my rebellious stomach and I lurched out of the bed. I had no idea where the bathroom was. I estimated I had about thirty-five seconds to figure it out.

  I looked around to orient myself and discovered I was in a small studio apartment. Outside, seagulls screamed over the relentless crash of waves. Sheer green curtains with an odd texture fluttered in front of a half-open sliding door that led to a weathered deck. The dappled effect was explained.

  Dirty dishes were piled in a porcelain sink near the front door. A rickety table and two chairs squatted in front of the sink. More dishes were on the table as well as a thick accumulation of junk mail.

  A battered sofa with the arms duct-taped to keep the stuffing from spewing out rested against one wall bookended by two tray tables. A drop ceiling and cheap fluorescent lights completed the shabby decor.

  No bugs, just the cluttered detritus of a young bachelor.

  A half-open door with chipped paint to the left of the front door was either a bathroom or a closet.

  I didn’t have time to care so I bolted.

  It was a bathroom. Not filthy, but certainly grungy. I prayed to the porcelain goddess over and over but still couldn’t get that foul stench out of my nose.

  I’d slept with an Other.

  I even thought I remembered his name. Don. Or maybe Ron. Ron. Almost definitely Ron.

  To be fair, he didn’t stink because he was unwashed. He just wasn’t Pack. He wore Obsession cologne. I could smell it the bathroom cabinet and faint traces in the damp towels on the rack.

  Some Pack could sleep with Others and get over their strange, sour scents. I’d never been one of them. I could work with them, ride the subway with them, buy food and clothes from them, but I could not be intimate with them.

  Until the fourth or fifth Long Island Iced Tea, apparently.

  Just the thought of the sweet drink loaded with six different kinds of alcohol made me gag again until I was reduced to dry heaves that twisted my stomach and choked my throat and nose.