About Face (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  “And keep your roaming hands to yourself, damn it, or you’ll have more injuries than just what Declan Byrne gave you,” I warned him as I slapped his fingers away from my chest for the fourth time.

  He chuckled and then shouted in pain when I splashed peroxide on the cut on his forearm. “Bloody fuck, that hurts!”

  “Well, we’re even. My headache just got ten times worse, thanks to you screaming in my ear,” I snapped as I wiped away the blood and peroxide.

  “Well, it hurts, damn you.” He hissed in pain when I put more peroxide on the cut on his cheek. “Is it really going to scar? Jagged or straight?” He seemed fascinated, not repulsed by the idea, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Straight,” I told him as I cleaned it with a wet washcloth. “It will make you look like a fucking street thug and not romantic at all, so stop smirking like that.”

  “Why in the hell did you fling yourself on the bastard’s back?” Paddy continued to grin, and I sighed when he gave my braid a gentle tug. “Could it be you give a shit about me, after all, Stanzie Newcastle? Maybe just a wee little bit?”

  “For God’s sake.” I upended the peroxide bottle on the wound on his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut in pain. “You’re my Alpha, all right? I can’t believe I’m the only person in that whole damn pub who took offense at Declan Byrne using a weapon when you had none.”

  “You got Fee out of the way, too,” Paddy mused, and his fingertips caressed my earlobe until I shivered. Ears have always been one of my erogenous zones, damn him. “Don’t you like to watch a good fight?”

  “Not particularly.” I rummaged through Murphy’s medicine cabinet until I found some antibacterial salve, which I slathered onto all three of his cuts. I was vitally aware he was half naked and very male. Sure, I’d had sex with Alan Perrault in Willoughby, but that had been over two months ago and hardly satisfying for me, as it had been his first time.

  Then I remembered Ron-or-Don, the Other, and shuddered. All thoughts of Paddy’s masculine appeal vanished in a rush of self-loathing.

  “What did I do?” Paddy sensed my revulsion and let his hand fall away from my ear. A shamed expression washed over his face. “You’ll never forgive me, will you? For walking away?”

  “Did Murphy leave because I’m bad luck? Is that why? Was he really freaked out by what my wolf did to Nate?” My voice shook, and I wouldn’t look him in the face. “People do die around me a lot, Paddy. Declan’s right. I am bad luck.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Paddy took my face between his strong hands and made me look at him. “Don’t you give that black-haired bastard the satisfaction of taking his spiteful words to heart, you hear me?”

  “You didn’t want me in Mac Tire at first,” I reminded him. “The first time I ever met you, Murphy was pissed at you because you wouldn’t let me into the pack because of my past. Because of Grey and Elena. And Rudi.”

  “Bollocks.” Paddy gave me a gentle shake, mindful I’d given my head a hard knock earlier. “Jason Allerton asked me to hold off on letting you both back in. I thought you’d twigged to that, you idiot.”

  “Did Murphy know that?” Had that whole scene been an act? Jason Allerton was a master manipulator, and I wouldn’t put it past him to assign everyone roles, some knowing, some oblivious, like me.

  “Nah.” Paddy shook his head and pulled me closer so our foreheads touched. His breath smelled, not unpleasantly, of Guinness. “He had some fucking master plan. Part of getting you to be his Advisors. At least that’s what he told me. I don’t know what good not being in Mac Tire at first did for him, but he asked me to hold off letting you back in the pack. I didn’t want to do it, but how can you say no to a Councilor?” Such bitterness crossed his face that I sucked in my breath.

  Did he know about the conspiracy? Now was the perfect opportunity for him to say something, but he acted completely clueless.

  “I made him swear not to let you two join any other pack until you knew damn well you were welcome back here. And later he called to tell me I was free to ask you back, and I called Liam straight off.”

  “Do you know why Murphy left me?” I wanted to crawl onto his lap and let him hold me, but I wasn’t so damn weak. Instead I pulled away and walked into the bedroom.

  My shirt and leggings were filthy—both with blood and the detritus of the pub floor. I tore them off and threw them in a corner. Murphy’s sterile apartment was rapidly becoming infected with my untidy personality.

