About Face (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  Suspicion flared within me. I looked at Murphy. His expression was dark and angry. Of course he was furious. Why the hell hadn’t Paddy let Murphy help? Why hadn’t Murphy gone to Allerton?

  My body temperature went so cold I couldn’t move.

  “Allerton’s Pack First, isn’t he?” I guessed. “We’ve been helping him unmask and destroy Guardians all along, haven’t we?”

  I would have run if I’d had anywhere to go.

  “I don’t think it’s that simple,” Murphy admitted and hung his head. “I’m pretty sure he’s one of the Guardians.”

  I stared at him. Something wasn’t adding up.

  “If you think he’s a Guardian, why would he be going after other Guardians? Have them put to death? Why did he send us out to find the truth? What the hell are we doing in his name?”

  Murphy’s face was pale, but his voice was steady. “What if we weren’t the ones who brought it all out into the open, Stanzie? What if we were just Allerton’s and the Guardians dupes? Cleanup squad. Who are we unmasking? Grandmothers and grandfathers and unstable, insane Alphas. People who are expendable. So he proves to Pack First that, no, all Guardians aren’t like that, Councilors, and here’s what I’m doing about it.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them so he could look at me. “If that’s how he’s playing it, if we go to him with this, Paddy’s dead, and we’re most likely dead as well unless we want to wholeheartedly join. And I don’t. Do you? I do not want to murder people, not even the ones who murdered others. I just want the whole fucking thing to stop and bring justice—Pack justice—to those who deserve it. I’m not a vigilante.”

  “Who are the other Guardians you know?” I looked at Paddy. He shook his head.

  “That doesn’t matter, does it? The less you know, the safer you are.”

  “You don’t understand,” I whispered. “There has to be a different explanation. We have to be able to trust Jason.”

  Murphy’s face softened, and he took a step toward me. I stared at him as, one by one, the implications slammed home, and my whole life crumbled into dust.

  Fear and fury made my voice shrill. “When did Paddy tell you all this shit? After my tribunal, right? And you left me there with him? You left me there when you thought there was a possibility Jason Allerton might be a murderer using his Council position to kill people? Using me to do it?”

  I threw myself at him and pummeled him with my fists. “I trusted you. I loved you!”

  Cheated tears streamed down my face so I could barely see. Murphy grabbed my wrists to keep me from tearing his face open with my nails, but at my words he dropped them and stood there, staring. Before I could rip his cheeks to shreds, Paddy leaped out of his chair and pulled me away.

  I screamed and lashed out with my legs, but Paddy had a strong grip around my waist and pinned my arms to my sides so I was helpless.

  Murphy’s voice shook. “I was gonna get the proof and bring him down if that part was true. I didn’t want you involved. You’d been through so bloody much, I didn’t want you to go through any more. I never would have let the man hurt you. That’s not what he wants to do with you, Stanzie. You were safe in Boston. Safer than you would have been here with me. And I’m not convinced Allerton’s a bad guy.”

  “But you’re not sure he’s a good guy either!” I struggled against Paddy, but he was too strong. I managed to land a backward kick to his ankle, and he buckled but didn’t fall.

  “No,” Murphy admitted. “I’m not sure of anything when it comes to him.”

  “He bonded with my mother, you bastard fuck,” I shrieked, and I would have enjoyed the horrified shock that spread across his face if it hadn’t been Wren in the crossfire.

  “But what about Kathy Manning?”

  “Kathy,” I spat, a bad taste in my mouth. “If Allerton’s dirty, so is she because she was there when Grandfather Tobias died. She mixed the poison herself. And she never wanted to bond with him, Murphy, she wanted a spot on the Great Council, but Allerton fucked her out of it, and it went to Rosemary Young instead.”

  Murphy tried to absorb this information and make sense of it, but by his expression he had a hard time of it.

  “He bonded with your mother?”

  I stopped struggling and Paddy said, “If I let go of you, are you gonna do something stupid, Stanzie?” For an answer I stomped on his foot, and he let out a yelp of agony, but he still let me go.

  I stalked back to the armchair and fell into it so I could lace my fingers behind my aching head and press my forehead to my knees.

