United (The Ushers) (15 page)

“Fionn. Don’t—” Jack warned him.

Monica reached out a hand and placed it on Jack’s chest. She shook her head.

“Your brother and his mate care about you, Fionn. They are concerned about you. I was sharing my concerns with them because we all care about you.”

“You can’t fix me, Monica.” Fionn glared at her. “You can’t make this better. We can get my son back, maybe, but he’s not the same kid he was. And it’s all my fault.”

Monica felt it then, a wave of anguish and longing coming off him. She met his eyes with her own, steady and true, offered herself as a foil, a counterweight to his grief. She reached out a hand to him. “Fionn, please.” She poured all her love into the link they shared, then felt it surge back against her when he pinched the link closed in his mind.

Monica recoiled, as if he had slapped her. Snarling, she took a step back. Jack and Bianca steadied her, a hand on each shoulder. Her mind reeling from the sudden loss of the connection, she felt tears welling in her eyes. Wordlessly, she shifted, letting her clothing fall in tatters to the ground. Her friends’ mouths dropped open: it had been years since she had shift-and-shredded. She took off at a furious run, determined to put some acreage between herself and her mate before she did something she’d regret. Her blood pounding furiously in her ears, she headed for the ocean.

“What the hell did you do to her, Fionn Murphy?” Bianca growled. “Someone ought to blood you for that.”

Fionn’s hands buried in his hair, and anguish crept across his features as he realized the enormity of what he’d done. He gasped, trying to feel along the link to his mate and not finding her. His pain rippled through Bianca and Jack as they watched him realize that he’d done the unthinkable. In a fit of self-loathing, he’d severed the bond.

“Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?” Annie came out onto the porch. She was scowling, and he didn’t need to feel her through their bond to know she was spitting mad.

“I need to go after her,” he whispered.

“Don’t bother,” Annie hissed. “I’ll take care of your mate. You go take a shower, get your shit together, and wait right fucking here until we get back. You are in the dog house, Fionn Murphy.” Annie quickly dropped her clothes to the ground and took off after Monica.

Monica was sitting on the dock in her wolf form, staring out at the bay, when Annie approached. The panther shook for a moment and then changed. Annie lay down on her stomach on the dock, tangling a hand in Monica’s fur. For a moment, the wolf stiffened, then she lay down next to Annie.

“He loves you.”
The rumbling feline mind touched hers.

“I know. But what he did was so incredibly stupid.”

“He didn’t realize what he was doing. If you two had been anyone else…”

Monica shuddered at Annie’s unfinished thought. She and Fionn might have both been driven insane by his tantrum. As it was, their bond had been snapped, and it would take both effort and blood to reform it.

“Do you think we can fix it?”
Monica whined.

Annie caressed Monica’s velvety ears, smiling her reassurance.

“Yes. But you need to make sure he knows better than to ever do that again. He can’t shut you out every time you guys argue, or you
will
both go crazy.”

Annie stood, shifted back to her cat form, and started to run back to the house. After a moment, Monica followed. She ran slower, not wanting to arrive before she knew what to say. Jack held the door open for her, and she took the stairs in her wolf form, pushing open the door to the room she’d been sharing with Fionn. He sat, naked, on the bed, elbows on his knees, hands buried in his hair. He looked up and met her eyes, a look of abject misery burning in his own.

“Mo,” he whispered. The air around her seemed to crackle with energy as she shifted back into her human form. He knelt at her feet, neck bared in apology.

She snarled.

He looked up into her ravaged face. She wore her fury like a living veil, a seething, bitter thing.

He winced.

“Get up,” she demanded.

He stood, baring his neck again as he did.

“Please, Mo. I’m so damned sorry. Please.” He felt a sharp sting in his nose, realized he was on the verge of tears. “Forgive me.” He reached for her.

“Not. Just. Yet.” She spit the words out, stepping back, both hands raised defensively in front of her. She watched him through anger-lidded eyes, the way he flinched at her words. She realized at that moment, she was every bit as powerful as he. She could blood him, if she so desired. She could fight him. Even kill him. Wolf justice had been delivered on far lesser insults.

But that wasn’t what she desired.

She wanted her man, and she wanted him whole.

She picked up his hand and, without warning, sunk her teeth into the fleshy palm. He winced briefly, then his eyes closed in pleasure as she licked at the small wounds. She held out her own hand to him, knowing he would need to bite her to resurrect their bond.

Fionn gently pressed a kiss to her palm before letting his teeth shift. He bit gently, and in the moment his teeth pierced her skin, she felt him flooding back into her as if he’d never gone. She felt the agony he’d suffered while he’d waited for her to come back. Remorse, self-loathing and, buried deep within, hope.

She pulled her hand back. “Don’t you ever do that again,” she whispered.

He shook his head.

Nodding, she turned and left the room, letting the door swing shut behind her. She crossed the hallway to the room she knew Ellen and Annie were sharing and heard them laughing together inside. She knocked, heard Annie tell her to enter, and pushed her way inside.

Flopping stomach-down on the bed, she looked up at Annie. “It’s done.”

Annie caressed Monica’s arm. “And yet you’re coming into our room buck naked instead of screwing his brains out?”

Monica let out a bark of laughter before reaching for Ellen’s robe from the door. “May I?”

Ellen nodded.

“I’m not ready to even speak to him yet. I just bit him, let him bite me, and left.”

