Fangs of Anarchy - Forbidden Alpha (Part 2) Girl Most Lycan: A Werewolf Vampire Shifter Romance (5 page)

Freya dropped a sandwich on the table in the library’s staff
lunchroom, her eyes full of worry when she grabbed Claire’s hand. “What the
fresh hell, Claire?”

Composure was the name of the game with Freya. Claire had
practiced her big confused eyes in the mirror for just this occasion. “I don’t
know what you mean. What fresh hell are you referring to today?”

Freya’s looks, petite and blonde, betrayed her shark-like
instincts. “Oh, Jesus and the river Nile, don’t play stupid with me, Claire.
Please. I was a lawyer. I can smell a lie in a roomful of two-week-old dead
fish. What gives with the delicious vampire?”

Claire bit into her sandwich, one that tasted like
cardboard. She made her eyes go round and innocent. “What vampire?”

“The one you’ve lusted for since we moved to this
godforsaken town five years ago. The one who has a name that sounds like Irish.”

“
Shhh
,” Claire hissed, flashing
her eyes at Freya. There was probably going to be nothing in the world she
regretted more than that bottle of wine three years ago and a night full of
confessions about their sex lives, or lack thereof. “Do you want someone to
hear you?”

She slapped her hand on the table with a sharp clap. “Then tell
me what the hell is going on. Everyone’s all abuzz about Courtland calling you
out as a murderer and Irish coming to your rescue out at the old campgrounds.
It’s like you both have ‘death wish’ stamped on your fool foreheads, Claire.”

Look into your best
friend’s eyes and lie, Claire. Get used to it. You’ll be doing a
buttload
of it in the coming days
. “He didn’t come to
my rescue, Freya. Not in the way you’re thinking. He was just trying to keep
Courtland and the crew from persecuting me without evidence—which, of course,
they don’t have. They’d all been drinking when they came to the library last
night, torches lit,
my
name written in flames.”

Freya flashed one of her infamous “and?” looks. “Big
surprise, Claire. It’s not like you didn’t share your hatred for Gannon in
parts near and far. As a prosecutor, I’d put you on my list of suspects, too.”

She was sick of hearing about how she’d told the world she
despised the idea of Gannon as her mate. Who wanted Gannon as a mate? No one
with eyeballs and the gift of scent. In fact, when he’d called her out as his
intended, there’d been a collective sigh of relief from the eligible women of
the pack.

“Like you wouldn’t have squawked if Gannon had called on
you? And Irish was just doing his job. In the process, he had a little fun at
Courtland’s expense. For all the booze they’d consumed, they’d have tarred and
feathered me before I had a chance to even have a council trial. Irish stepped
in because it’s his job to ensure peace and that everyone is treated fairly.
It’s over now, okay? So relax and tell me the last episode of
Boardwalk Empire
you left off on so we
can dish.” She popped a potato chip into her mouth, crunching it to block out
the niggling voice in her head, calling her a liar.

Freya unwrapped her purple scarf and dropped it on the
Formica lunch table, sitting back in the chair. “Not
buyin
’
it. There’s something you’re not telling me. Something critical.”

“Stop with the dramatics. There’s nothing to tell but what
really happened. And that’s what really happened.”
Mostly.

“Someone at Ahab’s overheard Courtland say he has a witness
who claims you murdered Gannon. Your thoughts on that?”

Her stomach pitched again. This witness. Who
was
this witness? She hadn’t smelled a
single soul but Gannon and Irish that night. “And where is this witness?
Who
is this witness?”

Freya rolled her shoulders. “I’m just repeating what I heard
them talking about at the grocery store.”

“Isn’t that called hearsay, lawyer?”

“It’s called gossip. We don’t have those kinds of rules anymore,
remember? You know, the ones where we abide by human laws like we’re evolved
instead of being forced to live by these archaic pack rules?”

Resentment slithered into Freya’s voice on a regular basis
when she spoke of her life in Rock Cove. She’d loved the law. She missed
practicing it every day, and Claire missed it for her. Freya had been hell on
wheels back then, a force to be reckoned with. Now she was
a
were
without purpose, and it hurt Claire to watch her best friend
reduced to doing little more than watching TV and quilting.

