They’d prospered together during a time when survival was dependent upon your neighbor. They’d moved into abandoned houses, made them their own, put their government supplements to good use, created families, went to school, hosted town events, lent each other helping hands.
But when Hardy got himself killed trying to cross the border into Canada and Gannon was handed the alpha role of his pack—shit went haywire, and it had been an effort ever since to contain the asshole and his cronies.
So whatever he’d done to Claire had to have been pretty shitty. She didn’t have it in her to hurt a fly—Irish knew that instinctively without question. She was spicy, no doubt. Her tongue was sharp, her mind sharper, but she was no killer.
Irish stared down at Gannon, the moonlight shining on his round face, his rubbery lips slack in death. Slapping the dead man on the back, he asked, “So, Gannon, what the shit did you do to make sweet, well-mannered librarian Claire Montgomery kill your dumb-fuck ass?”
Chapter 3
Claire let herself into her small house on Rose Meadow Lane at exactly three-fifteen, exhausted but satisfied she’d rid Boomer’s of the scent of death—and the grisly aftermath of Gannon Dodd’s murder. She’d stopped at the stream adjacent to her house to rinse away the blood on her body, each splash of water a reminder of what she’d done.
Stripping off her dress, she decided burning it was the only way to ensure Gannon’s odor didn’t linger. Claire balled it up, grabbing a match from the hearth and striking it, throwing it into the fireplace where fresh kindling awaited.
As the flames grew, she forced herself to block out the horror of tonight and focus on the fact that she was free of Gannon.
Free.
Whatever that meant in this day and age of paranormal segregation.
It means you don’t have to mate with the vilest piece of trash to ever roam the earth.
Lobbing her dress into the fire, she watched it turn to ash before heading to the shower to more thoroughly wash Gannon’s filth from her skin. Her stomach rolled. Even as a were who was raised on the blood of the hunt, she’d never seen so much carnage.
She kept waiting for regret to sink in, for remorse to penetrate this haze of adrenaline she was experiencing, but so far all she felt was enormous relief that Gannon would never hurt anyone else again. He also wouldn’t darken her doorstep or humiliate her in front of her book club by stomping his big, ugly feet through her beloved library to remind her she was his mate.
As she made her way to the bathroom, her calico cat, Mr. Darcy, slipped between her ankles, weaving in and out. She scooped him up, hugging him hard, still weak from the night’s events. All she wanted to do, all she’d ever wanted to do, was live quietly in this new way of life her kind had been forced into, and manage the town’s library surrounded by her favorite books.
But when the mate call had come, and Gannon had picked her at the ceremony, everything in her peaceful life had changed.
Tonight, it had crashed down around her, and nothing would ever be the same if anyone found out the truth.
She shivered, dropping Mr. Darcy on the top tier of his kitty condo, pushing that awful mate night from her mind. The night that gave Gannon the right to declare her his in front of their pack members. The very sight of Gannon made her ill. What would it have been like if she’d been forced to be his wife?
What if she’d had to endure his beefy paws and breath that smelled like a thousand rotting souls forever?
What if she told everyone exactly who Gannon Dodd really was? What he was capable of?
Claire pushed the bathroom door open, grabbing fresh towels from the cabinet and flipped the tap for the hot water. She leaned against the wall, pressing her burning cheek to the tile, swallowing back the bile continually rising in her throat. She needed to keep it together. Hatch a story and stick to it at all costs. Never deviate.
And Irish—she needed to be sure he stayed out of this from here on out. Rock Cove couldn’t afford to lose one of the only fair enforcers it possessed. Despite his club’s moniker, he’d kept Gannon and the Dogs in line.
The mere thought of him—and the lengths he’d gone to in order to protect her—made her heart tighten and her gut clench with fear. If Gannon had known how much she wanted Irish, he’d have killed her just for her thoughts alone.
Now she’d put Irish and his people in jeopardy.
Gripping the towels, she forced herself to stay in the here and now, breathing in the steam the shower created, letting her newly remodeled bathroom relax her frazzled nerves.
