About Face. Amy Lee Burgess
Not often, but there had been enough episodes during my childhood where Faith confidently predicted what would happen and it had that I’d learned to pay attention whenever she said, I had this dream—because inevitably what she dreamed came to pass.
Once she dreamed our pack mate Darren would get caught robbing someone’s house, and three nights later the homeowner walked in unexpectedly, and Darren had barely escaped before the police arrived.
Another time she’d dreamed Samantha, her father’s bond mate, would have a baby boy and name him Alan and he would have blond hair and blue eyes. Eight and a half months later, she had.
I always tried to be skeptical about Faith’s predictions. For instance, the law of averages demanded that cat burglar Darren’s luck run out at least a few times. That it had a few nights after Faith said it would didn’t definitively prove she was precognitive.
And it was a fifty-fifty shot Samantha would have a boy, and since she and Shane, the third member of her father’s triad, had blond hair and blue eyes, what else would he have? Perhaps Faith had heard them talking about names for potential children.
At the time of Faith’s dream, Sam had been Alpha female, and the whole point of being Alpha is to procreate. How far-fetched was it for Faith to have predicted a baby boy?
However, no one knew Samantha was pregnant when Faith related her dream to me, and no one knew for sure whether Shane or Todd was the father until after Alan was born and looked like a carbon copy of Shane.
“Tell me about your dream,” I demanded. Why would I need to go to Dublin? Faith’s dreams were indiscriminate; she foretold both the pleasant and the not so pleasant future. I wondered which category this dream fit.
Scott’s face held no clues except that he was skeptical. Enough uncertainty shone in his eyes to let me know his doubt was eroding. Faith’s accuracy tended to do that. I wondered what she had dreamed for him that had come true.
Faith frowned, and I went cold again. It wasn’t going to be good, I just knew it. She hadn’t had some hearts-and-roses reunion dream. No, of course not.
“I was tired from the party, and I took a nap about an hour ago and dreamed. I woke up and knew I had to come tell you about it. My dream didn’t make much sense, but I remember he had an Irish accent. I can’t remember much of what your bond mate said except that once he said, Now do you believe in me again? You were there, and you were crying, but I don’t remember why. You said, Yes, I believe in you. I belong to you. And he smiled, but it was so wistful and haunting.” Determination filled Faith’s voice. “I think it was a dream about your bond mate and how you need to be together.”
I frowned. I belong to you? That wasn’t something I’d say to Murphy, but it did remind me of something that had been said to me once. The bastard.
Suspicion made my voice prickly. “What did he look like? My bond mate.”
Faith frowned in concentration as she struggled to bring up the dream memory. Scott shifted his weight and sighed.
“Dark curly hair. Oh, and one blue eye, one brown eye. He looked like a really nice guy, Stanzie.” Faith bit her lip and might have gone on, but I interrupted her.
“It wasn’t a dream about Murphy. That’s Paddy O’Reilly you’re describing, my Alpha. And I’d never say that to him. I don’t belong to him, the lying bastard.”
“Whoa, are you saying the Alpha of Mac Tire has curly dark hair and different-colored eyes?” Scott was shaken. I nodded.
“Goddamn it,” he said. “Faith, she must have told you about him.”
“No,” Faith denied. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he almost, but not quite, shrugged it away. “Now do you believe I dreamed I would meet you at the Regional? I did, you know. Down to the Red Sox baseball cap you wore to the meet and greet.”
“Bullshit,” he whispered, but more of his skepticism fell away. He took a deep breath.
“Maybe you’d better go, Stanzie,” he said, and my heart performed a strange dance in my chest.
“Paddy O’Reilly is a lying bastard.” I was furious with Faith’s damn dream. I would never tell that man I belonged to him. Ever. Paddy had betrayed me when he left me behind. He told me I was family and then not even a week later walked away.
Scott recovered his equilibrium and grinned. “Jesus, why don’t you tell us how you really feel about this guy?”
“Shut up, Charest,” I snapped, and he winked at me.
“Maybe I should try that line out on some of the Mayflower ladies. You belong to me!” He made his voice sound like Bela Lugosi’s in Dracula.
“Fuck off, Scott.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much the response I’d probably get. I guess I’m no Irish heartthrob Alpha, huh?” He laughed. But he sobered at the look on my face.
“It’s not funny.” I was so pissed at Paddy if he’d been in the room with me I would have spat at him. Scott’s lame sense of humor only made my humiliation worse.
“Okay, okay, I’m getting that now. God, Stanzie, it was just a joke. How could you take a line like that seriously? Oh, hell, you did. He said it, you took it seriously, and he fucked it all up. Now you’re going to kick my ass, right?”
“Just stop talking about it,” I rumbled, so close to tears I could taste them. I belong to you, my ass, Paddy O’Reilly.
Faith’s expression was somber. Alarm bells zinged down my spine, and I tried to fight them. There was something about the dream she wasn’t telling me, I just knew it. “Stanzie, I’m sorry. I really thought it was about your bond mate. I still think you need to go to Dublin. I woke up thinking that. Just because he’s not your bond mate doesn’t change that. He’s your Alpha, lying bastard or not. Maybe you’d better skip the hunt and go tomorrow. I think he needs you.”
“Needs me?” I scoffed, but a thread of disquiet wormed down my spine. Goddamn Faith and her stupid-ass dreams. I was not going to Dublin.
Faith gave me one last look before she took Scott by the hand and led him out the door.
I still think you need to go to Dublin. Faith’s words reverberated in my head until I wanted to scream. Need. Why did she have to say need? Was he in trouble? Was something wrong?
“I do not belong to you, Paddy O’Reilly,” I announced, but even to my ears my voice sounded weak and unconvinced.
Goddamn dreams.
Chapter 3
“May I sit down?” Startled, I glanced up from my solitary breakfast of eggs and bacon to see Jason Allerton with his hand on the chair opposite mine.
Next to the motel was a small diner where many of us ate breakfast before attending the day’s activities at the Regional. However, it was barely past six o’clock, and until Jason’s arrival I had been the only Pack person there.
I nodded, and my breakfast began to congeal into an uncomfortable lump in the pit of my stomach.
Outside a light rain misted the diner windows, but the sun was attempting to burn through the cloud cover.
Jason sat, but before he could say anything, the waitress hurried over to take his order. The Sunday morning rush was still two hours away, and she looked bored.
He asked for coffee and a ham-and-cheese omelet, and I decided my breakfast was over. To keep my hands busy, I pulled my coffee cup closer and pretended I needed cream.
“I owe you an apology, Stanzie.” My hand jerked at the unexpected words, and most of the cream ended up on the Formica tabletop, where it began a race toward my lap. I hastily swabbed at it with my napkin and cursed my clumsiness.
Jason’s