“Well, whatever it’s called, it’s just a bunch of people
talking about something they know nothing about. Now can we have lunch or do
you miss the days of yore as a prosecutor and want to give me a good
old-fashioned interrogation? I’ll let you be bad cop,” she teased, hoping to
take Freya down a different path, one that didn’t have Irish on it.

No Irish thoughts,
Claire. None.
It was a battle she almost thought she was winning until
she’d seen him today at the bank, his bike between his powerful thighs, his
sunglasses hiding his eyes. It took everything she had in her to walk past him
as if he didn’t exist.

Everything.

Freya tore into her sandwich, swallowing before she finally
responded. “I don’t want to be bad cop. I want to be lawyer werewolf. Like I
used to be.”

Claire sighed, pushing the crusts from her bread into a
brown paper bag. “I know you do. I want to go back to being a middle-school
librarian. But we’re never going back.”

Freya pushed her chair out, throwing the remainder of her
sandwich down and gathering her purse, her eyes defeated. “I know. Sorry. I’m
just being maudlin and feeling sorry for myself. I’ll just go make another
quilt…that should solve everything. Let’s do dinner later this week, huh?”

Freya’s sarcasm dripped from her words, and with good
reason. At least Claire had
this
library—it was better than none. “You bet, and bring your favorite nail polish.
I’ll give you a
mani
.”

Freya snorted, turning back to look at Claire, her hand
already on the lunchroom door. “You mean so I can be pretty for my mate?”

There’d be another mate night coming up soon, and Freya’s
time was surely running out. They’d talked long into many nights about what
they’d do when their time came. Funny, murder had never once come up in
conversation. But gone were the days when they were free to mate with whomever
they wanted.

Turning to leave, Freya dropped to her haunches before
rising and swiveling back to Claire, holding an envelope between her chipped
red nails. “This was on the floor. Looks like it’s for you.” She dropped it on
the table and squeezed Claire’s shoulder before she left.

Claire rubbed her temples and blew out a breath of air.

God. Lying was exhausting, especially when your best friend
was an ex-lawyer with a nose like a bloodhound. Give Freya a whiff of a reason
to whip out her prosecutor card and she’d have you serving twenty for a parking
meter violation.

All the more reason not to tell her what had happened the
night Gannon died.

Claire looked down at the envelope with her name scrawled
across it and her brow furrowed. She didn’t recognize the handwriting…

Ripping it open, she found a scrap of yellow notepaper that
read,
I need you now. Meet me at the
bluff by the lighthouse. Please help.

Those sentences had her jumping from her chair and running
for the door. She didn’t need to recognize the handwriting to know who it was
from.

As Claire hurried to gather her things, she said a silent
prayer.

Dear God, please let
her be safe and unharmed.

* * *

Flying down the steps of the library, she ran straight into
the burly chest of Courtland. The scent of whiskey on his breath, the haggard
look of a man who’d lost a good amount of sleep on his round face.

“If it isn’t the stuck-up bitch. Guess your vampire
boyfriend isn’t here to save you this time.”

She didn’t know Courtland very well. She only saw him when
he was shadowing Gannon, egging him on as mostly a quiet enforcer. Maybe out
from under his brother’s thumb, he wouldn’t be so bad.

Her guilt began to resurface again. Her rage and fear
because of that night had superseded anyone else’s emotions, and the way she
was treating Courtland showed it. Someone was dead. She’d been a part of that,
and though she’d hated Gannon, did what she’d had to do that night; Courtland
might not deserve her residual anger.

Claire cleared her throat, forcing her eyes to find his
gaze, forcing herself to sympathize not with a man who’d been his brother’s
lackey, but a man who’d lost a family member. “Listen, Courtland. I just wanted
to say I’m sorry about Gannon. I…I hope you’re okay.”

He leaned down and looked her in the eye, grabbing her
shoulder. “Fuck you, Prissy Pants.”

Okay, maybe he was just as bad. Her guilt fled, and her rage
returned. Claire gave him a shove, flicking his hand from her shoulders, hoping
to keep her voice steady. This connection Irish had created between them by
trying to keep her out of trouble would be exactly what brought them more.

