Free About Face (Wolf Within) by Amy Lee Burgess Page B

and I gritted my teeth.
    Paddy watched me drink my Guinness. His eyes fascinated me. I’d never seen anyone with different-colored eyes before him. I wondered if his wolf’s eyes were two different colors and tried to remember if I’d noticed the afternoon I’d had to shift for the tribunal. My mind had been focused on other things—like how my wolf had refused at first to come out, so it was no wonder I didn’t have a clue.
    “I meant what I said, you know.” He had that wistful, remorseful look on his face again—the one I didn’t trust because he was a lying, manipulative bastard. “About you being family. About how you belong to me.” The possessiveness in his voice was not overtly sexual, although there were undertones since he was an Alpha male and I was a fertile female. Instead he evoked feelings of protectiveness—feelings I fought because they weren’t true.
    Was this the prelude to the scene from Faith’s dream? Would he open his mouth and say, Now do you believe in me again?
    I hoped not because I sure as hell didn’t feel like saying I belonged to him. Maybe I ought to put the dream aside and concentrate on dialog that actually took place versus the stuff of Faith’s unconscious imagination.
    But if Murphy was in trouble, Paddy would know it. And he’d tell me, I hoped. So maybe the dream had nothing to do with Murphy and everything to do with me and Paddy. Somehow I was supposed to learn to trust him again? Was that it?
    “You want me back with Murphy, don’t you?”
    “Right,” he agreed.
    “Then I’m only family if I’m with Murphy, is that it?” I guessed bitterly. “I only count if I’m Liam Murphy’s bond mate.”
    He shifted uneasily on his squeaky chair. “I told you before, you’ve got to prove yourself to this pack. You don’t just waltz in and take your place near the top of the ranks without a struggle.”
    “Who says I want to be near the top?” I whispered.
    He scowled at me. “For fuck’s sake, Stanzie, you’re an Advisor to a member of the Great Council. And, yes, you are Liam Murphy’s bond mate, at least for a little while longer—hopefully more if you get your head out of your ass and kick his. Fee and I have been Alphas for three years. We’ve got another two to go, and then this pack will choose a new Alpha pair. And there’s every chance in the world it will be you and Liam if you play your cards right.
    “So people like Alannah Doyle and Declan Byrne, your main competition, are not going to quietly let you sneak ahead of them in the ranks. No matter what I want or what Fee wants, our votes only count so far. The pack has a say, too.”
    “The main contender for the next Alpha female is a barmaid?” I spoke without thinking and Paddy groaned and threw up his hands dramatically.
    “A barmaid who’s my sister, remember, you horrible bitch? What the hell do you want her to be? A nuclear physicist? Stanzie, for Christ’s sake, since when do we judge who should be Alpha by their damn day jobs?”
    “I figure this is a huge pack and it doesn’t just revolve around the fertile duos and triads, so there has to be more criteria than that. Why not day jobs? Sorcha was a scientist, wasn’t she?” I wanted to throw my Guinness at his face, but it was too good to waste.
    “A lab technician with delusions of grandeur.” Paddy’s voice was flat.
    I wanted to argue. She’d been murdered by the conspiracy, so obviously she’d been more than a simple lab tech. She had to have been.
    “She was working late to impress her bosses. She was taking classes and wanted to move up, and maybe she would have, but all that would have been put on hold so she could have her baby. She shouldn’t have even been working still, the stubborn bitch, but nobody could ever tell her what to do. Liam begged her to stop working and act like a real Alpha female, but she laughed in his face. He’s the one who carried that duo when they were Alpha, and everyone in Mac Tire knows