Once Upon A Midnight

by Stephanie Rowe

  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 moments 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 ge
stures. “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?”

  Had he? Damn that asshole. “Gannon says a lot of things. Maybe he did come here while I wasn’t home. I was out tonight. So if he came by, he was shit out of luck.”

  Courtland’s glare said he was suspicious. “Where’d you go?”

  “Strip-club crawl?”

  Laughter rippled through the Fangs, the joke entirely escaping the Dogs.

  “You’re a damn smart-mouth, Claire Montgomery. If I find out he was here, Miss Uppity—”

  “You’ll what?” she yelped, her voice cracking. “Find out he was here? So what? Jesus, Courtland. Don’t be such a blithering idiot. Go back to that hole of a club of yours and leave me alone. I don’t owe you any explanations. I don’t know where Gannon is, but if I know your sibling, I bet he’ll show up, just like the bad penny he is. Probably tomorrow afternoon, smelling of illegal moonshine and the stench of some cheap woman. Now get out of my house and don’t come back!”

  “You heard the lady,” Irish said, widening his stance.

  Courtland jammed his face in Irish’s. “You have no damn right interfering in pack business!”

  Irish smiled, sinister and cold. He waved a gloved finger under Courtland’s nose. “Uh-uh-uh, Second Fiddle Alpha,” he taunted. “First of all, you have no right to lay hands on a woman, and if you do it again while I’m in the vicinity, I’ll bleed your dog-ass dry. Second, I have every damn right. I run this town right alongside Gannon. If you’re going to question one of its occupants, I can do whatever I want in an effort to keep peace between us. Those are the rules as made by both parties. After your outburst tonight, it’s a good thing I came along. Now, get the hell out.”

  Courtland gave a grunt of disgust, pushing his way past the Fangs and motioning his crew to join him before sending out a parting shot. “You’d better not have anything to do with this, Claire. Or I’ll see to your skinnin’ myself.”

  She fought the shudder until the very last biker was gone, and that’s when it hit her. Full-on assault, square in the gut.

  She was a party to murder.

  Chapter 4

  As everyone plowed out of her house, Claire waited until they were all gone then leaned against her countertop for support, her heart crashing in her chest and pounding in her head. She bent forward at the waist, resting her chin on her arms on the cool granite.

  Suddenly Irish reappeared in her doorway, silently entering and coming to stand behind her. “You okay?” he asked, his voice slipping into her ears, warm, easy.

  She clenched the edge of the granite countertop, her knuckles white. “Right as rain,” she murmured.

  He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it, pulling her to his broad chest until she relaxed and leaned against him. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “What are you doing back here? If the Dogs find you here, they might suspect something. Go home, Irish.”

  “I sent the Fangs home, and Courtland’s off to rouse someone else from a sound sleep. Forget them and talk to me, Claire.”

  Her throat closed up, tightened until she almost couldn’t breathe, and tears flooded her eyes, dripping to the front of her shirt in fat, salty splotches. She shook her head. Not now. She couldn’t talk now while she was so damn vulnerable, so ugly raw.

  Irish’s grip grew tighter when he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Claire. Stop. Listen to me. I don’t know why you did what you did, but I know it wasn’t without reason. I know you. I know you’d never kill without provocation. You don’t even like the hunt, as I recall. So tell me what happened. Tell me how it got so out of control you ended up killing him.”

  It was then she began to shake so hard, so violently, her teeth chattered, all while her mind raced.

  Never. Not in a million years would she ever describe the events of tonight to anyone. They were unspeakable. Unforgivable. She shook her head vehemently as fear crawled back up her spine, gulping back a sob of horror. “No. I can’t. Go home, Irish…please, please go home before they find you here.”

  “I don’t give a damn if they find me, Claire. Not tonight,” he growled near her ear, the soft vibration against her flesh making her shiver harder. “I’m not leaving you alone on the off chance they have the balls to come back and question you without me here.”

  His words, so possessive, so intense, made her pause in the mire of guilt she was wading through. This wasn’t what they did. They disagreed—often. They avoided each other because that’s what vampires and werewolves did. They butted heads whenever they were in the same room with their varied opinions.

  But they didn’t do this. She didn’t know how to handle compassionate Irish. It would break her if he were kind when she least deserved it. Break her right in half if she found out he felt the same way she did.

  Not tonight. Tonight she deserved to be punished. No matter what Gannon had done, she could have handled it a million different ways. But her seething anger, her resentment for his invasion of her life, her disgust for him had devoured her, and now all that cavalier she’d thrown around like rose petals at Boomer’s was crashing down on her.

  Irish ran his hands over her arms, up and down in a mesmerizing pattern, rocking her. “You’re freezing. C’mon, let’s get you into a warm shower.” Scooping her up, he carried her to her bathroom, flipping the light on and setting her on the toilet seat.

  Tears streamed down her face, the salt stinging her chapped cheeks. Irish tilted her chin up, brushing them away with a hand so tender, her heart contracted in her chest, and she had no will left to push him away.

  He leaned over and turned the taps on before returning his gaze to hers. “Lift up,” he ordered, his voice gruff and muffled by the pelt of water from the showerhead when he nudged her arms. “Don’t be shy, Claire. You’re in shock. Despite what you think of me, I’m not the kind of guy who’d take advantage of your fragile state. You need to get warm. Now lift up.”

  She lifted her arms, scrunching her eyes shut to avoid his scrutiny, rising when he pulled her against him to unbutton her jeans. He slid them off without touching any part of her body forbidden to him.

  Claire let him lead her into the large shower stall like a child—numb and frightened. As the water hit her, her body groaned, cried out from the strain of h
er fight with Gannon.

  Standing in the open shower door, Irish poured some of her shower gel into his hand and rubbed it between his palms. The scent of lavender and vanilla filled her nose, erasing the odor of Gannon’s blood.

  He held her arm out straight, rubbing the gel along its length, massaging the muscles until she began to forget why she ached and instead, enjoyed the much-needed cleansing.

  Her nipples tightened when Irish lathered her shoulders and spine, smoothing his hands over her skin. In increments, as he tilted her head back to shampoo her hair, she became aware of him, aware of the power he exuded from every pore, aware of every second she’d spent wanting him.

  She realized logically, just before she wrapped her arms around him, she was reacting to a violent situation precariously, uncharacteristically. She’d read somewhere when something life altering occurred, after a huge adrenaline rush left you crashing back to reality’s floor, some withdrew and some behaved irrationally. The wild arc of your emotions could swing like a pendulum.

  She completely understood she was reaching out for affirmation. She knew it was because she needed to bury her fear, cover it up with an entirely different act—one that was the exact opposite of what had occurred tonight.

  But she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t keep herself from seeking safe harbor when she reached for Irish, curling herself into him, relishing his muscles, defined and tight against her softer frame.

  She ignored his protest and instead pressed her mouth to his, slipping her tongue into the cool recesses, savoring the slick taste of his tongue as he took command and stroked hers. This was the kiss she’d waited five years for, and Claire responded to it with a soft moan of total satisfaction.

  Finally. Finally, Irish McConnell’s lips were on hers willingly. It made her forget, consumed her senses, replacing her raw nerves with a searing rush of need.

  Her fingers curled into his hair, pulling off the rubber band that held his ponytail, drawing her hands through it, clutching the thick strands as their mouths melted together. Irish’s lips were hard, soft, rough, gentle, an amalgamation of exquisite perfection she’d been denied too long.