Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  When she returned to the outer circle, Peter was there to take her into his arms and she leaned against him gratefully, not seeing his anguish as he buried his face in her strawberry blond hair.

  Murphy said something in Irish when it was his turn in the inner circle. I’m sure it was one of the traditional sayings. There were phrases we used at funerals when we didn’t know what to say from the heart. Things like, “May your wolf run free in the otherworld” and “Although your time here with us is at an end, you are just beginning somewhere else and that thought will give us much comfort in the days to come.”

  He looked so handsome and familiar as he stood in the inner circle and held the urn. I came back from the space I’d hidden, drawn by the realization of just how much I loved him. He was my anchor, my beloved one. And the love I had for him was different from the way I’d loved Grey. Grey was springtime and Murphy was Indian summer—complex, deceptively warm, a season within a season, the last of the warmth before autumn’s breath frosted over the land.

  I was the last one to scatter the ashes. Somehow there were just enough for a gritty, grayish-white handful. Bits of bone and dust, all that remained of the old man I’d loved and trusted.

  I stood there with the urn in my hands and I knew what I had to do even though a part of me didn’t want to do it. I wished I could be like Murphy and resort to one of the traditional phrases, but this was too good an opportunity not to plant a seed which might bear fruit in our search for Grandfather Tobias’s accomplice within the pack.

  I looked around the circle and saw all of Riverglow except I didn’t see Grey and Elena, who should have been there, and would have, if not for him. It became easier then to do what I needed. Because I wanted to. Badly.

  “You had a hundred and thirty years, old man,” I said. “Grey and Elena had thirty. You asked me to forgive you but here’s my answer. Never. Not ever. So walk, pull your guilty chains behind you and never, ever rest. That’s my answer to you.”

  Callie went three shades paler and started to cry. Jonathan couldn’t look at me. Peter’s face filled with pity. For me. The Councilors remained impassive. Colin Hunter and Devon Talbot looked uncomfortable. Vaughn stared at his boots.

  Murphy was the only one who met my gaze, and even as I knew he understood, I also saw the suspicion dawn in his face. He quickly hid it.

  I let the ashes trickle through my gloved fingers then I walked over to Jonathan and gave him the urn.

  He still wouldn’t look at me although I stared at him hard enough and when he wouldn’t, I turned around and walked back to Murphy.

  * * * *

  We ate lunch in a private room in a small restaurant near the river. It had once been a farmhouse which had been converted. The room had a fieldstone fireplace piled with sweet-smelling birch logs that crackled and snapped behind a fine mesh screen.

  The table was a long refectory style with mismatched farmhouse chairs set around it.

  The Councilors sat one at each end of the long table and the rest of us ranged around it. Murphy and I sat together facing the fireplace. By tacit agreement, everyone kept him and Colin Hunter as far away from each other as the table would allow. Neither of them took much notice of the other, though.

  When the waiter took our drink orders, just about everyone fell out of their chairs when Nora ordered sparkling water. Across the table, Jonathan shot me another grateful look and ordered the same thing himself.

  “So you talked to Grandfather Tobias, Stanzie?” Callie tried to sound casual but fell rather short. She wore a cowl-necked black knit dress that bagged on her even with a tightly cinched belt. She’d French-braided her hair and the style suited her, made her look young and innocent, but she was too pale and all the makeup in the world couldn’t fix it.

  Around the table people became inordinately interested in their appetizers.

  “I did,” I said with a shrug. I took a sip of red wine and savored the taste. There was a hint of blackberries with the grape and I couldn’t decide if I liked it.

  “So he told you it was an accident. He made a mistake. He asked for your forgiveness, obviously. Why can’t you forgive an old man? You never used to be so hard.”

  “I never used to be, but two years of exile with nothing to talk to but a fucking house plant can change a person. So can losing your bond mates. What if it had been Vaughn and Peter in the car that night? Would you be rushing to forgive that old man and his mistake?”

