Authors: Dakota Cassidy
Claire strained to pull away, willing her pulse to slow,
willing her body to leave his, willing her heart to detach before it became too
attached. “There is no
us
, Irish.
There’s you and there’s me. We’re from two different races of people who would
love nothing more than to wipe each other out given just a hint of a reason.
I’m not going to be the catalyst for that, and neither are you. If we have to
live like this forever, divided from the humans as though we’re criminals, live
by rules like mate calls—you know, the old rules, before our councils became so
slack—then the least we can do is inspire peace for future generations.”
For almost as long as she could remember, there’d been
little if any enforcement of the original rules set forth by council elders. In
an effort to allow the paranormal to blend with humans, they’d laid off the
rules on mating and such. But when the government intervened, the fear they’d
end up extinct ran rampant.
Thus, an edict had been handed down in the form of reams and
reams of paper sent to all the races, reeducating them on the varying laws they
were to adhere.
Irish grabbed her hand and nipped at her finger, sending a
wave of slow-building heat up her arm. “Can you even believe what’s changed in
the past ten years since the government found out we existed?”
She still had days where the disbelief lingered, but mostly
she’d come to a place of acceptance. She’d hidden all her life from humans.
Some days, it was just plain nice to live out in the open—even with the imposed
limitations attached. And it was even nicer to know she wouldn’t have to pick
up and move because she wasn’t aging like everyone else and people were
beginning to take note.
Then there were other days when she missed her previous
life. Missed San Francisco, missed the freedom to dream of all the places she’d
someday visit, now out of the realm of possibility with the travel limitations
placed on
paranormals
.
Missed her last batch of friends who’d come to fear her once
they’d found out she was a werewolf…missed her old students at her last job as
a librarian in a middle school.
Missed. Missed it all so much it ate a hole in her gut.
There were a million things she missed, but she was alive,
and their circumstances weren’t as horrible as others. They had most of the
things humans had, and while she wanted to hate the government for the invasion
in their lives, some of the people she held dearest to her were humans.
“I think I’ve found a place of acceptance—or maybe it’s just
that I’m grateful I didn’t end up in some prison camp because I refused to
cooperate with the new laws. I thought long and hard about joining the
Opposition, but I’m book smart, not street smart. I think I’m much better off
teaching children how to survive this kind of discrimination, finding ways to
make the best of a bad situation and educating people that we’re not monsters.
I’m definitely not better off armed with a gun and some face paint.”
Irish stroked her palm. “Well, we already know murder
probably won’t go on your resume as one of your strong suits.”
Claire made a face at him while her body warred with the
tingle of awareness he created. “Funny vampire. Though, I can’t say for sure I
wouldn’t kick Martin Lawler’s ass if I ever ran into him. If not for him
exposing us, humans would still be as clueless as they ever were about our
existence.”
Irish rolled to his side, leaning his head on his hand. “Ah,
the man who started it all. I still can’t believe the idiot was stupid enough
to confess he was a vampire to, of all people, the staff at a big city morgue.”
Martin Lawler, once an unassuming, quiet shoe store owner,
had somehow fallen into vampire sleep in an alleyway two blocks from his place
of business. The local authorities discovered him behind a Dumpster, and with
no identification, no pulse or heartbeat, pronounced him dead and took him
directly to the county morgue, where he woke up.
Still without a pulse or heartbeat. At first baffling, then
scaring the entire morgue staff, whom he’d ended up unintentionally frightening
by flashing his fangs and flying around the halls.
After that, there’d been raids in the wee hours of the
morning, summits with sires and council leaders, endless picketing at the White
House, fear, helplessness.
All because of one man.
Claire nodded, still trying to ease away from him. “Did you
see his Barbara Walters interview while he was in hiding? All that carrying on
about how he had no idea it would come to this.”
“I watched it as I packed my bags to leave my cushy life in
New York.”
“New York, huh? What did Irish McConnell do in New York? Was
he always the Fangs of Anarchy biker president?”
“Why does Claire Montgomery want to know?”