  “Why does this shit keep happening to me?” I whispered. “All I want is to belong to a pack and have a bond mate and be happy like I used to be. What the fuck did I do wrong that this is what I get? I’m tired of it. This is so fucking unfair.” For maybe the one billionth time I wished I could rewind my life and go back to the night of my thirtieth birthday. I wouldn’t get in the car. I would tell Grey and Elena we should stay home instead. Screw dancing, we’d go to bed together. And then none of the bad shit would have happened, and I would still be bonded to them today and maybe even Alpha of Riverglow.

  And I never would have laid eyes on Liam Murphy or Padraic O’Reilly. Never met Jason Allerton. Never ever.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I don’t know what to tell you.” Murphy knelt by the armchair and put his hand on my leg, but I wrenched away from him.

  “Don’t touch me,” I snapped. “Get the hell away from me. I wish I’d never fucking met you. I hate you!”

  His brown eyes got very dark, and he got to his feet and moved away.

  “No, you don’t,” Paddy said heavily. “You just need some time to think, Stanz.”

  “Don’t you tell me what I feel or what I should do,” I flared. His cellphone picked that extraordinarily inopportune moment to ring, and I curled my lip and sank back into the armchair.

  Murphy stood with his back to us, head down. I hated him. I wanted to get up and pummel the shit out of him, but I also wanted to put my arms around him and make him stop being so despondent. I could be such a fucking idiot sometimes.

  “Morning, my saucy pregnant wench.” Paddy made his voice cheerful and innocent, and that only proved he was a lying sonofabitch and a fantastic actor. How could we believe anything the man said? “Stanzie and I went out to breakfast. Yeah, I know you just bought eggs and bread for your stupid brother, but we wanted to get out and stretch our legs a bit.” He listened for a moment and then looked at me. “Fee’s asking if you still want to go sightseeing today?”

  I glared at him. The last thing I wanted to do was drive around Dublin to ooh and ahh at the sights. He had to be kidding. I mouthed the word no and flipped him the bird. He extended his middle finger back.

  “Yeah, she’s all for it. Excited as hell. You’re gonna bring her to the Guinness storehouse and the Gravity Bar, I hope?” What an asshole. He really sounded as if nothing on earth was the matter. “Sure. You’ll collect her at the apartment around ten. I’ll see you at home later, love. I’m looking forward to you making me dinner like you said you would. Me, too. Bye.” He stared at his phone for a moment and then tucked it into his back pocket.

  I wanted to spit at him, but he was out of range. “That’s just what I want to do. Sit around in a bar and drink Guinness. Does she know anything about any of this?”

  Paddy shook his head, and I wanted to break his fucking neck.

  “You sonofabitch. What if I get drunk and tell her everything?” I drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair and wished Murphy would turn around or move. Do something.

  “Then you do. I wish you wouldn’t, but what am I supposed to do about it?” Paddy moved for the fire escape door. He stopped by Murphy and gave him a nudge. “You coming, Liam? We need you to drive us back to your place. We’ll drop her off, and you and I can go take care of some business, okay?”

  I wanted to ask what the hell kind of business, but a look from him shut me up. How could I stop the
m anyway?

  Murphy didn’t say anything, but he moved to the door.

  The metal fire escape rattled beneath our feet as we descended to the alley. Paddy brought up the rear so I was trapped between him and Murphy. As if I would have run away. Where the hell would I have gone? This was such a mess. Why was my life always in such a fucking turmoil?

  Murphy’s car, a gleaming black BMW without one splash of mud or mote of dust, was parked on the street half a block from the pub. I got into the back and buckled my seatbelt as he slid behind the wheel.

  Paddy tucked himself into the passenger seat.

  At the first stoplight I cautiously opened my eyes and tried to calm my galloping heart. I didn’t think I would ever get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, not even if Murphy was the driver.

  “You look like a frigging pirate with that slash across your face. What the hell happened, Paddy?” Murphy broke the silence to ask. I was sure he did it to break the tension, especially mine, because I was nervous in the car. He always knew.