Whoever had owned this house before being offered something bigger and better by the government in return for leaving their home had taken great pride in the small things. Carved-out nooks in the walls, decorative sills on every window, crown molding, and ivory beadboard on the sides of her kitchen cabinets. When she’d found it and claimed it as her own, she’d kept the tradition of love and care alive, planting roses and verbena along the whitewashed fence out front, hanging pots overflowing with fuchsia and geraniums in the summer on her tiny front porch, planted impatiens in the window boxes, cramming them with color.
This house was more than she could have afforded on her salary as a librarian back in California. While she was resentful as hell that she’d been forced from her life without so much as a week’s warning, she was grateful she’d landed here when there had been absolutely no choice but to leave or spend the rest of her life in prison.
She lived where she still heard the ocean, where the waves still crashed against the rocks, and the wind blew soft and rose-scented in the summer. Where there was plenty of land to shift and run.
Her cell phone rang, stilling her step into the deep-blue-and-green tiled shower. Who was calling her at three in the morning? The strains of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet pulsed in her ears.
Answer? Don’t answer?
Claire dropped the towels, turned the tap off, and ran for her phone, scanning the living room until she spotted it in the bowl on the table in her entryway. Her eyes flew open wide when she picked it up—Freya?
Freya was almost always in bed by eleven, tucked in after a long night of marathon Law and Order reruns.
Panic seized her. Stay calm, Claire. Breathe. She pressed answer and muttered, “Freya?” Thankful her voice was hoarse from all the screaming she’d done tonight; it lent being fake-awakened from a sound sleep some credibility.
“Did I wake you? Of course I woke you. It’s after three in the morning. How silly of me.” Freya’s sleepy yet still-sultry voice soothed her.
“It’s okay,” she offered, pinching her temple. “What’s wrong, Freya?” Something was definitely wrong. She heard it in her friend’s voice.
Freya paused for a moment, the crackle of the line hissing in Claire’s ear. “Are you sitting down?”
“I’m lying down. I’m in bed,” she lied, so effortlessly she might have patted herself on the back if not for the gnawing guilt.
Freya sighed into the phone. “Your intended is missing.”
Claire paused for a moment, praying some of her fifth-grade acting skills would save her. She’d been a mean Pilgrim Number One back in the day. She could certainly be one now when her life depended on it. “What?”
“Gannon’s missing, Claire, and no one can find him. They found his bike off of Rooster Rise, but no Gannon.”
Shit, shit, shit. His bike. His stupid, loud, ozone-eating, ugly bike. Rooster Rise was damn close to Boomer’s. Too close. How could she have forgotten to find his bike and get rid of it? “How do you know?” She winced when her voice rose. Squeaky. That sounded a little squeaky.
“The Dodds and their gang of merry men just came banging on my door. They’re doing a house-to-house search for him. Said they tried yours about an hour ago but you weren’t home. So naturally, they came here.”
Her hand began to shake. She tamped down the fear by biting the inside of her cheek. “But I saw him earlier this evening. He was at Captain Ahab’s,
drinking, just like he does every night of his wretched life.” The foul, drunken sod drank like his existence depended on it. “Why would they go looking for him? He’s known for disappearing for days at a time. What’s the sudden panic about?”
She heard a rustle of fabric before Freya said, “Apparently, there was some big meeting he wouldn’t have missed for all the small woodland creatures in the world, and he missed it. Never showed up. That has the pack and his brother Courtland in a tailspin.”
Even in death, Gannon Dodd was still up her ass. “Well, they haven’t come back here.” Yet.
“But they will. You’re the first person they asked me about. They asked if I knew where you were earlier tonight, and if Gannon was with you. I think they hoped maybe you and Gannon were just, you know, getting to know each other and didn’t want to be disturbed. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling them you’d rather be dead than let him inside your house, but really, they already knew that. It wasn’t as if you kept it a secret. Which, I’ll remind you, I told you was something better kept to yourself,” she scolded in her motherly tone.
