Secret Unleashed

Secret McQueen 6

by

Sierra Dean

Dedication

My great thanks to Eric Domond and Julie Walsh for their help with Secret’s French translations.

To the incredible staff at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. I’ll never forget that weird and wacky estate.

Catriona Churman and Jessica Groopman, for their enthusiastic suggestion of the creepiest places for villains to hide out in San Francisco. That warehouse scene is all for you two.

To Christoph Waltz. Because you titillate and terrify me in equal measure.

A weird thank you to Fall Out Boy for “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark” which got more than its fair share of listens during the writing process.

Always and forever to Sasha Knight and my mother Jo-Anne MacLennan. You two are my biggest fans and champions, and I wouldn’t be anywhere without your love and belief. I can’t think of two greater women to have in my corner.

Chapter One

In the paranormal world there is no such thing as witness protection.

Which meant if someone in the supernatural community was in trouble, they had to turn to their own kind for help. Werewolves hid within the safety of the pack; vampires had such a vast network of sycophants, aides and supporters they could hide anyone without too much effort.

But who was going to hide a half-vampire/half-werewolf who was being hunted by both monsters at the same time?

That was the problem I’d been presenting to my friends and colleagues for three months, and we’d yet to come up with a good solution. I was the proverbial hot potato, and I was running out of people to catch me.

Part of the issue was I didn’t want to hide. I wanted to fight, and more than anything I wanted my damned life back.

Unfortunately for me the head honchos—the bossy vampire elite—said I was too important to put myself at unnecessary risk. As far as I was concerned any risk was necessary if it meant getting back what I’d lost.

I didn’t have the most normal life to start with, but having it taken away from me was making me pretty cranky.

Well…crankier than usual. Which was saying something.

I sat in a grubby living room, pizza boxes strewn over the coffee table and dirty socks leading a trail to a makeshift bedroom made from a sheet hung off the ceiling. The space took bachelor living to a whole new, disgusting level.

Yet a radiant young woman was sitting cross-legged in a dingy, secondhand armchair, staring at me uncertainly.

“You’re Secret McQueen?”

I gave her a once-over. She was light-skinned with an explosion of freckles over her cheeks and shoulders, and her copper-red hair was pulled back in a braid. The dress she wore might have been stylish in the mid-nineties but had long since dated itself. I wasn’t sure if she was wearing it to be hip or if she genuinely had no idea it was tacky.

Ugly to be trendy, that was a thing with kids today, right?

“I am,” I answered her.

“I expected you to be…scarier.”

I arched a brow at her and glanced down at what I was wearing. Jeans, knee-high black leather boots, a demolished leather motorcycle jacket and a pink shirt that read Little Miss Trouble.

Maybe the shirt was diminishing my badass bounty hunter vibe a bit.

But the SIG P226 in my lap and the katana I’d put on the table should have balanced it out. I mean, what’s scarier than a chick with a gun and a sword?

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Siobhan O’Malley.” She reached forward and offered me her hand, which I shook.

“And how do you know Shane?” I’d come because Shane Hewitt—vampire council bounty hunter—was going to be my newest babysitter for the week. I’d been shuffled from house to house, apartment to apartment, back and forth across New York City for three bloody months.

The logic was: if the bad guys couldn’t find me, they couldn’t kill me.

Initially it had been suggested I be shipped out of New York altogether. While I understood it was the most realistic way to keep me safe, I wasn’t about to spend whatever was left of my life—however short it might be—on the run. In New York I had connections, people who could help me if shit hit the fan. On the run I’d be on my own. I had put my foot down and said if I was going to die, I wanted it to be on home soil.

I should have been more specific and said I wanted home soil to be my own Hell’s Kitchen apartment, but it was too late to make those distinctions. My apartment was too obvious a target, even with its supernatural safeguards. When everything had gone sideways, my mother had shown up there hell-bent on killing me as I walked outside.

Mercy hadn’t killed me, obviously, but every damn day I wish she had. Because instead of taking me out, she killed my best friend Brigit, and it was my fault. The guilt I felt when I killed someone was something I’d learned to live with. Guilt over someone dying in my stead was something I didn’t know what to do with.

I’d have given anything, my life included, to bring Brigit back. But in spite of all the magic hidden in the world, there was no resurrection spell or potion to turn back time and make the dead undead again. She was gone forever.

And I was alive.

In this dodgy fucking apartment.

“I saved his life. Then he took my virginity so I didn’t have to be sacrificed to a giant fae who looked like a devil horse,” Siobhan said, sitting back in her chair.

“Oh.”

“Standard boy-meets-girl story.”

“I was going to tell you to stop boring me.”

Siobhan smiled. “Do you want something to drink?”

Unless Shane had a stash of bagged blood in his fridge, she wasn’t going to offer me anything I needed at the moment. “No thanks. Do you know where Shane is? He was supposed to meet me after sundown.”

“Hunting.”

“How much did he tell you?” I asked. She knew about fae, so she couldn’t be too ignorant, but I wanted to watch what I said until I figured out how in the loop she was.

“About?”

Oh Lord, where to begin? “Everything.”

“You mean about the vampires he hunts for the council? Or how you’re his boss, which makes you one of the three members of the Vampire Tribunal? That sort of thing?” Siobhan looked at her nails like she was bored.

“What are you?” I rephrased, changing my tactic. She was human—my nose told me that much—but no human I’d ever met would be so cavalier in talking about the council and vampires.

“Druid.”

“A…what?”

She took a blanket off the back of the armchair and draped it over her head like a cowl. “Drooo-id.”

“As in…Stonehenge and human sacrifices and dancing naked by the light of the moon?”

“The naked moon dancing is more of a Wiccan thing.”

I had a witch for a grandmother. I could attest to the truth of Siobhan’s statement. Unfortunately. No one needs to see a woman pushing seventy years of age getting jiggy in her altogether to celebrate the coming spring.

“What does a druid do in New York?”

“I guard a fairy gate.”

My eye twitched. It was an involuntary response, but I tended to react poorly to the word fairy these days. “There is only one fairy gate.”

She raised her hand and made a peace sign, holding two fingers apart. “One in the fae realm, one in ours.”

Interesting.

“So you’re the guardian of a magical gateway to another world, and you’re sleeping here?”

Siobhan didn’t bother looking around the room. She evidently didn’t need another glance at the apartment to know what I was alluding to. “A messy home full of affection is better than a grand house filled with people who don’t care about you.” Her smile hadn’t faded, but it had lost some of its joy. There was sadness in her words she seemed all too accustomed to.

“You love him?” I hadn’t thought of Shane in romantic terms during the time I’d known him. He was handsome enough if you were into the whole scruffy bad-boy thing, but he was also my underling. It’s hard to think of someone as sexy when you had control over their life.

“Love’s a funny thing.”

Oh yeah, it was a laugh riot. “If by funny you mean something only an idiot would participate in…then yes.”

“I hear you’re quite the idiot.”

I laughed, probably for the first time in a month. Being called an idiot had never felt so good. “Yeah, you could say that.”

The front door swung open with a crash, cutting our laughter short. Siobhan and I pivoted, her hand going for a baton on the coffee table, while I chambered a round in my gun and aimed it at the new arrival.

Shane stepped through the entrance, completely soaked by blood and holding a machete. There was a feral glint in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure he noticed I had a gun aimed at his head.

“Shane?” Siobhan put the baton back on the table. “What’s wrong?”

He acknowledged us then for the first time. “Secret?” He shifted his attention from his diminutive lady love over to me. “You’re here?”

“You drew the short straw this week, remember?”

He might have looked confused, but it was hard to tell with the blood coating his skin and clothing. “Is your gun loaded?”

“Yes.” When did I ever carry an unloaded weapon?

“Good,” he said. “I need your help. We have to go kill something.”

Kill something. Music to my ears.

Chapter Two

Since Shane didn’t bother cleaning the blood off himself before we left the apartment, I had to assume whatever we were hunting was a baddie of the biggest variety.

I wasn’t keen on Siobhan tagging along, but Shane didn’t tell her to stay home, so maybe she could hold her own. Far be it for me to assume a girl, especially a small one, couldn’t kick butt in a fight.

We skirted the block Shane’s shitty apartment complex was on, and Siobhan and I followed the bloodstained hunter down an alley and through a minefield of moldy cardboard boxes. Between the puddles and the stench I was relieved I’d opted for boots that evening instead of open-toed heels.

“Where are we going?” I jumped sideways when one of the boxes groaned. A scraggly homeless man swore at me and fixed the wall of his Frigidaire palace.

“It went this way.” He pointed at a nearby building, an apartment identical to Shane’s own, but this one appeared vacant. Leave it to our quarry to pick an abandoned building for its lair.

The shittier the digs, the happier the monster.

Shane wasn’t waiting for us. He ducked under a peeled-back section of chain-link fence and vanished around the back corner of the building.

“He’s gotten faster,” I observed.

“He had to.” Siobhan moved ahead of me, following Shane’s route.

I’d vanished for three weeks over the summer, time lost in a fae realm, and though three months had passed since then, I was still learning how much I’d missed during that time. I didn’t know what had happened to Shane and Siobhan, and I was only getting snippets of what had occurred in the lives of my other friends, but I wasn’t too fond of being in the dark about things.

It made me feel like a shitty friend and a bad ally. Whatever Shane had experienced to make him a stealthier fighter, I hadn’t been around to witness it. And what if things had gone the other way? What if instead of adapting, he’d failed?

We might not be besties, but he’d been around for a lot of crappy stuff that had gone on in my life, and he’d toughed it all out. I’d go as far as to say we were friends. Friends with a weird working relationship.

Anything less than friendship and I probably wouldn’t have followed him into the dark unknown. But he was part of my life, and was willing to keep me in his house at his own peril. Plus he’d promised we’d get to kill something.

I checked the safety of my gun and made sure it was off before crouching low to the ground and ducking under the fence.

Shane was halfway up a rusted fire escape, and my gaze traveled past him over the brick wall of the building. A shattered window ten floors up was his most likely destination. Siobhan clambered after him, and I brought up the rear. Shane paused outside the broken window and waited for us to join him, holding a finger to his lips to signal for us to be quiet.

I wanted to point out that three grown adults standing on the fire escape of a condemned building was just an accident waiting to happen, but my complaints would have to remain silent.

From inside came a sound I was all too familiar with: a young girl crying. The pitch of her voice was all I had to go on since she wasn’t saying anything, but from that alone I knew she had to be very young. Possibly a child.

What did it say about my life that listening to a child crying in fear was the norm? A messed-up one, is what.

Since I’d been living in relative hiding, I also didn’t know what warrant Shane had been working on that would have resulted in this situation. I was allowed into the council headquarters under strict supervision, and only when absolutely necessary.

One of the threats on my life was from Alexandre Peyton, a rogue vampire who’d been locked up by the council for over two years, chained in silver and starved to the point of emaciation. He hadn’t been a fan of me to begin with—our history of trying to kill each other went waaaay back—but now he would stop at nothing to see me dead.

And the last place he’d been seen was in the council headquarters. So he knew his way around the lower passages, and he knew the Tribunal chambers. If he was somehow still hiding there, or knew a way to get back in, I wasn’t protected in the place that should have been the safest for me. Which was the only reason I wasn’t being locked in there permanently.

Sig, the two-thousand-year-old Tribunal leader and my boss of sorts, had a few ideas about where I should be, but ultimately had yielded to the babysitter notion.

Babysitters and a perpetual shadow.

Somewhere in the alley, Holden Chancery would be watching. Sig could have selected from a hundred different vampires to watch over me, but we didn’t know who we could trust these days. Peyton was beguiling and had enlisted aid from other vampires in the past, so it wasn’t out of the question he might have help on the inside.

Holden was trustworthy.

He was the only vampire aside from Sig himself who I knew without a doubt wanted to keep me alive. Sig found me…amusing. He was interested in me as a sort of pet project, but I knew he cared about me in a weird, twisted way. My death would upset him. It would inconvenience him. And Sig didn’t like to be inconvenienced.

Holden was different. He’d once been my key into the vampire council, and now I was his superior. But that wasn’t what made him loyal. Holden loved me. He’d told me as much, in front of my boyfriend no less.

It might not have been ideal, but it meant he could be trusted because no matter what happened, he wouldn’t let the woman he loved die. Holden would sacrifice himself to protect me, so Sig had chosen him as my guard.

I scanned the alley, looking for any out-of-place shadow, but he was too good to be easily spotted. I couldn’t see him, but I felt his presence, and it comforted me.

The crying from inside the building, however, wasn’t comforting at all.

“Who are you chasing?” I asked.

“Grendel,” Shane said matter-of-factly, then ducked through the broken glass.

The name meant nothing to Siobhan, apparently. She shrugged and went through behind him. Ignorance was bliss in her case, because I knew all too well who Grendel was.

The Grendel. The namesake of the monstrous beast in Beowulf was not a demonic creature, at least not in the traditional sense. Grendel was a medieval warlord in his living years, a ferocious killing machine with no sense of honor or morality. Then he became a vampire.

Something most people don’t understand about vampires is that they aren’t made evil by the vampire infection. When they shuffle off the mortal coil, they don’t become smarter or more beautiful, and the change doesn’t make them wicked.

Vampires were just immortal versions of the shitty bastards they were in their human life. Or the lovely wonderful people, if that were the case. But in my association with vamps, I tended to think most of them started life as pricks and ended it the same way. Thomas Hardy once had a character say, “I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability.” Tommy had unwittingly summed up vampires in a nutshell.

And Grendel had been born the worst of the worst.

If history held true, he had a penchant for flaying his victims alive. Removing their skin and picking them apart piece by piece until their insides fell out.

He was also a vigorous fan of the rape in rape and pillage.

My heart sank as I thought of him in there with some poor, innocent girl. Why was it the worst kind of monsters focused on the sweet, sunny little kids?

“I’m sorry, they sent you after Grendel?” I climbed through the damaged frame, avoiding shards of broken glass as I stepped onto the patchy floor within. Boards of plywood crisscrossed over gaping holes where I could see through to the lower levels of the apartment building.

A scream echoed through the walls, rattling upwards into the ceiling and falling again, quieter. She was still screaming in fear and not pain, which was a small comfort. Anguish had its own unique sound, and it was one I was becoming increasingly familiar with.

Shane was edging across a rotting two-by-four, and Siobhan was nowhere in sight. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No offense, Shane, but hunting Grendel isn’t a job for a human.” As foolhardy as I could sometimes be, I wouldn’t have gone after the warlord vamp on my own, let alone send a single human hunter after him. “Did you piss off Juan Carlos?”

The third Tribunal Leader, a Spanish conquistador, tended to hold grudges, especially against me. When I’d been the bounty hunter in Shane’s place, I was often assigned some impossible hunts, usually because a certain someone wanted to do away with me. Was he punishing Shane now, since he couldn’t take it out on me?

“It’s because of you,” he said in a ragged whisper. “They’re spread too thin looking for Peyton. I was the only one around. Now shhhhhh.”

As if us trampling around on creaky wooden planks and stepping on broken glass hadn’t alerted Grendel to our presence. But we’d play it his way and sneak up like unstealthy ninjas if that was what Shane wanted.

I tested a piece of plywood with my foot, and it bounced back. If I stuck to the edges, I might be able to rely on some extra resistance from the original floor. Except the floor must be in pretty shitty condition if the plywood was necessary. Seemed like my chances of safe passage were about even with the likelihood of me falling into the room below.

Fighting a thirteen-hundred-year-old vampire would be bad enough. I didn’t need to try doing it with a broken leg.

“Is any of that blood his?” I asked hopefully.

Shane had reached the empty elevator shaft and shot me a glare for breaching his cone of silence. Admittedly, it looked a lot more menacing with the coating of red all over him. Adding a splash of gore made a man much…manlier.

Something was very wrong with me.

“You don’t want to know where this blood is from,” he answered.

“I’m not in the habit of asking questions I don’t want the answer to.”

Shane checked his gun—a stupidly large revolver straight out of Dirty Harry—and glanced up the shaft of the elevator rather than down. “He ripped a dude’s head off. This was the result.”

Provided with such a lovely visual, I sort of regretted asking. “Did you—?”

“There were no witnesses. Wardens were called to clean it up, but God only knows when they’ll show.”

Bless my twisted little soul. He was learning. I might make a real bounty hunter out of the boy after all.

I tucked my gun into its holster and jumped across the hole, bypassing the questionable plywood altogether. Below us the screaming had faded to whimpers, meaning we were running out of time. Soon the screaming would start again, and when it did, it wouldn’t be from fear anymore.

Inside the belly of the elevator shaft the rust-coated cables started to wobble and sway. I stopped next to Shane and followed his gaze upwards.

Siobhan slid down the cable and jumped between us, shaking her hands and swearing. Her palms were bloody, and the front of her dress had been worn threadbare in places from the friction of the cable. “Remind me never to do that again without the proper equipment.”

“Is your mountaineering gear in your other purse?” I asked.

“Har-har.” Siobhan wiped the blood on her dress. “The upper floors are clear, no additional guards. If he has anyone protecting him, they’re downstairs.”

This girl was nuts. I liked not being the craziest woman in the room for once. “Don’t suppose either of you have any special skills that might help us figure out how many we’re up against?”

“At least two,” Shane said, still the only one whispering. “I used my special skill of seeing.”

I arched a brow at him. If Siobhan was responsible for him growing a pair, I had to give her props. I’d always assumed Shane had no backbone, but maybe I scared him. I was a fan of him coming out of his shell, but perhaps the sass could wait until after we’d killed some vampires.

There was only room for one person to be sassy on the job, and I already filled the quota.

Right now, though, I had to worry about the fact we had at least two more vampires on our plate in addition to the already challenging rogue we’d come for. Not that I was worried or anything, but having a vampire sentry with us might come in handy.

Thanks to the paranoia for my personal safety, my irritatingly modern phone had been outfitted with a panic button that sent a message right to Holden with my GPS coordinates. There really was an app for everything, as it turned out.

I pulled out my phone, hit a button on my home screen, and it made a happy boop noise in return. The sound was a bit too cheerful to be attached to a kidnapping tracker app, but I wasn’t the one who’d designed it.

“Is now the most ideal time to be updating your Facebook status?” Siobhan pulled her weird black baton from a sling on her back. She’d managed to remember that but hadn’t considered the advantages of pants?

“Actually I was—”

Glass crunched near the window, and the three of us turned. Holden dusted bits of glass and wood off his suit jacket and cast a disgusted look around the room. “Cavalry is here. And he’s thrilled.”

Chapter Three

Holden was a fish out of water in the dilapidated interior of the abandoned complex. The former GQ editor was wearing a gray Hugo Boss suit worth about a thousand bucks—he’d narrow down the price range for me if it was damaged somehow—and looked peeved.

His dark brown hair was brushed back from his face, curling slightly behind his ears and long enough to tease his nape. Brown eyes managed to convey his absolute disdain in a way words never could.

But it was the faint turn of a smile on his lips that hooked me. Holden had a way of taking the most terrifying situations and twisting them on their heads to distract me from the danger. Either by annoying me so intensely I wanted to murder him, or making me forget there was any risk by charming the pants off me.

Sometimes literally.

Even when he was being a snob, he made me feel safe.

It was one of the things I loved about him.

There was no shortage of those, unfortunately. It made not loving him almost impossible.

“What have you gotten us into now?” he asked. “And who are these civilian casualties?”

“Dude,” Shane responded, “we’ve met.”

“Ah yes. Secret two-point-oh. And you, tiny Irish?”

“Siobhan,” she said.

“Siobhan’s a druid,” I told him.

Holden wrinkled his nose, trying to keep from outright sneering at her. I admired his version of restraint. “How lovely.” He drew out the word lovely, making it as sarcastic as possible.

“I’m sorry, why is he here?” Shane was clearly exasperated by the way the hunt was spiraling out of his control.

“I called him.”

“For the love of—”

“Now, now, children. If you don’t want me here, I can just take my toy and go home.” With a burst of vampiric speed he was across the room with his hands possessively around my waist, pulling me towards him. I guess in this scenario I was the toy.

“Who’s acting like a kid now?” I smacked his hands away. He might have handled my assets in every conceivable way, but it didn’t mean he had permission to act as if he owned me. “Look, if we’re waltzing into a vampire nest, we’d be much better off having some real strength on our side. No offense to either of you, but you’re both human.”

Siobhan opened her mouth to protest, but I raised a finger. “And even a skilled human can’t face off against Grendel alone.”

Holden was still touching me, running his fingers up and down my spine, and even through the leather jacket I was tingling with awareness from his lingering presence. I didn’t tell him to stop. The last thing I needed to worry about right then was my lover getting handsy with me in front of people.

Just thinking of him in conjunction with the word lover was more of a problem than I was willing to deal with at the moment.

“So what’s the plan?” Holden looked past me to Shane. I could have hugged the vampire for giving the hunter his dues as the leader of this expedition. Maybe the blood veneer made Shane seem more respectable to everyone.

“The elevator is out of the question, obviously,” Shane said.

Siobhan raised her bloody hands as evidence. Holden’s nostrils flared as the smell of the girl’s blood fanned through the air. He sucked in a ragged breath, and since breathing wasn’t necessary for vampires, I knew he was taking a good whiff of her.

“Has anyone checked for the stairs?” Holden asked, his voice strained.

“It’s at the back, but a section in the middle is rotted through. Not passable.”

“A few stairs missing? That’s nothing.” Holden stepped clear of us and bounded across the patchwork floor with the ease of an alley cat prowling the city streets. His confidence was contagious because the three of us followed after him, less nimble, but still able to track his route.

Holden was waiting at the top of the emergency stairwell, which must have been constructed in a bygone era before concrete was the norm, and we all assessed the rot damage.

The stairwell wrapped around the wall, with a broken railing along the outer edge. Where the railings gave way there was a central column open all the way to the ground floor. Since we were ten flights up, I didn’t think jumping to the main level would be feasible for anyone but Holden, and even he couldn’t guarantee making it without a broken ankle. He was still a man, not a cat.

