“She died in the company of her family, her pack,” he argued. “I’m not telling you she wasn’t in pain or scared, but she wasn’t in that fucking root cellar with a madman’s laughter the last thing she heard. You did that for her and nobody else.”
“But she’s still dead.” I wasn’t comforted at all. Every time I closed my eyes I could see her bruised and battered face, and the pain and terror stamped across it.
“I want my mom,” she’d told me and Vaughn when it was all over as we tried to get the damn wrist and ankle shackles off of her. “I want my mom.”
My own mother’s face flashed before my eyes and I saw her walk behind my father across the conference room floor after he’d renounced me as their daughter in front of the tribunal. She hadn’t looked back.
I burst into tears.
Both Murphy and Paddy moved toward me, but it was Paddy I went to. He’d been there in the conference room when I’d had to recount the hellish hours I’d spent chained up with Bethany in Grandmother Emma’s root cellar. He’d been there when my parents had ripped me to shreds in front of the New England Regional Council and three members of the Great Council.
He enfolded me in his arms and rocked me while he crooned something comforting in my ear. He smoothed my hair, careful to avoid the sore spot. He remembered it was there.
* * * *
Paddy rummaged in the mini fridge while I sat on the peach-colored chair and blew my nose into a tissue he’d pressed into my hand as he’d settled me gently. Beyond in the bathroom, the sound of running water as Murphy showered, provided a strange counterpoint to the soft jingle of small glass bottles.
“Gin, vodka or tequila?” Paddy held three nipper bottles in front of me and I shuddered.
“Is there orange juice? If there is, I’ll take the vodka. Isn’t there any wine?”
“Not strong enough.” He returned to the fridge and rummaged around for a can of juice.
I cast the used tissue toward the wastepaper basket near the desk and missed spectacularly. My nose still ran, so I snatched another tissue from the box on the end table and blew.
Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the vertical blinds drawn across the window and fell in stripes across the bed. I could see the indentation of Murphy’s head in the pillow. His socks were on the floor beside his jeans and one of his Timberland boots. The other one was probably under the bed with his shirt and underwear.
The crack the orange juice can made as Paddy opened it competed with the sound of the shower for a moment. Even from half a room away I could smell the vodka.
“Is there ice?” I wondered and Paddy swore good-naturedly before he grabbed the ice bucket on the dresser and headed for the door.
“Be right back,” he promised and was gone.
The water shut off and the shower curtain rings chattered together as Murphy drew the curtain back. A moment later, the buzz of his electric razor filled the air. I blew my nose for the third time and leaned back against the chair, overwhelmed by a sudden dispirited lassitude that sucked all the vitality out of my bones and left me bereft and powerless.
I was crying again when Murphy walked into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was wet but combed and the zig-zag pucker of the bullet scar on his right forearm was a vivid reminder Murphy’d come by that wound while protecting me. He’d covered me and exposed himself, and now he’d always have the scar to prove it.
He saw my tears right away but didn’t say anything. Instead he found a clean pair of briefs from his leather overnight case then pulled on his jeans.
The muscles of his back and neck were so tense they vibrated. He pulled a fresh tissue from the box and handed it to me. When I took it, our fingers brushed.
“I’m sorry, honey.” His voice was a low rasp. He sounded exhausted still, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“Gin or tequila?” I asked him and he blinked at me. I gestured toward the mini fridge.
“Paddy’s making drinks. I called the vodka and that leaves gin or tequila.”
He grimaced. “What happened to beer?”
“Not strong enough,” Paddy said as he came through the door, a bucket of ice in hand.
“Gin,” Murphy said with the air of someone forced to do something totally against his principles.
“Please don’t tell me you want something exotic to go with it and make me go out and search again.” Paddy rolled his eyes.
“Ice is hardly exotic. And it’s not like you had to go to the Arctic to hand chip it.” I pointed out.
“You ever try finding ice machines in hotels?” Paddy asked me as he slipped three or four ice cubes into my drink.
“Is there tonic water?” Murphy knelt by the mini fridge to look.
“For about six dollars there might be a wee little mouthful.”
Murphy gave him a look. “I’ll pay.”
“Like hell, Liam Murphy.”
“You rich, Paddy?” I asked as I took a sip of the drink. It was strong but the can of orange juice was too far away to reach.
“I’m Alpha of Mac Tire,” he told me as if that explained everything.
“While he’s Alpha, he’s got access to the pack funds. They’re...” Murphy searched for a suitable word. “...considerable.”
“But when you’re not Alpha?”
“Ah, then I’ll have to subsist on my bond mate’s generosity.” Paddy’s sigh was mournful. “’Tis a terrible thing to have a bond mate with more money than you.”
Despite myself I laughed. In our duo, I was the one with the bond mate who had more money.
Paddy looked enormously pleased with himself because he’d made me laugh.
“You get the tequila,” Murphy reminded him as he poured a can of tonic water into his gin.
“I’m Alpha and I have to drink the tequila. What the hell is wrong with this picture?” Paddy said. He unscrewed the cap of the nipper bottle and held it aloft.
His face became serious. “To a brave girl who suffered more than she should have at the hands of a perverted and evil man. May she find herself in a better place surrounded by family and pack that passed before her.” He downed the contents of the bottle in two swallows.
Tears burned in my eyes again as I gulped at my screwdriver. Murphy’s face was solemn and shadowed and he clenched his glass tightly as he drank.
“The funeral’s tomorrow. They’ve asked us to go.” Paddy tossed the empty tequila bottle at the waste basket and scored.
I didn’t say anything. The cold glass in my hand became the center of my universe for a few seconds until Murphy said, “You don’t have to go, Stanzie.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I swoop in and rescue her and then don’t bother to show up at her funeral because she had the temerity to die on me. That’s great.”
“You don’t have to go.” Ice cubes shifted in his glass as he drained the rest of his drink and set it aside.
“You think I’m such a coward, don’t you?” I was angry and full of grief, and there was nothing to pin a target to except the first person who spoke. The same person who had conveniently skipped out on my tribunal and consequently had no idea what was going on in my head—he only thought he did, which was doubly infuriating.
“I think Maplefair has a lot of bloody nerve asking you back there after what you went through. That doesn’t