  “He was senile, Stanz,” muttered Jonathan. He didn’t want to argue with me but he couldn’t keep silent. He put his spoon down, clam chowder not even half gone, but he was done.

  “Like hell, Jonathan. For some reason you want to spread that lie around, but I talked to him and he was as sane and as lucid as anybody at this table, so don’t give me that senile crap, please.”

  He winced and shook his head. “You know he suffered too. He was never the same man after you left the pack.”

  “My heart fucking bleeds.” I snarled. Murphy quietly fumed beside me but he hadn’t said a word yet. He wanted to, I knew him well enough to know that.

  The Councilors continued to spoon clam chowder as if they weren’t aware of the seething animosity spreading around the table like a virus.

  “What do we have to do to make it up to you?” Callie asked.

  I laughed. “You can’t,” I explained as if to a four year old. “Unless you can figure out a way to bring Grey and Elena back to life you can never make it up to me. Fuck this pack, I’m glad I’m out of it, but only because you didn’t stick by me. I’m supposed to forgive that old man for a mistake but you couldn’t forgive me for a mistake.”

  “Not the same thing. We thought you were drunk.” Callie’s face was tight and pinched.

  “I wasn’t. And let me tell you, Callie, he said something else to me when he asked for my forgiveness. He said someone else in this goddamn pack knew the truth all along too. The whole time. And that person said nothing, just sat back and let me take the fall.”

  “No!” Bright color surged into Callie’s cheeks. “Stanzie, we wouldn’t have done that!”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t have, but somebody did.”

  “Who?” It sounded like a chorus of owls as the question flew at me from all directions.

  Vaughn had tried to ignore the whole conversation, doggedly consuming his soup, but now even he threw down his spoon.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed, my body sagging a little. I straightened up tall in my chair and looked around the table at each of them in turn. “But I’m going to find out, and I’m going to find out why whoever it was didn’t say anything at the time. The old man had a secret and I want to find out what it was. At least one of you around this table knows it. I want to know it too.”

  “What the hell will that change? That won’t bring back Grey and Elena either, goddamn it.” Peter tossed his napkin down on the table and shoved back his chair. “You were right, Jonathan, we shouldn’t have let her come today.” He gave me a long look before stomping out the door.

  Callie jumped up and followed him.

  “Well, so much for lunch.” Vaughn cast me a disgusted glare before he followed Peter and Callie out.

  “I want to go too but I don’t have my fucking car here. This sucks,” declared Jonathan.

  “Come on, mate.” Colin Hunter pushed back his chair.

  Jonathan surged to his feet and stomped around the table. He stopped by me and stuck his finger in my face as he all but shouted. “You’re insane, Stanz. You couldn’t let it lie there, could you? What in the hell is the matter with you?”

  “My bond mates are dead, you stupid bastard, that’s what’s the matter with me,” I snarled at him.

  “Funny. I thought your bond mate was sitting right next to you. Guess he doesn’t count then? Jesus.”

  “Stop shaking your finger in her face or you’ll only ever be able to count to four on that hand,” Murphy warned in a deceptively calm tone.

  “Yo
u don’t think it’s me or Jonathan, do you? That knew the truth?” Nora moved around the table to stand beside Jonathan. “That’s why you were so good to us in the car. You don’t think it’s us.”

  “I don’t know who it is. It could be either of you,” I argued.

  “It’s not me,” said Nora.

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But maybe so.”

  “Well, I sure as hell didn’t know shit,” declared Jonathan. He stopped shaking his finger in my face and kept a wary eye on Murphy.

  I said, “You’d be the last one to admit it if you did. You hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you,” Jonathan snapped. “God, so melodramatic, Stanz. I don’t like you very much, true, but I don’t hate you. You’re not that important to me that I’d hate you.”

  Murphy snorted derisive laughter that made Jonathan flush. Then, to cover up his humiliation, he stomped out, closely followed by Nora.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Colin Hunter said to me. He glanced at Allerton then back at me before turning to leave. His bond mate hurried after him, nearly knocking over the waiter, who walked in then, bearing a heavy tray full of our entrees.