Opting to ignore his crack about Irish, Claire gave him her
best stern librarian face. “Don’t ever put your hands on me again, Courtland.
Haven’t you learned anything, you
ape
? Just because
you’re the temporary reigning alpha doesn’t mean you don’t have to follow the
laws of the pack, and the law says you can’t manhandle me. Stop touching me every
chance you get!”

His whole face turned into one big sneer. “And
whaddya
think you can do about it?”

“I’m going to dick-punch you, ensuring no one will ever have
to mate with you because there’ll be nothing left to mate with after I chew up
your dangly bits and spit them in the trash. That’s what I’ll do about it.”

“You’re some nasty piece of work, Claire, with a sassy mouth
to boot. Always thinking you’re better than us, Fancy.”

Here was another thing she was sick to death of. The
accusation that because she was civilized and had manners, she was stuffy and
stuck-up. If she’d known the pack she’d end up with was littered with so many
ill-mannered heathens, if she’d known some of the oldest members of this pack
were actually bikers who’d never done anything but pillage and plunder, she
just might have chosen the prison camps.

“I don’t think it, Courtland. I know it. You don’t see me
out and about, manhandling anyone within reach of my grubby paws, do you? You
were raised in a civilized society before the government took over. Act like
it. Now why are you here? Is it to bring me in for questioning because your
witness says I killed your brother? Better be careful, Alpha-in-Waiting, you
might be next on my list. Oh, but wait. You have no body to prove Gannon’s
dead, do you? So where’s this witness?”

Courtland bristled, his scraggly hair shifting in the cold
wind. “I know you did Gannon in. I damn well know it. I can smell it.”

Claire put a finger under her nose, tucking her chin into
her scarf. “It’s a wonder you can smell anything over your own stench.”

“I might not be able to prove you killed him yet, but when I
do, I’m
gonna
see you skinned just like they used to
do back in the day. Right in front of everyone. Maybe even in the square.”

“
Oooh
. Big, scary words,
Alpha-in-Training-Wheels. But until then, I have to run some errands at the
grocery store. So, you go sharpen your knife and I’ll go get my gallon of milk.
We’ll meet back at the square when your
witness
shows up. Date?”

He glared down at her, the tattoo of a snake winding along
his thick neck dull and graying. “You’d better watch that fine ass of yours,
Claire Montgomery. ’
Cus
I’m
comin
’
for it,” he growled before turning to stomp off down the icy sidewalk, leaving
the smell of his unique body odor peppering her nostrils.

It had taken everything she had in her not to flip Courtland
the bird, but now wasn’t the time for that.

The throb of her chest pounded out a rhythm in her ears as
she tried to keep the walk to her car unhurried and unsuspicious to any
passersby.

Pressing her key fob, she beeped her car open and got
inside, shivering with a violent shudder. The bluff near the lighthouse. She
needed to get to there now, and without anyone seeing her.

An almost impossible feat in a town where some had nothing
better to do than watch the comings and goings of their fellow
neighbors—literally.

She turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the
parking lot, waving to Amos Mosley as she did, keeping a fake smile plastered
on her face.

Her thoughts raced as she headed to the lighthouse, the day
turning dark and gloomy as fat purple and dusky blue clouds formed in the sky.
Damn, likely more snow was in the forecast, making driving to the lighthouse
difficult if the roads turned icy as the temperature dropped.

Claire said a silent prayer she’d get there without
incident. Get there before—

No, she wouldn’t think it. Taking a deep breath, she calmed
her thoughts.

She would get to the lighthouse. She would make this right.
She would not allow Gannon Dodd to ruin a life. She would—

Her
next to last thought was
obliterated by the sound of screeching metal and the scream of tires as someone
plowed into her little car, sending it flying over the edge of the bluff and
into the icy waters of the Atlantic.

Her very last thought was: Damn, she’d forgotten to pack her
swimmies
.

To Be Continued…

(Cue even more evil music.)

Dakota Cassidy is the nationally bestselling author of more
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Fangs of Anarchy—Forbidden Alpha
Part Two
—
Girl Most
Lycan
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