  “Had a bit of an altercation with Declan Byrne,” Paddy admitted, and Murphy snickered, sounding genuinely amused. How could he laugh at a time like this? Were all members of Mac Tire idiots when it came to brawling?

  “Let me guess. Knife.”

  “Nah, piece of broken glass. I started the fight, you see, so he didn’t have time to plan for a real weapon.”

  Paddy and Murphy laughed as if the joke was a favorite one, and I shook my head. Unfuckingreal.

  “You’ll never guess what happened right in the middle of the damned thing. Stanzie here figured it wasn’t a fair fight and decided to referee. So she climbs up on the damn bar in these frigging platform shoes—and how she did that without breaking her neck I’ll never know—and proceeds to fling herself on Declan’s back, screeching like a banshee, and—”

  “I did not screech,” I interrupted Paddy’s hyperbolic description of the fight. “Jesus Christ, Paddy, if you are going to tell the goddamn story, tell it straight. Screeching like a banshee, my ass.”

  Paddy snorted, and Murphy bit his lip to keep from grinning, the bastard. I could see both their faces in the rearview mirror. How they could laugh at a time like this I’d never know.

  “So Stanzie here flings herself on his back like a silent assassin,” Paddy amended, and Murphy did grin when I loudly sighed. “Declan goes down hard as hell and is out cold for five fucking minutes on account of the way his bastard head connects with the floor. The crowd’s cheering like mad—it’s better than football. Of course, Stanzie, the silly bitch, also knocks herself out because she’s too clumsy to avoid clipping the side of her head on the table on the way down.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. It was my first attempt at silent assassin. Next time I’ll do better.” I snapped.

  “There’s gonna be a next time?” Paddy bounced in his seat like a two-year-old who’d just spied Santa Claus.

  “Well, it’s a sure bet nobody else in Mac Tire will come to your rescue. They’ll all want to see the blood if the way they stood around cheering instead of helping last night was any indication.”

  “Of course they’ll want to see the blood. How can you not want to see the blood? And yourself being a Callahan and all? Your ancestors are spinning in their graves, woman.”

  “I am, at most, one quarter Irish, and I don’t think that counts.” Why did Paddy have to be such an idiot sometimes?

  “It counts.” Paddy turned to Murphy. “Doesn’t it, Liam?”

  “Callahan?” Murphy repeated with a grin. “One drop of Clan Callahan makes you Irish, let alone being a whole quarter.”

  “But you’ll need to work on your accent, love, because it sucks,” Paddy declared, and I gave him the finger.

  “I’m really touched you hauled ass onto the bar to save me from Declan Byrne,” he said, and Murphy snorted, before the two of them went off into gales of laughter.

  “That wasn’t my intention.” Goddamn idiots, the both of them. That fight was not funny; it had been potentially lethal. “I hauled ass onto the bar, you bastard, to keep your massively pregnant bond mate from doing it herself so she could see over the heads of all the other idiots in the pack. Crazed by the bloodlust, she apparently forgot she’s not a goddamn mountain goat. So in yet another attempt to keep the Alphas of Mac Tire from killing themselves, I got on the bar. I was only going to tell her what I saw, but when that asshole moved close enough and cut your neck, I got pissed.”

  “Aww, you’ll have me in tears of gratitude in a minute, woman.”

  I reached over to smack Paddy in the back of the head, and the end of his sentence turned into a yelp.

  “What was Fee doing in back? Why wasn’t she up front?” Murphy asked, and Paddy burst into laughter again, so I was forced to smack him a second time.

  “I dragged her in back of the bar to get her out of the way. Crowds watching bar brawls can be rough, and she is pregnant, remember? I was trying to get her into the kitchen, but the bitch wouldn’t go. The back of the bar was as far as I could get her,” I huffed.

  Murphy looked at Paddy. Paddy looked at Murphy. Hysterics ensued to the point I was convinced Murphy would drive off the goddamn road.

  “Her being massively pregnant and not at the top of her form is probably the only reason you got her as far as you did.” Paddy wiped tears from his eyes and Murphy’s shoulders shook as he obviously tried to regain control. “Otherwise if you’d pulled that stunt, there’d have been another bar brawl last night and you’d have gotten your ass kicked, Stanzie.”

