“Yes.” I nod rapidly. Finally, he understands. “Exactly!”
“I can’t do that,” he says as the tears of shame and grief ignite in my eyes like acid. “I won’t do that. Take that legacy, Constance, and go live somewhere by yourself. In two years I want to see you at the Great Gathering. Time has a way of giving you perspective and...”
“I don’t need perspective!” I shout. I tremble so hard my bones ache. “I have nothing left because I killed what mattered most. Time won’t change that or bring them back!” I do cry then, cursing myself, and with an inarticulate noise, I whirl to run away.
That’s when I feel Allerton’s arms go around me and he hugs me, murmuring vaguely comforting things to me as he rocks me and I ruin the front of his Dolce and Gabbana shirt with my tears and snot.
Until then he has been this looming, authoritarian figure. Bigger than life. Bigger than me. Untouchable and remote. Now he reveals himself as human. I cry like I am being destroyed and he is the only thing between me and annihilation.
I take the three hundred thousand dollars. I use most of it to buy a condo in Boston where I live by myself for two years until the next Great Gathering.
I remember his words when I receive my invitation in the mail—on thick parchment paper inked with the date and location. My self-imposed exile is over if I want it to be and two years into the future, just as he’d predicted—I want it to be.
* * * *
The mouthwatering scent of frying bacon permeated the entire condo when I emerged, red-eyed and shaky, from the bathroom. Murphy was making breakfast. He always fed me when I was in crisis mode. It was endearing. It didn’t hurt that he made scrambled eggs and bacon in the style of the best greasy spoon diners.
I pulled on a pair of jeans and a black turtle neck sweater and went in search of gustatory bliss.
I couldn’t decide which to drink first, coffee or orange juice, but the coffee needed milk and sugar so I went for the OJ. Two gulps and it was gone. The resultant sugar rush made inroads on the empty feeling inside me. It felt as if I’d been hollowed out by a huge ice cream scoop from hell.
He piled my plate high with eggs from the pan and gave himself a noticeably smaller portion. When he turned his back to get the bacon, I scooped some of my eggs onto his plate to make it a more even distribution.
He knew I did it, but he didn’t say anything—just gave me twice as much bacon as he gave himself.
Wheat toast popped up in the toaster and when he was busy buttering it, I gave him half my bacon.
“Stop giving away all your food and eat some of it,” he suggested, the butter knife scraping against the toast. Melted butter smelled like childhood to me—breakfast from the past—being little and my feet not reaching the floor.
“Come sit down and eat with me.” I helped myself to the bottle of ketchup and doused my eggs with it. I adored ketchup. Elixir of the gods.
“The toast won’t butter itself, woman,” he told me, and I stuck out my tongue. I poured milk into my coffee and spooned in two teaspoons of sugar. The spoon clacked against the side of the pottery mug and that was a sound that comforted too.
“Is there peanut butter?” I shoved back my chair so I could search in the cupboard. We’d bought a ton of groceries the day before, but I couldn’t remember if I’d put a jar of peanut butter in the basket.
“Sit down and eat.” Murphy put the plate of toast on the table. He went to the cupboard to look for me. I devoured one slice of bacon then another.
I had one left by the time he came to the table with the jar of peanut butter. Total elapsed time—thirty-five seconds.
“You make the best damn bacon,” I said around a huge mouthful. I swallowed and gave a contented sigh.
Murphy pulled out his chair and sat. His hair was tousled and needed to be brushed and razor stubble dotted his cheeks, but he was sexy as hell in spite of it, or perhaps, because of it. He had a long, narrow face with a chin more pointed than round. His cheek bones were high, his mouth dreamy and sensuous. His brown eyes were penetrating and full of intelligence and lively humor. Right now his expression was pensive. The look he gave me measured my mood and, while I think he was pleased I was eating, I don’t believe he was entirely satisfied I was all right.
I crunched up my last piece of bacon and he reached out and transferred half of his to my plate, never glancing away from my face.
“I’m going to get fat,” I predicted, but I ate one of the pieces A small smile quirked the corners of his mouth.
“Never happen,” he drawled. “Your wolf will keep you in shape.”
I thought back to the night before. After my wolf had come up with the word for ice, Murphy’s had led us off on a wild chase through the winter woods. We’d had such fun.
Instead of champagne at midnight, we’d thrashed through fallen leaves, churning up wet cold clumps of them stuck together. We’d tussled in a clearing, ringed around by pine trees forty feet tall. The wind had blown through the pine needles creating a rattling, wintry sound. That’s what we’d heard instead of Auld Lang Syne.
My wolf had bared her throat to his and he’d taken it in his jaws, exquisitely gentle. My wolf had infinite trust in him. She adored him. I think his wolf adored her. At least I hoped so. He was very, very kind to her and patient as she blundered through lessons most Pack’s wolves had learned the first ten times they’d shifted.
I’d never learned, had never wanted to learn. My wolf was headstrong and stubborn. Free and innocent. She loved to run and play and exist without much coherent thought.
Well, she used to. Now she hungered for words, for the names of things. Running and playing were things she did after she taught herself words. Most times now she forgot about running and playing until Murphy’s wolf reminded her.
She always had been an obsessive creature who fixated on one thing. Before it had been pleasure, now it was knowledge.
“She taught herself the word for ‘ice’ last night,” I told him with pride. “She’s getting so much smarter thanks to your wolf, Murphy. And you, telling me how to do it before we shift.”
“She still getting mad at herself when she can’t think of the word right away?” He sounded both indulgently pleased and concerned. He didn’t like her to push herself too hard.
“She was furious and frustrated for a while last night,” I admitted. I selected a piece of toast and spread it with peanut butter. It was the creamy kind. Damn. I’d meant to pick up chunky.
“I know.” His eyes were sad for a moment. “She was pawing at her head. You’ve got a scratch on your cheek right now.” He frowned as he looked at it.
I put a hand up to my cheek and my fingers encountered the thin, rough outline. It stung a little and I made a mental note to put peroxide on it.
“She was trying to scratch the mad out of her head so she could think,” I said with a rueful smile. “She’s so literal. The mad was taking up all the space in her head and there was no room to think about the word for ice.”
“Constance,” Murphy said, and I knew he was gearing himself up to lecture me again about pushing too hard.
“It’s not use talking to me about this.” I raised a protesting hand. “She’s the one who gets that way.”
“Where does she get it from? Who’s telling her she needs to think so hard to find the words?”
“Me?”