“You covered up the fact that she murdered Gannon Dodd and then you slept with a goddamn werewolf, Irish!” he bellowed, his face twisted in anger.
Irish knocked his own chair over getting to Liam and grabbed him up by the front of his leather jacket, pushing him backward until he was pressed against the paneled wall. “Why don’t you stand outside in the middle of the fucking square so you don’t have to scream so damn loud?” he spat, giving Liam a harsh shake before dropping him back to the ground.
Liam jammed a finger into Irish’s shoulder, his eyes blazing hot. “You did, didn’t you? Jesus, Irish. She’s a werewolf,” he said, keeping his voice low, but his tone said it all. It said disgust—and it damn well pissed Irish off.
“You say that like I slept with the fucking devil. I recall a werewolf nurse or two in your sketchy past.”
Liam began to pace, running a hand through his long, dark hair. “That was before we were forced to live like a bunch of rabid killers and warned off anyone other than our own kind. You dumb fuck, Irish. Do you have any idea what this could mean? What kind of shit could go down? Did it even occur to you that Gannon was our only source of blood?”
Irish tightened his jaw, clenching his fists at his side. “None at all. Never occurred to me there could be repercussions, jackass.”
“Don’t be glib, because this isn’t just about you and your dick.”
“Liam?” Hadley’s face poked through the newly refinished oak door.
Liam instantly stood up straight, plastering a smile on his face. He held out his arms to Hadley. “Evenin’, Sunshine. Didn’t think you were ever gonna wake up.”
Hadley went to him reluctantly, her round blue eyes, so much like their mothers, still glazed with vampire sleep. “Who could sleep with you guys yelling? Why are you fighting?”
Irish mimicked Liam and put a smile on his face, too. “No fighting, Cookie. Just a disagreement is all. Sometimes we yell when we disagree because we’re big bags of hot air. You hungry?”
She kept her eyes on the floor, a dark curtain of curly hair falling across her cheeks. Her slim shoulders moved up and down with the indifference he’d become so used to. She was so damn touchy all the time. He never knew which side of the bed she’d wake up on. “Not really.”
Irish tipped her chin up, forcing her to look into his eyes and trying really hard not to root around in her head so he could just figure her out once and for all.
He didn’t want to invade her teenage privacy, but it would be nice to understand what went through her head when she took to one of her ever-changing moods. “You need to feed, Had.”
She rolled her eyes at him, indicating today was a “God, quit nagging me, Irish” day. “I know. I will. I’m just not feeling great.”
Liam’s and Irish’s stares met over the top of Hadley’s head. “That’s two days in a row now, kiddo. What gives?”
She pushed away from Liam, shaking her head and waving a hand at them. “Nothing gives, Irish. I’m sure I’ll be fine. It’s probably just all those vampire growing pains Mom always talked about. I have to go meet Sarah to study.” She began to saunter off to the part of the club that remained, in her honor, a real house. An old, rambling Victorian complete with a sprawling front porch and view of the ocean.
“But—” Irish started.
“I know, I know. I’ll feed before I go,” she retorted, her typical exasperated tone lacing her words as she stomped her way out of the meeting room.
Liam hitched his jaw at Irish. “You damn well watch yourself, vampire. I might be your right hand, but I won’t hesitate to take you down if you fuck up our relationship with those dicks. We need the blood they supply. You know it. Worse, they damn well know it. One reason for them to hold it over our heads and we’re fucked—no matter how much money we have between us to buy it. Slamming Claire is a pretty sound reason to cut us off.”
Irish fought the impulse to grab his brother by the throat. Instead he said, “Don’t talk about her like that, Liam. Ever. Clear?”
“Yeah. I’m clear. Just as long as you are, too—we have nothing else to discuss.” He pushed his way out of the den with a flat palm to the door, leaving Irish to contemplate how he was going to keep Claire safe without risking his family in the process.
Worse, Liam left him to wonder how he was ever going to be able to stay the fuck away from her.