Each section was missing six or seven steps—about half of the stairs—and the remaining bits looked worse for wear. I wouldn’t have trusted Siobhan’s lithe figure on the steps, let alone Shane or Holden. The weight of a full-grown man would fracture the threadbare wood.

“So, genius, you were saying?” I turned my attention from the stairs up to Holden.

He sneered at me and jumped to the next riser. Holden landed smoothly, avoiding the center section of the steps, and gave me a haughty I told you so look.

“Throw me the tiny one,” he said.

Shane and I stared at Siobhan, who was shaking her head emphatically and backing away from us. “No. Nope. I have no intention of being tossed into the waiting arms of a vampire.”

“It’s okay, he won’t bite you,” I told her.

“It doesn’t escape my notice you said he won’t bite me instead of he doesn’t bite.”

“He’s still a vampire,” I reminded her, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah, and we came here to kill vampires.”

“Vampires pay your boyfriend’s rent. I’m a vampire.” My tone clearly conveyed I wasn’t in the mood to argue about the shades of gray when it came to the badness of vampires.

I grabbed Siobhan, and before she could wriggle free I shoved her off the top step. I was careful not to just knock her off the edge, but instead gave my push a little oomph so she went flying into Holden’s arms. He, in turn, carried the momentum a step further and tossed her down to the next riser.

Siobhan was flustered but still a warrior at heart. She landed in a crouch, her back to the wall, and scowled up at us.

We continued the system, ensuring there was never more than one person standing on any riser longer than a few seconds, lest we push the wood’s limits and send us on the express route to the ground floor.

After a few tense moments we were all on solid ground, regrouping behind Shane. I took my gun out, as did Shane, and Siobhan retrieved her baton. Only it wasn’t a baton anymore. I didn’t see if she squeezed it, twisted it or whispered some weird druid incantation, but the baton had extended and grown in length, transforming into a bow.

She unstrung the tiered silver necklace she was wearing, and as she looped it around the ends of the bow I realized it wasn’t a necklace at all. The crazy woman was wearing a bowstring as a necklace. She must have noticed my slack-jawed expression because she gave me an uneasy smile. “I wasn’t a Boy Scout, but I do like to be prepared.”

“Hey, who am I to judge? I brought a gun to my own wedding. I’d just be worried about an accidental garroting.” A bow was one thing, but where the hell was she hiding the arrow—

She slipped a small silver blade out of her belt and squeezed, and I watched in amazement as it unfolded into a full-sized arrow. Apparently the druids had come into the twenty-first century with open arms. Cool.

Holden was the only one of us to remain unarmed, and it made sense because he didn’t need a weapon. With no further need to worry about falling to our deaths, Holden led us down the nearest hallway just in time for the whimpering girl’s voice to escalate to screaming.

This time her screams were those of pain, and my heart hammered. Adrenaline pumped through me, and I restrained myself from running headlong into danger. I had a bad habit of being impulsive and putting myself at unnecessary risk, and though I’d started to control those urges better, I still had them.

Holden must have known what I wanted to do because he raised a hand as if he could use invisible force to keep me back. “Hold on.”

The screaming petered out into a pain-filled mewling noise like an injured animal. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I glared at Holden, silently insisting he get this show on the road.

Shane was getting anxious too because he edged past Holden and moved to stand outside the room where Grendel would be waiting. His large gun was trembling slightly in his hands, and I wasn’t sure if it was from fear, rage or both.

“Let’s just fucking do this,” Shane growled, and kicked the door open.

Standing inside the room was one of the largest men I’d ever seen, undead or otherwise. He towered over seven feet, and his hair was a scraggly, grease-coated mane falling beyond his shoulders. Like Shane, he had a layer of blood over his bare chest and forearms, but in one meaty fist he was holding a skinny girl—no older than twelve—around her neck. It was hard to tell if the blood on her was from his skin or a fresh wound.

Behind him, on the periphery of the room, were three vampires. They were a normal size, but next to Grendel they looked like toddlers.

The girl started crying when she saw us, gasping sobs that racked her whole body. Grendel gave her a rough shake to silence her.

“I was beginning to wonder if you fools were just going to tromp around in the hall all night, or if you’d ever knock.” His voice was a deep, booming rumble, and it made me imagine the whole floor quaking with each word.

This guy was scary.

I’d killed scarier.

Chapter Four

“You.” Grendel shook the girl at Shane, her small head whipping from side to side. “You think you can triumph over me with these tiny women?” The giant vampire laughed loudly, and if there’d been any windows left in the complex, they would have broken.

The way he said tiny women was how I imagined a god might say puny humans. He clearly thought Siobhan and I were no threat, and that could only benefit us. If Grendel focused all his energy on Shane and Holden—the “real” threats—the petite druid and I could teach him why tiny women were just as tough as burly men.

Holden waltzed into the room with the casual ease of a man who was looking for ties at Bergdorf.

“Tiny women and a gay?” Grendel’s laughter contained a note of concern. He hadn’t been expecting another man, and now our numbers were throwing him for a loop.

Holden smoothed the lapels of his suit and glanced down at his ensemble. “This says gay to you?” He seemed genuinely interested in the barbarian’s opinion of his attire. “I was going for ’50s chic. Interesting.” The vampire looked at me like he was waiting for a second opinion.

I wanted to remind him of the more pressing issue at hand, but the whole routine was having an interesting effect on Grendel. The giant vampire lowered his captive to the floor and glared at Holden with determined anger.

“Which of you wants to die first?” Grendel boomed.

How original.

Beside me, Siobhan was nocking up an arrow, her focus not on Grendel but rather the girl he was holding. I licked my lips, dry from the dusty interior of the building, and spoke quietly to her. “If you get the chance, you grab the girl. Understand?”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.”

“How good is your aim with that thing?” It didn’t really matter if I whispered. With Grendel this close, he’d hear everything we were saying. I was counting on him being distracted by Holden’s cheeky disregard, though.

Siobhan winked at me. “Very.”

“Great. Can you shoot him in the neck for me?”

She blinked, as if surprised by the request, but collected herself, posed like an elf right out of Lord of the Rings and released the arrow without seeming to adjust her aim at all. I pivoted my head in time to see the arrow cross the room and lodge itself in Grendel’s neck.

The giant vampire dropped the girl, and both hands flew to the projectile now sticking out the side of his neck. His thick flesh had stopped the arrow from piercing all the way through to the other side, but there must have been a barbed edge on Siobhan’s arrowhead, making it extra difficult to remove. Grendel was struggling and grunting with discomfort and annoyance. He didn’t seem to be in a great deal of pain, but distraction had been my primary motivation.

He ripped the arrow out, taking a large chunk of skin and flesh with it, and hurled it back at Siobhan with staggering force. Still, an arrow thrown isn’t the same as an arrow fired, and she easily deflected it with her bow.

Heeding my previous instruction, she took her opportunity and ran for the girl. Shane and I responded quickly, leveling our weapons at Grendel and keeping steady watch in case he tried to attack Siobhan. It wasn’t a question of if he attacked, but when.

The moment the druid had her arms around the girl, Grendel swung for them both. Shane fired first, the bullet snagging Grendel in the wrist and making him jerk back before he could swipe at Siobhan. She must have known she wasn’t going to get another lucky break because she held fast to the fallen girl and dragged her out of easy squishing range.

Shane chambered another bullet, and Holden stepped in front of the other women, blocking Grendel’s path to them. “Take the girl and get out,” he instructed Siobhan.

The redhead glanced towards Shane as if unsure she wanted to leave him, but the sobbing child beside her took precedence. Siobhan helped the girl to her feet, and they ran from the room. Hopefully to safety.

Grendel’s henchmen, the pitifully normal-sized vampires, had been frozen in mute stupidity up to that point. They must have assumed no one in their right minds would fight their boss, giving them a slack job. Now they weren’t sure what to do about us and were slow to retaliate.

The first to act—a gray-haired vampire who looked like he’d stumbled out of a Crocodile Dundee movie—barreled towards me at full speed. Apparently they’d already stopped dismissing me as the weakest link. So much for our advantage.

I pivoted my gun from Grendel to the charging vampire and fired three rounds into his head. Precision aiming was tricky enough when a human was running towards you, but with a vampire there was the added difficulty of their preternatural speed. My first shot glanced off the side of his scalp, making him turn his head. The next two lodged into his skull above his ear, fanning a cloud of pink mist into the air as he fell.

Vampires could heal most things, but two 9mm silver bullets into the brain wasn’t one of them.

With one of their comrades down, the other two guards were less gung ho to run wild into the fray. Basically, they were the worst guards ever: slow to act and only out for their own protection. Where did Grendel find these guys, Spineless Cowards ’R’ Us?

One of them lunged for the door, intent on making a getaway. Shane fired at him, landing a shot in the vamp’s shoulder, sending him spinning backwards into Grendel’s arms. The warrior vampire had evidently seen his minion make a break for it and was none too thrilled. Grendel raised the guard into the air as if he weighed nothing, then brought him down hard onto his knee, cracking the vamp’s spine.

The broken vampire howled in pain, but the injury wouldn’t kill him. It would take him out of the mix for a while as the fractured bones healed, though, giving us one fewer foe to worry about.

Grendel stepped on the vampire’s head, crushing his skull beneath big shit-kicker boots as if it were a grape.

So…that guy was out of the picture completely then.

“Jesus,” Shane said.

“I know. Try getting that out of your boots after,” Holden replied.

When Grendel stepped back, there was a red smear on the floor with fragments of scalp and brain matter now taking the place of the man’s head. In spite of my many years being exposed to some of the most revolting things imaginable, I fought back the urge to gag.

“I will do this to one of my own,” Grendel bellowed. “What do you think I will do to you?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. You know what? You’re not a giant. You’re just a big, smelly vampire. And do you know what I do to vampires who go rogue?”

“Kneel before them,” he suggested.

“Kneel?” I arched a brow and contemplated his choice of words. “Not a bad idea.”

I fired two shots into each of his kneecaps in rapid succession. Grendel roared, and this time there was no disputing the anguish in his tone. I’d hurt him. He crashed down and landed on both knees, bringing the clamor of his wailing to greater heights.

I’d never been shot in the knee, but I had experienced the agony of having a fresh wound exploited, and given how he was writhing on the floor, he enjoyed the experience as much as I had. Adding insult to literal injury was the fact he was squirming around in the liquefied brain matter of his former colleague.

“You have two choices as far as I see it,” I told him, though I doubted he was listening to anything other than his own squalling. “Either I kill you here and now—and I am fully vested with the power of the Tribunal to make those decisions—or you let me bring you in.”

“I’d rather—”

“Be mindful…this is one of those situations where you want to be careful not to say I’d rather die. I’ll take it literally.”

He fell silent. A normal man might be breathing hard through his nose, trying to keep from hyperventilating, but since Grendel didn’t need to breathe he chose to scowl darkly at me instead.

“They will lock me up, and then what? A year from now, maybe two, someone will make a mistake and I will be free. And I will come for you. That is, if you’re not dead by the hand of another.”

Everyone fell silent, but my heart throbbed and my pulse was as loud as a bass drum in my ears.

“What did you say?” Holden ignored the presence of the final guard, positioning himself between Grendel and me. “What did you say?”

Grendel laughed, but the sound was strained and cut short. “You might as well kill me, you foul borborygmite, because if you let me go, I’ll kill you. And if you take me to the council instead…someone else will find you.”

Holden took the gun from Shane—who was still too stunned to do anything—and aimed it at Grendel’s forehead. The warrior vampire rolled onto his back to relieve the pressure on his knees and looked at us both upside down.

“You going to shoot me? I know you, Holden Chancery. I know you.”

“Oh do you? Did you ransack my village in its youth?”

Grendel snorted and struggled to get into a sitting position, wincing the whole way up. The three of us took a step back, and the remaining guard danced uneasily from foot to foot. After seeing what had happened to the other men he probably wasn’t going to make a break for it, but he also didn’t seem keen to rush to Grendel’s aid.

“You’re the trained dog, aren’t you? The bitch’s bitch.” Grendel spat on the floor. “You know something, though? I have bitches too. And mine are better trained.”

I started to remind him two of his bitches were headless, undead organ donors now, but the body at my feet started doing something most peculiar.

It beeped.

More than beep, though, it started to make a rapid succession of chirping noises like an electronic bird. The same noise was emitting from the corpse next to Grendel. And when the remaining guard started to beep as well, he wet himself.

Kneeling, I ripped open the buttons of the dead vampire’s shirt and spread the lapels wide. Strapped across his chest were two crisscrossed black bands with packets of beige putty and a few colored wires centralized over his breastbone.

I stumbled back and switched my aim from Grendel to the corpses and the living guard, and back to Grendel. I didn’t know who I could shoot right then to make this situation less of a mess, but I wanted to shoot something.

“Are those…?” Shane voice drifted off when he realized what was strapped to the guards.

“Bombs.”

That explained why the guards were so useless. They weren’t guards at all. They were a fail-safe.

“Grab him,” I shouted to Holden as the reality sank in. “He knows something about Peyton.” All his glib one-liners about other people taking care of me meant something. He might not know where Peyton was, but I had a feeling rogues knew more about each other’s habits than they let on. And if Grendel knew anything about Peyton, we needed to keep him alive.

Holden stepped over the body and tossed Shane’s gun back to him. The vampire hunter bobbled the catch, bouncing the gun between his hands until he got a hold on it and re-aimed it at Grendel to cover Holden.

The chirping was getting faster and functioned as a literal reminder of how little time we had left to escape. I was grateful we’d sent Siobhan out with the girl. The building wasn’t stable to begin with, and once these guys became vamp-pyres, the whole thing would come down on top of us.

Holden grabbed Grendel under the arms and started dragging him towards the exit. With Grendel’s legs useless, Holden was stuck hauling at least three hundred pounds of red, squirming, vampire weight. Grendel didn’t want to go easily, but he wasn’t fighting hard enough to be stopped.

He wanted to live.

“Help him,” I told Shane.

As they wrestled the massive vampire towards the exit, I kept my gun trained on the remaining guard. His pants were soaked with urine, and he looked frightened and desperate.

“Can you take it off? Without blowing?” I asked.

He shook his head, bloodstained tears welling in his eyes. I didn’t want to feel sympathy for a rogue vampire. He’d made some stupid life decisions to bring him to this point, and part of me felt like he deserved what he was getting.

But the human part of me—a part that didn’t actually exist physiologically—couldn’t just leave some poor crying bastard to die by explosion.

I lowered my gaze to my gun then back up to the vampire. “Do you…? I mean…do you want me to…?”

He nodded.

I fired two shots into his head, and he crumpled between his fallen comrades. He would have been dead either way, but at least now he didn’t need to learn what it felt like to be blown up.

Now if only I could avoid the same experience.

The first explosion went off as I reached the main hallway. I was lifted off my feet and thrown into the metal doors of the elevator bay. I hit the floor in a daze, a dented impression of my body showing in the age-faded bronze.

Small bits of debris fell around me, the larger chunks having been blown farther away. A haze of dust hung over the hallway, which combined with the force of hitting the wall, made me unsure of which way the exit was. I got to my feet, trying to smell fresh air, but my nostrils were full of plaster dust and exploded fiberglass.

If this building was full of asbestos, my lungs were going to be properly fucked for a few days.

“Secret.” Holden’s voice echoed down the hall, helping me figure out which way to run.

I was four feet from the door when the second explosion rocked the apartment complex. This time I was blown into the front doors, cracking the old lead glass into a spider-web pattern. Unfortunately for me the doors weren’t the kind to open out, so the explosion didn’t expel me from the building, it just hurtled me into the solid barrier of the door.

More rubble rained down, the larger chunks not missing me this time. I covered my head, tucking myself in against the wooden door as the huge bits of concrete and iron half-buried me. I fumbled for the door handle and managed to crack the door open wide enough to drag myself through.

Holden was waiting on the opposite side, prying the door open wider and hauling me out with rough hands under my armpits. He had me down the front steps by the time the third explosion went off. This one was larger than the others, or perhaps the structure had been so compromised a hard sneeze could have taken the place down.

We were knocked down by the force of the blast. I fell flat onto Holden, and he rolled me over, bracing his arms on either side of my head and burying his face beside my neck. Huge boulders of concrete pummeled the ground around us. Judging by the way Holden’s body moved and the tense grit of his jaw against my cheek, some of the pieces must have been landing on him.

When the sky stopped falling, Holden sat back on his heels and helped me to my feet. I was still wobbly from being tossed around like a rag doll, and my jeans were torn in both knees. Probably elsewhere, too, because my backside was experiencing a new breezy sensation.

Shane and Grendel were nowhere in sight, and I was hoping it meant Shane had gotten some vampire assistance. If the wardens—as they often were—had been trailing me from a distance and monitoring my app activity when I’d called Holden, they wouldn’t have been far away when things went down. With their speed and training, they could have easily met Shane outside and helped cart off Grendel before I’d had a chance to escape.

I had to hope that because police sirens screamed closer, and red-and-blue lights ricocheted against the tall brick walls. As cops spilled into the alley, the last thing I wanted to do was explain why we had a seven-foot-tall monstrosity of a man with his knees blown off held captive.

I raised my hands above my head, favoring a sore ankle by standing tilted away from Holden. He lifted his own hands, the sleeve of his blazer ripping loose as he muttered, “This was a thirteen-hundred-dollar suit.”

Chapter Five

Detective Mercedes Castilla had bigger hips than me—and longer legs—but I’d rather borrow her spare jeans instead of a pair of unknown origin from the lost-and-found box.

At least I knew any stains on Cedes’s jeans were from coffee.

Judging by the triumphant sneer on Barbie the Receptionist’s face when I’d been dragged into the police station, she would have liked nothing more than to see me wearing a pair of baggy sweats abandoned by a homeless guy. Barbie had never been my biggest fan.

In spite of the fact the fallen apartment building was in Brooklyn, Holden and I ended up at the seventy-sixth precinct of the NYPD. Just my luck. Luck in this case was equal parts honest luck and being totally screwed.

Lucky because I got to borrow jeans from my human best friend.

Shitty break because of the pair of disapproving eyes and sternly crossed muscular arms seated across the desk from me. Detective Tyler Nowakowski was shaking his handsome, stubbled jaw at me.

“You know…for someone trying to stay under the radar, you’re doing a piss-poor job of it,” he said.

Blessedly, Mercedes and Tyler were both aware of what I was—all of what I was—and happened to be under my protection. In a fun turn of events, they were also both now protecting me. I think Tyler enjoyed being the hero for once. He was the manly sort, and was probably tired of me being the one to save him.

I was pretending to ignore him by looking at the giant hole underneath the pockets on my former pants. “I’m sick of ruining my favorite pants.”

“Secret. Focus.”

I dropped the jeans into my lap and met his gaze. His thick black eyebrows were knit together, and he was showing me his most impressive stern-detective face. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Tyler’s desk was set at the back of the room, giving us the illusion of privacy. Holden had been taken to an interrogation room by Mercedes, and since the other rooms were in use, I was being debriefed by Tyler at his desk.

“You really brought down the house this time, didn’t you?”

“Oh har-frigging-har, Detective Comedy.”

“Mind telling me what happened?”

“Do you want the actual version or the on-the-record version?”

He frowned, his nose wrinkling more than Samantha on Bewitched, and finally he sighed and uncrossed his arms. With his elbows propped on the desk, he waved both hands at me and said, “Tell me the truth first. We’ll deal with what I put in the report later.”

“I was helping Shane hunt a rogue. Rogue had his goons wired up more than the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Goons went boom.” I mimed an explosion with my hands.

“I take it that was the CliffsNotes version.”

I nodded.

“Do we have to worry about this rogue?” He said rogue like the word was in a foreign language.

“I blew out both his kneecaps. I think the wardens have him under control.”

“You think?”

“Best I can tell you without being able to check with the council.” I folded my ruined jeans and dumped them into the wire trash bin next to his desk. Two hundred dollars into the crapper. No big deal.

“You know I can’t just let you walk out.”

“You know I can post bail.”

“You’re going to have to. You and the pretty-boy vampire are in some serious trouble this time, Secret, and not the kind he can voodoo-eye his way out of.”

“That voodoo he do?” I said with a snicker. “Voodoo-eye? Seriously, Detective Tyler?”

“What do you call it?”

“The thrall. Enthralling.”

“How poetic.”

“You’ve been on the receiving end. It’s effective.” I propped my feet against his desk and tipped my chair back, trying to see if I could get a glimpse into the interrogation rooms. The staff had gotten wise to the view, though, because the small windows were covered.

Tyler whacked my toes with a manila folder. “Could you at least pretend to respect me?”

I dropped my feet, the wooden chair clacking loudly on the tile floor, echoing through the mostly empty room like a gunshot. The few people seated nearby flinched, and one guy gave me a dirty look.

“I do respect you.” I avoided the nasty gaze and held my hands over my heart in mock horror. “Do you want to hear the official version of the story? I thought of it in the cruiser on the way over.”

“I’m sure I’ll be dazzled.”

“Okay…fade in, damaged midtown apartment complex…”

“If you say the word asbestos to me, so help me God, I will kick your tiny ass from here to next month.”

“Uhhhh…”

“You were going to say asbestos, weren’t you?”

I smiled sheepishly. “Maybe.”

“Asbestos won’t make a building collapse.”

“I’m sorry, did I miss the secret structural engineering degree in your past?”

He rolled his eyes. “Is there any danger of them finding the pieces of those vampires? Anything to make it look like there are bodies in the rubble?”

“Once the sun comes up, the parts will be gone. If there’s any blood, that stays, but the body parts will poof. Even if they’re intact when they start moving rubble, it disappears so quickly they won’t find anything.” I fanned my hands out to mimic dust spreading in the wind. “And the blood could be from anything, right? It’s not out of the question for bad things to happen in abandoned buildings in this city. Definitely nothing to build a case on.”