That was true. Freya had worried often about how outspoken Calire was regarding the archaic mating ceremony, and more than once she’d pinched her arm to quiet her when she’d railed against the fact Gannon had picked her as a mate.
Claire’s knees wobbled as she made her way to her bedroom to find clothes. It was all she could do not to blurt out everything to Freya. The entire horrible night. They’d been best friends forever, shared everything. But if not a soul knew, not a soul could tell her secret. “Then I guess I’ll just wait for them to show up. I’d better get some clothes on.”
“Wait, Claire. Before you go…are you okay, honey?”
She pictured Freya’s pretty face, rosy-cheeked and ivory-skinned, her vanilla-blonde hair falling to her chin in silken waves as she gave Claire that worried look.
“What do you mean, am I okay?”
“I mean, I know mating with Gannon was a fate worse than death to you, and who could blame you? He was repulsive. But you have a good soul, my friend, and I wouldn’t put it past you to get upset because someone’s missing—even if that someone is Gannon Dodd.”
Oh, sorely misguided Freya. If you only knew. Her soul was blacker than the darkest night. There was nothing good about it anymore. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure they’re just panicking because they’re total idiots who couldn’t reason their way out of a paper bag. Gannon will probably show up at that dirty clubhouse tomorrow morning and they’ll find out he was off whoring and boozing. He’s probably passed out drunk on some hooker’s bed in the Zone.”
“Does he really go to the Zone?”
Freya’s disbelief that anyone was capable of going to a place like the Zone—where those who’d balked at the human government’s laws had opened up shop, and depravity ran rampant—might have made her laugh. Except, they were talking about Gannon.
“Where else could you find a woman willing to do him without the benefit of money as a dealmaker?”
Freya chuckled, soft and tinkling. “Score one for you. You’re right. But even so, do you want me to come over so I can be there when they question you?”
Claire couldn’t help but smile at the phone. Freya was ever the lawyer. Even though they’d taken her lucrative practice away and there was little to no lawyering to be had here in Rock Cove, you couldn’t beat the attorney out of her if you used a Louisville Slugger.
“I’ll be fine. Since when have you known me to back down from the Dodds? Never, that’s when. Go back to sleep, Sunshine. I got this.”
“Okay, but you call me if they give you a hard time. Promise?”
“Promise. Go back to bed. See you tomorrow.” Claire clicked the phone off and dug in her drawers to find some clothes. She threw on jeans and a T-shirt and then sprayed herself from head to toe with perfume, hoping to disguise the lingering scent of murder.
Simply washing away Gannon’s existence might be harder than she’d originally thought.
* * * *
Her doorbell rang precisely twenty seconds after the roar of motorcycle engines abruptly stopped. She took a long breath before propping her door open to find Gannon’s brother Courtland and the rest of his dimwit crew gathered on her small front porch. Their club jackets hung from their broad shoulders, their unshaven faces all looking to her.
As the icy wind of a Maine winter’s night rolled in, she affected an indifferent stance. “Don’t you boys need some sleep? Brain cells don’t reproduce by just squeezing really hard, you know. You need to constantly rejuvenate them.” Someone snickered from her lawn, but she couldn’t see past the crowd of bikers to identify who it was.
Courtland pushed the door open, wedging his way inside and planting his big body against it. His greasy, dirty blond hair trailed down his back in windblown mats as his beady reddened eyes assessed her.
Claire rose on tiptoe, her anger spiking as she waved a finger under his bulbous nose. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? You’re not supposed to enter someone’s house until you’re invited. Oh, wait. Your mother’s not with us anymore, right? Didn’t you buffoons eat her for dinner by mistake?”
Courtland, so like Gannon in appearance if you tacked on an extra forty pounds, made a face. “Shut up and get inside.” He pointed a finger in the direction of her living room, where the fire still burned bright.
Refusing to move, Claire glared up at him, towering over her. There was no use in cowering. That would be completely out of character for her when it came to Gannon’s brother and his crew. She’d never made any bones about how she felt about them before; she couldn’t afford to start now.