  I kicked Paddy out of the bathroom so I could take a shower. Afterward, wrapped in a towel, I rummaged in my suitcase for a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt and put them on. When I turned around, Paddy was on the bed in just his boxer briefs. By the look on his face, he’d been avidly watching my ass as I’d dressed. The bastard.

  “I take it by your smarmy silence you have no intention of telling me why Murphy kicked me to the curb.” I winced as I pulled my fingers through my wet hair and tried to avoid the knot on my head. When I retreated beneath the covers on the other side of the king-sized bed, I made sure to keep maximum distance between me and the bastard in boxer briefs.

  “I love your American sayings.” Paddy’s eyes danced with amusement. “Kicked to the curb. He didn’t kick you to the curb. That sounds mean and vindictive, and that’s never been Liam Murphy.”

  When I opened my mouth to demand he tell me the reason why, he lifted a finger, and I reluctantly kept quiet. “You’ll need to discuss this with him. I’ll not be telling you his reasons. I wish I could, Stanzie, but it has to be between the two of you.”

  I could tell by his face he knew exactly why Murphy had left, and he wanted to tell me, but I couldn’t get him to break the friendship code, damn it.

  “It’s what my wolf did, I know it.” Tears burned my eyes. “That’s the first thing anyone ever asks me now. How did it feel to rip out a man’s throat, Stanzie? Did your wolf really kill someone? Why would anyone want to be bonded to a psycho like me?”

  “You were commended by the Great Council,” Paddy reminded me.

  “Yeah, that and two bucks gets you a ride on the T in Boston.” I hunched beneath the covers and felt very sorry for myself for at least thirty seconds until I got sick of my defeatist attitude. “I’d fucking do it again, too. Screw everybody who doesn’t understand. Including and especially Liam fucking Murphy.”

  Paddy had been very quiet, but now he burst into laughter. “That’s my Stanzie.”

  “I’m not your anything, Paddy O’Reilly.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re my pack mate. I meant it when I said you belonged to me. I meant it when I said you were family. And you can rail and scream at me all you like about being abandoned and me not bothering at all about you the past four months, but I know the truth of it.

  “I never fucking expected you to take four bloody months to get your ass over here. I was halfway convinced you wouldn’t even let Liam leave in the first place. That’s why I agreed to his asshole plan to leave you behind. I told the man you’d be coming after him and, worse, he believed me. He waited for you, Stanzie. The first week we were here he carried his phone around in his hand, and more than once I caught him checking flight times from Boston. He even bought ketchup. Does that sound like a man who kicked you to the curb?”

  “Ketchup.” Murphy remembered how much I loved ketchup. He never touched the stuff himself. I would not cry over fucking ketchup. No way. But a few tears leaked from the corners of my eyes anyway, damn them.

  “But you didn’t come. You didn’t call. And then one day he changed his phone number and started leaving the phone here in the apartment more often than carry it with him. And the light died out of his eyes. That sounds poetic as hell, but I don’t know how else to describe it. And I wanted to call you and reach through the phone and wring your neck, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

  “Why?” I croaked. “I was the one left behind, goddamn it. Why couldn’t you reach out? That’s all I would have needed. How was I supposed to know what
to do? Nobody’s ever left me before. I mean not on purpose. Fuck you, Paddy. You make this so hard.”

  “I do?” Paddy was incredulous.

  “And I still don’t understand why he left in the first place. If he wanted me to come after him, why did he even leave? Sure, I was mad at him for not being at my tribunal, but I was getting over it. I knew I asked too much from him.”

  “Here’s the part you talk to him about.” Paddy leaned over to switch off the lights. The room plunged into darkness. When he reached for me beneath the covers, I didn’t resist when he drew me onto his chest so I could rest my head on his shoulder.

  We twined our legs together and I spread my palm flat on his chest so I could feel the steady thud of his heartbeat. He was a bastard, but he was my Alpha.

