Inside Out. Amy Lee Burgess

      When I woke, I was in bed with two men. One of them, my Alpha Paddy O’Reilly, had his hand on my ass. The steady, inhale exhale of his breath was warm against the back of my neck.

      The other man, Liam Murphy was my bond mate. Deeply asleep, he lay curled in a ball at the extreme edge of the king-sized mattress, his back to me. Still I’d managed to hook one ankle over his in my sleep. Awake, I’m sure I never would have done it because I was angry with him.

      He hadn’t been there for my tribunal. Though I’d begged him to stay with me, he’d gone to Virginia to search the Pack’s archives for a case precedent which would have spared me from being put to death on a murder charge. However, I saved myself—or rather, my wolf had. She’d shown the Councilors on the tribunal the way to absolve me. In the end, I’d been commended for my service to the Great Pack—a twist I’d never expected even in my wildest imaginings. I’d been convinced I was doomed.

      Thoughts of the tribunal and Murphy’s absence made sleep impossible. After I lifted Paddy’s hand off my ass, I wriggled from beneath the comforter and sheets, and slid down to the end of the bed.

      My reflection in the mirror over the dresser frightened me a little. Damn I needed to wash my hair. Or at least brush it. I pushed blond snarls away from my face and stared at my eyes. Darker blue than normal. Definitely troubled.

      “Bullshit,” I muttered and stalked across the bland beige carpeting. I made a pit stop at my suitcase, which inconveniently blocked access to the bathroom. I threw the first things that came to hand—jeans, a t-shirt, and underwear—over my shoulder. Then I snatched up my toiletries and makeup bag, and took a long, hot shower.

      The scent of hotel body wash and shampoo clung to my skin when I emerged forty minutes later.

      Paddy O’Reilly, leader of my pack, Mac Tire, hung up the phone on the nightstand and turned to give me a cheerful smile. His curly black hair never looked neat, but the extreme state of bed head he boasted this morning was truly phenomenal. Yet, he still managed to look appealing. How did men do things like that? It wasn’t fair.

      “Room service is on the way. Let them in if I’m still in the shower, okay?” The Irish lilt to his voice reminded me of Murphy’s. By association, my gaze slid to the figure still huddled beneath the comforter. He hadn’t shifted position and, while he wasn’t exactly snoring, he breathed loudly.

      Paddy followed my gaze and grinned. “Dead to the world, he is. Be that way for several hours by my estimation. Guess we won’t be heading back to Boston today, will we?”

      I scowled. “We could wake his ass up.”

      Paddy gave my wet hair a friendly tousle on his way past to the bathroom. “Nah. He needs his sleep, Stanzie. He hasn’t done anything but grab cat naps here and there for the past four days. Boston will still be there tomorrow and the day after that too, I suspect.”

      But I wanted to leave Connecticut now. I’d wanted to leave yesterday when the tribunal cleared me.

      The tribunal had really hung me out to dry emotionally. I’d had some awesomely terrible experiences over the past three years, but that had been one of the worst of my whole life. Since I’d turned thirty, my life had blown up and everything I’d thought I’d have until I grew old and died had been systematically yanked away from me until I clutched at what was left with increasing desperation.

      I tried to live on the bright side, only it was getting harder and harder to find anything but darkness.

      Liam Murphy was one of the brightest things that had happened since my first bond mates had died in a car crash the night of my thirtieth birthday. Six months ago, under strange and dramatic circumstances, we’d bonded. Somewhere along the line, I’d fallen in love with him. He had no clue whatsoever that I loved him.

      I knew and accepted, sort of, that he’d never truly love me as he’d loved his dead bond mate, Sorcha, but I had thought we were great friends and even better bond mates. Now my faith had been seriously shaken. Something in me had broken when he’d left me to face the tribunal alone. Other Advisors had also searched the archives for a precedent to clear me. He could have let them do it and stayed with me, and I tried to understand his reasons, but it was so hard.

      Murphy had plead exhaustion and fallen into a deep sleep the minute we’d walked into Paddy’s downtown Hartford hotel room last night, but usually he did not curl into a fetal ball at the extreme edge of the mattress to avoid me. Normally he met my eyes when he talked to me.

      My life was once again a shit mess. The first step to make it less shitty would be to leave Connecticut behind, but Murphy had to sleep.

      I had very little sympathy. He could sleep when we got to Boston. With a rattling briskness, I whipped aside the floor length curtains across the hotel windows. Hideous late-morning sunlight jabbed my eyeballs and I muffled a curse. Fucking sun. What was I? A vampire?

      Meanwhile Murphy hadn’t moved a muscle. Oblivious.

      I shaded my poor eyes with one hand and forced myself to stare out the window. The hotel overlooked the Connecticut River, but not from our room. We had a view of a glass-and-steel office building which accounted for the truly appalling glare, and three stories below, a sidewalk where several young saplings were trained against sticks and surrounded with wire fencing for protection.

      The hotel boasted the largest ballroom in the city and I’d played my harp there several times for wedding receptions when I’d belonged to the Riverglow pack. If I closed my eyes, I could conjure up the peach-and-cream floral pattern of the carpeting and the phantom scent of baked stuffed shrimp and prime rib. I hadn’t played a harp in nearly three years and it was more than that since I’d played professionally. Did I still remember how?

      I let the apricot-colored curtains fall from my hand and turned to the king-sized bed. Murphy was still scrunched up beneath the covers. Just his blondish brown hair protruded. And one bare arm.

      From the bathroom Paddy burst into an Irish folk song. I understood one word in five. Maybe. He had a pleasing baritone that shook the shower gel off the side of the tub by the sound of it. Or maybe the container slipped through his fingers. My enhanced hearing made it sound like he showered with the bathroom door wide open. No, wait, the bathroom door was wide open.

      I almost tripped over the dark peach footstool that matched the armchair by the windows. Everything in the room was peach, apricot, cream, or pale blue. Except for the wallpaper. That had wide yellow stripes on a cream background. Or maybe vice versa, I couldn’t decide.

      On my way to shut the damn bathroom door, someone knocked on the front door. Room service.

      Great. My hair still hung in wet strings around my face. I had no idea where