United (The Ushers) (11 page)

“I’m fine; it’s fine. I didn’t mean to make a big deal out of it. There are toilets and showers…How bad can it be?”
This time when she smiled, it felt genuine.

Annie and Graham set up the campsite, their easy-going banter lightening the mood. Ellen was making a fire, and Fionn was on the phone with Ted. Waggling her fingers at him, Monica walked a few steps away from the campsite and shed her clothing. She changed, hard and fast, and took off at a run through the woods. She hadn’t meant to bring her friends down, but she had sworn to herself when she bought the school that housed Amazon’s Compound that she would never lack for modern convenience. And she hadn’t.

She didn’t really plan to become as reclusive as she had, but between running a large pack and keeping their presence more or less a secret, it had happened slowly over time. Truth be told, she had barely noticed. She heard a whine coming from behind her and glanced over her shoulder to see Annie approaching in her cat form. She stopped and shifted back. When Annie reached Monica, she shifted as well.

“You didn’t have to run after me. I’m okay.” Monica touched the Guide’s face.

“Oh, I know you’re okay. I just thought it might be nice to talk, just the two of us, so I grabbed my chance. Ellen and Graham are capable of prepping the campsite.” Annie sat down on a large rock, obviously impervious to the cold granite under her naked skin. After a moment, Monica joined her, putting her head on the Guide’s shoulder.

“It’s been a long time since you were that little girl, Mon.”

“I know.”

“I was around then. But I mostly stayed in my animal form. I guess some things are easier about being solitary. That, and I was created with the ability to shift. I wasn’t born, so I never had to grow into it.”

“Yeah.” Monica met her eyes. “It wasn’t an easy time to be a woman.”

“You’re luckier than most. You got away from there, came east. You ended up in Boston, and now you’re like the leader of the free Were world.”

“Thanks to Sara.” Monica smiled, a thought occurring to her. “Why did she come to me? Why wasn’t it you?”

“I knew who you were. I didn’t know that you would mate with Fionn. Sara knew you’d be important in creating a haven where Bianca could be born safely, but even she didn’t know you’d mate with Fionn until more recently. I mean, he wasn’t even born yet. And it could have been one of his brothers. We knew the second Usher would be a Murphy, but that was about it. At the time, I was mostly looking over his family, waiting for them.

“Patrick was born first, of course; however, by puberty, it was clear that he didn’t have the temperament to be Alpha. Jack was born a few years later, followed by Ted only two years later. I thought for a while that Jack might be the second Usher, but he was never ambitious enough…or brutal enough.”

“Oh yeah, Jack is a big softie under that gruff exterior.” Monica scoffed. Jack was as dangerous as any wolf she’d ever met. He wouldn’t have been her Guardian otherwise.

“Think about it. You know Jack. He was a sailor during WWII, and he still has nightmares. He will use force when necessary, but he also avoids it as much as possible.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Monica agreed. “And Ted is the same way.”

“So, then Bianca was born, and Sara and I realized that either Ted or Jack would be her mate. It made so much sense that one of them would be strong enough to mate her but also forward-thinking enough to accept the changes she would bring. We never knew which one it would be, though. If Ted had come into Sara’s Inn that day, it would have been him that mated Bianca.”

Monica tried to picture gentle Ted in Jack’s place but couldn’t imagine anyone other than Jack with Bee.

“I cannot tell you how relieved I was when Fionn was born,” Annie continued. “I thought Roisin had decided she was done with diapers and nursing pups, and we’d be waiting for one of the Murphy brothers to father a baby.”

“What was Fionn like, as a little boy?” Monica asked curiously.

“I actually don’t know. After he was born, I left for a while. I came back around the time he made his first shift. Well, you know how that went. I cannot apologize enough to you for what happened.”

“Annie, you slept with him one time, twenty years before I met him. You don’t need to apologize for having sex with a handsome man.”

“You’re not angry about it?”

“No. Jealous, maybe, but angry? No, I would never be that catty.” Monica waved her hand in a dismissive gesture before she realized what she’d said. Horrified, she clapped a hand over her mouth as Annie laughed, her giggles pealing out of her like a rumbling purr.

“I’m so sorry, Annie,” she said around her own tense laugh.

“I’m not offended. It’s in my nature to be possessive, so I guess it would be ‘catty’ to hate on me for having sex with him.”

“Do you hate me?” Monica’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

“No, Mon. I’m fine. He’s not my mate. I can’t bond to someone that way. Though I hope to maybe have a husband one day.”

“He bit you, though,” Monica said, as if that meant anything special to Annie.

“He did. Fucker left a scar, too. But since I’m not his mate, or even biologically compatible to reproduce, I didn’t have that super erotic reaction to it that you all have.”

“Ooh. Ouch.” Monica frowned, trying to imagine the mate-bite being just a werewolf bite without any of the ecstatic feeling that came with it, and the thought made her shudder. “You must have been pissed.”

“Honestly, it was more surprising than anything else. I mean, I knew why his body told him to mark or bite; I was just shocked that he actually did it to me.”

“He was so young,” Monica reminded her.

“Old enough to control his teeth in bed. It was really surprising to me.”

“You and I are the only women he’s ever bitten. He was probably feeling really connected because you’re his Guide.”

“I never thought of it like that before.” Annie’s face relaxed as she pondered the idea.

“Where did he bite you?” Monica found herself asking, hoping it wasn’t the left breast, over the heart.

“Here.” Annie pointed to a silvery white scar where her neck and shoulder met.

Monica could tell from the shape of the bite that he had been behind her. She blushed.

“Yeah, I know.” Annie rolled her eyes. “Dominance junkie.”

“Was he really?” Monica’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s never like that with me.”

“He was so bossy. Maybe you’re just better at standing up to him than I was.”

