Across The Line. Amy Lee Burgess

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      Shepherd’s pie had never tasted as good as the three heaping plates of it I shoveled into my mouth after the hunt. Spicy meat, flavorful potatoes, crisp kernels of corn. The combination was pure magic.

      The minute I cleaned my plate, Murphy refilled it. He managed to devour four platefuls himself and, between us, we drank at least a gallon of fresh, cold water.

      We sat shoulder to shoulder in the massive chamber where we’d made the pack bond. While we hunted, the older teens cleared away the sheets and mattresses. With the help of the grandmothers and grandfathers who had chosen not to shift, they’d set up trestle tables full of food and water. There were a few tables and chairs, but not enough for all one hundred fifty plus of us.

      Murphy and I cheerfully sat on the floor, backs braced against the wall near the northern fireplace and its crackling heat, which was comforting as hell. My hair was plastered to my skull and I was chilled to the bone, but it was good. I felt alive and my head clearer than it had been in months.

      Murphy had a slab of homemade crusty bread on his plate only half-eaten. When he turned his head toward the sound of someone laughing, I snatched it and stuffed it into my mouth as far it would go. The piece was bigger than my mouth, but I chewed as fast as I could.

      He laughed when he saw me and sheepishly, I tore a chunk away with my teeth and gave him what was left.

      “I’m starving,” I apologized.

      “Save room,” he advised. “There’s apple amber for dessert.”

      I moaned in anticipation. Apple amber was like apple pie with meringue, and I fucking loved it.

      After Murphy wolfed down the chunk of bread, he carried our plates to one of the bins by the door. He went to the dessert table where he took his sweet time selecting the proper pieces.

      While I salivated in anticipation, Colm sauntered over and slid down the wall into a graceful squat beside me. His red hair was muted with rainwater. Blood stained the left cuff of his sweater. He looked tired but happy.

      “You okay?” He tipped a bottle of water to his mouth so he could suck down a huge swallow.

      “It was the weirdest thing. I swore at one point I was with you, not Murphy,” I said. Someone had lit the candle sconces on the wall so the flames cast dancing shadows on the stone walls. The room smelled of sweat, wet hair, shepherd’s pie and sex. Not a bad combination at all.

      Colm smiled but didn’t say anything.

      “I don’t feel it now, though. The pack bond.” I searched inside myself for proof of it, but felt nothing.

      “It’s there. When you need it, you’ll draw on it. You might be doing it now, for all you or I would know.”

      “Tell me to do something.” The soft paws of panic unsheathed claws inside me and scraped along my nerve endings. “Order me to do something.”

      “You’ll do it because I’m your Alpha, not because of the pack bond.”

      “Make it something you wouldn’t ask me to do as Alpha,” I urged. “Please, Colm, I need this.”

      “I think you’re panicking a wee bit myself.” He sighed. “Fine then. Go spit in Liam’s face. Go on.”

      I gaped at him. “Why can’t you be serious?”

      “Spit in his face. And then make out with Ryan right in front of him.”

      Colm obviously heard about the altercation. Pack grapevines were insidious. It hadn’t even been three hours and the Alphas knew. Christ.

      “Who told you what happened? You couldn’t have heard it.”

      “You’re sitting on your ass and I told you to do something,” Colm reminded me. He nudged me in the side with his beefy elbow.

      I burst out laughing.

      “Nothing, huh?” Colm ruffled my wet hair and grinned at me. “You got yourself all panicky about nothing.”

      “Spit in Liam’s face. Make out with Ryan. Jesus,” I said between giggles.

      “You’re the one giving me the orders and I’m the one following them. God, maybe the pack bond got frigged up somehow and you’re the one pulling the strings!” Colm gave a very realistic girly shriek. People all around us swiveled their heads.

      “Move along. These are not the droids you’re looking for.” Colm waved their attention away and snickers filled the air.

      Murphy returned with two huge pieces of apple amber and Alannah Doyle literally clinging to his elbow. All moist and doe-eyed too.

      “Liam promised to share his dessert with me,” she announced. Her eyes were green as grass, the color of jealousy. The greenest eyes that ever were, as Paddy once referred to them. Well, he would wax poetic about her. She was his half-sister.

      “How nice of him,” I said. “You seem to have forgotten a third fork.” Murphy had only two in his hand. I took one and the biggest piece of apple amber.

      “We don’t need one. We can share.” Alannah giggled and I gritted my teeth.

      Murphy had the smile of a man with his balls in a vise. He tried to give her the fork and the whole piece of apple amber, but she waved both away and continued to cling to his elbow.

      “It’s going to be hard for him to eat with you hanging onto him like a redheaded barnacle,” I observed and Colm shifted uneasily beside me.

      “I’m not the clingy scared rabbit in this scenario,” said Alannah with a toss of her springy curls. “Have you finished whimpering yet? Have the flashbacks to your father stopped?”

      My cheeks burned.

      “I really would shut the fuck up if I were you,” I advised. I shoved the goddamn apple amber into Colm’s surprised hands. I couldn’t swallow now, I was so pissed.

      Alannah’s lips peeled back from her teeth in a malicious smile.” The scared rabbit is going to roar like a lion now? A little late to act like you actually have a spine, isn’t it?”

      “I may be a rabbit, but at least I’m not an ostrich with my head fucking buried in the sand while my bond mate helps murder my brother,” I declared.

      A wild little scream burst from Alannah’s throat and she kicked me in the face. Or she tried to, but I dodged to the right. When I toppled into him, Colm fell over, apple amber going everywhere.

      “Fuck,” said Murphy.

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