He tapped his pen thoughtfully, and across the floor the interrogation room opened. Mercedes held the door, and a uniformed officer retrieved Holden from inside, taking him down a hall and out of sight.

Cedes shut the folder in her hand and traipsed across the work floor. After pulling up a chair from the desk next to Tyler’s, she plopped down and faced him, pretending I wasn’t there.

“So Chancery claims they were out for a walk when they heard something inside the building. The building was scheduled for demolition tomorrow—”

“No it wasn’t,” Tyler interjected flatly. “There’s no goddamn way that’s true.”

“Whether or not you believe it, there’s paperwork to back it up. I just had this faxed over from a night clerk at city hall who was none too pleased with me for cashing in a favor.”

Cedes handed him what I could only assume was a demolition work order. An order that probably hadn’t existed two hours ago. It helped to have friends in high—or low—places.

“So what, we’re saying that on entering the building they accidentally triggered existing demolition charges?”

Cedes nodded, and Tyler let out an aggravated sigh. “Well…that sounds like a steaming pile of horseshit to me. But it’s a hell of a lot better than what this one was going to suggest.”

Cedes acknowledged my existence at last. “Asbestos?”

“Guilty.”

“Don’t say the g-word in here,” Cedes scolded. “Look, we have to book you guys for trespassing and damaging private property. Nothing too major, but it’s going on your record.”

“Hot damn! I’ve been trying to get something on my record for eons. Apparently the worse the crime, the harder it is to get arrested for it.” I beamed at her. “I assume we’ll need to pay for the damages, and someone will have to post bail?”

“You got it,” Cedes said. “That going to be a problem?”

“Not if you give me my one phone call.”

As luck would have it I had my fair share of multimillionaires and people with deep pockets to call. There was a time I’d have defaulted to calling my ex-boyfriend/werewolf husband Lucas Rain. After all, who was better than a billionaire when you needed cash fast?

But I didn’t want to owe anything to Lucas if I could avoid it. I’d asked my last favor of him when my mother showed up in town, and now that it was done, I didn’t want anything else to do with him. I certainly didn’t want to be in debt to him for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It wasn’t the fear of owing him money, but rather being symbolically shackled to him any more than I already was.

Which meant there was only one man I could reach out to and not come out in the red at the end.

I wish I hadn’t been in a holding cell when Sig came through the front doors of the police station. I’d seen how dazzled Barbie had been by Holden during previous visits, and if Holden was impressive, Sig was a force to be reckoned with.

Barbie wouldn’t have stood a chance. She’d probably been reduced to a foaming puddle of drool in the lobby. Sig just had that effect on women. And a lot of men, too, I was willing to bet. He was six-foot-seven and a towering ode to Scandinavian hotness. Lean, blond, with piercing blue eyes and the power to woo with the smallest gesture, Sig was a hell of a man.

He was also the true Tribunal leader, and held the council’s purse strings, so he would be able to get Holden and me out, and pay for the building too. There was no way to know how much the council had paid in the past to cover up the things vampires had done in the city or around the world.

Keeping a secret like ours wasn’t easy—or cheap—but the council had spent centuries amassing wealth. Everything from stock holdings—getting in on both Microsoft and Apple when they went public had helped—to long-term, high-interest savings accounts and bonds, the council was set. Super set. They hid their wealth under the radar by maintaining accounts in different names and foreign countries, but if it were all added up, the vampires would have the gross income of a midsized country.

With almost none of the debt.

I might have felt guilty asking for the money if it were anyone else, but the vampire council was not anyone else. I sort of felt like they owed it to me now, considering I’d been their bitch for so many years.

The officer monitoring the holding cells let Holden out first, and me next, announcing we’d posted bail. Out in the lobby, Sig was leaning casually on the front desk saying something to Barbie in his smooth accent—one I’d never been able to place because it was so old—and Mercedes stood nearby, pretending she wasn’t enchanted by him.

Everyone who ever met him was enchanted by him, it was part of his gift. Some vampires had extra talents, and Sig’s was putting those around him at ease, human and vampire alike.

That was part of the reason he scared me so much. I felt relaxed when I was next to him, and since I was almost never relaxed, it made me extra nervous about him. Like he might attack me at any moment, but I would be so calm I’d simply roll over and let him maul me.

My blind trust was what made me most wary of him.

“Ah, here they are, my troublemaking friends.” He straightened to his full height and spread his arms wide like he wanted to hug the whole room. Barbie was gawking at him with a starry expression, and even Cedes was having difficulty suppressing a smile. “I do hope they weren’t too difficult for you.”

“Of course not,” Barbie said, as if she’d had anything to do with our brief stay in the slammer.

“We might need to get them frequent visitor badges at this rate, but a stay in the cells was new.” Cedes toyed with her frizzy black curls. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was flirting with the Finnish master vampire.

“Hey, Cedes?” I interrupted. “How’s Owen?”

Her hand dropped from her hair, and she seemed to shake off the hazy glow of Sig’s presence. “Owen. Right. My boyfriend, Owen. Owen is great.” She took a few big steps back from Sig, suddenly realizing the impact he’d had on her wasn’t altogether natural.

Cedes didn’t trust vampires on the best day, and it had taken years for me to get her to treat Holden like a person—sort of—but she still didn’t have fuzzy feelings about vampires en masse. Sig wasn’t helping matters now, even if his mojo was involuntary. To people like Mercedes and Tyler who didn’t get the nuances of vampire power, everything unnatural was an invasion of their psyche.

I wanted her to stay wary, but I didn’t want her to think all vampires were monsters. Some of them might be, but not all, and it wasn’t fair of her to paint every single one of them with the same brush because of the misdeeds of a few.

Maybe it was a side effect of her job too. I was willing to bet Cedes had a hard time seeing the good in humans, considering what she saw in the field on a daily basis. If I could get her to see vampires the same way she did humans, then I might have a chance of showing her there was some good mixed in with the bad.

Problem was some days even I had trouble seeing the good, in vampires and humans both.

“Cedes, this is Sig. He’s my co-chair on the…council.” I avoided the word Tribunal because there was just no way to make it sound like a normal job. Council could be anything, though.

“We were introduced,” she said, her expression serious and her whole posture becoming more rigid. Since I was feeling the soothing impact of Sig’s presence, I knew she must be fighting it hard.

I leaned in close and whispered so Barbie wouldn’t hear, “He’s not doing it intentionally. It’s just…him. Try not to resist.”

I might as well have told a wall not to resist a wrecking ball. She’d yield eventually, but now that I’d told her not to, she was more hell-bent on keeping his powers at bay. If Mercedes Castilla had a superpower, it would be stubbornness.

“You guys are good here?” she asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question, as though we had no choice but to be okay. Without waiting for our reply, she turned heel and jogged up the steps and back into the upper floor of the precinct.

“Are you two done here?” Sig probed. It was a loaded question, and I knew he was going to unleash hell on me the second we were out of human earshot.

“Definitely,” Holden replied, the first word he’d spoken to me since we’d arrived here. In spite of our holding cells being next to each other, he hadn’t said a thing. Either he didn’t want to risk saying something telling in front of non-vampire company, or he was pissed at me for getting him arrested.

Or for ruining his precious suit.

We left the station together when all the necessary paperwork had been completed. With Sig signing everything, it made me feel as if he’d just bought me.

He already owned my life in so many other ways, what was one more?

Once the three of us were outside in the warm summer night, Sig’s pleasant veneer melted away, and he fixed me with a stern, unimpressed glare. “Do you know what it means to lie low, Secret?”

“I—”

“That was a rhetorical question, as the answer is obviously no. I let you stay in the city because you promised me you could stay under the radar. Keep a low profile. All those silly new expressions you people have for keeping out of trouble. And what do you do? You bring down an entire apartment building.”

“In fairness, that was Grendel…”

“Now is a poor time to make excuses, pet.” He shortened his long strides, giving me and Holden a chance to catch up. Holden didn’t seem to be in much of a rush, trailing a few feet back.

“We saved the girl,” I said. “And didn’t Shane bring Grendel in?”

“He did.”

I sighed inwardly, relieved to know Shane and the wardens had been able to wrangle Grendel into council headquarters before the vampire’s knees healed and he was able to make a run for it.

“I think he knows something about Peyton,” I said, recalling what Grendel had baited me with in the apartment complex. “He might know where he is.”

Sig crossed the street, and I had no choice but to follow him if I wanted the conversation to continue. The yellowish glow of the streetlights gave his white-blond hair a warm, angelic glow. Sometimes, if I glanced at him quickly and saw only the beautiful face and often-shirtless physique, I forgot he was scary. In those moments he was just an alluring man.

This was not one of those moments, in spite of how good he looked in his tight black T-shirt. Considering Sig’s outfit generally consisted of leather pants and nothing else, the all black was a change of pace. The shoes were the most impressive thing for me. He wandered around barefoot ninety-nine percent of the time, and I knew he’d only put the loafers on to appear normal at the police station, but it didn’t make me any less fascinated by the sight.

I was so distracted I didn’t notice him stop in his tracks and ended up walking into his backside.

It was like smacking into a muscular wall.

“The time has come,” he said, as if picking up on a conversation thread, but it wasn’t from any conversation I remembered having with him. Had he been talking this whole time while I was busy staring at his shoes?

Better his shoes than his ass, I suppose.

“For what?” I asked, before I could be distracted by anything else.

Holden was beside me now, and he shook his head at Sig. “That’s drastic. We said we could avoid it.”

“Avoid what?”

“We said we could avoid it if she played by the rules. I was a fool to believe such an option would work. If Peyton has other rogues working with him, there is no safe place here anymore. When a creature like Grendel can be lured in by Alexandre’s promises, we are left with no other choice.”

“But we caught Grendel,” I reminded them, still not sure what we were talking about. I didn’t like where I thought it was going, though. “I’m not afraid of rogues.”

“If you believe this is something you can talk your way out of by professing how unafraid you are, you are sorely mistaken. There will be no further discussion.”

“But—”

“I’m sending you away.” Sig’s tone was as flat as the skyline in my prairie hometown. “Tonight.”

Chapter Six

I was still saying no when we arrived at the council headquarters. The council building was an exact twin to Grand Central Terminal, a huge old train station cloaked from human eyes by layer upon layer of magic, both vampire and otherwise.

The three of us marched through the front doors, and I trailed after Sig like a desperate puppy, my high-heeled boots clacking loudly on the black-and-white tile floor. I hadn’t yet learned how to move with the silent grace of other vampires, but maybe that was something my werewolf half had negated.

Werewolves, as a rule, didn’t need to worry too much about running around in heels.

“You can’t send me away. I’m not a naughty child you can ship off to boarding school.” We were through the big oak doors that divided the main working floor of the council with the lower chambers where the Council Elders and our Tribunal space were held.

Somewhere lower still was a cell where Grendel was bound in silver and would be slowly starved until he was a literal husk of his former self. A vampire couldn’t starve to death, but they could waste away to something far worse.

“Why do you insist on making it sound as though I’m punishing you?” Sig spoke in a quiet, calm voice, which made the slightly hysterical pitch of my own words all the more pathetic.

“It is a punishment. You’re forcing me to leave my home.”

“You stupid, ignorant girl. If you can’t understand why it is I’m forced to do this, maybe I should just leave you for Peyton and his minions to discover.”

That made me stop talking.

A warden opened up the door to the Tribunal chamber, and Sig and I entered. Holden was forced to wait out in the hall. After a quick scan of the room assured me we were alone and Juan Carlos wouldn’t be joining this conversation, I continued.

“I don’t see why it’s necessary.”

“Do you want to witness the death of everyone you hold dear? Would you like to see the slow, violent torture of your human detective friends? Your foolish vampire-hunting sidekicks?” At my surprised face he smiled coldly. “Yes, don’t think I didn’t know about your training exercises with Shane and Nolan. If you think there’s anything you do I don’t know about, you can put that thought out of your mind right now. I know your every move, Secret. Every borrowed breath you take. Whatever you do and wherever you go, I know.”

Well…that was unnerving.

“And if I know, others can know. There will be those who see the werewolf you love and consider him fair game in luring you out. And do you think one wolf can withstand a half-dozen vampires?” Sig arched a brow, silently demanding I respond to his question, though he knew the answer as well as I did.

“No.”

“No what?”

“No. Desmond couldn’t defend himself against six vampires.”

“If you stay, it will mean his death. Desmond, Mercedes, Tyler, Nolan, Shane. The other wolves you care about. Anyone you’ve ever met is at risk. Do you want them to end up like Brigit?”

There were no harsher words he could have chosen. I didn’t need to be reminded of my blame in Brigit’s death. I knew perfectly well she’d been murdered because of me, and of course I didn’t want anyone else to suffer her fate.

It was a cruel way for him to make his point, but it worked. I sat down in the large wooden throne that served as my Tribunal seat and raked my hands through my wind-tangled curls. “Where do you want me to go?” I asked, conceding his victory.

“We can’t just spirit you away into the night without a reason. The elders would find it suspicious, as would Juan Carlos. And I can’t have you out in the wild without protection.”

“Send Holden with me.”

“A fine job he’s done thus far,” Sig scoffed.

“He would die to protect me, and you know it.”

“It isn’t his dedication I question. It’s his ability to protect you from yourself when necessary. Holden is far too willing to let you risk your own life when you think it’s appropriate. While I believe he’ll defend you against external forces, I don’t know if I can make him realize your greatest enemy is often yourself.”

“I think Holden is well aware of how poor my decision-making skills are.”

“If that’s meant to convince me, it is a poor argument.”

“Well, if you’d tell me where you want to send me, maybe I can make a better suggestion.”

“You’ll be going to Los Angeles under the guise of performing a personal request for me. The elders won’t ask questions, and though Juan Carlos will want to know, I’ll impress upon him the importance of having someone I trust look in on my children.”

“Your…children?”

“Yes. You’ll be going to the West Coast Council to ensure my offspring are all in good health. I’ve received reports one of my line has been proving…difficult for them, and you will act in my stead to put him right.”

“One of your kids is being bad, and you’re sending me to babysit?”

“Not one of my direct offspring. I haven’t sired a new vampire in some fifty years. No, this vampire is still new—he’s been with us less than a quarter century. An unfortunate situation, really. He went a little mad upon his turning, and he’s had trouble adjusting. I sired his maker, Theo, but it’s a decision I now regret I’m afraid to say. Such a mess.” Sig sat in the chair next to me and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been meaning to look into it for years, but it seems to be coming to a head, and now there’s discussion of putting him down. Without his sire there, it falls to me to care for him, and now by extension it falls to you.”

“Great. So I get kicked out of my city to go keep your nutcase vampire grandson from getting killed by his own council? Is that about the gist of it?”

“I have a feeling you are the perfect person for the job.”

“I’m thrilled. Can’t wait.” I put mock enthusiasm into my words and pumped my fist in the air.

Sig was giving me a strange look, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with my reaction. His usual cool smile was gone, and there was something like concern on his face.

“What?” I dropped my hand back to my lap.

“I hope I’m not making a mistake,” he said.

“Have you ever made a mistake?”

“Two thousand years is an awfully long time, Secret. You’d be amazed how many mistakes one can make. You’ve been alive only twenty-three years, and look how many you’ve made.”

Burn.

“You’re so sweet to me.”

“I’m far sweeter than you deserve sometimes. Don’t you forget that.”

“Says the man who once offered to devour my humanity.” I leaned back in the throne, resting my head against the heavily carved wood. “I still want Holden with me. It will make me feel better, and it fits with the cover story. If I’m traveling for the council, it makes sense I’d have an envoy.”

“Very well. If we are to have a party travel with you and we want this to appear as real as possible, I will also select someone to go with you. Someone who will keep my interests for you at the forefront of her mind.”

Her? I didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

“Sig…not…”

“You’ve made your request, and I’ve agreed to let Holden go with you. In spite of knowing full well his emotional—and sexual—attachment to you blinds him to what is right.”

Hearing Sig say sexual made my stomach churn. Was there really nothing he didn’t know about me?

“But can’t you pick someone else?” I already knew who he was talking about, and the idea of her joining my travel party didn’t thrill me. He was right, though. She would keep his interests at heart.

“Ingrid will join you. That’s final.”

Ingrid was Sig’s daylight servant. She was bound to serve him for as long as she lived, and in return her lease on life was extended. In spite of how degrading their title was, daylight servants had a pretty sweet deal. They got to stay human, but borrowed the immortality of their master. Ingrid was over seven hundred years old but didn’t look a day over nineteen. Sure, she had to do everything her master commanded, but Sig didn’t seem like a slave driver.

My problem with Ingrid wasn’t her status as a daylight servant, although forced service did weird me out. No, my issue was that she seemed to genuinely loathe me, and I’d never been able to figure out why. A lot of people hated me, and I’d come to accept it, but most of them hated me for a good reason.

Or a bad reason. But at least a reason.

As far as I could tell with Ingrid, the only thing she disliked about me was Sig’s affection for me. It was an inverse relationship. The more Sig liked me, the more Ingrid grew to loathe me. He must be very attached to me by now because she was less fond of me than ever. Either that or hating me had become so habitual she couldn’t stop.

“Anyone but Ingrid,” I pleaded.

“I don’t trust anyone the way I trust Ingrid. If you’re concerned she’ll be acting as some kind of spy and reporting your every action to me, I should tell you not to be so paranoid.”

I scrunched my face up and gave him a don’t treat me like an idiot expression. “Of course she’s going to report my every move.”

“Perhaps she will, but that’s not why I’m sending her. I could just as easily have wardens trailing you the whole way, and the intelligence results would be the same. Ingrid isn’t going along to be your keeper.”

“Then why bother sending her?”

“If hard choices need to be made on my behalf, I want her with you. She’ll know where I stand on all matters. I’m trusting you, however, to be the best representative of our Tribunal when you’re there. You are, after all, one of the leaders on the East Coast, and what you do and say reflects on not only Juan Carlos and me, but the entire council as well. Please try to be respectful.”

“Don’t tiptoe around it. Just say what you want to say.”

“Don’t be yourself. Or, if it’s essential you be Secret McQueen while there, could you be the version of yourself that is appropriate for the audience? I know she’s in there.”

“Be Tribunal Secret, not real Secret. Understood.”

“Thank you.”

“Now I have a request for you.”

His response came in the form of one raised eyebrow, which I took as license to carry on.

“You’ve made it obvious enough you know people are out to get me, and those people will stop at nothing to see me dead. While I’m gone, I can’t protect my friends. Tyler, Mercedes and Nolan all belong to me, according to the laws of the council.” I’d declared the three of them mine, and much like licking a dessert, it marked them as my possessions. “Since I’m not going to be here to protect them, I’m giving temporary guardianship responsibilities to you.”

Sig grimaced. “That’s not standard—”

“You want me to go to Los Angeles to look after what belongs to you? Then you have to look after what belongs to me. So while we’re at it I want to declare—officially—that Desmond Alvarez is mine. As is the entire Alvarez family. Shane Hewitt is mine.”

“Shane belongs to the council.”

“You made a point of saying he’s at risk. If the risk to his life is because of me, that means he’s mine. Not the council’s.”

“Anyone else? Would you also like to lay claim to the entire West Village? Perhaps the whole island of Manhattan?”

“If I could, I would.”

“And what about your wolf king, Lucas Rain? Is he yours as well?”

I got to my feet, considering his words. All I had to do was say yes. One word and the council would protect Lucas from any vampire forces who might attack him to get to me.

I looked back at Sig.

“Fuck him.”

Chapter Seven

I texted Desmond as I left the council headquarters. There was no way I’d get to see him one-on-one before I was shipped off to the City of Angels, but that didn’t mean I was going to leave without telling him what was happening.

I’d done that once before, and he’d barely forgiven me. If I did it again, I suspected he’d be done with me forever.

Holden would be glued to my side until Peyton was caught. After the earful Sig gave him, I’d be surprised if I got to shower on my own, let alone have some quality time with my boyfriend.

Things between the werewolf lieutenant and me had been strained to say the least. After our short breakup in the spring, we still hadn’t fallen back into our stride as a couple again. It didn’t help that I’d slept with Holden—a fact Desmond wouldn’t acknowledge and didn’t want to discuss at all—and I was worried our unresolved issues were a powder keg waiting to blow.

Whenever we were together it was hard to just relax and be us because the threat of my death was lingering, and we knew we were being watched. That, coupled with the fact I’d chosen Lucas instead of him months earlier, meant Desmond was having a difficult time being with me.

While very few things had ever been easy for us, loving each other had always come naturally. I had to believe once Peyton and my mother were no longer in the picture, Desmond and I would be able to hammer out the problems we were having and try to make things right again.

For now, I’d stick with positive thinking. He still loved me. He still wanted to be with me. And in spite of the insanity of our lives, he’d let me back in.

It was a start.

He was waiting in my apartment when Holden and I arrived. Instead of trading any barbs, the vampire and werewolf shared an uneasy silence, and Holden ducked into the bedroom saying, “I’ll pack some things for you.”

I wouldn’t trust any man other than Holden to pack a bag for me, and I knew he’d make appropriate choices for the audience, if not for my comfort.

“Going somewhere?” Desmond asked, though he sounded beat down, making me believe he already knew the answer. When I’d texted, I just said, Meet me at home, something has come up. Not the best way to break news to him, sure, but better than an ominous We need to talk.

“I blew up a building, so Sig is making me go to Los Angeles.”

“What?”

I led him back to the loveseat where he’d been sitting, and we sank into the cushions together. His hands were big, and I couldn’t hold them properly in mine, but I tried. His warm skin felt good, bringing me tactile memories of the way his palms felt in the dark as they explored my naked body.

It had been three months since I’d had sex with anyone, and I was starting to get a little squirrelly. But I didn’t trust myself, not after what had happened with Holden. I’d slept with him in a frigging fairy castle, and though I had no regrets—it had been a long time coming—I no longer knew what I wanted.