  “There’s been a slight change of plans,” Allerton told the bewildered waiter, while out in the dirt parking lot the sound of revving engines was plain as day.

  Chapter 19

  Murphy was perilously silent in the car on the drive back to the safe house. We raced the sun as it sank into an orange ball of cold fire on the horizon, sending out tendrils of gold and dark magenta to stain the sky.

  He’d given me one betrayed look then came the wall of silence.

  When he pulled the Prelude into the driveway and parked it behind Kathy Manning’s little Jaguar, I was out the door like a shot, but Murphy was faster.

  “The three of you planned this shit, didn’t you?” He blocked my path so I couldn’t escape inside. “When I was out warming up the damn car this morning, the three of you plotted what you’d say, didn’t you?”

  “I want to go inside, Murphy.” I gulped.

  “Goddamn it, Stanzie.” We stared at each other in the deepening dusk. I thought he might say something else, but instead he turned and stalked into the safe house. I hurried after him, but wasn’t in time to stop him from confronting Allerton in the small conference room.

  Jason Allerton finished lighting the fire in the grate and rose lithely from his kneeling position.

  The glint of a silver chain gleamed around his throat. His bond pendant was tucked beneath his shirt.

  Before Murphy could say anything, I said, “We went behind Murphy’s back today, Councilor. I don’t feel right about that.”

  Allerton sighed. “We discussed something in private because we knew he would be an obstacle and we didn’t have time for obstacles, did we?”

  Murphy’s jaw began to jut as he bit down on his anger. “You left me out of the plan deliberately. All I ask is that I’m included. Unless you want me out of this particular job. Shall I go back to Boston and wait? To Dublin?”

  “Would you actually go?” Allerton radiated disbelief and the faintest bit of exasperated affection.

  “Hell, no,” said Murphy and Allerton’s lips twitched slightly.

  “We didn’t plan everything out in minute detail, Liam. I gave Constance some guidance and she’s the one who took it from there. I was rather hoping she would have shared her thoughts with you on the drive to the funeral home but apparently not.”

  I bit my lip, remembering the awkward silence in the car.

  “Stanzie and I have been having a rough time communicating lately,” Murphy said, eyes guilty. “Mostly my fault. Probably all my fault. I’m pretty sure I never gave her the chance today.”

  Allerton crossed to the built-in bookcases. One shelf had been turned into a repository for bottles of liquor and glasses. He took a decanter of brandy down and poured some into three balloon glasses.

  As he handed two of them to me and Murphy he remarked, “I noticed Nora didn’t order anything alcoholic at lunch. Your doing, Stanzie?”

  I flushed and raised the brandy glass to my mouth.

  “Yes, it was,” Murphy answered for me. “Those two feckin’ idiots were like modeling clay in her hands.”

  “No,” I protested under the admiring scrutiny of the both of them. “I just know them, that’s all. I knew what to say because I know them.”

  “Callie, Vaughn and Peter know them too.” Allerton took a sip of the brandy and swirled the rest of the liquid in his glass.

  I sighed.

  “You were the heart of Riverglow,” Allerton said after a moment. “They are a dysfunctional shell of a pack right now.”

  “Callie’s fixated on having a baby, that’s why she hasn’t talked to Nora and Jonathan before this,” I objected. I hadn’t been the heart of Riverglow. That was poetic nonsense. And Allerton was not a poetic man so it was doubly flustering to hear something like that from him. “And Vaughn and Peter are fixated on her. She’s their bond mate, that’s where they should be focused.”

  “They’re Alphas,” said Murphy before Allerton could. “Alphas look after the pack, Stanzie.”

  “You will make a wonderful Alpha someday.” Allerton lifted his glass in my direction, as if toasting me, and took a mouthful.

  “Murphy’s already been Alpha of Mac Tire,” I argued.

