Wolf's Bane (Monstrous Hearts #2)

Chapter One

Alice kept a pleasant expression on her face while mingling with the other guests at her father's anniversary party. It was uncanny, the feeling of having stepped back into early girlhood. Then, she had liked pretending that she'd hardened into a doll, with porcelain cheeks that could never sag free of a smile and luminous eyes that engaged at a glance. That her fragile aura instinctively sensed by others was an effect of nature, of having ceramic bones fired into brittle elegance and a mouth silent from being mere paint.

Now, an adult in present day, she knew her body was solid meat, with a beating heart and a heavy brain. Tender flesh showed more than impassive clay. She had more scars now, too, and felt vulnerable at exposing herself to so many familiar gazes. How differently did she appear to them? How strained her smile? How haunted her eyes?

They all appeared the same, moving in currents of crisp suits and elegant dresses. Gold glittered against throats or around wrists. Champagne sparkled in crystal glasses. Conversations murmured, constant and polite, with an occasional peal of laughter rising above the live pianist.

Many of the faces lit with vague recognition as she offered greetings in passing. Why, it was Alice, Tom's daughter come back into the fold after five years away. What had pulled her to the city? Something to do with trying to make a career in the arts, wasn't it?

Alice avoided the questions in their eyes by continuing her aimless circuit through the rooms. In-depth conversations... No, those hadn't yet returned to her. She no longer knew how to act like the well-schooled teenager she'd been when these people had last seen her, majoring in veterinary science and so sure of her life ahead. In truth, she had felt as dead-eyed and posed as a piece of taxidermy, but that very state had allowed her to hide all feelings. Now, she was like an exposed nerve, raw and vulnerable and alive, and trying to fit into her old role felt painful.

Needing something to do, she sipped at her champagne, half-expecting to instead taste the sparkling cider she'd always been given as a girl. Sweetness bubbled over her tongue; warmth sank into her throat. The sound of her father's voice drew her attention, and she looked over to find him relaxed and happy, his arm around her stepmother's waist. Denise, always in her element around people, chattered excitedly with a woman in a navy chiffon dress. Both of their neatly-coiffed heads gleamed with jeweled hair pins.

Something clutched at Alice's heart. Wistfulness, perhaps? A sense of feeling so far removed from these people—her very own family—that she might as well have viewed them through a telescope.

Just then, her father's gaze found her. After a dip of his head to excuse himself from the conversation, he approached Alice. Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.

"Hi, Dad." Her smile felt no different from when she faced a stranger.

His, however, had cooled. "Alice. I haven't seen you speaking with many people."

She hesitated, wondering whether to push at things, and then admitted, "I'm not sure what to say. Everyone thinks I moved to the city to be an artist."

"That's what I told them and they don't need to know more."

Hard-earned knowledge, that, back from when the disappearance of Alice's mother had shattered their lives. People pried through their show of concern and then whispered details among themselves, vying to see who had the juiciest bit to share. Had that smile turned spiteful when her name had been spoken aloud? Did he look like an innocent man? A grieving one? So many unanswered questions... After all, a woman doesn't simply vanish.

Accounts morphed into rumors, and rumors into convictions. The sheer hell Tom Corrigan had gone through in those first years was likely why he had hardened into someone so fiercely dull in his hobbies and so painfully conscious of attention and demeanor. He guarded against embarrassment and discredit to his family with iron rigidity. A knight who couldn't bend in his armor.