  Chapter 8

  “Damn it, man, your timing is horrible. Can’t this wait?” Paddy’s irritated whisper nudged me from a light sleep. His side of the bed was still warm, but he wasn’t there. The bedroom door was half open, and I saw his shadow from the living room. I couldn’t hear who he talked to, so after a moment I presumed he was on the phone.

  My heartbeat, which had sped up because I’d thought Murphy might have come home, slowed. Massive disappointment left me limp.

  “Fine, fine. I can be there in ten minutes, but this has got to be quick. I want to be back here before she wakes up, damn you.”

  Maybe because I still didn’t trust him entirely, I feigned sleep when I saw the bedroom door swing open. Paddy hesitated in the doorway for a moment, and then I heard him stealthily get dressed.

  The moment the front door closed behind him, I was up. I grabbed a pair of sneakers and slipped them on as I made my way to the door. My purse was on the dining table, and I snatched the apartment key and my gray hoodie off the back of a chair before I went out the front door and sprinted for the stairs.

  The lift was old, and I was able to cover the five flights of stairs in just about the time the lift took to reach ground level.

  When I pushed open the street door, Paddy was nearly across the road. I waited until he was all the way across before I went outside. I shrugged on my hoodie and pulled up the hood to conceal my hair and face.

  With purposeful strides, Paddy walked a block until he reached the River Liffey. He made for a bridge, and I clung to the shadows of a building until he was halfway across.

  If he’d been in wolf form, he might have scented me, but he wasn’t. Plus I was downwind.

  It was early, and traffic, both car and pedestrian, was light.

  I bent to tie my sneaker, and when I straightened, I judged he was far enough across the bridge and sprinted across the street.

  His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket, and his hair was a riot of curls on his head. He walked at a steady, deliberate pace, but I could tell by the set of his shoulders he was irritated. He strove to ease the tension with a series of shrugs and shifts, but there was only so much he could do to work out his frustration.

  Once across the street, he ducked down a narrow, cobblestone alley and I cursed. I crept to the edge and carefully peered around the corner, most of my body pressed to the damp brickwork of the building to the right of the alleyway.

  He wasn’t there, but another alley branched out about forty yards down, and unless he’d climbed over a rusty chain-link fence or swarmed up a fire escape, that was the way he’d gone.

  I heard their voices just before I got to the second alley. A convenient rubbish bin lurked just around the bend, and I retreated behind it. The smell was putrid, and I covered my mouth and nose with my hand, but when I saw the man Paddy had come to meet, all thoughts of stenches, revolting or not, flew out of my head.

  The old man who faced Paddy looked to be in his late sixties, but looks were deceiving with Pack. He could have been anywhere from one hundred to one hundred forty, but he’d long since left his actual sixties behind.

  He had iron-gray hair and uneven bristly stubble across his sunken cheeks. His hand was out, and Paddy had his wallet open.

  I watched as Paddy gave the old man a fistful of colorful bills, which the old man counted with shaky fingers.

  “You old bastard, it’s two hundred pounds. All I’ve got at the moment. And I just gave you a hundred last week. What are you doing with it?” Paddy’s voice was quick and impatient, and the old man stuffed the bills into the pocket of his windbreaker.

  “Never you mind, Padraic O’Reilly. I’ve got me work cut out for me avoiding that mad bastard you call a best mate, don’t I?”

  “If you’d get the hell out of Ireland like I told you to, you wouldn’t have that problem, would you?” Paddy snarled.

  “I’ll not be leaving my home,” said the old man, affronted. “He won’t give up, Paddy. You’ve got to do something.”

  Paddy’s face darkened. “You’d better not be suggesting what I think you are, or…”

  “What?” interrupted the old man. “Or you’ll what? You’re not going to let a friendship compromise everything we’re building, are you?”

  “Of course not,” Paddy sneered. “But I’ll not be lifting a hand against Liam Murphy, Mick Shaughnessy, and that’s that. He’ll give it up. Soon. He won’t be thinking of you for much longer, not once he knows his bond mate’s here and wants him back.”

  The old man sniffed with contempt. He spat a wad of phlegm onto the cobblestones and shuffled off toward the other end of the alley where it opened up onto a main thoroughfare.