The truth was I wanted them both, but trying to date Lucas and Desmond at the same time had been an unmitigated disaster. It had destroyed their friendship and almost caused the wolf pack to crumble. Since Holden and Desmond didn’t like each other to begin with, I wasn’t concerned about their feelings towards one another, but I also no longer believed I could be with two men and not be destroyed by the guilt of it.

The problem was, there were two parts of my being—the vampire half and the werewolf half—and each of them was demanding something different. The vampire wanted Holden, and whenever we were together I was reminded of how good his bite felt and the way he still understood me when I acted more like a monster than a person.

The werewolf, though, she took one whiff of Desmond and told me, Mate.

There was one side effect from my experience in the fairy realm I was grateful for though. During my brief stint as a human, and my subsequent return to what I was, something in my connection with Desmond had been reset.

When we’d first met, each time I got near him the taste of lime filled my mouth. It was meant to be a signal, letting us know we’d found our soul-bonded mate. After I’d completed my mate bond with Lucas, and he and I had been married in a werewolf ceremony, the flavors had vanished. Every day without the taste of Desmond had been a harsh reminder of what I’d lost.

But coming back from the fairy reality, it had all changed. I could taste the lime again. I hadn’t spent any time with Lucas since realizing it, so I wasn’t sure if his cinnamon taste would be there. I also didn’t know what it meant in terms of my mate bond with the king, or our lupine marriage. I was sure the consequences would spread out a lot further than just the taste, but for the time being it was the only thing that mattered to me.

It was like losing a limb and having it magically restored to you. I’d known I missed the taste of him but hadn’t realized how much until the flavor was back.

I leaned forward and kissed him gently, his lips tangy and sweet, and rested my forehead against his, breathing in the comfort and familiarity of his scent. I wanted so badly to bring him with me, but there was no way I could go on vampire business with my werewolf boyfriend in tow.

“Don’t think you can kiss me and I’ll forget what you said,” he teased, some of the darkness leaving his voice.

“What if I kiss you a lot?”

“It would take a solid decade of making out for me to overlook you blowing up a building.”

“To be fair, I didn’t actually blow it up. It just sort of…blew up around me.”

I sat back and watched his expression change from amused to concerned. His gaze shifted, looking over every part of me he could see while I was sitting, before meeting my eyes again.

“You’re okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.”

“But Sig is sending you away.”

“He says it’s not safe anymore. Not just for me, but for everyone. He thinks Peyton is gaining support from other rogues, and if that’s the case, there’s nowhere for me to hide in this city. If they can’t come at me directly, they’ll come at me through the people I love.”

“And you think they won’t still try that if you’re gone?”

“Not if we make it known I’m leaving. On official council business of course.”

Desmond pulled his hands free of mine and balled them into fists in his lap like he wanted to hit something but had no obvious target.

“I want to go with you.”

“You can’t.”

“Secret…”

“You can’t. I know you want to be with me, and I know you want to protect me, but if you come, you’ll only put me at greater risk. I can’t explain to the West Coast Tribunal why I have a werewolf with me. They won’t overlook it the way Sig does.”

“Why should it matter who you have with you?”

“Desmond, please. When I was in New Orleans with Lucas, Holden showed up. He was there all of five seconds before Lucas freaked out and made me get rid of him. And he was just bringing me clothes. How do you think the vampire council will react when I show up as a half-vampire and say, Oh, by the way, this is my werewolf boyfriend?”

His silence said he understood, but the hurt expression on his face worried me more. Touching his arm, I added, “I wish you could come, but I have to play this one by the book.”

“So you do know how to abide by the rules sometimes, then. How long are you going to be gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“And is he going with you?”

I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. I wouldn’t lie, but I wanted the truth to be as painless as possible. “Yes.”

“In what capacity?”

“Des…”

“In what capacity?”

“Holden will be my personal guard. He’s acting as part of my council envoy. I’ll also be with Ingrid, if that makes you feel any better.” Desmond and Ingrid had met and gotten along surprisingly well, all things considered.

“Telling me you’re not leaving would be the only thing to make me feel any better.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then tell me you’re coming right back to me.”

I opened my mouth, and instead of words a sad, gulping noise came out. The look of guilt that overcame him when I made the sound assured me any argument we were having was effectively over. He crossed the distance between us and pulled me in tightly. With his strong arms wrapped around me and the familiarity of his warmth and scent, I felt safer and more at home than I had in weeks.

If I closed my eyes, I could pretend this was the Desmond and me of a year ago, living together in this apartment, happy together with our slightly messed-up werewolf love triangle. And if I tried to imagine a time ahead, when he lived here with me again and there was nothing tripping us up or keeping us apart, I might never leave his arms.

Just being near him was a more convincing argument for why I should stay than anything he could say. Desmond’s arms felt like home. And I was being forced to leave.

Holden had come into the room while Desmond hugged me, and cleared his throat to announce his presence. The werewolf was in no hurry to let me go, but I knew time was of the essence. I still had to fly across the country and somehow manage to get to L.A. without being burnt to a crisp by the rising sun. I was sure Sig had a plan in place for Holden and me to travel safely, but it didn’t make me any less uneasy about the prospect.

“We need to go,” Holden said, as if I didn’t already know.

Desmond growled, drawing me in closer. The rumble of his warning buzzed through my cheek, and in the pit of my stomach, something responded. My inner werewolf and I had come to an uneasy peace with one another since my time with the fairies. She’d shown herself as a force to be reckoned with, and I’d had to acknowledge she was a real entity, not just a figment of my imagination.

Since my return, she’d let me keep her in check, and I’d avoided contact with other wolves during the full moon so I wouldn’t be forced to shift. I had no illusions of being in control of her, though. I understood full well she was allowing me the illusion of command. My inner wolf was a tricky, manipulative bitch if ever there was one. I was just grateful she was letting me live a semblance of a normal life given how fucked up everything else was.

Maybe she understood we didn’t have the luxury of slipping up right now. The last thing I needed was to shift into a wolf during the full moon and run through the streets of New York. That would not have gone unnoticed.

But I wasn’t foolish enough to think she wouldn’t show herself again. She was merely biding her time, like a hunter stalking its prey waits for the right moment. My wolf was holding out for her moment.

She was also excited by Desmond’s growl and made her presence known inside me. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to that. She wasn’t an imaginary energy or a mere voice inside my head. She was a physical entity, and some days it seemed as though there were a real wolf just under the surface of my skin waiting to bust loose.

That wasn’t how the whole shifting thing worked, but it felt like it sometimes.

She stretched, and I swear to God I felt fur rubbing up against the inside of my belly.

I pressed my palms flat against Desmond’s chest and pushed myself free of his arms, whispering, “Shh.”

At first he looked hurt, but there must have been something in my eyes or on my face that showed him how wigged out I was because he took a step back and lowered his arms. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. She’s just…”

“She?” Holden asked.

“Her wolf,” Desmond said. “I woke up her wolf.”

My tummy churned, and I sucked in a deep breath, shutting my eyes tightly. He is unhappy, she told me.

“No shit,” I replied.

Holden and Desmond both thought I was commenting on Desmond’s explanation, and I let them go right on thinking it. Better that than both of them staring at me like a freak for talking to my inner beast.

“Are you okay?” Holden asked. “Do we need to…subdue you?”

My wolf growled at him, but her warning came out of my throat, and I had to admit it sounded pretty scary even from human lips. I’d like to see him try.

“N-no,” I stammered. “It’ll be fine. Just give me a second.”

“Now do you see why we can’t have you with us?” Holden said to Desmond. “Imagine if this happened with the wrong people around? How can we explain one of our Tribunal leaders snapping at people as if she were a rabid dog?”

My wolf growled again. She was less than thrilled by Holden’s choice of words.

“You’re the one pissing her off now, bloodsucker.” Desmond crossed his arms and sneered at Holden, proving the vampire brought out the worst in him. “Maybe you shouldn’t be going either.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh my God, would the two of you please shut up and give me a second?” I covered my ears with both hands and thought soothing, happy thoughts. Things a wolf might enjoy. Frolicking through meadows. Chasing fluffy bunnies. Anything to distract her from the maelstrom of testosterone across the room.

They zipped their lips, but the loaded glares kept zinging back and forth like invisible bullets. I stepped between them, taking the packed Coach weekend bag out of Holden’s hand and turning my back to him so I could face Desmond.

“Des, I love you.” I cupped his warm chin, scratching his stubble until I got a grin out of him. Leaning in close, I planted a kiss on his lips and on each corner of his mouth. “I want you to come. I wish you were with me all the time, I hope you know that.”

He offered a tight smile, telling me he didn’t completely believe what I was telling him. “Okay,” he said, which wasn’t the same as a yes.

“And when I come back, I promise I won’t leave your side again for months.”

Holden scoffed audibly behind me.

“Sure,” Desmond replied. Apparently Holden’s dismissive noise was more credible than my actual assurances. Who could blame him, though? It’s not like I’d been the most reliable girlfriend in history.

I’d almost married someone else.

“At least she told you she was leaving this time,” Holden offered.

Helpful.

Chapter Eight

“No.” I crossed my arms and gave Ingrid a venomous glare, taking several steps away from the cargo hold of the small jet.

Heat from the running engines added to the sweaty summer air, making me extra hot, but just one glance inside the cargo area was all it took to fill me with cold dread.

Holden was sitting on the edge of the space, his legs dangling down and an all-too-bemused expression on his face. He seemed to take great pleasure in seeing me uneasy.

“I don’t understand the problem,” Ingrid said, as humorless as a schoolteacher speaking to an insolent child.

“You can’t lock me in the trunk.”

Sig’s daytime servant sighed, rolling her eyes, and cast a help me glance upwards. She was built like a farm girl, sturdy even in her small stature, and although she was human she projected a clear don’t mess with me vibe to all the vampires she encountered. Her long straw-blonde hair was in pigtails, making her look like a teenager. A seven-hundred-year-old teenager who was used to getting her way.

And she currently expected me to listen to her directions.

The cargo hold was in the tail of the plane, accessible through a pitifully small door. Given the slight size of the jet there wasn’t a lot of need for a larger compartment. But it was big enough for two coffins.

Not. Fucking. Happening.

I didn’t care what Sig was expecting from me, I wasn’t climbing into a coffin.

“No.”

Standing on the tarmac at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey might not have been the most ideal place to have an argument about being shipped in a coffin, but we’d been left on our own for the time being, and I was assured our human pilot was in the know. The benefit of a private jet was we could avoid a larger airport and a lot of the questions that went along with transporting coffins.

Coffins I would not be traveling in.

“This isn’t optional.” Ingrid tapped the metal ladder leading up to the cargo hold.

“Why can’t we lightproof the interior?”

“That would be all well and fine, but how would we get you off the plane in Los Angeles? In daylight?”

I looked from Ingrid to Holden, and my vampire wasn’t helping. “It’s not so bad,” he told me.

“You sleep in a queen-sized bed with Egyptian cotton sheets. What the fuck do you know about being in a coffin?”

His cheeky smile faltered. “I know what it’s like to wake up in one and claw your way out, not knowing where you are.” His mouth formed a thin line, and he appeared paler than usual.

“Oh, Holden, I didn’t—”

“You couldn’t have known.”

I was familiar with Holden’s sire, Rebecca. She seemed too evolved to bury her new vampire children in the ground, but what did I know? One of her spawn had turned into a psycho, though, so perhaps she needed to revisit her methods. A fifty-fifty ratio between functional and fucked up wasn’t the best track record.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling it was important for me to say, though I wasn’t sure if I was sorry for what I’d said or about what had happened to him.

“It’s fine.”

“Excellent. Wonderful. Glad we’ve all shared this lovely, touching moment, but can you please get up there?” Ingrid grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me towards the ladder. She was surprisingly strong for a mere mortal thanks to the strength she borrowed from Sig.

“I—”

“If you think by my saying please I’m opening the floor to further discussion, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“I’m not used to traveling in the same space as my luggage.”

“Funny,” Holden said. “With someone who carries around as much baggage as you, I’d figure you’d be used to having it with you wherever you went.”

“Ha-fucking-ha.” But his rejoinder made any other arguments I had for Ingrid die on my lips. “I want to state, for the record, I don’t like this plan.”

“You have. Many times. And there’s no record, just a very annoyed aid to the Tribunal leader. So get up there.” She released my arm and tapped the ladder again.

“Okay. Fine.”

Holden twisted backwards into the hold to make room for me, and once inside we were forced to crouch low in the narrow space with barely enough room for our bags, coffins and bodies. If we weren’t going into the metal boxes, it would be impossible to lie down.

“Why are you being so difficult about this?” he asked, once we were alone. “You’ve traveled in worse.”

“Not willingly.”

His strained expression softened, and he placed a cool hand under my chin, tilting my face up to better look at me. “You seem scared,” he whispered.

“I am scared,” I confessed, relieved to say the words out loud.

“What has the big bad vampire hunter spooked?” He shifted closer so his knees framed mine and he was able to take both my hands in his. “You can’t actually be afraid of being in there.”

He raised both eyebrows when I swallowed hard. “Maybe.”

Holden squeezed my hand but barely succeeded in suppressing a snort.

“It’s not funny.” I swatted his hands away.

“What’s the big deal?”

I knocked on the top of the metal casket, and it bonged in response, the echo from within making the pit of nerves in my gut tighten like a fist. “It’s a six-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles. Do you remember what happened to me in an elevator? Holden, I can’t even take the subway.”

His quiet snickering stopped. Vampires didn’t mind small spaces as a matter of survival. Most of them didn’t spend their daylight hours in a coffin. It was passé now, considering how many options there were to keep the sun out. But as part of the evolutionary process, they didn’t tend to be upset by cramped quarters.

Werewolves, on the other hand, weren’t so awesome with being cooped up. They liked to run and be out in the open. Being crammed into a tight metal box was not the same as being out in the open.

Holden’s grasp on my phobia took root, and he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, guiding me gently toward the coffin until we were both sitting on it. We still had to hunch down because of the low ceiling, but at least we weren’t crouched on the floor anymore.

“Okay, I know you’re freaked out, but consider this—sunrise is in less than an hour.”

“Yeah.”

“And once the sun comes up, you’re out. Totally out. You won’t have to worry about anything because you won’t be conscious.”

He had a point, but there was something he was missing. “What about the hour before the sun goes down?”

“Secret, I’m going to give you some age-old vampire wisdom to get you through that part.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Suck it up.”

Chapter Nine

A warm breeze roused me, calling for me to open my eyes. I cracked my eyelids and blinked back tears from the searing too-bright light of day.

My bare skin was hot, absorbing the sunshine and making me feel cozier than if I’d been wrapped in a dozen sweaters. I might not get cold often, but I still liked being warm.

I raised the brim of my obnoxiously large sun hat and glanced around, trying not to look directly at the pool. Given the brightness of the day and how still the water was, it would have been like staring into a mirror of the sun.

If my dreams were going to put me poolside in a tropical paradise, couldn’t they at least dim the lighting a little?

“Here,” said a soft, female voice. A pair of oversized sunglasses were thrust into my hand, and I accepted them, blocking out some of the glare.

When I turned to my left to see who my savior was, my heart stopped.

Brigit Stewart smiled back at me, and even in a dream it was painful to see her, especially looking so vital and gorgeous. She wasn’t as pale as I remembered her—though she’d still been stunning with her alabaster vampire skin. Now she was golden, like she had been when we first met, and her hair had sun-kissed highlights running through it.

This was the human version of Brigit, the version she could have been if Peyton hadn’t turned her to make a point to me.

Vampire or human, it didn’t matter. Seeing her thrilled and destroyed me all at the same time.

“Bri…” I couldn’t figure out what to say to her.

My dreams were a strange place to begin with, which made this that much more difficult. In the past, she’d used our connection—me as her patron, she as my ward—to communicate with one another on a subconscious level.

For a moment I wanted to believe this was that kind of interaction. Somehow I had been wrong about her death, and she’d managed a miraculous recovery. Surely that’s what this meant. It couldn’t be my psyche playing cruel tricks on me.

“You look sad. Aren’t you happy to see me?” She practically oozed warmth, her smile drawing me in.

Tears stung the corner of my eyes, threatening to fall, but I blinked them back, worried she might vanish if I turned away for a second.

“Are you real?”

“I don’t know how to answer that. I’m here, aren’t I? So I guess I’m real enough.”

“Are you alive?” I was trying to work around the elusive, often-aggravating dialogue of a dream.

“I haven’t been alive for a long time.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do you know what you mean?”

My dreams were a fucking nightmare sometimes.

I reached out, hoping by touching her I could get a feel for what was happening. If this was a dream and not some communication from beyond the grave, I needed to know.

But if she was really there, I needed to find a way to bring her back with me. Though I understood the impossibility of that, I was still desperate to try.

When I touched her hand, her fingers turned gray and crumbled apart into dust. Her arm followed suit, caught on the breeze, and bits of her drifted onto the surface of the water then sank out of sight.

“Oh. Look what you’ve done,” she said, her voice never losing its cheerful quality.

I jerked back my hand in horror, hoping it would stop, but she continued to dissolve in front of my eyes.

“I’m so sorry.” Now the tears fell, and there was no stopping them. I wasn’t crying for the loss of her in the dream, but rather the restored knowledge she was gone forever from my real life.

“I was supposed to tell you something.” Her arm dropped away, and her chest began to crumble, exposing bits of rib before they too became ashes.

“Tell me.” I wiped away pink tears with the heel of my hand.

“The betrayal is not what you think.”

“The…betrayal? What betrayal?”

“Sometimes you misplace your trust, but then you find it again.”

“Brigit, what are you talking about?”

“You look really pretty in red,” she commented, and her gaze rested on my hands.

Instead of being covered in her debris, my arms were coated with thick blood, all the way up to my elbows, dripping down in a puddle around my feet.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Someone else will clean up your mess.”

When I woke up, I was still in the box.

My heart seized as I stared into the black interior of the coffin, and in defiance of all logic I pushed out, scrambling against the velvet walls. I couldn’t stretch my arms fully in any given direction, and each time I tried to find purchase on something my hands slid off.

So, of course, I attempted to sit up.

My head thumped the roof, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Why had I let Ingrid talk me into traveling this way? How had Holden been so cavalier about the whole thing? As if being inside a coffin was no big deal.

Considering how many people wanted me dead, I’d given them a perfect opportunity to come right to me. And now what? I was stuck in the coffin, unable to tell where I was or who was waiting outside. What if I’d been buried alive?

Just the thought of it made my panic swell, adrenaline coursing through me as I clawed at the velvet and pounded my fists into the metal underneath.

“Let me out,” I screamed, my voice raspy with terror.

Something bumped against the coffin, and I went still, straining to hear what was going on. The lid creaked and lifted, filling the small space with an impossible amount of light. I squinted at first—momentarily blinded—but once I realized I had been released, I scrambled out of the coffin and shot to the other side of the room.

A boy who appeared to be no older than twelve or thirteen years old assessed me with a quizzical expression, fingering the tattered lining of the casket and nibbling at his lip with a tiny fang.

“Madam, are you quite all right?” he asked, his voice soft and carrying a French accent. “You seem to have destroyed your chamber.”

I swiped my arm across my brow to keep the sweat in check, and my gaze darted around the unfamiliar room. No offense to the kid, but a small French boy wasn’t going to put me at ease. Alexandre Peyton looked seventeen at most, and his angelic face made him very misleading. This stranger could easily be one of Peyton’s minions.

“Where’s Holden?”

The room we were in was lovely. Modern without being too cold, elegant without being too stuffy. The walls were painted a warm gray, and the furniture was accented in shades of violet and charcoal. My coffin was placed near a king-sized bed, and the rest of the room was a suite built to invite comfort. Large chairs and couches were set in front of a slate fireplace, and beyond that was another bedroom, where I could see a coffin identical to my own.

Holden’s coffin.

The lid was open, but there was no sign of the vampire sentry anywhere, so I repeated my question. “Where is he?” When the boy didn’t answer straightaway, I switched into the French my grandmere had drilled into me as a child. “Où et Holden?”

I must not have butchered the pronunciation too badly because the boy’s smile broadened, and he began chattering away in mile-a-minute Parisian French. My grandmere was Creole, and I’d been raised in the Canadian prairie. The French I spoke was a bastardization of Quebecois and Bayou. It certainly wasn’t the soft, eloquent language this kid had perfected over a century or more.

“Désolé, mais mon français n’est pas très bon. Pouvez-vous parler un peu plus lentement, s’il vous plait?” I hoped he wouldn’t be offended I’d spoken to him in French and was now asking him to slow down.

He frowned but appeared more disappointed than irritated.

“Your accent is atrocious,” he commented.

“Isn’t it though?” I offered him a halfhearted smile. My heart was pounding, and he would definitely be able to hear it. So much for playing down my mortal side.

“How interesting.” He tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowing, and looked at me as if I were a piece of art he was having trouble capturing the meaning of. “We were told you were…unique, but I suppose I didn’t believe it until now.”

Perhaps I should have taken his fascination as a compliment, but him gawking at me just added to my nervousness. I still didn’t know where I was, or who he was. The presence of Holden’s coffin calmed me slightly, but not as much as having the actual vampire present would.

“Who are you?” I asked, trying a different tactic since he still hadn’t told me his name.

“Oh! Mon dieu, my apologies Tribunal Leader McQueen, I have forgotten my place entirely.” He did a half bow, holding his hands at the small of his back. His shoulder-length brown curls tumbled forward to cover his face briefly, and when he righted himself, I looked at his eyes. They were a lovely color of green, not the solid black of a vampire itching to feed. “My name is Maxime.”

“Hello.” I raised my hand in a limp wave, and in spite of the fact he clearly knew who I was, I added, “I’m Secret.”

