“You see? You’re using your position with me right now. You do it by default, like you’re on autopilot. Jason Allerton, Councilor. You’re not Jason Allerton, potential bond mate to her. How could you be? She doesn’t know you.”
“We’ve been virtually inseparable for the past month.”
“Oh, hell, twelve dinners and a handful of lunches are not the basis on which you make the decision to bond together for life.”
A small voice whispered inside my head that I’d used even less of a basis to decide to bond with Liam Murphy. I hadn’t known him even one week before I’d joined with him during a bonding ceremony at the Great Gathering in Paris last November.
And look how fucked up that idea turned out to be. Guilt and a surge of painful love seethed inside me and my stomach roiled.
Jason’s angry, clipped voice brought me back on target. Focus on Lauren.
“Pack law gives us three months to bond again after the death of, or separation from, prior bond mates. How long do you suggest we wait before you are comfortable? Four months? Seven? Two years? Meanwhile, life goes on, and all our pack benefits are stripped so we can make a decision we could have made in the allotted time just to allow you some dubious peace of mind. Lauren and I are both well into our fifties, we’re not inexperienced youngsters.”
“For all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what Lauren is. She bonded with Paul when she was twenty and he’s all she’s known for over thirty years. You generously gave her two whole months to get over that? How magnanimous. She’s not in any rush to join a new pack. She’s got me and the condo in Boston. You’re the one who’s in the rush, and you know it. Don’t make her suffer for your agenda.”
“What do you suggest I do? I have found the woman I wish to bond with, and we both wanted your blessing. But make no mistake…we don’t need it, and we will go on with our plans, regardless of your objections. You’ve already said enough to me. Please spare your mother your vituperative comments and at least attempt to be gracious.”
“You’re not listening to me at all, are you?” Tears scalded my eyes. “What is the point of asking me for my objections if you don’t intend to pay any attention to them at all? Why don’t you just tell me to shut the fuck up and deal?”
“Shut the fuck up and deal,” he said.
It was quite possibly the first time I’d ever heard him drop the f-bomb, and it brought me up short for a moment.
“You do this and I quit. I won’t be your Advisor if you go through with this bullshit bonding,” I declared, and Jason’s face darkened.
“So be it. You are released as my Advisor,” he said. And just like that our nine-month association was severed. Everything I’d accomplished for him and the Great Council all meant shit next to his pride and his determination to bond with my mother.
I threw my napkin on the table and jumped to my feet.
“Stanzie.” Maybe there was a glimmer of regret in his eyes, but it was too late. He’d said it. Just as my bond mate Murphy said it to me almost four months earlier when he’d walked out on me and just as my Alpha, Paddy O’Reilly said it to me when he’d left with Murphy.
Three for three. No job. No bond mate. No pack. I was alone. Again.
* * * *
Two hours later I stopped my mindless trudge across the cold, wet, packed sand and calculated my bearings.
My sandals dangled from my fingers and the strap of my expensively flimsy evening bag wouldn’t stay lodged on my shoulder.
Night had descended and the lights from the beachfront hotels, homes and businesses cast a yellow light over the sand, but where I was at the water’s edge was shrouded in shadows.
The briny smell of the sea clogged my nostrils. I sidestepped a glistening, dark strip of seaweed only to step squarely on a goddamned pointy rock.
“Shit.” I swiped at the tears that had streamed down my face for the last half mile or so. I was such a baby and an idiot. I’d just cut off my last lifeline to the Great Pack.
I was still Murphy’s bond mate, but my birthday was in ten days, and it was my chance to break the bond. Pack law gave everyone the right to reassess relationships and break bonds on birthdays. I could wait and let him do it on his birthday but why should I humiliate myself even further by letting him break our bond when my birthday came first? Once I did, the clock would start to tick on my membership within Mac Tire because no unbonded adults over the age of twenty-six could remain in the pack.
I would have three months to find a new bond mate. By mid-November, if I wasn’t in a new relationship, I lost my pack.
“Been there, done that,” I muttered and wiped my eyes again.
He’d let me go. Jason Allerton had insinuated himself into my life since Paris. He’d given me sanctuary and a job as his Advisor and interested himself in my life. He’d been the one to maneuver me into bonding with Murphy.
Ostensibly, he put us together so we could investigate the weird, untimely deaths of young pack members worldwide, but also another agenda, a more personal one. He’d wanted us to bond together and be happy after we’d both suffered the deaths of our original bond mates.
Amidst everything I’d been through in the past nine months, Jason Allerton had been a comforting father figure.
And just like that, in the span of three seconds and one sentence, it was all undone.
I’d trusted him with my mother. When he’d taken a hotel room in Boston after my father had been exiled and I’d taken Lauren back to my condo, I’d thought he was looking after me.
He’d seen me struggle with Lauren as I’d tried to give her space to reclaim herself and yet keep my sanity at the same time.
Every decision was agony for her. What to wear. What time to get up and go to bed. Which flavor of jelly to spread on her toast.
He’d taken us out to dinner more nights than not. I’d cooked for him.
His calm, comforting, authoritative presence had become a given in my life over the past eight weeks.
To think I’d been grateful when he’d suggested he take Lauren out to dinner on his own so I could stay home and relax. Or go out.
Yeah, right. With who? My best friends, Vaughn and Jossie, lived in Vermont and my cousin Faith and her bond mate, Scott, were two hours away from the city.
I’d expected to see more of them the past couple of months, but people got busy. Faith was pregnant and had a pack to rebuild after my father nearly destroyed it.
Jossie was convinced I wanted to bond with her and Vaughn and make a triad—and invented excuses to keep us all apart.
So I spent those nights alone. I had time for a luxurious soak in the bathtub with a delicious murder mystery. I could watch a movie while curled up on the sofa as the lights of the city glowed through my living room window. I had opportunities for walks around the block in the summer darkness so I could ease the tension out of my shoulders and take deep breaths as I marshaled the inner strength to deal with Lauren another day.
Now after this Regional was over, she’d go to Montana with him and start her new life, and I’d have every night alone in Boston. Every morning and midday, too.
“You selfish bitch,” I whispered to myself in amazement and for a clouded moment wasn’t sure if I referred to me or Lauren.
The lights and music from a waterside bar attracted my attention. It was a small place, gray shingles, a wooden deck in the back so patrons could watch the ocean as they pounded down beer and shots and figured out who they would go home with that night.