She feigned indifference, ignoring how adorable he was this
way. She liked this Irish almost as much as she’d lusted for the aloof,
untouchable one. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. I just know that
many of you weren’t always bikers. For instance, your brother Liam said he was
a pediatrician.” She paused for a moment before shrugging. “I was just making
conversation.”
“Were you always a librarian?”
Claire grinned. Books made her happy. There was nothing she
liked more than being buried up to her nose in a stack of books. “For almost
fifty years now. I moved around a lot, of course. The aging slowly thing, you
know.”
“Which makes you how old?”
She giggled, the laughter flying from her throat, sounding
foreign and rusty. “Old enough.”
“I was only a part-time bike enthusiast,” he said suddenly, his
tone melancholy. “I rode on weekends, did the charity drives, stuff like that.”
“Really? Seems like you’ve always done it.”
“I was a corporate attorney in New York.”
Ah. That explained his grip on the English language, his
diction, his penchant for solving problems amongst the two races. “I can’t
believe I’ve known you for five years and never knew that. But it explains why
you’re so good at mediating between the clubs and somehow managing to keep some
order here.”
“I don’t know if ‘good’
is the word I’d
use
, but I’ve had my hand in a negotiation or two. It was my favorite
part of the game back then.”
She knew she was treading dangerous waters by finding out
more about him, but Claire couldn’t squash who she was. Ever curious. “So why
didn’t you join the Opposition?” Irish was the perfect candidate for plotting
revenge on the humans, strategizing mayhem.
Now his face went grim, his lips flat, his expression hard. “Hadley.
My parents ended up in one of those prison camps you were talking about. Not a
chance in hell I was going to let that happen to Hadley. As much as I’d like to
be out there, fighting for equal rights for all, I refuse to risk Hadley ending
up in one of those five-by-five cells. I promised my parents I’d take care of
her, and I will.”
His determination, not just in his words but in his eyes,
made her all the more resolute to keep Irish out of this. “I’d feel the same
way. And that leads me to this,” she said, hopping up off the bed before he had
the chance to convince her to stay. “Time for you to go. Hadley needs you. I
don’t.”
But she did. She wanted to talk with him more, discover all
the things that made Irish McConnell who he was. She wanted to learn what he
liked, what he didn’t, what made him tick.
Irish sat up and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips. “Last
night—”
Tears immediately sprang to her eyes, hot and stinging. “Don’t.
It happened. No one ever has to know, Irish.”
Please, please don’t
.
He pulled himself up off the bed to stand in front of her,
his body hard and lean, and all she wanted to do was bury her face in his
chest. “No. I promise you, no one will ever know. The problem is,
I
know, Claire. Now
I know
,” he said before cupping her cheek and placing a kiss on her
lips.
Claire clung to her strong resolve to keep from begging him
to stay long after the sound of her bedroom door closing.
Irish lobbed the eight ball across the green of the pool
table in the den, now a makeshift meeting room they used as a place for the
club to gather, forcing his mind from Claire’s soft body and sharp wit.
She’d been everything he’d imagined and more—naked, willing,
beautiful, and he wanted her with a burn in his gut he couldn’t ever recall
having with any other woman. Leaving her last night had been even harder than
leaving her the night before.
He wanted to explore all things Claire. He wanted to talk
with her. He wanted her to see the side of him that had nothing to do with the
Fangs. The glimpse he’d given her last night was who the old Irish had been,
before all the shit with the government had gone down. It felt good to lighten
up a little. It felt free, and by fuck, he missed freedom.
Since the move here to Maine, he wasn’t much for
socializing. He was too busy trying to stay on top of everything—too busy
trying to keep his people fed, keep Hadley on track and give her a normal
upbringing.
While he tried to appreciate the fact that, despite losing
his apartment overlooking Central Park, his law firm, his damn lifestyle,
Hadley still had a decent enough place to grow up in, a nice house with plenty
of people to look out for her, it wasn’t always easy. He missed his work. He
missed the look in opposing council’s eyes when he knew he’d won a big
negotiation.
Messing with Courtland last night had begun as a way to keep
him from getting his hooks into Claire and had ended up reminiscent of better
times.