“Yes, of course.” He bowed again. “Do you prefer Tribunal Leader Secret?”

Lord have mercy, I was going to have to deal with a whole new group of people addressing me with the longest title known to man. But I knew from over a year with the East Coast council it was pointless to try getting them down to a first-name basis.

“Tribunal Leader Secret is fine.” At least it was less formal than McQueen.

“I will be your valet during your stay in Los Angeles, and I do hope if you have any needs or requests, you won’t hesitate to approach me with them. I sincerely apologize, as well, for treating you in such a common manner earlier. I beg your forgiveness.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Evidently he was worried because he continued to gnaw at his lip. He didn’t feel old to me, ignoring the youthful mask of his appearance. “Are you quite certain I cannot make amends in some way?”

“Really, Maxime, it’s fine. I’m used to much stranger responses than that. No apologies necessary.”

If he’d been breathing, he might have let out a sigh of relief, but his shift in demeanor was obvious nonetheless. His expression softened, and a smile curved his cupid’s-bow lips upwards.

“How old are you?” I asked him.

“One hundred and seventy-three.”

He would have been turned sometime in the mid-1800s, not long after Holden had been. And he was French, and beautiful, and assigned to me. My own tentative smile faltered.

“Who is your maker?” I’d been told once by Sig it was common practice for Tribunal Leaders and Council Elders to send their progeny far away to avoid conflicts of interest. I had a feeling I knew exactly whose spawn was my new man-in-waiting.

“Rebecca Archambault.”

My jaw clenched, and I gritted my teeth, biting back a growl. “Well then, Maxime, you can do me a favor.”

“Yes, of course. Anything.”

“Tell me where your brother is.”

Maxime guided me to a set of oak doors not unlike those leading to the subterranean Tribunal chamber in New York. He bowed again—something he had a lot of practice with it seemed—and scurried away before I had a chance to go in.

The uneasy feeling I had still lingered, making me wary to waltz into any unfamiliar rooms, but since I was in a city I’d never been to, all the rooms would be unfamiliar. I didn’t bother knocking because I figured anyone inside would have heard me coming, and why give them any extra heads up if they meant me harm?

From what I’d gathered during my short chat with Maxime, I was likely at the West Coast council headquarters, but he hadn’t said anything during our walk to confirm my suspicions a hundred percent, and I hadn’t outright asked. If we were where I suspected we were, I was going to sound like an idiot for asking, and idiocy wasn’t the impression Sig wanted me to make.

I opened the doors and stepped backwards rather than straight into the room. When nothing fired at me and no one lunged to attack, I decided it was safe to continue and went in with my head held high, projecting an air of authority I didn’t necessarily feel.

“You look well rested.” It was Holden’s voice, but I couldn’t find the man to match it.

I scanned the room and took in my surroundings as I searched for him. The space wasn’t at all what I expected from a vampire stronghold. For one thing, the floor-to-ceiling windows were out of step with protecting vampire safety.

The massive space reminded me a great deal of the top floor in Lucas’s penthouse, where one half of the entire area was dedicated to a big lounge-style living room with an unbeatable view of New York. Only here the view wasn’t of my beloved hometown, it was the glittery oasis of Los Angeles.

We must have been outside of the L.A. city limits because I could see most of the city sprawled out before us like a carpet of stars. What New York had in height, L.A. had in distance, spreading wider than I could see without shifting my position.

I hadn’t expected to like L.A.—that was the snobby New Yorker in me—but there was something beautiful about it, lit up orange in the early night sky. What I didn’t enjoy was discovering we weren’t in the city proper. Judging from the vantage point, I gathered we had to be up in the Hollywood Hills somewhere, and my extensive research with Us magazine told me that would put our neighbors at a distance.

Far enough away it would be difficult to get help.

Not that humans were all that helpful.

I sighed and continued to search the room for Holden. I found him nestled in a leather wingback chair near the fireplace—did every room in this building have a fireplace?—with his feet kicked up on an ottoman and a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” I snapped, unable to keep the irritation from my tone. I’d been well-behaved with Maxime, but I didn’t need to be polite to Holden. It might not have been nice of me, but my blood pressure was running sky-high, and I needed to project my anxiety onto someone. He was the best target because he’d still love me when I finished yelling at him.

“Well, it’s only a ten-year-old blend, but aside from that I can’t complain.” He swished the amber liquid around in its lowball glass and smirked at me. We’d done this song and dance before, and apparently he didn’t feel the need to cower before my rage anymore.

That took half the fun out of it.

“Did you think it might be a bad idea to leave me on my own, locked inside a coffin when I woke up?” I crossed my arms, my gaze drifting from his smug facial expression to the drink. Damn that whiskey looked good.

So did his face, but I wanted to think about something other than how handsome he was. It was hard to be mad at someone if you were busy musing over how pretty they were.

“Want some?” He held the glass up to me, and I took it, swallowing some of the booze. The whiskey burned a friendly welcome glow from my throat down to my belly, soothing the savage beast within.

“You knew how I felt about being in there,” I reminded him, my voice low and soft to keep any tremor out of my words.

“Did you freak out?”

I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or honestly wanted to know. “I did.”

“I’m sorry.” For once he didn’t phrase it like a question. He sounded genuinely apologetic. “I didn’t plan to be gone long, and when I went back, Maxime said he had it under control.”

“Ah, yes. About him…”

“Don’t worry about Max.”

“No offense, Holden, but ever since I killed Charlie I haven’t been Rebecca’s favorite person.” Never mind that Charlie Conaway had been a homicidal jackass, using his thrall to murder innocent girls. He’d also been Rebecca’s favorite based on her treatment of me following his death.

“Max is different.”

“How is he different?” I sat on the leather ottoman in front of him, our knees touching. He made a move like a flinch when I sat, but it seemed as though he wanted to move closer, not farther away. He reclaimed the glass from my hand and settled back into the chair.

“I know you don’t like Rebecca much, but it’s clouding your opinion of her progeny. Have you forgotten she made me?”

“Did you ever consider you’re the reason I have a negative bias about her spawn?” I countered, but couldn’t keep from smirking.

“Now, now, Ms. McQueen. Keep talking like that and I’ll think you’re secretly in love with me.” He tried to smile, but it faltered, making the guilty feelings I thought I’d left in New York swell up all over again.

What was I going to do with these boys? Why couldn’t we just have a nice, totally unrealistic, three-way live-in love relationship where Desmond cooked, Holden tidied and I brought home the bacon by bossing around every vampire on the East Coast.

Was that too much to ask?

I guess the fact vampires and werewolves hated each other, and my boys especially hated each other, wasn’t going to help make my fantasy pipe dream a reality. If I tried to imagine what living with them both would be like, it was a horror movie and a television sitcom all rolled into one. Holden would constantly be making dog jokes, and Desmond wouldn’t ever stop reminding me Holden was dead. Not the most romantic scenario.

And I only had myself to blame.

Three months earlier I’d found myself in the unique position of being able to pick—once and for all—which of them I’d bind myself to for the rest of my life. I’d been human, and it was a clean slate. I could have spent my life with Desmond, a nice mortal life in the sun with babies and daylight and all the stuff I’d dreamed about having as a child.

Or I could have let Holden bite me. I’d have been a real, full-blooded vampire, no longer a freak of nature to the Tribunal, and I could have spent eternity with the beautiful man sitting in front of me.

So what did I do?

I made a Devil’s bargain with the fairy king to be returned to my old self. Meaning I was back to square one and no closer to knowing which of them I should be with.

I was like a kid in a candy store being told to pick between two delicious treats when I desperately wanted them both.

“Sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing for spacing out or loving him. I just felt the need to apologize. “You were telling me about Maxime.”

“I was.”

“Why should I trust him?”

Holden gave the whiskey a thoughtful sniff. “Why should we trust anyone, really? I mean, what is trust but a leap of faith?”

“I like to think of it as more of a currency.”

“I trust him. Is that enough for you to invest?”

I stuck my tongue out at him, having had my own analogy used against me.

Holden continued, “I think Charlie gave you an unfair opinion of my siblings. You can’t let one insane movie star taint your entire perception of Rebecca’s offspring.”

“I’m getting a good idea of her type, though.”

“Is that so?”

“Yup. Deceptively handsome and wily as hell.”

He smirked. “You think I’m handsome?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re missing the point.”

“I never miss the point. You’re letting your experience with a rogue taint your opinion of an entire family line, and that’s not fair. Charlie was Rebecca’s first. I’m not saying I know much about the finer details of turning someone, but maybe something went wrong. Maybe she screwed it up. Or maybe he was just a fucking psycho in life.”

Hadn’t I been thinking the same thing a day earlier? He was right, of course. I couldn’t assume every vampire sired by Rebecca would be the same as Charlie Conaway. Holden was noble, and good, even if he could be a giant pain in the ass. It wasn’t fair of me to question Maxime just because Rebecca had sired him.

After all—when push came to shove—I knew Holden would pick me over Rebecca.

But knowing my distrust was illogical wasn’t the same thing as changing my mind. Holden seemed to sense I was still hesitating because he set aside his glass and took both my hands in his. “Before I came to America there was a period of a few decades where it was just Maxime and me. Rebecca had gone off to make her mark in Spain with Charlie, and she’d left us—the weaker ones—behind in Paris. I can assure you with one hundred percent certainty Max will never, ever betray you.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I told him what you are to me.”

My hands went still, sweat pooling between my palms.

“And what is that?”

Holden leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss on my lips before speaking. “The love of my life.”

Chapter Ten

Some girls probably got off on hearing they were the love of someone’s life. I was not one of those girls.

Yes, I did feel a flutter at his words, and yes I did love him back, but goddamn these men were not making things easy on me. Between Desmond thinking I was his soul-bonded mate, Lucas thinking I was his werewolf queen, and Holden proclaiming me the love of his life? Well, it was too much lovey-dovey stuff for me to handle.

“Why would you loving me make Maxime more trustworthy?” I asked, dodging his sentiment and pulling my hands free.

If he was upset by my retreat, he didn’t show it.

“Because it means you’re mine. And in vampire cultures, we protect that which belongs to us, and to our family.” He got to his feet, putting his crotch level with my face, and my cheeks warmed to recall what lay just beyond the barrier of his zipper.

Bad Secret.

Mustn’t think of blowjobs while having a serious discussion.

He stepped away in the next instant, confirming he hadn’t been offering himself up to me.

“When you say mine…” I let the question drift. I knew how the claiming policy worked when it came to humans, now that I was unintentionally in possession of a few, but I didn’t know what it meant when applied to another vampire.

“It means exactly what it sounds like. I told him I’m here as your consort.”

At first I thought of the phrase in a literal way, that Holden was here to assist me and be a part of my entourage. But as I let the deeper meaning of the word sink in, my eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Holden.”

“Trust me, it’s for the best. If you were seen as being unattached, the council might attempt to use that. I’ve seen a lot of weird shit go down, and you don’t want an unfamiliar Tribunal trying to shack you up with a Council Elder in order to strengthen the bonds between the two communities. They tried it with Daria, and she was so appalled with who they saddled her with she ended up killing the guy.” Daria had been my predecessor in the Tribunal, and I believed she’d been more than capable of murdering an unsuitable mate.

Holden was right, it would be a disaster if the West Coast council tried to force a vampiric lover on me. For starters, even a midlevel vampire would be stronger than me, and the second they realized that, I’d be dealing with an attempted assassination. My new lover could then claim a seat on the East Coast Tribunal, and that would be a disaster.

If I let Holden act as my consort, it would be out of the question for the other vampires to play matchmaker.

I hated to admit it, but it had been a genius move on his part.

“Did you tell Sig you planned to do this?”

Holden snorted. “Sig told me to do this.”

Of course. Of course.

“Might have been nice to know ahead of time. You were going to come with me regardless. What if someone had asked me and I was like, ‘Oh, Holden? We fooled around once, and he has a habit of kissing me at inappropriate times, but I don’t know if I’d call him my consort.’”

“Fooled around?” Now he looked offended.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, you know what I mean.”

“Well, blessedly that wasn’t an issue. But I do have a suggestion to make.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“It would help sell the story if you behaved as though I was your consort. Meaning it would look good if one of the beds in our suite went unused.”

This time, the meaning of his words didn’t get by me. “You’re using this as an excuse to get in my pants while I’m away from Desmond, aren’t you?”

He tried—and failed—to hide his smirk. “I’m merely making suggestions to help us convince others of our story. Of course, the vocal sounds of lovemaking would be hard to overlook and would make our union appear more legitimate.”

“I’m not going to fuck you so some strange vampires believe we’re an item.”

“I wasn’t saying that would be the only reason.”

“You devious prick.” I got to my feet, kicking back the ottoman a few inches and trying to stand tall enough I might appear imposing to him. It was a lost cause since Holden rarely respected my authority over him. Probably because two years earlier he had outranked me. It was hard to blame him when we both knew he could physically dominate me.

“How am I devious? The plan wasn’t mine.”

“I’m sure Sig didn’t tell you to sleep with me.”

“He told me to do whatever it took to keep you safe.”

I snorted. “Way to twist his words around to serve your own purposes. Well done.”

“Secret, I’m going to be frank here.” The smirk vanished, and a new seriousness replaced it. “I won’t ever ask you to do anything you don’t want to do, and you know that. But I am serious when I tell you people need to be convinced. It doesn’t need to be sex, and I haven’t forced that issue with you since we came back from Aubrey’s kingdom, but please don’t do anything to make them question us. I know you think this is a ploy, but it’s not. I’m trying to protect you, and this is the only way I can do it. But you need to help.”

All the snippy retorts I’d been building up in anticipation of what he might say vanished. When Holden got serious he got really serious, and I took what he said to heart.

I knew he would protect me at all costs, but I also figured he wasn’t above taking advantage. Now I felt guilty for assuming he was creating a lie solely to bed me. He was better than that.

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “But if you get handsy without permission, the only sounds people will hear through the walls will be you begging for mercy.”

“Baby…if you do give me permission, I can say the same thing to you.”

Chapter Eleven

Ingrid arrived with two other daytime servants—a man and woman who both appeared to be in their early twenties—and put an end to any further smirking innuendo from Holden.

“Tribunal Leader Secret.” Ingrid bowed, and the other two followed suit. Upon a longer inspection I started to think the new arrivals must be twins. They were each ginger-haired and fair-skinned, with similar facial features. Their close ages indicated that if they were not twins, they were definitely related. “I’d like to introduce Barton and Camille, the daytime servants of Tribunal Leaders Eyelee and Galen.”

“You’re related?” I stated the obvious as if it was a question.

“A brother and sister for a brother and sister,” Camille replied with a soft smile.

I gave a quizzical look to Ingrid, who added, “Two of the West Coast Tribunal Leaders are siblings. Galen was first to the Tribunal, followed by his sister Eyelee.”

“Eye-lee?” I repeated the name back slowly. “Does that have some batty Gaelic spelling?” Judging by the glower I got from Barton, he was Eyelee’s servant. It also confirmed my suspicion about her name.

“E-i-l-i-d-h,” he said with a huff.

“Christ. I thought Siobhan was bad.” I wouldn’t have been so sassy to the Tribunal Leaders themselves, but I could get away with murder when it came to their human minions. I had gotten into the habit of being cheeky with Ingrid, and that apparently transferred over to these new arrivals by some sort of snark osmosis.

Barton wrinkled his nose, but Camille’s smile was patient. They struck me as being two sides of the same coin, one calm the other short-fused. If I stuck around long enough, I wondered how else they might be different or alike.

To break the tension I said, “Only two?” I pointed a finger to Barton and Camille in turn, then held up a third finger in the air, aiming it at no one.

“Much like Juan Carlos, Tribunal Leader Arturo is protective of his privacy and opts not to keep a daytime aid.”

Translation: Arturo was going to be a poncy douche who thought humans were beneath him. He was going to love me. I might not be human, but human-hating vampires tended to dislike me more than most.

From the limited information I’d been given I now knew the West Coast Tribunal had a similar setup to ours. Two males and a female, and one of the males was probably a bit of a jackass.

Maybe it was bitter of me to make assumptions without having ever met them. I was becoming more like them with each passing day because I was learning to judge those I’d never met and to hold their failings against them.

Over time, I was turning into a vampire, even if my heartbeat said otherwise. And that scared the living hell out of me.

“Are we going to meet them now?” I crooked my fingers, beckoning Holden closer. When he took my hand in his, Ingrid’s expression was unchanged. She must have known what Sig wanted Holden to do.

His palm was cool and dry, an anchor keeping me grounded. As long as I was holding on to him, I was still me. I didn’t think Holden would like me nearly as much if I was the kind of vampire I worried I might become.

Right now he still liked me fine.

Barton and Camille whispered to each other, and for the first time since the three of them had arrived, Ingrid showed her annoyance at something.

“Would you two stop chittering like birds? If you have something to say, just come out and say it. You’re in the presence of a Tribunal leader and her consort. Your behavior is appalling.” She nodded to me, bowing with only her head. “Apologies. They’re young, still. Barely older than him.”

She’d indicated Holden, meaning these young servants were over two hundred years old. Yup, veritable babies at ten times my age.

“It’s just…” Camille turned away bashfully, unable to meet my eyes. “You look so much like—”

Ingrid—who’d just been insisting they speak up—stomped down hard on Camille’s foot, making the redhead cry out in surprise. “You’re speaking out of line. Enough.”

“I look like what?” I asked. “She was about to say something.” I focused my gaze on Camille. “What were you about to say?”

“Something it wasn’t her place to comment on,” Ingrid interrupted. “Come along now, please. Time for the introductions.”

Ingrid, who was the definition of unflappable, seemed downright flustered, her cheeks flushed from her apparent anger with Camille. It made me even more curious about what hadn’t been said, and I made a mental note to ask about it again at a more appropriate time.

Stupidly I was hoping Camille was talking about Brigit, and the mystery would end with my friend popping out of a closet somewhere shouting surprise, which would be something Brigit might find amusing. Brigit and I did look remarkably alike at a quick glance—long blonde hair, petite figures, similar facial features—and it was because of those similarities she had been killed.

My own mother hadn’t been able to tell us apart in the heat of the moment, and Brigit had paid the ultimate cost for Mercy’s mistake.

I swallowed the knot building in my throat and tried to shake off any thoughts of Brigit. I sought comfort from Holden by squeezing his hand a little harder, and he squeezed back in two short pulses before running his thumb over my skin.

“Lead the way,” I instructed Ingrid, trying to keep an authoritative tone in my voice.

We all wedged into an elevator, and in spite of the generous space I still felt like I was back in the coffin. My heart thumped, and I don’t think I’d ever been more grateful to be stuck in a small space with mostly humans. Holden would hear it, but he was accustomed to my pulse by now. The humans, as far as I was aware, couldn’t sense my heartbeat in spite of their vampire connections.

I needed to get myself in check before I met with the Tribunal to discuss Sig’s grand-spawn or whatever it was called when you go further down the lineage. If I concentrated hard enough and breathed deeply enough, I could slow my heartbeat right down. Not to a complete stop, of course, but the vampire blood meant I was able to get close. It wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking I was a vampire, but it would make my pounding pulse less of an issue.

The Tribunal here would already be aware of the fact I wasn’t a full-blooded vampire, but they also knew I’d been accepted by the East Coast Tribunal—voted in by the elders no less—and my position on the throne wasn’t in question. It wasn’t up to these vampires to decide if I belonged. I’d killed Daria, and by the rules of succession that made me the rightful leader in her place.

It wasn’t their approval I was seeking as much as a limited acceptance among them. If I was going to stay here, I wanted to keep things as cordial as possible, and I found it was sometimes difficult for vampires to play nice when they think of you as a human instead of one of them.

Since I couldn’t explain I wasn’t at all human and they were misunderstanding my werewolf pulse, the next easiest thing to do was to keep calm and focus on slowing my heartbeat down.

I snuggled myself into Holden’s side and rested my face against the cool curve of his neck, breathing his scent. It lacked the punchy thrill of lime I’d have gotten from Desmond, but there was still something soothing about it. It also pained me to admit that selling the story of him as my consort had been a clever decision. Otherwise it might have looked strange for me to stick my face in his personal bubble and start sniffing him.

Instead, I just appeared to be possessive of my man, and maybe inappropriately horny. Which currently wasn’t an issue at all, but I didn’t feel the need to explain that to strangers.

“You good?” he whispered, so quietly I might have missed it entirely in a larger space.

“Mmhmm.” I took another deep breath, letting my mind drift to thoughts of his hands running over my body and the way his cool skin could make mine so hot. When I opened my eyes and lifted my gaze to the bow of his mouth, I thought about the intoxicating taste of his kisses and the perfect agony of his bite.

I licked my lips. Maybe this wasn’t the best mental trail to wander down since it didn’t seem to be slowing my heartbeat in the least. He must have had an idea of what I was thinking because he released my hand and snaked an arm around my waist, pulling me hard against his side.

“Plenty of time to think about that later.” His eyes were darkening, losing their warm brown color in favor of a much deeper hue, working its way towards black.

Oops, he was getting hungry, and I was pretty convinced it wasn’t blood he wanted. He must have been able to smell my building arousal.

That was a douse of cold water on me if there’d ever been one. I wrenched myself out of his grasp without making a show of it, and instead of focusing on him I did the same mental exercise I used to calm down my wolf. Green forests, night sky, the thrill of a run, those thoughts would mellow me out faster than imagining a tumble in the sheets with a sexy vampire.

The elevator doors opened a moment later, revealing a dank, poorly lit corridor that reeked of moldy water. Some things didn’t change no matter what side of the country you were on, but at least they’d had the decency to add an elevator instead of relying on slippery stone steps.

Some of the tunnel walls had been patched with fresh concrete or stucco, and a few sections were supported with metal rebar. “What’s with the construction work?” I tried to sound disinterested, as I assumed most Tribunal leaders wouldn’t spend much time focusing on the chamber walls.