Chapter Ten
Freya dropped a sandwich on the table in the library’s staff lunchroom, her eyes full of worry when she grabbed Claire’s hand. “What the fresh hell, Claire?”
Composure was the name of the game with Freya. Claire had practiced her big confused eyes in the mirror for just this occasion. “I don’t know what you mean. What fresh hell are you referring to today?”
Freya’s looks, petite and blonde, betrayed her shark-like instincts. “Oh, Jesus and the river Nile, don’t play stupid with me, Claire. Please. I was a lawyer. I can smell a lie in a roomful of two-week-old dead fish. What gives with the delicious vampire?”
Claire bit into her sandwich, one that tasted like cardboard. She made her eyes go round and innocent. “What vampire?”
“The one you’ve lusted for since we moved to this godforsaken town five years ago. The one who has a name that sounds like Irish.”
“Shhh,” Claire hissed, flashing her eyes at Freya. There was probably going to be nothing in the world she regretted more than that bottle of wine three years ago and a night full of confessions about their sex lives, or lack thereof. “Do you want someone to hear you?”
She slapped her hand on the table with a sharp clap. “Then tell me what the hell is going on. Everyone’s all abuzz about Courtland calling you out as a murderer and Irish coming to your rescue out at the old campgrounds. It’s like you both have ‘death wish’ stamped on your fool foreheads, Claire.”
Look into your best friend’s eyes and lie, Claire. Get used to it. You’ll be doing a buttload of it in the coming days. “He didn’t come to my rescue, Freya. Not in the way you’re thinking. He was just trying to keep Courtland and the crew from persecuting me without evidence—which, of course, they don’t have. They’d all been drinking when they came to the library last night, torches lit, my name written in flames.”
Freya flashed one of her infamous “and?” looks. “Big surprise, Claire. It’s not like you didn’t share your hatred for Gannon in parts near and far. As a prosecutor, I’d put you on my list of suspects, too.”
She was sick of hearing about how she’d told the world she despised the idea of Gannon as her mate. Who wanted Gannon as a mate? No one with eyeballs and the gift of scent. In fact, when he’d called her out as his intended, there’d been a collective sigh of relief from the eligible women of the pack.
“Like you wouldn’t have squawked if Gannon had called on you? And Irish was just doing his job. In the process, he had a little fun at Courtland’s expense. For all the booze they’d consumed, they’d have tarred and feathered me before I had a chance to even have a council trial. Irish stepped in because it’s his job to ensure peace and that everyone is treated fairly. It’s over now, okay? So relax and tell me the last episode of Boardwalk Empire you left off on so we can dish.” She popped a potato chip into her mouth, crunching it to block out the niggling voice in her head, calling her a liar.
Freya unwrapped her purple scarf and dropped it on the Formica lunch table, sitting back in the chair. “Not buyin’ it. There’s something you’re not telling me. Something critical.”
“Stop with the dramatics. There’s nothing to tell but what really happened. And that’s what really happened.” Mostly.
“Someone at Ahab’s overheard Courtland say he has a witness who claims you murdered Gannon. Your thoughts on that?”
Her stomach pitched again. This witness. Who was this witness? She hadn’t smelled a single soul but Gannon and Irish that night. “And where is this witness? Who is this witness?”
Freya rolled her shoulders. “I’m just re
peating what I heard them talking about at the grocery store.”
“Isn’t that called hearsay, lawyer?”
“It’s called gossip. We don’t have those kinds of rules anymore, remember? You know, the ones where we abide by human laws like we’re evolved instead of being forced to live by these archaic pack rules?”
Resentment slithered into Freya’s voice on a regular basis when she spoke of her life in Rock Cove. She’d loved the law. She missed practicing it every day, and Claire missed it for her. Freya had been hell on wheels back then, a force to be reckoned with. Now she was a were without purpose, and it hurt Claire to watch her best friend reduced to doing little more than watching TV and quilting.
“Well, whatever it’s called, it’s just a bunch of people talking about something they know nothing about. Now can we have lunch or do you miss the days of yore as a prosecutor and want to give me a good old-fashioned interrogation? I’ll let you be bad cop,” she teased, hoping to take Freya down a different path, one that didn’t have Irish on it.