If he’d met Claire in New York, he’d have taken her out,
bought her a dinner he couldn’t eat, watched as her luscious lips moved when
she talked about the books she loved. Would have taken her home and made love
to her until she’d screamed, then slept in and did it all over again.
Back in the day, no one would have cared much had a vampire
and
a were
hooked up. Likely, no one would have known
they weren’t human. He’d give his right arm to have met Claire before all
this—to have been given the pass their races had granted those who’d already
mated before the government interfered.
But nowadays, everyone was in a state of panic that the
cohabitation of races would prevent future packs. It was punishable by death in
some packs to mate outside their race. Their werewolf rule—a rule the vampire
clans had agreed to enforce when they’d agreed to co-op.
Irish was one of the primary enforcers of that rule. Luck
had played a hand in his involvement in creating a livable environment in Rock
Cove—luck and his father’s connections with some of the leading clan sires.
He’d been thrust into this role, this agreement to find a
balance between races, and he’d invited business acquaintances, other
professionals who were weekend riding enthusiasts like him to join the Fangs.
Most of the members, while once powerful individuals, were also levelheaded,
cautious, and paid great attention to detail.
They’d chosen the word “anarchy” as a joke—a way to mock the
fact that they had been, in their former lives, quite the opposite. But now
that he’d had a hand in the grassroots stages of this race agreement, he didn’t
always agree with the bullshit rules that came with the role.
Especially after the other night with Claire. Who he hadn’t
been able to stop thinking about since his fingers had touched her silky-hot
skin and he’d buried his cock in her tight body.
But the synthetic
blood, Irish. You need to keep that supply coming until you can find out who
makes it and how it can be replicated. Do you want to risk it all for a woman
you can’t even be with by taunting Courtland?
“Irish?”
Liam’s voice tore him from his thoughts. He looked up to
meet his brother’s eyes—eyes full of concern. “Yep?”
“First, don’t do that shit again, brother.”
Irish grabbed one of the folding chairs and straddled it. “Do
what?”
“Sacrifice yourself for a werewolf, dipshit.”
Irish narrowed his eyes at Liam, who dropped into his own
chair. “I didn’t sacrifice myself for a werewolf. I was just keeping the peace.”
“By telling Courtland you killed his brother? Very peaceful.”
He hoped to keep his explanation simple so Liam wouldn’t
catch on. “They were going to skin her alive, Liam—before she even had the
chance to say a word. You know what those dicks are like. They don’t have three
brain cells between them, so you don’t really think they were going to actually
ask her questions, do you? The more
Twink
egged
Courtland on at Ahab’s, the more riled he got. He was drunk. So I did what I
had to in order to keep someone who might be innocent from ending up dead. One
thing we don’t need here in town is mass hysteria. You’d have done the same.”
Liam pursed his lips, his clean-shaven jaw rigid. “Except
she’s not innocent, and it’s none of our business. It’s pack business, not clan
business. That’s what we agreed to when we all got stuck here with each other.”
Liam’s resentment over leaving his thriving practice and his
life in Manhattan never faded. If anything, it burned brighter. He’d agreed to
help with Hadley rather than join his parents in the Opposition so they’d
always have backup for her, but he didn’t always like that he wasn’t raging
against the machine on the front lines.
Irish nodded his head. “Yep, we did. But we damn well didn’t
agree to total lawlessness—we agreed to work together. I’m a part of that
‘together’ thing and so are you. I wasn’t going to let them try and convict her
with alcohol as their star witness, Liam. I’d like to think one of their
less-moronic sidekicks would do the same if the clan had an issue like this.”
“But we won’t because we’re not a bunch of drunk,
out-of-control, brainless fucks like the werewolves.”
“They’re not all brainless.” Fuck if he didn’t hate hearing
Claire grouped in with the lot of Dogs.
Liam slammed his fist on the back of the chair, cracking it
in half. “I
knew
it. I damn well knew
it, Irish!”
Irish kept his face expressionless, his words calm. “Knew
what?”
“Don’t play like you don’t know what I mean. She did it and
you slept with her.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re babbling about over
there, brother.”