“The ground is often compromised by earthquakes,” Barton said. “We’ve moved as much of the night-to-night operations upstairs as we can, but tradition dictates certain things must take place underground.”

“You should have seen the mess we had to deal with in ’94 after the Northridge quake,” Camille added. “The cells were…well, it took us awhile to do the recovery.”

“Why not go somewhere with less activity?” I asked.

“We started in San Francisco during the Gold Rush,” Barton told me. “But after the big quake there in 1906 it seemed like a good time to move on. We reestablished the council here, and that’s where we’ve been ever since.” He sounded like a bored tour guide telling the story, but I found the whole thing fascinating. I started imagining Gold Rush vampires, saloon girls and miners, and by the time we reached the Tribunal chamber I was so involved in the fantasy all my nerves were gone.

Ingrid opened the door and went in ahead of me, bowing deeply in front of the three raised wooden thrones that were identical to those we used at home. “Good evening Tribunal Leader Eilidh, Tribunal Leader Arturo and Tribunal Leader Galen.” She bowed to each of them in turn. Given the order she addressed them in, Galen was the leader in their midst, so I’d have to watch my sass around him. He was the Sig here.

Ingrid continued, “It is my pleasure to introduce Tribunal Leader Secret McQueen, acting in the stead of my master, Tribunal Leader Sigvard the Bold.”

I caught the snort of derision before it managed to escape me.

“My master has requested I impress upon you all that Tribunal Leader Secret is to be treated with the same respect Sigvard himself would warrant.”

Was it just my imagination or did Ingrid give them all a warning glare? Impressive. Sig must have been feared here as much as he was back home, otherwise I doubted Ingrid would get away with that kind of display. Part of me wondered if she might be older than some of the vampires in front of us. They reeked of power, but that was part and parcel of joining the Tribunal. I was only twenty-three and I radiated authority to the vampires as well.

But Ingrid was over seven hundred years old, and Arturo felt six hundred at best. Sig was the oldest vampire I’d ever met at over two thousand years of age, and I’d bet money these three combined might equal him.

For some reason that put me more at ease.

Seeing how the three leaders were dressed, however, brought my self-awareness right back around. Why hadn’t I taken a minute or two to change after getting out of the coffin? At least I’d put on new clothes before leaving New York and wasn’t still in Mercedes’s ill-fitting jeans. But my favorite black leather pants and a red silk tank top under my jacket hardly screamed authority figure. My hair hung around my shoulders in wild curls.

Compared to Eilidh I looked like a harpy fresh off the kill. The other female Tribunal Leader had her black hair pulled up in a complicated, twisting updo and wore an elegant navy-blue gown. Her small hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes—the same color as the gown—regarded me with thinly veiled contempt. Very thinly veiled.

Galen had similar coloring to his sister, dark hair and blue eyes, but his expression was more relaxed, almost bemused. He was startlingly handsome. I had thought I might be used to beautiful men, but he caught me off-guard. Eilidh was lovely, all tiny, delicate features like a living doll. Galen resembled a warrior coming off the battlefield with his big body and strong, square jaw. He was different from most modern men. He seemed to have tumbled out of the pages of a history book, and I doubted he’d ever be able to blend fully in the current world.

At least he, unlike Sig, believed in wearing a shirt and shoes. He was dressed in a navy shirt—the same color as Eilidh’s dress—and black trousers. The clothes were struggling to keep his broad figure contained, as if the merest flexing of his muscles might cause them to disintegrate.

Arturo sat on Galen’s left, and he wasn’t quite what I expected. Upon hearing an Italian name, I’d pictured an olive complexion and dark features, much like Juan Carlos. Arturo was a surprise because his hair was the color of sunlit straw and his eyes were a shade of green I’d only seen on a cat shifter. He, too, was attractive, and showed no signs of the disgust I’d been expecting. If anything, the vampire here who liked me the least was Eilidh.

Well, I’d been prepared for one of them to dislike me on sight, so I was breaking even.

I greeted them each with their full title but did not bow. I wasn’t subservient to them, and I had to be mindful I didn’t make them think they could overpower me. Like Ingrid said, I was here to be Sig’s eyes and ears, and they had to treat me the same way they would have treated him. While I wasn’t foolish enough to believe my treatment would be identical, I did expect to get some respect out of the deal. And it also meant I wouldn’t bow to those who were meant to be my equal.

I couldn’t do much about standing lower, though. They could hardly be expected to bring in another throne just for me.

Standing in front of the three of them brought a flood of memories crashing back to me. I was reminded of my days with the council before I gained my Tribunal seat, and I would wait in front of Sig, Daria and Juan Carlos for my orders.

Back then it had been my job to find and kill rogues.

Now I was here because a rogue wanted to do the same thing to me.

“Sig mentioned you’d been having some difficulty with one of your younger wardens, and he felt I might be able to help.” I wanted to hurry the conversation along so I could get out of there as soon as possible.

“Yes. At first I couldn’t understand why he felt you’d be better suited for the task, but now…well, now it’s quite clear.” Galen nodded sagely, like I had any idea what he was talking about.

Eilidh rested her chin on her hand and stared at me. She hadn’t spoken a word up until that point, and now her eyes narrowed. When she condescended to speak to me, her voice was soft and airy but carried unmistakable malice.

“Don’t you think, dear brother, her emotions might confuse the situation?” Her words were for Galen, but she stared straight at me, practically through me. If I hadn’t seen her glower at Ingrid in a similar way, I’d have assumed the two must have compared notes about me.

And what did she mean about my emotions confusing the situation?

“I’m sorry, am I missing something?”

“Evidently,” she replied coolly, putting both hands back in her lap, and pursed her lips in a cross between a sneer and a pout.

I wondered if she had ever met Juan Carlos. I felt like they’d get along swimmingly.

Instead of asking her what she meant, I focused my attention on Galen. Eilidh could be as bitchy as she wanted and it wasn’t going to intimidate me or scare me off. She might be old, but I had power too, and I had no intention of slinking off with my proverbial or literal tail between my legs.

“What’s the deal? Your daytime servant started talking about how I look like something, or someone. And now your sister seems to think I’m going to screw things up on an emotional level? Believe me, I can find a missing vampire without being emotional. I was a bounty hunter for the council before I became a Tribunal Leader.”

“Yes, we’ve heard a great deal about you, Secret. May I call you Secret?”

I wanted to shout hallelujah to the rafters that we could dispense with the stupid titles, but remembering my company I replied, “By all means.”

“And you may call me Galen.”

“Thank you.”

“Secret, the reason Eilidh is concerned about your involvement in this search is because you and the vampire in question have something…unique in common.”

“Oh? Who is it?”

“The vampire we’re looking for is named Sutherland Halliston.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. No elaborate explanations or fun flip charts would be necessary for me to figure out why they were worried.

I’d never met Sutherland Halliston, but I knew exactly who he was.

The AWOL vampire they wanted me to find was my father.

Chapter Twelve

Keep your cool, keep your cool.

I wanted nothing more than to freak the fuck out, but this was neither the time nor the place. The fact Sutherland was the vampire they wanted me to look for, and Sig had obviously known that before sending me here, brought up so many issues I didn’t have time to deal with.

Namely…Sig’s vampire blood was running through my veins.

Sig was my…I didn’t even know. He wasn’t my grandfather, but he was my vampire grandsire—my great-grandpire—or something. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Biologically we weren’t related, but physiologically I couldn’t exist without his blood.

So we were something.

I stared at Galen and tried to keep my breathing deep and even as I attempted to bury the dark and twisty web of thoughts brewing in my head. I couldn’t think about it now, lest I fall apart completely.

“So?” I chose the shortest question I could think of in order to keep my voice from breaking.

“So?” Arturo parroted, without any malicious tone to his voice. “Does the name mean nothing to you?”

“Sutherland Halliston is my biological father.”

“Yes, and your vampire sire.”

“He’s my father two different ways. What of it?” I had to give myself props for sounding disinterested in the topic while inside everything I thought I knew about the world was unraveling.

“You know a sire can compel their offspring, don’t you?” Arturo asked.

“I think that rule is more for…traditional sire-offspring relationships. My father didn’t turn me. His blood was fed to me in utero. I was born like this.”

“A born vampire?” Eilidh sat upright, suddenly far more interested in what I was saying. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s not a perfect science, as you guys can tell.” I was referring to my apparent heartbeat. “I don’t owe him my un-life, and he has never had my blood. The rules don’t apply. You can’t control a vampire whose blood you’ve never had.”

As far as any of us knew, anyway. Like Eilidh said, there was no precedent for my situation. There weren’t a lot of half-vampires running around, certainly not those born with the affliction. I couldn’t be so bold as to say no other halflings existed, since the word dhampir existed solely to describe them, but I’d never met one and no one else I knew had either.

There was a word for unicorn and chupacabra too, but it didn’t make them real. Cryptozoology existed to name things that weren’t real, and a dhampir might be real or it might be a cryptid. I was inclined to be skeptical, except for the fact I was half-vampire.

“Very interesting,” Eilidh said.

“How can you be certain?” Galen asked.

“Because Sig thinks I’m the perfect person to find him. And if Sig believes it, so should you.”

That much I could convince myself of.

“And what do you think?” Arturo shifted forward in his seat, hands clasped together and wearing an intrigued expression.

“First tell me why you want him. Then we can discuss whether or not I’m the one to help you find him. Am I correct in assuming you haven’t declared him a rogue?” Keeping focused on being formal helped ground me.

Holden, Ingrid and the others had left after I’d introduced myself, meaning I didn’t have the sentry with me for additional support. This was all up to me, and the more officially I behaved the easier it was to stay calm.

I guess that meant it was natural for me to want to lose my cool.

“Sutherland was looking for something in San Jose, something important to the council. He was meant to report back a week ago, and we haven’t heard from him.”

“And you think…what exactly?”

“We’d like to believe something has happened to him,” Eilidh said.

“You’d like to?” That sounded ominous.

“When the other option is that he’s found this item and taken it for himself or another group…” Galen’s voice drifted off. “We’d prefer not to think ill of him, but he’s had trouble adjusting to life here. Trusting him after this will be difficult.”

“So it’s easier to believe something terrible has happened to him?”

“It’s that or sign a warrant for his death,” Galen said. “Which do you prefer?”

I frowned, unable to stop the downward curve of my mouth. “No, no warrants. Not yet. Does Maxime know the details of Sutherland’s mission?”

“Maxime?” Eilidh sneered. Maybe she didn’t like anyone. I wasn’t special after all. “Why would he know anything?”

“The sooner he knows the better. Because he’s coming with me to San Jose.” I didn’t trust any of them, but Holden said he trusted Maxime, so that gave me one ally within the council.

“We have others. Sentries…” Arturo started to suggest.

“Thanks, but I have my own sentry. I’d like Maxime, please. If we’re keeping things all in the family, that is.”

Galen and Eilidh exchanged glances, but Arturo continued to stare at me with his fierce, catlike eyes. “May I ask you something, Secret?”

“You may.”

“What happens if you find Sutherland and discover he has gone rogue? That our worst fears are realized and he has abandoned the council?”

Did he think I could be tricked into saying the wrong thing with such an obvious question? They clearly didn’t think much of me, in spite of my position. “If my fath…if Sutherland is a rogue, he will meet a rogue’s fate. That’s justice I’m well-versed in delivering. Probably more than any of you are.”

Eilidh reclined in her throne and glared at me, but Galen seemed more interested, pivoting his attention from his sister back to me with a look of intrigue. “You speak boldly for one so young.”

“I speak as I would to any equal.”

His mouth formed a thin line, but for some reason—perhaps the amused twinkle in his eyes—I thought he was masking a grin rather than a frown. What was it about me that fascinated true Tribunal leaders so much?

I thought about Sutherland, and Sig, and I was starting to realize Sig’s interest in me had very, very little to do with how precocious I could be and was rooted in something deeper.

Sig’s interest ran to the blood.

Chapter Thirteen

As soon as I was back in the hall and the ginger twins had left to service their masters, I gave Ingrid a withering glare equal to all the disdainful looks she’d ever shown me during our association. We were still within earshot of the Tribunal chamber, so as we walked I simply said, “Call your master.”

“Excuse me?”

The three of us climbed into the elevator, and Holden remained silent while Ingrid and I spoke.

“You heard me.”

“You aren’t in a position to give me orders. I don’t belong to you.” When I growled, she arched one flaxen brow and appeared as if she was debating being impressed. “And might I remind you threats of violence are pointless, unless you want to make them against Sig.”

Her body made a soft thump when I threw her back against the wall of the elevator, my fingers wrapped around her throat.

Now I had her attention.

Getting my face within an inch of hers, close enough I could smell the fear coming off her, I said, “Maybe I do want that. Maybe you’re the next best thing I have right now.” When I released her, she scuttled out of my reach, touching her neck.

“You’re insane. No one has ever—”

“I don’t care what anyone else has or hasn’t done, Ingrid. I care what Sig has done. Now, I’ll ask you one more time. Get. Him. On. The. Phone.”

The elevator door slid open on our floor, and Maxime was waiting. “Tribunal Lea—”

“No. None of that right now, please. If I hear the words Tribunal Leader one more time tonight, I’m going to snap. Call me Secret or call me nothing, but those are your only two options.”

Maxime gave Holden a helpless glance, to which my vampire consort shrugged. “I once called her Queen of the Bitches, but I think she’d frown upon that becoming commonplace.”

The valet looked appalled. “I… Secret?”

“Yes?”

“Can I get you anything?”

“A glass of blood, my sword and some privacy.” I was deadpan when I said it, but for some reason Holden snorted.

“Here.” Ingrid’s voice was downright frosty as she handed me her cellphone.

“Did you tell him what I did?” I asked.

“I don’t need to tell him things like that. When something happens to me, he knows.”

I snatched the phone from her hand, and knowing Sig was on the other end, I dispensed with any niceties. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

“If you believe it is necessary for me to explain myself to you, you are sorely misunderstanding the dynamics of our relationship.”

I walked ahead of the others and into my suite. Holden and Maxime were close behind, but I went into my bedroom and shut the doors, wanting the illusion of privacy for this conversation.

“I can’t believe you sent me in here without any forewarning. I think you’re the perfect person for the job,” I said, repeating what he’d told me before I left. “Well, fuck you. You might have mentioned you thought that because the missing vampire was my goddamn father.” The plastic casing around the phone cracked, and I had to calm myself before the whole damned thing shattered in my hand.

“Are you quite finished?” he asked after a period of silence.

“No.”

“Will you allow me to say something?”

“Could I stop you if I wanted to?”

“No.”

“Then go ahead.” I sat on the end of my luxurious bed, the satin bedspread rustling under me. The faint aroma of night-blooming jasmine filled the room, but since I couldn’t see any flowers around me I assumed it must be coming from the foyer.

“What, precisely, is it that bothers you most about this? Is it that you were unprepared to meet your father, or is it discovering—through Sutherland—you and I have a deeper connection than you previously believed?”

His question had me stumped. I still didn’t fully grasp what Sig was to me through this new development, and that set my internal compass spinning.

“What are we?”

“Is that it, then? That’s what has you so upset?”

“Everything about this has me upset, Sig. You surprise attacked me with my father, knowing he was the one you were sending me to deal with. Some warning would have been great, but it’s more than that. I don’t know what this makes you and me.”

“What did you think we were before today?” He sounded so calm I wanted to strangle him through the phone. But none of this was news to him. He’d known everything.

“I don’t know.” Friends and colleagues didn’t seem right. We weren’t lovers, though sometimes he treated me in a way that suggested he’d considered it. But now I wondered if his affection towards me had been for another reason entirely.

That I hadn’t known the difference between attraction and a familial bond skeeved me out.

“If you don’t know what we were, why does it matter so much to you what we now are?”

“Don’t play games with me. You’ve known about this the entire time we’ve known each other.”

“Of course.”

“Is that why you allowed me to hunt for the council? Why you didn’t just kill me on sight when I showed up at your door?”

“Yes.” Blunt. I’d been expecting him to soften his honesty to make things easier on me, but that had been a foolish hope. I had threatened his servant mere minutes earlier, so perhaps he didn’t want to play nice either.

“Holden asked me once if I’d let you drink from me because he couldn’t understand why you were always able to find me. It’s because I carry your bloodline, isn’t it?”

“I think you answered your own question.”

I gnawed on my lip in an apparent attempt to take my frustration out on myself. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters,” I snapped.

“Very well, if it’s so important to you, ask your questions.”

“What am I to you?”

“In what sense?” I didn’t think he was being intentionally evasive, but the question rankled me all the same.

“In every sense.”

“According to vampire genealogy, you are of my line but not directly mine. So while it is my blood that ignites the vampire spark within you, we are not…related. Not in the way humans consider it, anyway.”

That made any past innuendo slightly less sketchy than it had felt a moment before. If I’d had to think of him as my great-grandfather, it made all those times he suggested getting me out of my clothes to be really creepy. Knowing his blood was in me, though, made it difficult for me to think of him as anything other than a parental figure now. As handsome as he was, I didn’t think I could ever get past that notion.

“So we’re connected but not related.”

“Yes.”

“If you don’t think of me as a relative, why the extra attention? Why were you so interested in me? You protect me from Juan Carlos and go out of your way to make things easy for me. You wouldn’t do that for just anyone.”

“You’re correct. I have taken a special interest in you. Imagine my surprise when you came through my door at sixteen, full of spite and angst, and you demanded to be given a job. Picture it from my side, knowing the instant I saw you I’d had a hand in creating you. The spark igniting you had—in part—begun with me. I loved the fire I saw in you, and wanted very badly to know how my line had ended up in this spunky hybrid girl who was more attitude than she was monster.”

His impression of me at sixteen still summarized me in the present, except now I had the power to back my attitude up with something.

“And what did you think when you got to know me?” I lay back on the bed, staring up at the gray ceiling. With the lavender accents in the room I was reminded of Desmond’s eyes, and my heart clenched with longing for him.

“I think you’re an amazing woman, Secret, and I’m proud to have you in my lineage. But you’re as much a pain in my ass today as you were the evening we first met.”

For some reason that made me smile.

“I still don’t understand why you never told me. I shouldn’t have found out this way. It blindsided me, and I was unprepared.”

“I didn’t realize it was that important. Until this week I never expected you and Sutherland would cross paths, so why complicate our relationship with unnecessary details?”

“But when you knew I was coming here, you also knew I’d be looking for my father. Don’t you think a heads up would have been nice?”

I couldn’t expect Sig to admit he was wrong because it wasn’t in his character to acknowledge any mistakes on his part. But throwing me in with an unfamiliar council and having a trio of strangers tell me I was here to hunt my father? Well…it wasn’t cool, and I was hoping Sig could at least understand why I was upset.

“I’m sorry you don’t approve of the way I handled things. Perhaps the knowledge might have been useful to you, and perhaps I was remiss in not sharing it. But what’s done is done.”

That was as close to an apology as I was going to get.

At my side the bed dipped under new weight. I turned my head to look at Holden, impressed he’d managed to open the door without me noticing. Absently he picked up a piece of my hair and twisted it around his finger. He often seemed fascinated by my curls, constantly playing with them and running his hands through them. To me they were an annoyance when I was in a hurry, and often better left in a ponytail.

I swatted his hand away, but he went right back to it when I started speaking to Sig again. “Before I left you said he’d been…problematic. What kind of man am I expecting to find?”

“I’ve never met him.”

“But you know he’s been difficult for the council.”

“Yes. From my understanding he didn’t adjust properly to the change. I gather his creator—a vampire named Theo—didn’t have Sutherland’s permission in the exchange. We later discovered Theo had gone on something of a campaign through the Southern states and made a great number of unsanctioned vampires. Most of them were integrated into various councils, and Theo was…handled. I believe Sutherland carries some guilt from events following his rebirth.”

Yeah, like how he almost killed his pregnant girlfriend and unborn child?

Something occurred to me I hadn’t thought to ask anyone in all my twenty-three years. “Does he know about me?”

I’d never been able to ask Mercy, and Grandmere didn’t like to discuss matters relating to my heritage. As far as I know she hadn’t told anyone outside the pack about my existence. So it was possible Sutherland didn’t even know I’d survived or that he had a daughter.

“How would I know the answer to that?”

Holden’s hand had gone still in my hair, and I couldn’t have felt his gaze more heavily if it were a physical thing. The more I let Sig’s words sink in, the less angry I became. He was two thousand years old. Maybe he didn’t understand how upsetting it would be for me to be confronted by my biological father. He probably didn’t even remember what his own parents looked like.

And who was Sutherland Halliston to him? The result of an ugly scandal. He didn’t care about my father, so why would it have crossed Sig’s mind I might be bothered if he wasn’t?

Vampires—ever coldhearted—sometimes forgot how to think like the people they once were.

Sighing, I rubbed the bridge of my nose, and Holden must have clued in to the tension radiating off me because he pressed his fingers against my temples and massaged them in slow, gentle circles. I wanted to shoo him off again, but it felt so damned good I let him do it.

“I just thought you might know.”

“What Sutherland does or does not know about you, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Awesome. Thanks.” Obviously the Tribunal had known, likely because Sig had told them of our connection, but that could have been so they’d treat me better. Was it actually possible my father had no idea who I was? Maybe he thought I’d been born a normal human, or that I’d been raised by Mercy within the pack. Maybe he thought I’d died.

There were dozens of possibilities racing through my mind, and each new one made my headache get worse.

“Did you need anything else, or do you feel prepared to get back to your job now?”

Ah, that arrogant vampire attitude. And he had the gall to call me sassy? I sniffed, and Holden’s hands tensed. “Yeah. Are you having any luck finding Peyton? I mean…if we’re going to talk about doing our jobs, how’s the council coming along with hunting him down?”

A pause. That he didn’t have a reply on hand made me feel equal parts victorious and nervous. “We’re working on it,” he said finally. “You worry about your father. I’ll worry about Peyton.” Always choosing to have the final word, he hung up on me.