  “How do you know I’d be the one getting my ass kicked?” I demanded angrily, and Murphy’s shoulders started to really shake.

  “Hating the sight of blood and all, you can hardly be a practiced brawler. Unlike Fee who could probably kick my ass if she put her mind to it,” Paddy replied.

  “From the way you were fighting last night, Mickey Mouse could kick your ass.” I wanted to stay angry at both of them, but it was hard not resist them when they laughed. Murphy especially. When he lost it again at my words, a strange, suffocating wave of love swept over me.

  Paddy laughed, too, but he pretended to be offended. The gleam of amusement in his eyes gave him away.

  “I was just letting the bastard warm up. I was having fun, Stanz.”

  “Which is why you spent half an hour last night screaming and swearing while I poured peroxide all over your bleeding body, I guess.”

  “It was my arm, my neck, and my face, you horrible bitch. It’s not like I was covered in gore and slashed to ribbons. Jaysus, now who’s exaggerating?”

  “It was a lot of blood. Murphy’s going to find the bloody washcloths on the bottom of his tub to prove it,” I maintained.

  “Great,” Murphy’s tone was wry. “Anything else I ought to be on the lookout for in my apartment?”

  “A shit ton of shoes,” muttered Paddy, and I smacked the back of his head again.

  * * * *

  The appetizing smell of roasting chicken greeted me at the door of Murphy’s apartment. The television was on, and the sound of an Irish-accented newscaster underscored, again, how far away I was from home.

  Murphy stirred gravy in a pan on the stove in the galley kitchen. The table was set for two, and a bottle of white wine rested in a silver ice bucket. One wineglass sat on the table, but the other, half full, rested on the counter at Murphy’s elbow.

  “Thought you might need some food to balance out the Guinness.” His cheerful grin didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  I put down the bag of Guinness souvenirs I’d bought and looked around for the things I’d left in the living room. Mostly, I’d left shoes. There was no trace of me at all, and the room looked freshly dusted and sterile as the night I’d walked through the door.

  “Fee couldn’t drink, so I only had the complimentary pint at the Gravity Bar.”

  He’d obliterated my presence and it itched at me. Just like the dust, I’d been swept away.

  “
Nice of you. I would have drunk hers, too,” Murphy said. “There’s wine. You want some?”

  What I wanted was to run out the door and straight back to Boston, but instead I forced a smile.

  “I’ll just go put my souvenirs in my suitcase.” I went into the bedroom.

  My suitcase was gone, too. So was the mail on the desk. The shell box was still there, and I resisted the stupid urge to look inside. Of course his bond pendant was still inside. We were not together anymore. The fact he’d cleared away everything that was mine proved that. He’d staked his claim to this apartment and I had no place in it.

  The bloody clothes I’d left in the corner were gone as well as all my other shoes. The bed was made, the curtains drawn, and I smelled the lemony scent of cleanser from the open bathroom door.

  Maybe he’d moved my stuff to a hotel and he planned to give me a ride after I choked down the meal he’d made. A dinner guest, that’s what I was.

  I took the bag with my Guinness t-shirt and chocolate truffles back into the living room and set it by the front door so I wouldn’t forget it on my way out. I didn’t even know why I’d bought them. Why would I want souvenirs to commemorate one of the worst times in my life?

  “Thought you wanted to put that away?” Murphy carried his wineglass into the living room and stared in confusion at my stupid Guinness gift shop bag.

  “Couldn’t find my suitcase. I thought maybe…” I trailed off as I realized how idiotic and pathetic I sounded.

  “I threw it out?” He finished for me, even more confused. “I unpacked for you, seeing as you’re going to stay for a while, right?”

  When had I decided that? My throat squeezed shut and I didn’t know what to do. Unpacked for me? He hadn’t cleared me away, but instead had integrated my things with his? Without asking me first?

  “When you didn’t call Allerton or tell Fee, I figured you’d decided to stay and help.” He took a sip of wine and watched me cautiously.

  “How do you know what I did or didn’t do?” I asked, unnerved.