“I’m the bossy one now.” Monica smiled. “We should get back and try to catch some small game on the way.”

Annie laughed again. “Um, Mon, we packed a cooler. We don’t need to eat rabbits and squirrels.”

“Oh, okay, sure. In that case, then, we should probably get back to our yummy modern snacks.” She smiled sheepishly as she began to shift.

They had barely started back to the campsite when she heard the loud, unmistakable crack of a shotgun. She heard a roar from behind her and saw Annie shaking a bloody paw and spitting. She started toward the Guide, not thinking beyond making sure she was okay.

“Go!”
Annie shouted in her mind. “
The flechettes are silver. Get the hell out of here. They won’t kill me, but they sure as hell can you.”

Monica felt a whine escape from her lips as she turned and ran as fast as she could toward the campsite. She heard Annie behind her, running clumsily on three legs.

“Fionn!”
She reached for her mate with her mind, knew he could feel her fear and her urgency.

“Mo!”
His voice ripped into her, clear and beautiful.

“Darling, Annie’s hurt. Someone shot her!”
She burst onto the campsite to find her wolves all in a state of midshift.

“STOP!”
she thundered into their minds, watching as they shifted back to their human forms, unable to resist her compulsion. She shook herself, reaching for her clothes before her body had even finished its shift.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” she said, chest heaving. “They shot her with silver. I don’t want to see any fur until we’re out of this Goddess-forsaken park, you got that?”

Annie stumbled into the campsite and shifted. Her hand was bleeding heavily as she sat down and groaned.

“Fuck!” Graham reached into his tent for a towel, coming forward and wrapping it around Annie’s hand to staunch the flow of blood. “Let’s see what we’ve got here, Ann, okay?” He swallowed, and a wave of nausea rolled over all of them as they sensed his thoughts when he saw two of her fingers were missing, silver needle-like projectiles sticking out of her hand.

“Oh shit, Annie, it’s fucking bad.”

“I know it’s fucking bad,” she hissed.

“Fionn, get the first aid kit out of the car. We need to stop her pain and prevent her going into shock so her body can heal. First, I need something to stop the bleeding. Go.” Graham gave orders so naturally that even the Alphas obeyed.

“Graham, do you have medical experience?” Ellen asked quietly.

He shook his head, gritting his teeth. “No, but this isn’t the first shot wound I’ve seen. Thank the Goddess she’s not a wolf. The flechettes that ripped off her fingers would have poisoned one of us.” He picked at the silver bits sticking out of her hand until he was certain they were all gone.

Fionn came back with the wolf first aid kit. In addition to bandages and antiseptic wipes, it contained doses of morphine far beyond what would be lethal to a human. Graham pulled out a needle and administered the shot. Annie’s eyes immediately rolled back as pharmacological euphoria took her out of her senses.

Graham nodded as he examined her hand. “She’s starting to heal already. She’s lost two fingers, but she’ll be okay. Let’s let her rest.” With concise, efficient movements, he cleaned, wrapped and bandaged her hand. Gently, he picked her up and carried her to the car. Monica helped him settle her into the comfortable passenger seat, where they threw a blanket over her sleeping form to cover her nudity.

“Thanks, Graham,” Monica whispered, enfolding him in a friendly hug. “I’m so glad you were here.”

They both turned in surprise when they heard an angry growl behind them. Fionn was watching them with his teeth bared, looking as shocked as they were when he realized the sound had come from his own throat.

“Sorry, Graham. I guess my wolf doesn’t like seeing a naked man hugging my mate,” he apologized sheepishly.

“Come here.” Monica reached for her mate. She held him tightly, rocking against him. “We need to get our wolves out of here. How fast can we break up the camp?”

“Fast.” Fionn nodded to Graham, who, along with Ellen, immediately started dousing the fire and breaking down the tents. Fionn pressed a kiss to Monica’s hair. “You scared the hell out of me, lover. Thank the Goddess you’re okay,” he whispered.

Mere minutes passed before they were all in the car.

“Fionn…drive east, and don’t look back,” Monica commanded.

Chapter Eleven

T
ED
M
ET
T
HE
W
OLVES
from Amazon at the entrance to the Murphy estate. He reached out and enfolded his youngest brother in a hug.

“Fionn, thank Goddess you guys are okay. Blake and some of his team are going out to West Virginia to investigate.” Ted’s face looked wan, exhausted. Clearly, Mid-A was locked in a struggle that weighed heavily on its Alpha.

“Ted, they shot her with silver.” Monica stood beside her mate, wrapping an arm loosely around his waist. “They knew I was a wolf.” She shuddered.

“So either it was other wolves, or we’ve been exposed.” Grimly, Ted scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “Who the fuck discharges a weapon in a National Park, that’s what I want to know?” He scowled. “We’ve had some suspicious activity going on, Blake’s team is working ’round the clock trying to get to the bottom of it.”

“Well, we’re not going to figure it out standing on the front lawn in the middle of the night.” Fionn put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, Teddy.”

Fionn watched Monica’s face as they entered his family home. He’d grown up here, knew every creaking floor board and exactly how the light would spill in the windows in the morning. Monica’s face glowed with appreciation as she looked around the kitchen, which was obviously well-used, and followed him up the stairs. Graham and Ellen came behind them, Graham carrying Annie in his arms. Wordlessly, Fionn pointed to the guest rooms, and their wolves disappeared inside one. Taking Monica’s hand, he led her into the room where he had slept for most of his life, until he came to her five months before. Her eyes widened as she took in the big four poster bed that dominated the room. Hanging above the bed was a huge photograph of entwined lovers. Looking closer, she realized it was a print of the famous Annie Leibovitz portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken mere hours before Lennon’s death. A stereo sat in one corner, an overflowing bookshelf in another.

“Huh,” she said softly.