Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within) (19 page)

When I reached over to put the bottle on the nightstand, I saw a scrap of paper, a piece of something that been torn to shreds.

I picked it up, curious, and saw the auburn blaze of Sorcha’s hair on the other side of the scrap. He’d ripped her photograph to pieces. My heart hurt when I thought about him doing it.

Where were the other pieces? Had he thrown them away? I could never bear to throw a photo of Grey or Elena away, even if I were drunk.

“Grandfather Tobias said he could see their ghosts.” I stared at the tiny piece of Sorcha’s photograph as it lay like an accusation in my palm. “Grey’s and Elena’s,” I clarified even though I was relatively sure he was following me. “The day I went to his house after they died, wanting him to tell me it was just an accident, he said he saw them with me. They had their arms around me, supporting me. I didn’t feel a thing. He said some people can see ghosts. He says it’s in his blood. You ever heard anything like that before?”

“Yeah,” he answered after a moment when I doubted he would say anything. “There’s a few people in Mac Tire who swear they can see the spirits of the dead. Until they move on. I don’t see a damned thing, me. And I doubt like hell Sorcha ever put her arms around me from beyond the grave.” His voice dipped derisively and his chest heaved as if he fought to keep from crying.

“You said you saw her in the hotel room in Houston,” I reminded him.

He grimaced at me. “Bullshit hallucinations. I was pumped through with narcotics. I saw a lot of shit that wasn’t really there.” He gave me an accusatory look as if I were one of those things.

“He says they’re not there anymore. Grey and Elena have moved on,” I said. I very carefully put the piece of the photograph on the nightstand and took another sip of the cognac. It was warm and pulsated through my veins like an electric current.

“Is this some sort of subtle hint that I ought to do the same bloody thing?” He sneered at me. He half sat up and I realized he was a little drunk. Maybe a lot drunk. “I ripped up her picture. What do you want from me next? A rewrite of history deleting her out? Believe me, I wish I fucking could.”

“I never asked you to rip up her picture,” I pointed out, but there was no reasoning with Murphy half drunk on wine and cognac.

“I’ll betcha you wouldn’t rip up one of your precious pictures of Grey and Elena!” He stabbed a belligerent finger in my direction. I pretended I needed something from the dresser, so I could put some distance between us.

“And now you think I’m gonna hit you, don’tcha?” His Irish accent was very thick and I had to concentrate to understand him. “Why don’tcha just fuck off, Constance. Go sleep across the hall the way you did last night. What in the hell are you here for anyway? Rubbing it in that I was wrong about Allerton maybe? Well, fuck, I admit it. I was wrong. The man never had designs on your body. Only the fuck he didn’t! He may not have intended to act upon it, but he sure as hell has thought about what it’d be like to screw you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Go on,” he yelled at me. “Get the fuck out. Can’t you tell I want to be alone? Always crowding me when I want to be alone!”

“You’re such an asshole.” I snatched up my pajamas.

He twisted his body so he was face down on the bed and covered his head with his arms, blocking me out.

After I retreated across the hall, I climbed into the bed alone and resigned myself to another sleepless night.

Chapter 12

Murphy was pulling a navy blue sweater over his head when I walked into the bedroom the next morning at just past eight. Beneath it was a t-shirt and it had ridden up a little to reveal a slice of his flat stomach and, despite myself, I felt a little lick of lust ignite in my belly. He had a pair of dark jeans that hugged him like a second skin and a black belt—one I’d given him. It looked damn good around his waist.

His face appeared, cheeks stubbled with a night’s growth of beard he apparently wasn’t going to bother to shave, his hair tousled. His lip was not swollen at all and the bruise on his face had faded, leaving just a trace of the abrasion caused by Colin Hunter’s fist.

He saw me looking at him and gave me a rueful grin. “Jesus Christ, I was drunk last night.”

“I know.” I turned to the mirror and picked up my brush. I was still in my pajamas. My feet were bare and I was cold. One look out the bedroom window had revealed a winter wonderland with snow still sifting down from the sky.

Our eyes met in the mirror.

“You ripped up a picture of Sorcha,” I reminded him and his grin turned sheepish.
 

“I’ve got others.”

“I’ll bet,” I said, none too charitably. He was driving me crazy standing there in his sexy sweater with his erotic beard and bedroom hair.

Sometimes in the mornings when our eyes met in the mirror like this, he’d come over to me, wrap his arms around my waist and rub his bearded cheek against mine. It always drove me crazy and nine times out of ten we ended up back in bed, but I had a feeling today was not going to be one of those days.

Another thing we’d discovered along our road trip—we were great in bed together. We’d started off tentatively because we were both scared and unused to each other—hell, we’d barely known each other. But as time wore on and we had become friends, things in the bedroom had heated way the fuck up. Astronomically. I felt a little guilty, but I could barely even remember how it had been with Grey anymore. And Vaughn and Peter and Rudi, the only other male partners I’d ever had could not even come close. By a long shot.

He watched me get dressed but made no move to come near me and together we went downstairs.

* * * *

Allerton was just finishing what appeared to be his second cup of coffee when Murphy and I walked into the dining room. Kathy Manning saw us, hopped cheerfully to her feet and asked us how we wanted our eggs.

“Scrambled,” said Murphy without consulting me. “And I hope for all our sake’s there’s ketchup in the house or we’re in for a bad few moments.”

I extended my middle finger, making him laugh. Allerton hid a smile behind the rim of his coffee cup.