“What was that all about?” Holden moved his hands lower to rub my shoulders.

“Daddy issues.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Daddy issues?” Holden’s fingers kneaded my knotted muscles in a most delectable fashion.

“Do you remember how you couldn’t figure out why Sig was always able to find me, even though he and I hadn’t shared blood? How he could get into my dreams?”

One of his fingers prodded me too sharply, and I gasped in pain. “You didn’t tell me he was in your dreams.”

Ignoring the obvious jealousy in his voice, I powered on, the ache of his touch still radiating over my collarbone. “As it turns out, I might have a little of his blood in me after all.”

I thought he might choke me, his hands clenched so hard.

“What does that mean?”

“In biblical terms?” Maybe not the best word choice since getting biblical was a euphemism for sex he was probably familiar with. “I don’t mean like that,” I quickly added.

“Secret, just tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Sig begat Theo.” I held up one finger then lifted a second. “Theo begat Sutherland.” Raising a third and final finger, I concluded, “Sutherland begat Secret.” Letting my hand drop, I angled my head back to look up at him. “Get it?”

“Let me get this straight…you and Sig are related.”

“Not related. We share a bloodline.”

“Which is literally the definition of being related.”

“Okay, maybe, but we’re not related the way Sutherland and I are. Or the way Mercy and I are.”

“But still related.” He looked downright gleeful.

I propped myself up on one elbow and stared at him. “You seem awfully happy about this.”

“You have no idea.” He leaned in and planted a kiss on my lips. It was brief, not passionate, and when he pulled back, he was still beaming like a Cheshire cat. “This is great news.”

“I’ve been lied to about my entire lineage, and that’s a positive thing?”

“Not for you, maybe. But for me.”

I scrunched my face up, getting into a cross-legged position and sitting so I faced him. When I figured out what he was giddy about, my gut response was to slap him, but I held back. “Oh God, Holden. Are you seriously grinning like an idiot because you think this takes Sig out of the running for a place in my bed?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. I reconsidered my restraint and smacked him hard upside the head, but it didn’t rattle his smile.

“Sig has never been in my bed.”

“You’ve been in bed with Sig.”

“Ugh, that’s a gross use of semantics.” Since I couldn’t say I’ve never slept with him, I added, “I’ve never had sex with Sig.”

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t trying.”

“You mean like you were trying?”

“I tried for seven years. I got there eventually.” He winked, like I’d find it charming.

“You’re lucky I love you, you stupid pervert.” I whacked him in the arm. “But you had nothing to worry about with Sig.”

“Sig gets what he wants. He wanted you.”

“Did it ever occur to you I didn’t want to be with him?”

“No. I’ve met him. I know him. At some point you would have wanted to be with him.”

I didn’t deny it outright because there’d been a time when I had wondered what it would be like to be with the Tribunal Leader. He did have an undeniable appeal to him. But above and beyond any attraction was my deep-seated terror of him. Whether or not we were related, my reasons for not sleeping with him existed long before. Sex was about trust, and though I trusted Sig as a leader, I wouldn’t leave my throat exposed to him in a dark alley.

And if I wouldn’t expose my throat, I sure as hell wouldn’t hike my skirt up for him.

Especially not now. Which seemed to be all Holden cared about right then.

“You thought I was going to sleep with him?”

He raised a shoulder, the smirking expression gone, replaced with something more apprehensive. I suspected he was realizing how his excitement might be interpreted from my side. Badly.

“Just because I slept with you and with Desmond doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with anyone.” I was unable to keep the hurt tone out of my voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“You really thought that?”

“I don’t know what to think. You keep me on the same leash as the dog. Neither of us know what you’re thinking, or who you’re choosing. If you won’t choose one of us, what’s to keep you from choosing someone else?”

I scrambled off the bed and put the full distance of the room between us. I didn’t want to be within arm’s reach because the urge to deck him was one thing, but I also had a habit of tangling limbs with him whenever I got mad.

“I thought you loved me,” I said quietly.

“I do.” He stayed sitting on the bed, but his gaze was locked on me, following as I paced the length of the room. “I’ve always loved you. I will love you as long as I live. That’s not the point. It’s not fair what you do to me and Desmond. I can’t speak for him, but I can tell you the last thing I want is more competition. A heart can only be divided so many times before the pieces stop feeling anything. How many times can yours be divided?”

I stopped pacing and stared at him. All the guilt that had come and gone like tides in the moonlight came swelling back over me now. I’d thought I was the only one feeling the burden of this three-way love affair, but now here was one point in the triangle telling me it injured him too.

“I don’t want to hurt either of you.”

“But you are. You’re hurting us, and you’re hurting yourself.”

There was a leather settee in one corner of the room, and I sat down, placing my face in my upturned palms. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t choose between them, and I couldn’t give them up. I was stuck between having everything I wanted and having nothing at all, and I believed it was better to stay still than to take any risks.

“I can’t do this right now.”

“Fine.” He got to his feet and crouched in front of me, taking my hands in his so I had no choice but to look at him. “I’m not asking you to make a choice this second. I just want you to know why I’m relieved another option has been taken out of the running.”

Staring at him, I tried to decide if he was being cute or making a joke at my expense, but he seemed totally earnest. I let him hold my hands while he watched me. He had the eerie vampire ability to sit perfectly still, as if he’d been turned to stone, so sometimes it felt like I was looking at a statue version of Holden that didn’t breathe or move its eyes.

Not that Holden breathed on a normal day.

“Sig isn’t another option,” I assured him.

“Good.” He offered up a faint smile and squeezed my hands. “Good.”

“Are you really so unhappy?”

“It’s not that I’m unhappy. But I’d be much happier if I didn’t have to share you at all.”

“I imagine Desmond feels the same way.”

“Probably.”

I slid off the settee and straddled his lap, looping my arms lazily around his neck so I could get close enough to press my forehead against his. I liked the way his cool skin made my own seem warm by comparison. The way I felt when I was close to him was something I wouldn’t be able to give up easily. He made me believe I was safe even when I wasn’t. Like I could get through any situation.

Even this one.

“I promise you, when this is all over…Peyton, my mother, Sutherland…when it’s all done, we will talk. You, me and Desmond will sit down and figure this whole awful mess out. Okay?”

He supported my lower back with wide, strong palms, and leaned us towards the settee, his lips dangerously close to mine. “In the meantime, do you think you might relent on this silly celibacy mission you’re on?”

Given my position, it was impossible to ignore the rising presence of his erection, or the possessive way he tightened his hands into fists on my shirt. If I waited a few more seconds, he might shred the garment and have his way with me on the floor.

It wouldn’t be the first time we hadn’t made it to a bed.

I weighed the options in my head. On the one hand, I wanted to be thoroughly consumed by him. I craved his bite more than almost anything, longing for the intoxicating thrill it gave me. And he’d mentioned we would be better able to sell our story if we were heard by others.

That was what made me push myself off him. Not the notion of selling our relationship, but the idea other people could hear us. I had no interest in turning my bedroom sessions into an audience event. The members of the West Coast council had no place in my relationships.

No matter how badly I wanted to end my three sexless months and put Holden and me out of our misery, it wasn’t the right moment.

“I’m sorry. I want to, but it’s not—”

He lifted me off the floor and backed me into the wall, rattling the large mirror beside us. With barely any effort he hoisted me up with one hand so I was once again positioned over his hardness. Briefly his eyes fluttered closed, and he stilled the hand that had gone to my throat.

“Holden.”

His fingers grazed the thin skin of my neck, and when he reopened his eyes, they’d gone black. For a fleeting moment I wondered if I should be afraid of him. Years of training to kill vampires made me wary of their black-eyed state because it usually meant they were about to rip your carotid artery out.

Holden wasn’t interested in a traditional feed though. He might want to bite me—hell, I wanted him to bite me too—but his interest was carnal in a different way.

“You want to,” he said, his voice harsh and raspy. “You said you wanted to.” He kissed my collarbone, and he must have heard the loud thump of my heartbeat because he lowered his ear to my chest and listened for a long time.

Which was when he seemed to understand why my heart was beating so fast.

He lowered me back to the floor and took several steps away, raking his fingers through his hair and looking completely disgusted with himself. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

“You didn’t hurt me. I wouldn’t have let it get out of hand. And you’re right…I did say I wanted it. Just not here. Not like this.”

He sat on the bed, the blackness fading from his eyes as he continued to stare at me. I tried to smile, but I wasn’t feeling very smiley right then.

Maxime had a hell of a sense of timing, because he knocked quietly and opened the door, giving Holden and me a much-needed reprieve from the tension.

“Is it a bad time?” Max asked.

“No. Couldn’t be better,” I replied.

Chapter Fifteen

The West Coast vampires were more forward thinking than their East Coast counterparts in that they opted for a technologically advanced approach to collecting information. Back in New York I was convinced the council still thought computers were a passing fancy because very few of the wardens or sentries used them, and I doubted Sig or Juan Carlos had ever tried.

Maxime was carrying a sleek MacBook when he came into my room and took a seat in the center of the big leather couch. I sat on his right and beckoned for Holden to join us. Perhaps with his brother in the middle we might stop being so weird and he could potentially relax.

I wasn’t mad at Holden for what he’d done. I knew with absolute certainty he never would have forced me to do anything I didn’t want to do. There was a strong likelihood he hadn’t taken blood since his arrival in Los Angeles, and he’d been drinking. Vampires didn’t drink often because our metabolisms processed the alcohol too quickly, creating a near-instant buzz.

He was hungry and a bit drunk, and I’d sat on his lap after depriving him of sex for three months. I wasn’t trying to make excuses for his actions, but I wasn’t upset with him. My clothes were still intact, and he hadn’t done anything except pick me up and listen to my heartbeat.

Maybe I was making excuses.

I sighed and directed my attention back to Maxime and his laptop. I had to admit, I wasn’t terribly good with technology myself. My smartphone made me feel stupid, and the laptop I had at home was about three times thicker than this one and existed solely so I could update my iPod.

The couch sagged under Holden’s weight, and he looked at the screen with us.

Maxime had pulled up a black-and-white photo of a beautiful mansion surrounded by a copse of palm trees. He continued to flip through photos on the computer, showing the mansion getting larger and larger as more rooms and wings seemed to be added in each new photo. The color photos showed it to be a lovely near-yellow cream with burgundy accent tones.

“Nice house,” I said, still not sure why we were looking at it. “What does it have to do with Sutherland?”

“This is the Winchester Mansion in San Jose,” Maxime informed us.

“Winchester, like the rifles?” I asked.

“Precisely. It was constructed after the death of Mr. Winchester by his widow Sarah. She carried an incredible burden of guilt because she believed the ghosts of those killed by her husband’s rifles were haunting her. When she spoke to a psychic, the woman informed Sarah the only way to escape the spirits was to build a house and never stop.”

“Never stop building?” I stared at the thumbnail images on the screen of the ever-growing house, wondering what kind of madness would drive someone to do that.

“Yes. She had a construction team working on it night and day for over thirty years, until the time of her death.”

He opened a new folder, this one showing the house’s interior. Dozens of pictures went by, and at first the house seemed like a normal early-twentieth-century mansion, but as they went on, I began to question Sarah Winchester’s mental stability. It was one thing to take life advice from a psychic, but the house this woman had built was completely nuts.

There were staircases running into nothing, windows stuck into the middle of the floor, doors opening to flat walls, secret rooms with three doors in but only one door out. The house was crazy. Each wing appeared to have its own color theme, and Sarah had a peculiar penchant for the number thirteen, hiding it in the details almost everywhere.

Maxime began to show us detailed color photos of all the gorgeous stained glass, and while it was an interesting history lesson I finally had to ask again, “What does this have to do with Sutherland?”

My vampire valet continued to flip through photos of the windows. “Almost all the stained glass in Mrs. Winchester’s house was custom designed by Charles Tiffany himself.” He showed us pictures of lovely daisy designs and windows that would make a gothic church green with envy. “What most people don’t know about Tiffany is his passion for constructing stained glass has a very…unique history.”

Great. More history.

Being surrounded by those who had lived through historical events firsthand and could relate them back to me with more vivid detail than any book had made me less inclined to pay attention during a standard history lesson. But Maxime was trying to tell us something important, even if it was taking him forever to get to the point.

He continued. “Tiffany had a mistress. Not uncommon for his time.”

“Or ours,” Holden noted.

“True. But Tiffany’s mistress was special. She was a vampire.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked across Maxime to Holden. He shrugged, but he too appeared interested in this development.

“It seems his vampire mistress had a special longing for the sun. She missed it more than anything else from her human life, and she begged him to find a way to bring the sun back to her. They both knew she wasn’t able to see real sunlight again, so Tiffany tried to find a way to capture the sun for her. He started by designing lamps, hoping to convey the essence of sunlight through different colors and shapes.”

I thought of the lamps in Calliope’s mansion. My half-fairy/half-god guardian had an impressive collection of original Tiffany works lighting her waiting room, and I loved those lamps. I could see now how their creator had been inspired, and loved their jewellike glow all the more for it.

Artificial sunlight. What a genius idea. He must have loved his vampire mistress a great deal to set about making art like that for her. Judging by the expression on Holden’s face, he too was impressed by the lengths a human man had gone to for his vampire lover.

“While she loved the lamps, she still craved more. They were such a small offering compared to the greatness of day. So Tiffany began constructing work on a larger scale.”

Maxime opened the web browser and typed Tiffany ceiling into the Google search. An astonishing blue-green circular dome ceiling was the first thing he showed us, and it was so beautiful I wanted to reach out and touch it.

“This one is in a library in Chicago. Or, from what I gather, a former library, which is now a tourism office.” He shrugged as if it was hard to keep track of how buildings changed purpose over the years. Going back to the image search, he showed us literally hundreds of ceilings and windows Tiffany had designed.

“His vampire mistress loved them all, but nothing seemed to achieve his goal of bringing her the sunlight she desperately wanted. She grew sullen and dark as time went on. Meanwhile, Tiffany’s star was on the rise, and his designs became coveted by elite families across America. Including Sarah Winchester.”

Maxime went back to the files with images of the Winchester Mansion. He showed us several we’d already seen, but stopped on a small one set into an interior wall. It was patterned in pink and green, with thirteen crystals of various size mounted in it, appearing like dew drops caught in a spider web. It was incredible.

“This window was designed specifically for Sarah Winchester. Tiffany agonized over its construction, setting those crystals—which are actually prisms—in such a way they would take the sun’s light and cover the entire floor of a room with rainbows. He considered it one of his greatest achievements.”

“But…it’s inside the house.”

“Yes. It is. It was the single most expensive window in the Winchester Mansion, and Sarah had it installed in a place where the sun would never reach it. When Tiffany’s mistress found out what Sarah had done to the window, she was furious. She believed this window might have been the one to finally achieve what she’d asked Tiffany to do for her, and to discover it was being squandered made her livid. She begged Tiffany to buy it back, but he refused. After his death, she attempted to get it from the Winchester estate, but they were unwilling to sell it. Since then she has spent decades trying to get it back, and after so many failed tries at going through official channels, she got tired of waiting.”

“It’s Eilidh, isn’t it?” I asked. Only a vampire in her position would be able to send a warden out to steal a window.

“Yes. After we left San Francisco she has spent a great deal of time and energy working to retrieve the window. She’s made generous offers to the restoration team, as well as to the museum that now exists there.” The way he said museum was so dismissive he seemed offended to be using the phrase.

He opened the web browser again and pulled up a website for Winchester Mystery House. I could tell what had made him sneer. Sarah Winchester’s house had been turned into a bizarre hybrid of museum and amusement park. Guided tours were offered through specific areas of the house, while others were off-limits to tourists because of structural damage from multiple earthquakes.

The place even offered moonlight ghost tours.

“Is it actually haunted?” I’d had some run-ins with ghosts. Enough exposure to believe in them without a shadow of a doubt. I wasn’t worried my expedition might be hindered by spirits, but it was better to know when a transparent specter might jump out at you. Kept the girly screaming to a minimum.

“Who knows. A house that old, with so many people dedicating their lives to working there. Work that never, ever ended? I’d wager one or two spirits are lurking in the halls. Sarah died there.”

I looked at the website, which offered fewer photos and less history than I’d gotten from Maxime, and put it together with what I’d learned during my meeting with the Tribunal.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“If Eilidh sent Sutherland to get her the window, that’s all well and fine. But he didn’t get it. There would have been some news about it going missing if it’s as valuable as you say. So, there’s more to this. They told me they were afraid the item might fall into the wrong hands. Sutherland doesn’t have the window, which means they’re worried about something else entirely.”

Maxime and Holden both stared at me. I was a little offended by their shocked expressions. This was hardly the first time I’d made an astute observation.

“As far as I know, the window was the Tribunal’s endgame. Eilidh wanted it, and she sent Sutherland to get it.”

I shook my head. “Then we’re all being lied to. They want me to find Sutherland because he went to get the window and found something else. And whatever it is he found, that’s what they’re really after.”

Chapter Sixteen

I hated being lied to.

I liked being used even less. Having been a pawn to one council for most of my adult life, I didn’t appreciate another council treating me like one now. I was their equal, but they sought to use me in some master scheme.

They thought I was foolish enough to charge ahead without asking questions because the quarry was my father? How stupid did they think I was?

I didn’t want an answer to that.

I took the laptop from Maxime and asked him to leave Holden and me alone. I wasn’t sure why I needed the computer. It wasn’t as if I was going to be able to hack into the Tribunal’s master files and glean their secrets. I could barely file an online tax return.

Taking a second look at the photos didn’t tell me anything new, nor did an Internet search on Sarah Winchester or Charles Tiffany. If the item we were hunting belonged to the home owner or Eilidh’s former lover, the Internet wasn’t offering me any clues.

Maxime’s story about Eilidh’s obsession with the sun was all we really had to go on, which made me think this item we were looking for was related.

“Have you ever heard of anything that could grant a vampire the ability to walk in the sun?” I asked Holden.

“Aside from a death wish?”

I shot him a venomous glare. “Be serious.”

“I am being serious. I’ve never heard of anything that could make what you’re talking about possible.”

“Do you think I’m being paranoid? Maybe this really is just about the stupid window.”

“No. I think you’re right. They’re freaking out because Sutherland is missing, and if the window isn’t gone, they’re worried about something else.”

I pursed my lips and did a quick perusal of the other files on the computer. It didn’t seem to be Maxime’s personal laptop because nothing on it was related to him. My best guess was it was a general-use computer, and as such there was nothing of any value on it.

I took a last look at the photo of the window, zooming in to see if there were any clues within that might tell me what I was searching for, but there was nothing. It was just a window. A pretty one, sure, and I could see why Eilidh hated that it wasn’t able to face the sunlight, but it wasn’t anything other than a window.

“Well, it’s as good a place to start as any,” I said with a sigh. According to the website there would be a guided moonlight tour two nights from today, which would be an ideal way to get in after-hours without resorting to a B&E. “Maybe once we’re there, we can get a better feel for what’s missing. Or find Sutherland’s trail.”

“You want to go all the way to San Jose to see what the Tribunal is lying to you about?”

“They asked me to find my father. I’m going to do that. Whatever else I find along the way is fair game. I don’t know Sutherland, so I have no idea if he’s honorable or not. He might have gone rogue, and I’m prepared to deal with that if it comes to it, but in the meantime I want to know what he might have gone rogue for. You don’t up and decide to betray your government one day without a mighty good reason.”

“Unless you’re mentally disturbed,” he reminded me. “Which most government traitors are.”

Closing the laptop and setting it down on the table, I angled myself on the couch to face him. “Are you coming with me or not?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “Of course I’m coming with you. I think we’re beyond the point of that even being an option anymore. I’ve followed you to another frigging plane of existence, for Pete’s sake.”

I had to smile. “Look how well that turned out.”

Since it was still early in the evening, with hours to go before sunrise, we were able to arrange for the jet to take us from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Virgin Air had planes jaunting all over California at a moment’s notice, meaning we could have flown in a passenger jet instead, but Holden put the kibosh on that plan straightaway.

“No. We are not putting three vampires on a plane with a hundred humans. Worst possible idea.” He’d been adamant. I tried to convince him it would be fine as long as he and Maxime had eaten.

I wanted to fly in a real plane.

I’d been on jets before and understood I should be grateful to have avoided a genuine travel experience, but I still wanted to try it. I didn’t get to do a lot of standard human things, and sitting side by side with bored, irate travelers seemed like fun to me for some reason.

It was just so undeniably normal, which was something I didn’t get to experience often.

Too bad it wasn’t meant to be.

My only victory in the whole thing was this time we were allowed to fly inside the passenger compartment rather than the cargo hold. Maxime and Holden showed little interest in the view from the small cabin windows, but I practically had my face glued to them.

Los Angeles from above was stunning, a far-reaching grid of lights spreading farther than the eye could see. New York was so small in comparison, one glowing island as opposed to this huge, illuminated blanket.

I called Desmond since our pilot didn’t seem to mind if we used our phones on board.

“I was just thinking about you,” he told me, sounding close in spite of the thousand miles between us.

“Good things, I hope.”

“Is anyone in earshot?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll stick with good things then, yes.”

“I miss you.” I watched the lights of L.A. get farther away. “Things here have been so strange. I’ll have some unbelievable stories for you when I get home.”

There wasn’t time to get into the whole Sutherland issue over the phone, and I wasn’t in the mood to rehash it right then, anyway.

“You’ve only been gone a day.”

“I know. Doesn’t take long to stir up drama with the vampires.”

“Something they have in common with us.”

“I’ll call you in a day or two, okay? Love you.”

“Love you too.”

After I hung up, the remainder of the flight was uneventful. My impression of San Francisco from the air was marred by cloud cover, but I did get a good view of the Bay Bridge lit up at night, and it reminded me of home. The sweeping wires and towers were more modern than the Brooklyn Bridge, but living on an island made me compare every bridge to the ones I saw at home.