No Irish thoughts, Claire. None. It was a battle she almost thought she was winning until she’d seen him today at the bank, his bike between his powerful thighs, his sunglasses hiding his eyes. It took everything she had in her to walk past him as if he didn’t exist.
Everything.
Freya tore into her sandwich, swallowing before she finally responded. “I don’t want to be bad cop. I want to be lawyer werewolf. Like I used to be.”
Claire sighed, pushing the crusts from her bread into a brown paper bag. “I know you do. I want to go back to being a middle-school librarian. But we’re never going back.”
Freya pushed her chair out, throwing the remainder of her sandwich down and gathering her purse, her eyes defeated. “I know. Sorry. I’m just being maudlin and feeling sorry for myself. I’ll just go make another quilt…that should solve everything. Let’s do dinner later this week, huh?”
Freya’s sarcasm dripped from her words, and with good reason. At least Claire had this library—it was better than none. “You bet, and bring your favorite nail polish. I’ll give you a mani.”
Freya snorted, turning back to look at Claire, her hand already on the lunchroom door. “You mean so I can be pretty for my mate?”
There’d be another mate night coming up soon, and Freya’s time was surely running out. They’d talked long into many nights about what they’d do when their time came. Funny, murder had never once come up in conversation. But gone were the days when they were free to mate with whomever they wanted.
Turning to leave, Freya dropped to her haunches before rising and swiveling back to Claire, holding an envelope between her chipped red nails. “This was on the floor. Looks like it’s for you.” She dropped it on the table and squeezed Claire’s shoulder before she left.
Claire rubbed her temples and blew out a breath of air.
God. Lying was exhausting, especially when your best friend was an ex-lawyer with a nose like a bloodhound. Give Freya a whiff of a reason to whip out her prosecutor card and she’d have you serving twenty for a parking meter violation.
All the more reason not to tell her what had happened the night Gannon died.
Claire looked down at the envelope with her name scrawled across it and her brow furrowed. She didn’t recognize the handwriting…
Ripping it open, she found a scrap of yellow notepaper that read, I need you now. Meet me at the bluff by the lighthouse. Please help.
Those sentences had her jumping from her chair and running for the door. She didn’t need to recognize the handwriting to know who it was from.
As Claire hurried to gather her things, she said a silent prayer.
Dear God, please let her be safe and unharmed.
* * *
Flying down the steps of the library, she ran straight into the burly chest of Courtland. The scent of whiskey on his breath, the haggard look of a man who’d lost a good amount of sleep on his round face.
“If it isn’t the stuck-up bitch. Guess your vampire boyfriend isn’t here to save you this time.”
She didn’t know Courtland very well. She only saw him when he was shadowing Gannon, egging him on as mostly a quiet enforcer. Maybe out from under his brother’s thumb, he wouldn’t be so bad.
Her guilt began to resurface again. Her rage and fear because of that night had superseded anyone else’s emotions, and the way she was treating Courtland showed it. Someone was dead. She’d been a part of that, and though she’d hated Gannon, did what she’d had to do that night; Courtland might not deserve her residual anger.
Claire cleared her throat, forcing her eyes to find his gaze, forcing herself to sympathize not with a man who’d been his brother’s lackey, but a man who’d lost a family member. “Listen, Courtland. I just wanted to say I’m sorry about Gannon. I…I hope you’re okay.”
He leaned down and looked her in the eye, grabbing her shoulder. “Fuck you, Prissy Pants.”
Okay, maybe he was just as bad. Her guilt fled, and her rage returned. Claire gave him a shove, flicking his hand from her shoulders, hoping to keep her voice steady. This connection Irish had created between them by trying to keep her out of trouble would be exactly what brought them more.
