She’d taken off her ceremonial robe and looked small and vulnerable as she huddled against the rail.
“Kathy,” I whispered and she swung around guiltily as if she’d committed a crime instead of gazed at the ocean.
“I did the right thing.” She made no pretense that I hadn’t caught her almost in tears. “But it’s still hard to watch the way he looks at her. He used to look at me that way.”
Before I could stop myself, I went to her and put my arms around her. The strength of her return embrace hurt, but I held her as she buried her face in my neck and we rocked together.
Our eyes were wet when we drew apart, but some of the wild sadness had lifted from her face.
“It would never have worked.” Her tone was conversational as she slipped her shoes from her feet and waited for me to do the same thing. We left them on the deck and descended the wooden stairs to the rough sand.
In common accord, we moved toward the black expanse of the restless ocean, which muttered secrets to itself that grew louder as we approached.
“He wanted me and Matt to leave Darkhunt and join Silverlake. I would have had to leave the New England Regional Council. He told me he believed I would be appointed to the First Western Regional Council, but he couldn’t guarantee it. He knew damn well Matt wouldn’t leave Darkhunt. He was counting on that, counting on us severing the bond. He had no real interest in a triad but was willing to compromise on that for me. His exact words. Can you just hear him saying it, Stanzie? The colossal gall of the man.” Kathy linked her arm with mine as we turned parallel to the ocean and continued to walk. We left bare footprints in the wet sand behind us.
“The First Western Regional Council is bigger and more influential than the New England one.” I spoke before I thought as usual. Kathy just laughed.
“Do you really think I would have been appointed? As Jason Allerton’s bond mate I would have had two strikes against me as the Council leaned backward to avoid making it seem as if they took orders from Jason and the Great Council. And the third strike would have been that I knew absolutely nobody in the region. How exactly was a stranger supposed to swoop in and become a Council member?”
“You could have pitched it as a fresh perspective that wasn’t jaded with knowledge of the packs in the area.”
Kathy laughed again and skipped nimbly over a slimy string of seaweed.
“I probably could have done that,” she admitted. “But I have a life here. Should I give it up for him? Where was his compromise?”
“Matt.”
“Who would never have come. Ah, I do like talking with you, Stanzie. You make me feel much better and reinforce my conviction that I did the right thing.”
“I’m not his Advisor anymore,” I blurted and was forced to stop dead when she dragged me to a halt. “I quit because I was so pissed at him for bonding with my mother. And he let me.”
She forced me to tell her the whole story, and her blue-gray eyes grew darker and darker with every word. By the end of it she wanted to charge back to the reception hall and confront him. I grabbed her by the arm. It was like trying to hold back a whirlwind.
“I thought you’d laugh at me and tell me what an idiot I was.” I hung on grimly to her arm, even though she’d stopped her struggle to break free.
“You are an idiot,” she said. “But so is he. Does everyone around you eventually lose their minds, Stanzie? First Liam and now Jason.”
When I heard Murphy’s name, I let go and turned around so I could continue pacing along the shore. Kathy heaved a frustrated sigh, caught between returning to blast Jason and lecturing me.
She chose the lecture. I knew she would.
“Now it’s more vital than ever you get your butt to Dublin and fix things with him. Do you know that exasperating man has changed his phone number? I tried to call and give him a piece of my mind and got some strange man in Revere instead. I suppose it makes sense that he wouldn’t have his American phone number anymore now that he’s gone back to Dublin, but it’s still very annoying not to be able to get in touch with him. What did you do anyway, Stanzie, to provoke Liam into bolting for Ireland?”
“You know, that’s just like you to take his side of it and not mine,” I snapped over my shoulder. “Why does it have to be something I did and not something he did?”
“He’s the one who left.”
“That’s just stupid,” I said, which only made her smile one of her Kathy Manning patented smiles that always sent me sailing over the edge of my temper. “For your information, I didn’t do anything except possibly give him shit because he didn’t stay with me during the tribunal. And everybody, including you, you hypocrite, told me over and over he was wrong and I was right about that. So what? I’m not allowed to get mad at the bastard? Ever? Or he’s justified in walking out on me? That’s not fucking fair, is it?”
I tried in vain to modulate my damn voice, but it was impossible. The goddamn ocean amplified it and sent it shrieking back at me until I wanted to block my ears.
Kathy’s smile never faltered. “When he walked out, what did you do? Stand there and let him?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I knew I sounded sullen and moody, but fuck it.
“Of course not,” she said with an annoying-as-hell little laugh. I flipped her the bird, then stomped off. This time she didn’t follow.
* * * *
Brooding alone in my room sucked. Dissatisfaction seethed within me until I wanted to punch something. Instead I pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and scrubbed the makeup from my face. Then I paced the confines of the little motel room that had become mine by default. Lauren’s things were gone, only mine were left, and in two days I would drive back to Boston alone.
I couldn’t sustain my fury but self-pity only annoyed me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. So when someone knocked on my door, I sprang to open it with a small cry of relief.
I braced myself in case it was Kathy, but when I opened the door, I saw Faith and Scott instead.
She looked tired but determined, and he had a grin I didn’t altogether trust.
“Can we come in?” Faith asked, and I stepped away from the door.
Their bond pendants winked in the overhead lights. I was supposed to wear mine since it was a Regional. Ever since I’d broken the clasp of my silver chain, I’d kept it in the small pewter box Murphy had given me the night we’d bonded in Paris. A hundred million years ago it seemed, although it had barely been nine months in reality.
“Look, if you came to talk me into shifting with Scott tomorrow night, save your breath. I’ll do it, okay?” Up until I said it, I hadn’t known what would fly out of my mouth. But once said I could not take it back, nor did I intend to.
Shifting was another step I needed to take to reclaim my life, and I damn well was going to take it.
“Whoa.” Scott’s face filled with pleasant surprise, and his cocky grin became genuine.
Faith took my hand. “That’s great, Stanzie, but it’s not what we came to discuss.”
She examined my face as if I were under a microscope. Her scrutiny exposed my rawness. I was not at all sure I wanted to hear what she had to say.
“You need to go to Dublin.”
For a wild moment I almost laughed. Of all the things they could have said to me, this was what they’d come to say?
“I had this dream,” began Faith,