“Monica, he needs you more than ever right now.”

“I know, Annie,” she snarled. “Sorry. But I can’t make love to him right now. Not with this anger between us.”

“Mmmm. I remember having a knock-down drag-out with my mate once.” Ellen snickered. “The make-up sex might just have been the best we ever had.”

“I’m not having make-up sex with that big oaf,” Monica grumbled.

The door pushed open, and Bianca strolled inside.

“Hiya, Mon.” She grinned at her former Alpha. Bianca had always enjoyed a laughing camaraderie with Monica, and they’d grown even closer since Sara’s death. Bianca’s early years had been consumed with being “the Chosen One” but now, she was just Bee.

“Hi, Bee.” She couldn’t help but smile just a little at her friend, who lay down with the rest of them on the bed.

“Bed’s a little crowded.” Annie laughed. “I’m going to go chat with Be—Gerard.”

“He’s right outside the door.” Bianca gestured with her chin, rolling her eyes. She patted her belly. “He wasn’t kidding about being Sarita’s protector. He’s been up my ass since we left the compound.”

They heard a distinctly ungentlemanly snort coming from the hallway, and Bianca started giggling, then called out loudly, “Seems no one told him where the baby comes out. He’s looking in the wrong place.”

Unable to help themselves, the other women started laughing, too, as Annie slipped out into the hallway. Monica laughed until tears were pouring from her eyes, and then she felt the tears turn to tears of grief, and she sobbed into Bianca’s shoulder.

“Shhhhh, Mon,” Bianca whispered. “It’s okay. You’re both okay. He still loves you so much. And you still love him, even if you’re tempted to tie him down and pluck all the hairs off his ballsack with a pair of tweezers.”

Monica half-sobbed, half-laughed at that imagery. Sitting up, she met Bianca’s eyes. “I’m blubbering like an idiot.” She sniffed, wiping her face.

“It’s okay. You’re entitled. You’re under a lot of pressure. Jack can tell you firsthand, it sucks being an Usher, but being an Usher’s mate is just as bad. All of the pain, none of the glory.”

“Mo.” They heard Fionn’s voice from the hallway.

She sighed, tossed Ellen’s robe back over its hook, and threw open the door.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Fionn sucked in a deep breath at the sight of her. She was beautiful, standing naked in the doorway, her face streaked with tears, her body still humming with her anger.

“Mo. Please come talk to me,” he said in a tiny voice. “I need you.” He touched the faint line on her skin where a tear had slipped down her face, watching her eyes tighten as he did. “Please?”

She looked over her shoulder at Ellen and Bianca, who nodded encouragingly. With a wave of her fingers, she slipped into the hallway beside her mate.

“I’m not sure I can do this now,” she whispered as he took her hand and led her back to their room.

“Just talk. I just need to hear your voice.” He picked her up and lay her on the bed, pulling a blanket over her and sliding in beside her. Propping himself up on one arm, he looked at her.

“I didn’t realize what I was doing,” he said.

“I know. But it still hurt me.”

“I made you cry.”

She felt his grief through their link as she nodded.

“Dammit, Mo. I can’t lie here with you and not touch you.”

He tugged her into his arms, tucking her head under his chin as he wrapped her in a tight hug. She felt his strength and his love, and she let herself be soothed. Tears flowing again, she pressed her face closer to his chest.

“You have to let people help you, lover,” she mumbled into his chest.

He pressed a kiss into her hair. “I know. I’m sorry. I was hurt that you were talking to Jack about me. I wasn’t thinking about why.” He had reacted purely out of pain, something he did when depression sunk its claws into him. And she’d come back to him, even though he’d hurt her. “Mo, I need you. I need you every minute. I promise I will never touch our bond like that.”

“You’d better not. Bianca gave me a good idea of how to punish you next time, and it involves tweezers.” She sent him a visual and giggled as he winced. “Jack and Bianca are family. They can help. They are helping. Our plan is a solid one. We’ll get Devon back.”

“Goddess, I hope you’re right, Mo.” He pulled her tight to him, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. They didn’t make love that night, but they held each other tightly until both slept.

Chapter Fifteen

“H
EY
, B
OSS
.”
M
ONICA
H
EARD
and felt Kathy in her thoughts before she turned around. Kathy’s touch felt like bubbles bursting across the senses. When Monica turned, she met Kathy’s grin with a smile of her own. Kathy sat with her on the front steps of the Murphy house. The Amazon wolves had been in Maryland for a week now, and other Alphas were starting to arrive. The vast front lawns had become a colorful campground, with Roisin and Cormac Murphy’s blessing. Little Rose, Fionn’s eight-year-old daughter, was visiting, and Monica watched as Rose and Fionn charmed the visiting wolves.

Monica had been nervous when she met Rose but found herself completely enchanted with the child from the start and was thankful Rose seemed to like her, too. She had asked if she could call her “Mo,” like Daddy did, and Monica had agreed that that would be fine. Then, the little bit of a human had put her hand in Monica’s and whispered that the tooth fairy had visited the night before. Monica smiled as the memory tugged at her heart.

Kathy sat beside her and followed Monica’s eyes.

“He’s a good dad,” Kathy noted.

Monica smiled and nodded. “Yes.” She watched Fionn lift his daughter onto his shoulders so she could see something off in the distance. Rose let go of his hair and clapped her hands, secure in her father’s protection and love.