Opting to ignore his crack about Irish, Claire gave him her best stern librarian face. “Don’t ever put your hands on me again, Courtland. Haven’t you learned anything, you ape? Just because you’re the temporary reigning alpha doesn’t mean you don’t have to follow the laws of the pack, and the law says you can’t manhandle me. Stop touching me every chance you get!”
His whole face turned into one big sneer. “And whaddya think you can do about it?”
“I’m going to dick-punch you, ensuring no one will ever have to mate with you because there’ll be nothing left to mate with after I chew up your dangly bits and spit them in the trash. That’s what I’ll do about it.”
“You’re some nasty piece of work, Claire, with a sassy mouth to boot. Always thinking you’re better than us, Fancy.”
Here was another thing she was sick to death of. The accusation that because she was civilized and had manners, she was stuffy and stuck-up. If she’d known the pack she’d end up with was littered with so many ill-mannered heathens, if she’d known some of the oldest members of this pack were actually bikers who’d never done anything but pillage and plunder, she just might have chosen the prison camps.
“I don’t think it, Courtland. I know it. You don’t see me out and about, manhandling anyone within reach of my grubby paws, do you? You were raised in a civilized society before the government took over. Act like it. Now why are you here? Is it to bring me in for questioning because your witness says I killed your brother? Better be careful, Alpha-in-Waiting, you might be next on my list. Oh, but wait. You have no body to prove Gannon’s dead, do you? So where’s this witness?”
Courtland bristled, his scraggly hair shifting in the cold wind. “I know you did Gannon in. I damn well know it. I can smell it.”
Claire put a finger under her nose, tucking her chin into her scarf. “It’s a wonder you can smell anything over your own stench.”
“I might not be able to prove you killed him yet, but when I do, I’m gonna see you skinned just like they used to do back in the day. Right in front of everyone. Maybe even in the square.”
“Oooh. Big, scary words, Alpha-in-Training-Wheels. But until then, I have to run some errands at the grocery store. So, you go sharpen your knife and I’ll go get my gallon of milk. We’ll meet back at the square when your witness shows up. Date?”
He glared down at her, the tattoo of a snake winding along his thick neck dull and graying. “You’d better watch that fine ass of yours, Claire Montgomery. ’Cus I’m comin’ for it,” he growled before turning to stomp off down the icy sidewalk, leaving the smell of his unique body odor peppering her nostrils.
It had taken everything she had in her not to flip Courtland the bird, but now wasn’t the time for that.
&nbs
p; The throb of her chest pounded out a rhythm in her ears as she tried to keep the walk to her car unhurried and unsuspicious to any passersby.
Pressing her key fob, she beeped her car open and got inside, shivering with a violent shudder. The bluff near the lighthouse. She needed to get to there now, and without anyone seeing her.
An almost impossible feat in a town where some had nothing better to do than watch the comings and goings of their fellow neighbors—literally.
She turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot, waving to Amos Mosley as she did, keeping a fake smile plastered on her face.
Her thoughts raced as she headed to the lighthouse, the day turning dark and gloomy as fat purple and dusky blue clouds formed in the sky. Damn, likely more snow was in the forecast, making driving to the lighthouse difficult if the roads turned icy as the temperature dropped.
Claire said a silent prayer she’d get there without incident. Get there before—
No, she wouldn’t think it. Taking a deep breath, she calmed her thoughts.
She would get to the lighthouse. She would make this right. She would not allow Gannon Dodd to ruin a life. She would—
Her next to last thought was obliterated by the sound of screeching metal and the scream of tires as someone plowed into her little car, sending it flying over the edge of the bluff and into the icy waters of the Atlantic.
Her very last thought was: Damn, she’d forgotten to pack her swimmies.
To Be Continued…
(Cue even more evil music.)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dakota Cassidy is the nationally bestselling author of more than thirty books. She lives in the gorgeous state of Oregon with her real life hero and her dogs, and she loves hearing from readers!
Connect with me online:
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My Website: http://dakota324.wix.com/dakotacassidy
Fangs of Anarchy - Forbidden Alpha (Part 2) Girl Most Lycan: A Werewolf Vampire Shifter Romance Page 4