“Get out, Courtland. Get out now. You might think you have the authority to barge into my home, but you’re wrong. You’re just a lowly deputy to the council, and if I have to go to the council with a complaint, I will.”
Courtland ignored her, pushing past to take a sniff of the living room, his snow-covered boots leaving slushy footprints on her hardwood floors.
“Didn’t I use small enough words, Courtland? Get. Out,” she spat.
He was in front of her in an instant, his nostrils flaring, his eyes wild and glassy. “Don’t you tell me what the hell I can do!” he thundered from thick lips.
No fear—show no fear. Courtland was an ominous presence, and much like Gannon, you never knew when he’d fly off the handle. But this was her home, and he had no right to invade it.
She narrowed her eyes, her distaste for him and his ilk all over her face. “Or you’ll what? Beat me up like you beat up your old lady? You’re forgetting—I’m were, too. And I’m not some weak druggie were, strung out on that crap you get from the Zone, like your poor wife is. So let’s do this, big bad wolf.” She planted her finger directly into his chest for emphasis, ready to shift at a moment’s notice.
Courtland grabbed her hand, taking clear pleasure in twisting it—
Before he was shot through the air like a bloated cannonball, sliding across the top of her kitchen counter and crashing onto the floor.
Irish flew across the room behind him in a blur of black leather, hauling Courtland up by his jacket and pinning him to the wall with such force, the sheetrock cracked. “Touch her again and I’ll kill you myself,” he seethed, low and red-hot with anger.
Courtland tried to twist out of Irish’s grip, to no avail. Spit formed at the corners of his meaty mouth when he said, “Gannon’s gonna kill you for that!”
Irish let him drop, flicking him in the face with two fingers, making Courtland growl. “Aw, whassamatter, big guy? You need Gannon to fight your battles? You think he’d like it if he knew you were manhandling his intended mate? You said you had some questions for her. You didn’t say you were going to behave like a damn out-of-control moron. Good thing me and my boys decided to ride along, huh?”
When the rest of Courtland’s crew finally caught up to Irish, they surrounded him, with the Fangs right behind them, their pale
faces crowding her kitchen.
Rosy, one of the oldest members of the Dogs, hovered behind Irish’s shoulder, bouncing nervously from foot to foot. Rosy was strung tight, wired and frenetic, with darting eyes and quick, often frenzied gestures. “He’s right, Court. Gannon’d be pissed. Relax, man.”
Courtland shoved his way past Irish, his eyes finding Claire’s. “Where’s my brother?”
Where he belongs. Claire squared her shoulders and affected indifference, which was perfectly normal for her where the Dogs were concerned. “Why would I even care enough to keep track of him? I think we both know how I feel about your sibling.”
Courtland’s moon-shaped face went blank. “My what? What did you just call him?”
She let a raspy sigh escape her lips. “Sibling means ‘brother’. I don’t know where your brother is, and I don’t care.”
“Nobody can find him, Claire, and his bike was just dumped off at Rooster Rise. He loves his bike.”
She jammed her hands in the pockets of her jeans to keep from jamming them down his throat and shrugged her shoulders. “That’s probably because nobody wants to find him but you, Courtland. Why all the fuss about Gannon taking off, anyway? Doesn’t he do this all the time? He goes off for days and you’re not waking the dead to find him any other time. No insult intended,” she said to Irish and the Fangs. “He has a history of disappearing into the Zone, doesn’t he? Did you check there?”
“He was supposed to be at a meeting. One he wouldn’t miss, and even if he was in the Zone, why would he ditch his bike?”
“Because Gannon’s not exactly a brain surgeon? Maybe someone stole it. The Zone isn’t Candyland. How should I know? I think I’ve made it clear how I feel about the mate with him. You’ve always known. So why would you think I’d keep tabs on his whereabouts?”
Courtland’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits in his chubby, unshaven face. “He said he was coming here to your place before our meeting. Where were you tonight?”
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