“You covered up the fact that she murdered Gannon Dodd and
then you slept with a goddamn werewolf, Irish!” he bellowed, his face twisted
in anger.
Irish knocked his own chair over getting to Liam and grabbed
him up by the front of his leather jacket, pushing him backward until he was
pressed against the paneled wall. “Why don’t you stand outside in the middle of
the fucking square so you don’t have to scream so damn loud?” he spat, giving
Liam a harsh shake before dropping him back to the ground.
Liam jammed a finger into Irish’s shoulder, his eyes blazing
hot. “You did, didn’t you? Jesus, Irish. She’s a
werewolf
,” he said, keeping his voice low, but his tone said it
all. It said
disgust
—and it damn well
pissed Irish off.
“You say that like I slept with the fucking devil. I recall
a werewolf nurse or two in your sketchy past.”
Liam began to pace, running a hand through his long, dark
hair. “That was before we were forced to live like a bunch of rabid killers and
warned off anyone other than our own kind. You dumb fuck, Irish. Do you have
any idea what this could mean? What kind of shit could go down? Did it even
occur to you that Gannon was our only source of blood?”
Irish tightened his jaw, clenching his fists at his side. “None
at all. Never occurred to me there could be repercussions, jackass.”
“Don’t be glib, because this isn’t just about you and your
dick.”
“Liam?” Hadley’s face poked through the newly refinished oak
door.
Liam instantly stood up straight, plastering a smile on his
face. He held out his arms to Hadley. “
Evenin
’,
Sunshine. Didn’t think you were ever
gonna
wake up.”
Hadley went to him reluctantly, her round blue eyes, so much
like their mothers, still glazed with vampire sleep. “Who could sleep with you
guys yelling? Why are you fighting?”
Irish mimicked Liam and put a smile on his face, too. “No
fighting, Cookie. Just a disagreement is all. Sometimes we yell when we
disagree because we’re big bags of hot air. You hungry?”
She kept her eyes on the floor, a dark curtain of curly hair
falling across her cheeks. Her slim shoulders moved up and down with the
indifference he’d become so used to. She was so damn touchy all the time. He
never knew which side of the bed she’d wake up on. “Not really.”
Irish tipped her chin up, forcing her to look into his eyes
and trying really hard not to root around in her head so he could just figure
her out once and for all.
He didn’t want to invade her teenage privacy, but it would be
nice to understand what went through her head when she took to one of her
ever-changing moods. “You need to feed,
Had
.”
She rolled her eyes at him, indicating today was a “God,
quit nagging me, Irish” day. “I know. I will. I’m just not feeling great.”
Liam’s and Irish’s stares met over the top of Hadley’s head.
“That’s two days in a row now, kiddo. What gives?”
She pushed away from Liam, shaking her head and waving a
hand at them. “Nothing gives, Irish. I’m sure I’ll be fine. It’s probably just
all those vampire growing pains Mom always talked about. I have to go meet
Sarah to study.” She began to saunter off to the part of the club that
remained, in her honor, a real house. An old, rambling Victorian complete with
a sprawling front porch and view of the ocean.
“But—” Irish started.
“I know, I know. I’ll feed before I go,” she retorted, her
typical exasperated tone lacing her words as she stomped her way out of the
meeting room.
Liam hitched his jaw at Irish. “You damn well watch
yourself, vampire. I might be your right hand, but I won’t hesitate to take you
down if you fuck up our relationship with those dicks. We need the blood they
supply. You know it. Worse,
they
damn
well know it. One reason for them to hold it over our heads and we’re fucked—no
matter how much money we have between us to buy it. Slamming Claire is a pretty
sound reason to cut us off.”
Irish fought the impulse to grab his brother by the throat.
Instead he said, “Don’t talk about her like that, Liam.
Ever
. Clear?”
“Yeah. I’m clear. Just as long as you are, too—we have
nothing else to discuss.” He pushed his way out of the den with a flat palm to
the door, leaving Irish to contemplate how he was going to keep Claire safe
without risking his family in the process.
Worse, Liam left him to wonder how he was ever going to be
able to stay the fuck away from her.