Once Upon A Midnight

by Stephanie Rowe

  While he tried to appreciate the fact that, despite losing his apartment overlooking Central Park, his law firm, his damn lifestyle, Hadley still had a decent enough place to grow up in, a nice house with plenty of people to look out for her, it wasn’t always easy. He missed his work. He missed the look in opposing council’s eyes when he knew he’d won a big negotiation.

  Messing with Courtland last night had begun as a way to keep him from getting his hooks into Claire and had ended up reminiscent of better times.

  If he’d met Claire in New York, he’d have taken her out, bought her a dinner he couldn’t eat, watched as her luscious lips moved when she talked about the books she loved. Would have taken her home and made love to her until she’d screamed, then slept in and did it all over again.

  Back in the day, no one would have cared much had a vampire and a were hooked up. Likely, no one would have known they weren’t human. He’d give his right arm to have met Claire before all this—to have been given the pass their races had granted those who’d already mated before the government interfered.

  But nowadays, everyone was in a state of panic that the cohabitation of races would prevent future packs. It was punishable by death in some packs to mate outside their race. Their werewolf rule—a rule the vampire clans had agreed to enforce when they’d agreed to co-op.

  Irish was one of the primary enforcers of that rule. Luck had played a hand in his involvement in creating a livable environment in Rock Cove—luck and his father’s connections with some of the leading clan sires.

  He’d been thrust into this role, this agreement to find a balance between races, and he’d invited business acquaintances, other professionals who were weekend riding enthusiasts like him to join the Fangs. Most of the members, while once powerful individuals, were also levelheaded, cautious, and paid great attention to detail.

  They’d chosen the word “anarchy” as a joke—a way to mock the fact that they had been, in their former lives, quite the opposite. But now that he’d had a hand in the grassroots stages of this race agreement, he didn’t always agree with the bullshit rules that came with the role.

  Especially after the other night with Claire. Who he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since his fingers had touched her silky-hot skin and he’d buried his cock in her tight body.

  But the synthetic blood, Irish. You need to keep that supply coming until you can find out who makes it and how it can be replicated. Do you want to risk it all for a woman you can’t even be with by taunting Courtland?

  “Irish?”

  Liam’s voice tore him from his thoughts. He looked up to meet his brother’s eyes—eyes full of concern. “Yep?”

  “First, don’t do that shit again, brother.”

  Irish grabbed one of the folding chairs and straddled it. “Do what?”

  “Sacrifice yourself for a werewolf, dipshit.”

  Irish narrowed his eyes at Liam, who dropped into his own chair. “I didn’t sacrifice myself for a werewolf. I was just keeping the peace.”

  “By telling Courtland you killed his brother? Very peaceful.”

  He hoped to keep his explanation simple so Liam wouldn’t catch on. “They were going to skin her alive, Liam—before she even had the chance to say a word. You know what those dicks are like. They don’t have three brain cells between them, so you don’t really think they were going to actually ask her questions, do you? The more Twink egged Courtland on at Ahab’s, the more riled he got. He was drunk. So I did what I had to in order to keep someone who might be innocent from ending up dead. One thing we don’t need here in town is mass hysteria. You’d have done the same.”

  Liam pursed his lips, his clean-shaven jaw rigid. “Except she’s not innocent, and it’s none of our business. It’s pack business, not clan business. That’s what we agreed to when we all got stuck here with each other.”

  Liam’s resentment over leaving his thriving practice and his life in Manhattan never faded. If anything, it burned brighter. He’d agreed to help with Hadley rather than join his parents in the Opposition so they’d always have backup for her, but he didn’t always like that he wasn’t raging against the machine on the front lines.

  Irish nodded his head. “Yep, we did. But we damn well didn’t agree to total lawlessness—we agreed to work together. I’m a part of that ‘together’ thing and so are you. I wasn’t going to let them try and convict her with alcohol as their star witness, Liam. I’d like to think one of their less-moronic sidekicks would do the same if the clan had an issue like this.”

  “But we won’t because we’re not a bunch of drunk, out-of-control, brainless fucks like the werewolves.”

  “They’re not all brainless.” Fuck if he didn’t hate hearing Claire grouped in with the lot of Dogs.

  Liam slammed his fist on the back of the chair, cracking it in half. “I knew it. I damn well knew it, Irish!”

  Irish kept his face expressionless, his words calm. “Knew what?”

  “Don’t play like you don’t know what I mean. She did it and you slept with her.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re babbling about over there, brother.”

  “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 10

  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 repeating 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 he
r 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.”