Allerton grasped Murphy’s hand and gave his forearm a meaningful squeeze. It was a handshake that expressed more than simply business. It was also a gesture of amity and fondness.
For me he had a hug, but I was stiff in his embrace. He gave my back a gentle pat before releasing me.
“Sit down.” He waved at the chairs around the table and resumed his original seat.
Murphy and I sat next to each other, facing the fireplace. Its radiating heat was warm on the side of my face as I turned my head to look at Allerton.
“I’ve arranged a dinner tonight here with Riverglow,” he informed us. My stomach knotted at the thought of having to eat with them. I’d seen them nearly three months ago at the Great Gathering in Paris, but they had snubbed me.
I still burned with humiliation at the way Callie’s, Vaughn’s and Peter’s eyes had glazed over and they’d pretended not to see me when I’d called out to them in the reception area at the chateau. It had been an instinctive greeting, born of past familiarity. For a second the two intervening years had been wiped away and it had been like seeing family.
I’d expected to be snubbed by Jonathan and Nora, but not the others. I don’t know why, because they’d been explicitly clear after the accident that they’d blamed me, but somehow I’d hoped that they’d had second thoughts, that maybe when they saw me they’d think family too.
“There have been some changes in the pack membership and leadership since you’ve left them, Constance.” Allerton’s blue eyes met mine across the gleaming conference table. When I refused to be drawn, he smiled a little and continued as if he’d never paused to allow me an opportunity to participate.
“The main reason they went to the Great Gathering was to find some new blood for the pack. Nora had a stillborn son last year and Callie’s had several miscarriages since she, Vaughn and Peter took Alpha status. It was the same thing the first time they were Alpha, when you and Grey joined the pack. You remember. It was after one particularly bad miscarriage that the triad stepped aside as Alpha. You and Grey were approached but I recall being told you turned it down.”
Beside me, Murphy shifted in his chair so he could stare at me. Passing up an opportunity to be Alpha was probably not something he’d ever contemplated before. In big packs such as Mac Tire, the position was highly coveted and campaigned for because not every female would get the chance before her fertility cycle ceased. Bigger packs tended to have shorter Alpha timeframes—five years was the usual span. However, smaller packs such as Riverglow tended to rotate the Alpha status. It wasn’t unheard of for duos and triads to have multiple opportunities. Grey had turned down Alpha status because of Jonathan’s jealousy. He’d known the position would eventually come to us and we were young, in our early twenties, and had plenty of fertility time left.
Pack women could only give birth once. Live or stillborn, if they carried a pregnancy to the end, they would become barren after the birth. Twins were slightly more common than singles.
While triads could be made up of two men and one female, most of them consisted of two women and one man in order to give two women the opportunity to bear a child at the same time. Only Alphas could have children. All the other women in the pack took birth control or had to have abortions.
I think it was both evolution’s and our own cultural way to avoid detection by the Others. Our population stayed small and underground. Secret.
Again Councilor Allerton waited for me to say something. I admit I felt a surge of sympathy for both Nora and Callie. Callie was over forty, near the end of her childbearing years and Nora, who was three years older than me, was now barren.
They were at risk, of course, of losing their bond mates, who still had the chance to bond with a fertile female and become Alpha so they could procreate. A lot of us created such strong connections with our bond mates, very few left in search of a chance to be Alpha and to have a child. The ambitious ones would, but normally love conquered ambition.
I knew Peter would stick with Callie. He loved her with a steady and deep adoration. I wasn’t sure about Vaughn. I was never quite sure of his feelings for her. He and Peter were close as brothers, but I wondered if that was enough to keep him bonded.
Jonathan, the bastard, I could see him ditching Nora in a millisecond if someone better came along. He was such a coward, he wouldn’t do it until he was sure. I’d bet he’d spent the better part of the Great Gathering looking for just such an opportunity. The fact that he was still a member of Riverglow proved he’d failed. That afforded me some small satisfaction.
Again, after he was sure I was declining his invitation to make a comment, Allerton continued. “They were able to convince a pair from Mac Tire to leave that pack and join this one with the understanding they’d be Alpha when it was quite sure Callie was past her childbearing window.”
“Mac Tire?” Murphy stirred in his chair. “Paddy never mentioned that.”
Allerton held up a hand. His nails were professionally manicured and he wore an expensive Cartier wristwatch with a chased silver band around his wrist. I could hear it ticking if I tried hard enough.
“They’re from the English branch.”
For some reason Murphy’s eyes darkened and he went very still. I was confused because, while I expected Murphy to know the members of his pack in Ireland, I didn’t think his personal knowledge would extend all around the UK. Mac Tire was a huge pack, but each country had separate Alphas who presumably knew each other and interacted, but I hadn’t thought it trickled down to the entire membership.
“I believe you know them. Him at least,” said Allerton, his expression bland enough, but something in his voice made me come to alert.
Murphy’s gaze was flat and hostile.
“Colin Hunter and Devon Talbot.”
Murphy reacted to the names like gasoline poured on fire. “Oh hell no,” he snarled, pushing back his chair. “Oh, fucking hell no. You could’ve told me this on the phone, Allerton, leaving me the opportunity to decline your invitation. Now I’m just gonna have to friggin’ walk out.”
I leaped to my feet too, grateful for an opportunity to escape.
Murphy saw me and snapped, “You sit back down. I’ll be back for you tomorrow, Stanzie.”
He’d promised to stay with me. He told me he would be with me when I had to confront Grandfather Tobias and listen to what he wanted to tell me. Now he was halfway out the damn door all because of some man named Colin Hunter, and I hadn’t the slightest clue who he was or why Murphy despised him so much. Hatred was all over his face and in the barely controlled violence of his movements. He was one step away from breaking something. He would have attacked Allerton if he’d dared, but he was putting distance between them instead.
I’d never seen Murphy so furious. The tone of voice he’d used on me was unfamiliar too. He’d never spoken to me so angrily, as if I didn’t matter, as if I were just one more obstacle in his way out the door.
I had nowhere to go if Murphy walked out. I didn’t even have my purse or any money. All of that was in the trunk of the car with our luggage.
The door slammed behind Murphy then five seconds later the front door slammed too. Absurdly, I wondered whether he’d taken his coat. It was bitter cold outside.
I stood there like an idiot, clutching the back of my chair. I struggled against bursting into cheated tears of frustration and betrayal. The weight of my bond pendant was heavy around my throat. The peridot and pearl hung suspended from a long chain I’d tucked under the edges of the turtleneck sweater.
The peridot was my birthstone; the pearl Murphy’s. Together they symbolized our bond and were the Pack’s version of a wedding ring.
Murphy had one too. He wore it beneath his sweater and never took it off unless we shifted.
“I’m