  “You’re a new bond mate. You’re well within your fertile period. He was a very good Alpha and his time was cut short. I don’t think it would be difficult to become Alphas of Mac Tire. Padraic O’Reilly’s term is up in a little less than two years. I think it would be relatively easy for you two to take over after him. You could wait another five years, but you’d be on the cusp of infertility then. It might be pushing things, but it could work.”

  I didn’t want to be Alpha. I didn’t want that responsibility. I didn’t want a baby.

  “I want to be an Advisor. I can’t be an Advisor and an Alpha,” I protested.

  “Yes, you can. I can have up to four Advisors. You and Liam would be used sparingly during your time as Alphas.” Allerton had an answer for every argument. “Stanzie, if you ever want to be on a Council, Regional or Great, you’ll need to be an Alpha at some point. That’s how it works.” His voice was gentle.

  “Council?” I cried. “I’m not Council material. Murphy is, but not me.”

  Allerton and Murphy exchanged glances while I stood there feeling exposed and idiotic.

  “Well, you’re his bond mate and Murphy can’t be on a Council without being an Alpha either.”

  “He’s been one!” I said.

  “We can talk about this another time.” Allerton noted the hectic warmth spreading over my face.

  * * * *

  When I woke the next morning, Murphy was pressed against my back. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck and I knew he was awake. I waited for him touch me so I could melt into him and we could make love and I wouldn’t have to think about all the shit that was going on in our lives, but he didn’t.

  Instead he rolled out of the bed and got into the shower.

  Breakfast was a largely silent affair, at least between us. Murphy forked up eggs and sausage, stabbing at them as if they’d personally offended him, while I cut my sausage into little tiny bits and mixed them with eggs and ketchup. I think I ate about four mouthfuls before I gave up and concentrated on my coffee.

  Allerton read the newspaper at the table, spreading it on the table next to his plate. I sneaked a peek to see what part he was reading and was astounded to see him perusing the advice columns as well as the comics. He particularly enjoyed Dilbert, judging by his chuckles.

  Kathy Manning drank tea and nibbled on toast and peanut butter while flipping through a cookbook. She asked my opinion on several recipes, none of which I gave a shit about but my lackluster responses did not seem to faze her in the slightest.

  Murphy’s fork clattered down on his aggressively empty plate. He shoved back his ch
air and left the room, and Kathy looked up from her cookbook to give me a conspiratorial smile.

  “If I were you, I’d let him brood alone. Don’t chase after him,” she suggested.

  I considered her words for three whole seconds before I pushed back my chair and left the room.

  Murphy was at the window in the front room. He heard me in the hallway and turned his head expectantly but, all at once, I could not face him and kept walking until I found myself at the front door.

  Since I had no choice except to go outside unless I wanted to be an idiot and creep back, I put on my coat and unlocked the front door.

  Boots crunching on the snow, I made my way down the side path to the driveway where the cars were parked.

  Ice coated the windows and both cars were streaked with dried mud and crusted sand from the road. I bet this was killing Murphy, not being able to wash his damn car.

  More boots crunched across the snow and Murphy’s shadow fell across the hood of the Prelude as he stepped up beside me.

  His breath plumed white into the air and neither of us said anything. Stalemate in some half-assed game I was pretty goddamn sure I didn’t even want to play.

  “Can I have the car keys?” I asked after half a minute of escalating agony. At least it was agony for me; I wasn’t sure what it was for him except he didn’t like it. Not if his expression was any indication.

  Eyebrows elevated. “What for?”

  I sighed and tried not to roll my eyes but I don’t think I was successful. “Murphy, I want to take a drive.”

  He opened his mouth three times to say something then closed it again.

  At last, he reached into his coat pocket, extracted the keys and handed them to me.

  Fuck. He’d called my bluff, the bastard. Now I was committed.

  I figured it was only seconds until I’d begin to cry like a goddamn baby the way I always seemed to in times of nervous crisis. Damn it. I had no choice now. The Prelude’s lights flashed in response when I pressed the unlock button.

  “You’re really going to drive?” Murphy tried to sound encouraging but I could hear the doubt loud and clear.