I began to think that maybe today might be better than yesterday.

However, I had barely had a chance to sit and grab my glass of orange juice before Allerton remarked with all the finesse of a true killjoy, “I believe today should be the day we deal with Tobias Green, don’t you, Constance?”

I set my glass down before I took a sip and choked to death on it.

Murphy’s smile vanished as if he’d never before smiled in his life. He pulled out the chair nearest mine with barely restrained violence and all but threw himself into it.

“I was half hoping he died in his sleep last night. He doesn’t look good,” I said in a subdued tone.

Murphy picked up my orange juice and made me take it. He watched me drink some, keeping one eye on Allerton as if he could possibly keep Allerton from speaking.

“The weight of his actions have taken a steep toll on his physical health,” said Allerton when my glass was empty.

Murphy pulled the milk and sugar closer to me so I could fix myself coffee. His mouth was pulled tight but so far he hadn’t blown up. He was close though.

“Regret? Remorse?” I said doubtfully. The Tobias Green I’d spoken to last night had not seemed in the least regretful or remorseful.

“Responsible,” said Allerton succinctly. “He may feel no regret or remorse on behalf of the Great Pack and the ideals he espouses, but he does keenly feel the weight of the responsibility of taking two lives in their prime. And for sending you into a personal hell. He’s very fond of you. He made that clear over and over again when we were questioning him.”

I grimaced because I didn’t want to hear that. Murphy scowled and I knew he was thinking something colorful and derogatory in Irish even if he didn’t dare say it aloud.

“Oh, fuck it,” he said all at once, making me a liar. “If he’s that bloody fond of her, why should she be the one to administer the fatal dose of whatever hell brew Councilor Manning is no doubt whipping up on the kitchen counter?”

“At the moment I’m making breakfast. Yours,” said Kathy Manning as she walked into the room with two plates of eggs and link sausage. “And when I do make something poisonous I won’t do it in the kitchen. That makes absolutely no sense, Liam, does it?”

Murphy looked like he wanted to argue the point of any of it making sense, but I gave him a kick in the shin beneath the table and he kept quiet.

Kathy set the plates between us. I had way more sausage than Murphy and when she went back into the kitchen to get toast, I picked up three links and put them on Murphy’s plate. He promptly snatched them up and two more on top of that and deposited them all on mine.

“Eat them. You ate fuck all yesterday and if you don’t put something into your stomach you’re going to faint. You might break a heel or scratch the leather of your damn shoe if you do, so listen to me.”

I stared at him. “Even I cannot eat six, seven, nine links of sausage, Murphy. If I eat all this I won’t faint but I won’t be able to move out of this chair either. And I might even throw up.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Just eat what you can.”

Under his watchful eye, I consumed five links of sausage and all the scrambled eggs—liberally doused with ketchup, of course. He ate only after he was sure I was not going to stop.

We took cups of coffee into the front room, where I sat on the sectional sofa and watched the snow whirl in a white blur across the panes of the bay window.

Kathy Manning took our cups away when we were finished. Before she left the room, she and Allerton exchanged a glance. Murphy’s face hardened.

When she came back in bearing a tray with a pot of hot chocolate and two mugs, he made a sound of protest. “I’ll do it,” he said, trying to take the tray away from Kathy Manning, who dexterously evaded him.

Allerton cleared his throat. That was all he did, but Murphy retreated to his seat with a muffled oath and Kathy Manning held the tray out to me.

When I took it, she reached into her pocket and pulled a small vial full of a clear liquid.

“Put the whole dram in just to be sure.” She placed the vial on the tray. “It’s painless. He’ll become gradually paralyzed and he won’t be able to breathe.”

“Coniine,” I said and a flicker of respect dawned in her eyes.

A wordless exchange passed between us and I saw us both as the grandmothers we would one day become. Maybe someday I would teach an herbal class at some distant Great Gathering.

Socrates died by coniine poisoning. Grandfather Tobias was no Socrates.

“It might take hours, Stanzie. There’s no need to stay there the entire time,” Kathy Manning told me.

I shook my head. “No. If I’m doing this, I’m doing it all the way. I’m not going to sneak out and leave him to die alone.”

“He doesn’t deserve his death to be witnessed. He didn’t witness Grey’s and Elena’s.” Kathy was, for once, not smiling. She looked almost angry.

What was it Allerton saw in her—that drew him to her? What did they say to each other in bed? Did she love her bond mate? Did he know about how it was with Allerton? Did Allerton take care of his insane bond mate or did he pay other people to do it for him?

“I witnessed their deaths. I’ll witness his too. Full circle,” I said as Allerton placed the key to Grandfather Tobias’s room on the tray.

He put his free hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “He’s expecting you. I talked to him this morning. He won’t give you any trouble.”

“I want to come with you, Stanzie.” Murphy moved to my side and his face was full of determination. “I don’t want you to do this alone.”

“This has nothing to do with you, Murphy,” I said as gently as I could. Still, I saw his hurt expression and I wanted to touch him but my hands were full.

“You could do your own dirty work, Councilors.” Murphy said.

“Liam, if this were Mick Shaunessy wouldn’t you be the first person to assert your rights of Pack vengeance?” Allerton wondered in a deceptively mild voice.

“Stanzie’s not a vengeful person,” Murphy pleaded. “I know her, Councilor. She’s not prepared for this.”

“Who is, really?” Allerton’s hand was still on my shoulder and he gave it another squeeze.