  I sagged against the filthy side of the rubbish bin and would have sunk to the ground if there’d been room between it and the brick wall. Acidic vomit burned my throat and blocked a primal scream of denial and betrayal.

  For centuries, the Pack existed on the fringes after the Others nearly exterminated us. We’d faded into the werewolf legends and no Other seriously believed wolf shifters existed. After the Paris Great Gathering, I’d become aware of the conspiracy to murder those of us who threatened our so-called safety by taking high-powered jobs with Others and moving more and more in their world. At first I’d thought it was the grandmothers and grandfathers who murdered younger members, but now I knew anyone in the Pack could be a part of the conspiracy. That had become crystal clear to me after Callie’s suicide, but lying bastard or not, I would have never, ever suspected Padraic O’Reilly of being a part of it until I saw the proof with my own eyes.

  If Mac Tire’s own Alpha was a member of the conspiracy, how far did it reach down into the membership of the pack? Was it the reason for the privacy at the pub? Could it be that widespread, that insidious?

  I couldn’t breathe or move, and I struggled to do both. When I looked down the alley, both Paddy and the old man were gone. I knew I needed to get the hell out of there.

  My cellphone was in Murphy’s apartment, and I had no money with me, but maybe I could convince a pedestrian to let me use their phone. I needed to call Allerton, and he would tell me what to do. My feet itched to run the fuck away, but the rest of my body was heavy as lead and I couldn’t quite move.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on making my muscles move. Just then, someone grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me off my feet.

  * * * *

  “Goddamn you, Stanzie. Why did you have to do this?” Paddy’s face was inches from mine, and his fingers in my hair hurt like hell. “I can’t believe this. Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

  “Let go,” I whispered. He had my hair so tight against my skull the lump I’d gotten from the table at the pub shrieked in agonized protest.

  He did. Then shoved me against the brick wall so all the breath was knocked out of my body and black spots danced before my eyes. He took me by the shoulders and shook me until I thought my neck would snap. The smell of fear and fury blended in the narrow alleyway until it choked us both.

  “What do I care if you give money to some old man?” I croaked, and he slammed me against the wall again.

  “Nice try, but I know damn well you know
what that old bastard did to Sorcha. You know about the movement, and you work against it every chance you get, just like Liam. So don’t play innocent with me, damn you. It’s too late for that!”

  The world spun and staggered as I tried to focus, but I couldn’t even draw a breath.

  Paddy reached into his jacket pocket. Oh, God, I hoped it would be a gun, not a knife. Death by stabbing hurt more, and I wanted it to be quick because I was a fucking coward. Wren and Murphy’s faces flashed before my eyes. I would have given anything for just a little more time, but I knew mine had just run out.

  Instead of a gun or a knife, he took out a cellphone. His wary gaze fixed on me, he punched in a number and then held the phone to his ear.

  “It’s me,” he barked even before the person on the other end could say hello. “You need to get your ass to the pub right the fuck now. There’s a huge complication, and I don’t have time to explain it. Twenty minutes.” He cut the connection and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  Okay, so I would die in the pub instead of a public street. My time had still run out.

  “Get going.” Paddy gave me a shove. I sprawled onto the cobblestones and gashed both my palms open. The hot, iron scent of blood seeped into the air, and Paddy swore and dragged me up by the hair.

  “You’re hurting me.” I tried to scream, but it came out a hoarse croak.

  “Let me see your hands. You’re bleeding.”

  I hid them behind my back. What the fuck did he care?

  “Will you make it quick, Paddy?” Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

  “Make what quick? You’re the one standing around when we should be halfway to the pub by now, goddamn it.” He curled his fingers around my forearm and dragged me for the end of the alley.

  “You and whoever’s waiting at the pub are going to kill me. I know. I just want it to be quick. Don’t…torture me.” For a moment I was back in Grandmother Emma’s root cellar chained to a steel gurney, and black panic stole nearly all my reason away. I had not lived through that only to end up tortured in a Dublin pub, had I? Fate could not be so damn cruel.