We landed at a small private airport where a town car was waiting to take us to our residence for the next two nights. Although the West Coast council no longer made their home in San Francisco, they still had a number of local connections to make it easy for them to spend a night or two in their old haunting grounds should they choose to.

Which worked out well for us.

We’d be staying in the same hotel suite Sutherland had last been seen in, which I hoped might give me some clues as to what my father had discovered, and perhaps where he’d run off to. Galen informed me the room had been thoroughly inspected by his wardens, and they’d come up with nothing, but maybe my father and I had something other than just DNA in common. Perhaps I’d be able to see something the wardens had missed.

It was probably wishful thinking, but all the same I was hopeful.

Holden’s tension had eased some since we’d left Los Angeles, but he’d kept his distance from me on the plane and opted to sit up front in the car rather than next to me in the back. It wasn’t the most ideal way to sell himself as my full-time lover, but now the only person we had to convince was Maxime, and Holden didn’t seem too interested in keeping up the ruse around his brother.

Maxime didn’t appear to care one way or the other. He was so excited to be out of the Los Angeles keep he kept nattering on about the history of San Francisco and all the places that had been former vampire playgrounds. Under normal circumstances this would be exactly the kind of history lesson I would love to listen to. Right now, though, I was more interested in Holden and the sulky state he’d fallen into.

I’d tried to tell him I wasn’t upset about what had happened in my bedroom, but he was carrying the burden of guilt with him all the same. He was angry with himself, and nothing I was saying helped ease his mind. Shouldn’t I be the one to decide if he should feel guilty about his actions? And if I said there was nothing to feel bad about, why couldn’t he shrug it off?

Our driver took us to an old brick warehouse where a car with our belongings was waiting. Maxime hadn’t stopped talking since we’d landed, and continued to chat about the storied past of the building and the work that had gone into restoring it after the 1906 quake. From what I gathered—I wasn’t listening to everything—it sounded like the council made a handsome income by renting the space to several pornographic film companies as a soundstage.

Maxime assured me several times we wouldn’t be disturbed during our stay, and all upcoming bookings had been rescheduled. I think he was worried I’d be offended by the double life of the warehouse, but quite to the contrary, I thought it was the most interesting piece of information he’d provided since we arrived.

We wouldn’t be sleeping at the warehouse, but it would be our nightly base of operations since the hotel we’d be using was a busy tourist stop, and we couldn’t come and go without drawing unwanted attention. And we certainly couldn’t bring in three coffins without questions being asked.

The hotel was outfitted with light-safe privacy suites thanks to all the demanding nocturnal guests who had stayed there over the last hundred years. We had nothing to worry about in the sunlight department. I didn’t know whether or not the hotel was aware their sensitive guests were vampires, but they had definitely grown accustomed to catering to some seriously strange demands.

Maxime assured me the two-bedroom penthouse he’d secured for us was designed to suit any needs we might have, and we’d be left alone during the day. He also made it clear Holden and I would be very comfortable in our room, and his own bedchamber—his word—was at a nice distance across the suite.

He wanted me to know he wouldn’t be listening in if Holden and I wanted to do the nasty.

It was both thoughtful and a little creepy of him to go to such lengths. I didn’t ask why he hadn’t just booked his own room. He appeared to be thirteen, so there was no way he could have a suite to himself without it seeming suspicious.

In a lot of ways Maxime retained much of the childish innocence he must have had when he’d been human. Though he was only a couple decades shy of his bicentennial, he still had a wide-eyed appreciation for the world around him and delighted in sharing his experiences with others. I was genuinely touched by the way he attempted to draw my attention to the sights of the city, like a little boy might share a captured butterfly with friends. He saw so much beauty in it, and wanted others to see it too, to understand it the way he did.

It dawned on me the reason I liked Max so much was because he reminded me of Brigit. They had the same sweetness, in spite of being vampires, and there was a certain guileless quality to Maxime that made him loveable. At first I’d thought it was a trick because of his youthful face, a perfect ploy to lure unsuspecting victims in. But the longer I spent time with him, the more I realized that was just his way.

Now I understood why Holden had insisted I trust the younger vampire. I wasn’t sure I did yet—not absolutely—but I didn’t need to trust someone in order to like them.

After our quick moonlit tour of the warehouse, we made our way to the hotel.

Inside the lobby I hung back while Holden and Maxime checked in, and while perusing the various pamphlets on historical San Francisco tours, a familiar voice said, “Secret?”

I stopped dead, pamphlet still in my hand, and tried to tell myself it was all in my imagination. I was not hearing that low, rumbly baritone. It did not make the wolf inside me stir from her slumber and perk both ears up like she’d been whistled at.

“Secret, is that you?”

I glanced over my shoulder, and my eyes confirmed what my brain still refused to believe.

Lucas Rain was standing five feet away from me.

Chapter Seventeen

“What are you doing here?” I snarled, unable to mask my displeasure in seeing him. There’d been a time when I might have feigned politeness towards my ex-boyfriend, but I didn’t think Lucas warranted the effort anymore.

They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That goes quadruple for a woman stood up on her wedding day.

Especially when the groom-to-be refuses to admit he’s done anything wrong.

“I might ask you the same question,” he countered. “I own this hotel. So what are you doing here?”

My gaze darted side to side, making sure there were no humans within eavesdropping distance. I didn’t see any people, but did spot Dominick Alvarez, Desmond’s brother and Lucas’s personal bodyguard. The small blond man was seated in the lobby nearby, and when he saw me, he raised an eyebrow and gave a wave. I returned the gesture, and to Lucas I explained, “I’m here on council business.”

“You’re in San Fran doing vampire work?” He looked grossed out by the idea.

“Yes.”

Holden and Maxime came up, and since Maxime was blithely unaware of the change in my demeanor—maybe because I hadn’t been very cheerful before—he continued to chatter on to no one in particular.

Holden wasn’t oblivious. He took one look at Lucas and grabbed me by the arm, tugging me protectively to his side. Sure, he could barely spare me a glance the entire trip here, but throw one werewolf king into the mix and he got all handsy.

Go figure.

“What’s he doing here?” When Holden and Lucas both asked this question simultaneously, I almost laughed. Too bad I was still flustered from Lucas’s sudden appearance to find anything funny right then.

“I’m her consort,” Holden said, a victorious tone in his voice. Lucas was a king; he wouldn’t miss the meaning of the word.

Unfortunately, according to Lucas, I was still his queen, so—

“Who are these people?” A twenty-something woman with a familiar face came up to Lucas’s side and threaded her arm under his. “Luke, who are your friends?” she asked again when he didn’t reply right away.

Luke? Only Kellen, Lucas’s younger sister, had ever called him Luke. I was used to people treating him with near-reverential respect because of who he was. This girl clearly had no idea.

“Willow, this is Holden Chancery.” He spit the name out like it was poison on his tongue.

“Charmed,” Holden said with a doozy of a smile. He took Willow’s hand and brought it to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles.

If he didn’t turn down the charm a few notches, there wouldn’t be a dry pair of panties in the whole hotel.

“Do I know you?” Willow gave Holden an intense stare. “You look familiar. Did we do an indie awhile ago?”

“An…indie?” He was usually quick on the uptake with most twenty-first century lingo, but the term had apparently evaded him.

“An independent movie,” I whispered.

“Oh. No, I’m not an actor.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a gleam of pride in his eyes at being mistaken for one, though. He was a vain creature to the core.

“What a shame. Cheekbones like those.” Willow gave him a once-over that was equal parts sexual and predatory. I’d seen the same expression on serious antique collectors who desperately wanted to possess something. She wasn’t looking at him like he was a person, but rather a thing.

Her comment about films made my recognition of her face click. “Sorry, you’re Willow Chalmers?”

She beamed like a thousand-watt spotlight at being recognized. “Guilty as charged. And you are?” The cursory glance she gave me wasn’t nearly as interested as the one she’d given Holden.

“Secret McQueen.”

The initial curl of her lip when she heard my name was a common enough response. People had a lot of trouble taking my name seriously, and it was a burden I’d learned to live with. Especially after finding out my mother had wanted to name me Harmony. Ick.

But getting such a dismissive look from a girl who shared her name with a tree, a television witch and a dwarf? Come on.

“Secret…McQueen?” She repeated my name back to me as if to say, Are you sure that’s what you want to go with? Then she seemed to process it and looked from me to Lucas. When her gaze returned to me, her mouth had gone slack.

I guess the gossip columns out west had liked my story as much as they had in New York.

“You’re Lucas’s ex.”

“I am Lucas’s ex,” I said almost gleefully, leaning hard on the last word when I met the wolf king’s gaze. “The one he ditched at the altar. Without so much as a phone call. Yup, that’s me.”

Now that she knew who I was, she didn’t seem sure of how to respond. I was guessing if I’d been just any other girl, she’d have pawed at him a little to make it clear he was hers, but I didn’t want him and that confused her.

Who didn’t want a beautiful, charming billionaire, right?

Me, for one.

But I also knew Lucas, and I knew this girl was going to end up one more notch on his bedpost. Willow Chalmers was human. There was nothing special or supernatural about her, and because of that she couldn’t be a permanent fixture in his life.

I almost felt pity for him, cavorting around with this poor human girl to fill some empty void inside. A void he’d probably claim I left him with.

I wrapped my arm around Holden’s waist and leaned my head into his shoulder, smiling at Lucas. “Lovely to see you. We should be going, though.”

“Oh.” Willow seemed surprised we didn’t want to stay. “We were just heading to the restaurant for dinner. There’s a guest chef in from South Africa who makes the most orgasmic quail.” Her attention shifted to Holden when she said orgasmic. “Won’t you join us?”

That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

“Sounds great,” Holden said, never taking his eyes off Lucas. “Don’t you think so, Luke?”

“I don’t know if—” Lucas began to protest, but Willow tugged his sleeve like a little girl begging a parent for candy.

“Don’t say no, please. It’ll be fun. Don’t you think it will be fun, Secret?”

Did I think having dinner with my ex-fiancé, his movie-star girlfriend and my vampire lover would be fun? No. Fun was not the word I would have chosen.

Holden was only agreeing to rub our relationship in Lucas’s face. Desmond and Holden might have disliked each other, but they still worked together for the common good and could pretend to be nice in order to appease me.

Holden and Lucas hated each other. Reviled each other. Their feelings about each other made Holden and Desmond’s relationship look like a bromance. There was no way in hell this dinner was a good idea. But if I could get Lucas alone, however briefly, I might be able to find out where we stood as far as our werewolf marriage went. I was within arm’s reach of him and had yet to taste anything remotely like cinnamon. And my wolf didn’t feel the tug to be near him she once had.

It was like all the signs I’d once used as evidence of our soul-bond had vanished. I didn’t know anyone else I could ask because it didn’t seem fair to quiz Desmond on it. Not when my relationship with Lucas was what had forced our breakup in the first place.

“Sure,” I said finally. “Why not?”

Chapter Eighteen

Maxime had held back during the conversation, and when Willow and Lucas went ahead to the restaurant, he came forward.

“Evening plans have changed somewhat, Max,” I said, and heaved a sigh. “If you don’t mind getting the rooms ready, Holden and I are going to have…dinner.”

Instead of asking why a pair of vampires would have any interest in going to a human restaurant, Maxime gave a small bow and went on his way, no questions asked.

“What are you trying to prove here?” I grumbled to Holden when we were alone. “Lucas isn’t a threat to you anymore.”

“Lucas was never a threat to me.” He rolled his eyes.

“He and I almost got married,” I reminded him. “Big white dress, fancy ceremony. You were there, I know you remember.”

“I do remember it. I remember him not coming, and I remember you almost dying. So you’ll have to forgive me if I say again—Lucas was never a threat to me.”

“If you really think that, why are we doing this?”

“Because I dislike him. And I hate what he did to you. Hell, I don’t like what he did to Desmond. If I can sit across from him for an hour and make his life half as miserable as he made yours, I’m going to do it. He didn’t deserve you, but he does deserve some anguish for all the trouble.”

I couldn’t fight back the smile that snuck onto my lips at his speech. “Are you sure you’re not doing this so you can grope me in front of him?”

“How do you think I’m going to remind him what he’s missing?” He winked as he offered his arm. I was so relieved to have my old Holden back, I didn’t much care that it was his hatred for Lucas that had brought him to me.

We joined Lucas and Willow in the dining room where we’d been given a table in a secluded corner. Still, some of the patrons were pivoting in their seats to get a glimpse of the famous actress. She looked older in person than she did on film, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The lines in her mocha-colored skin gave her more depth, made it seem like she actually smiled and frowned in real life, and not just in front of the camera. Her black hair was cut in a cute pixy crop, which might have explained why I didn’t recognize her right away. She normally had long wavy hair—I think I’d read she was part Hawaiian—so the short do changed her appearance a lot.

Not enough to keep people from recognizing her though.

“I like your haircut,” I said when the silence was starting to get awkward.

Her hands went to it as if to feel if it was as short as she remembered. “Really? Are you sure? I’m still not used to it.”

For some reason this flash of insecurity endeared her to me. Here was one of the most beautiful women in the world, and she was worried what I thought about her haircut.

“Yeah, it makes your eyes look even bigger.”

She giggled, fanning her long lashes at me as if I were now the best catch in the room. Amazing how some women could turn on the charm like that.

When I’d been younger, Calliope had tried to give me a lesson in flirting. Since she’d once been one of the most sought-after women in the world, it made her an ideal source for tips. In one phase of her life she’d been Marilyn Monroe, so I recognized a Marilyn-style eyelash fan when I saw one. This girl was good. I hadn’t learned half as much from Calliope in person as Willow had from watching her movies.

I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Cal all about this.

The men stared at each other across the table, leaving me and Willow to entertain ourselves. Holden claimed he’d wanted to make Lucas realize what he was missing, but instead he was opting to give my ex the silent stink eye. A two-hundred-year-old and a twenty-eight-year-old both acting no better than children.

You’d have thought Holden was the one Lucas had stood up at the altar.

“Soooo.” When it was clear neither of them was going to speak, I went on. “Are you working on anything exciting?”

“Oh gosh, yes. I just wrapped up a romantic comedy in Australia last week. I play an American tourist who gets lost in the Outback, and I meet this surly ex-surfer turned survival guide. It was a hoot. But now I’m trying to get into some more serious stuff. You know, playing an ugly hooker, or like…a pregnant housewife in the fifties. Those are the real Oscar-bait roles, and I need to get some positive critical attention for my acting before I get too old.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

And she was already worried about aging? Man, Hollywood was a weird place.

“Do you get Botox?” she asked casually. “Juvéderm? Restylane? Your skin is too amazing to be natural.”

I kept my smile polite. “I stay out of the sun.”

Lucas coughed, at first just a small clearing of the throat until it built into a hacking noise as he tried to fight down what I could only assume was laughter.

Willow patted him on the back but seemed far more interested in my skin-care routine than in Lucas’s wellbeing. “Sunscreen and hats? No more than twenty minutes a day? That sort of thing?”

“Like, zero minutes a day.”

Her eyes went wide. “Is that even possible?”

“Sure. I manage.”

She reached out a hand, brushing my face with her fingers. Holden went tense at my side, like he wanted to slap her away but was fighting the urge. Personally I thought it was rude for her to just up and touch me without asking, but she didn’t linger.

“Wow. Smooth.”

I shrugged. “It’s how my skin has always been.”

“You’re lucky. Pale is really in right now. I was at a Monique Lhuillier show a few weeks ago, and all the models were so pale. And look at me.” She pointed to her skin, which might as well have been lit from within with gold, and sighed like it disgusted her. “I’ll never be pale.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I shifted the conversation in Lucas’s direction. “Red Sox are doing well this year.”

Since he owned the team, I was hoping this might spur him into some kind of discussion. A spark of interest lit his eyes, and he stopped glaring at Holden long enough to look at me. “Yeah, the new GM is doing great things with the team. Our pitchers are costing me the salary of a small island nation, but it looks like it’s paying off. I mean, we still have two months, but I like our chances.” Nodding at his own statement, he took a sip from the water in front of him and relaxed for the first time since we’d sat down.

“Holden, what do you do?” Willow asked.

“I was the editor-at-large of GQ for a while, but now I do personnel management and security in the private sector.”

That was one way to put it.

“And you, Secret?”

“What do I do?”

She laughed, a light sound, but obviously well practiced. “Yes, silly.”

Which of my sordid occupations could I spin into something believable? Werewolf queen was out of the question. Tribunal Leader I might be able to make work for me. “I’m the chair of a, uh…community outreach program in Manhattan. I used to be a private investigator.”

“Used to?”

“I still dabble, but the community program eats up a lot more of my time these days.”

“How interesting.” I could tell she wasn’t interested at all, which had been the point of my phrasing things the way I did. “But private investigating must have been pretty cool.”

“It had its moments.”

“Did you deal with a lot of cheating husbands and bail jumpers? That sort of thing?”

“No, my partner and I did more specialized work. Missing persons, finding stolen objects.” I neglected to mention those objects were usually magical in nature and worth a fortune in finder’s fees.

Apparently taking the tawdry stuff off the table meant Willow lost interest in my PI work. I could have sucked her right back in if I told her I’d once been hired to find the kidnapped niece of the wereocelot queen, but I wasn’t going to use Genevieve Renard’s personal history to impress an actress.

“How did you and Lucas meet?” Holden asked, finally warming up and joining us in polite conversation.

“At a charity fundraiser in New York about a month ago.”

“What charity?”

“Oh.” Willow bit her lip as though she couldn’t recall. “My goodness. How embarrassing. I go to so many events, I can’t—”

Lucas provided the missing answer for her. “It was a campaign supporting children’s literacy. It was Kellen’s pet project, but now that she’s…gone, I’ve stepped up to take over for her.”

The official story we were selling on Kellen was that she’d eloped with a well-to-do oil tycoon from a small foreign country—one of the tiny Eastern European ones—and was planning to live out her remaining days being spoiled by him.

The papers were dying for photos of her wedding—I’d been offered a six-figure sum for anything I could provide—but since no such photos existed, it was easy to turn reporters down.

Kellen was actually the new wife of a high-ranking member in the fairy king’s court, and she would age so slowly there we might all be dead before she looked thirty. But she loved Brokk, and who were Lucas and I to deny anyone their true love? Just because our perfect fairytale wedding had gone down in flames didn’t mean Kellen shouldn’t have her literal fairytale wedding.

One none of us got to see.

I was assured by Calliope, who’d heard it through connections she still had in the fairy court, it had been a rollicking affair. Everyone had enjoyed it thoroughly, and Kellen had received a true fae welcome into the kingdom. Whatever that meant.

“How is Kellen?” Willow asked, like she and Kel had been old besties. “Enjoying her life in Whateveristan?”

“Kyrgyzstan,” I corrected, having practiced the name of the country about a billion times before we went public with the story.

“She’s very happy.” Lucas’s expression was stony. He was never going to forgive me for the part I’d played in letting Kellen go back, especially after everything I’d done to retrieve her.

He could go screw himself because I didn’t care what he thought.

“Very, very happy,” I agreed.

“How wonderful. Although I’m sure the gossip columns will miss her.” Willow shared her practiced laugh with us again, but this time no one else laughed with her. “And of course you’ll miss her too.”

“Excuse me.” Lucas pushed his chair back and rose from the table.

He’d barely left the room before I scraped my own seat backwards and followed him with a, “Be right back.”

Lucas was waiting in the hallway near the washrooms like he’d been expecting me to follow him.

“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

“Your girlfriend was the one who invited us. I’m just being polite.”

He glowered at me, his expression clearly saying, Let’s not fucking kid ourselves here. “So you thought what, exactly? The four of us would sit around while you hold hands with your walking corpse, and we’d have a lovely discussion about Kellen? You thought that would be a great goddamn idea?”

“Your girlfriend invited us,” I reminded him.

“She’s not my fucking girlfriend,” he snapped. “I have a wife, and my wife is standing right in front of me.” When he grabbed my shoulders roughly, I struggled to pull back, but his grip was firm. Without resorting to violence I couldn’t wrest myself free, and I didn’t want to make a scene.

Not yet anyway.

“We’ve had this discussion before, and I’m not sure I feel like having it again. I am not your wife.” Points for me for not reminding him whose fault that was.

“You are, and it’s about time for you to stop ignoring your duty and come back to the pack.”

I wriggled, making it clear I had no desire to be in his arms, but still he held me. “Lucas. Let me go.”

“Not until you’re willing to listen to reason.”

“Reason? You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re the one who isn’t getting this. You and I aren’t mates anymore. My wolf wants nothing to do with you. If you’d take two seconds to actually feel for her, you’d realize that.”

“What are you talking about? Of course we’re still mated. We completed the ceremony.”

“But that was before. Before the fairy king made me human. When he gave me back my monsters, something changed. It’s like a blank slate. I don’t know how it works, or why, but my wolf doesn’t respond to yours anymore.”

He dropped his arms but loomed closer, sniffing at me the way an animal might. What he was trying to glean from scent alone I wasn’t sure, but maybe his wolf was more finely attuned to that sort of thing.

“What about Desmond?” he asked.

“I can taste him again. The lime. And she wakes up for him,” I told him, hoping to get rid of him. He looked so crushed by that tidbit I almost wanted to touch him, to hold him and comfort him. But I fought against the urge, stepping as far away from him as the narrow hallway would allow. “I’m sorry, Lucas.”

“You’re lying.”

“Lying? About being sorry?”

“No, about all of this. It’s bullshit. A soul-bond can’t be broken. It’s a lifetime commitment. It’s not logical or decisive. It can’t choose to stop working. It’s magic for God’s sake.”

“And magic can’t be understood as easily as science,” I reminded him. “Magic made me human, and then undid it. So who are we to say the bond can’t change? All I know is my wolf isn’t drawn to you anymore.”

“Kiss me,” he said.

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

“No.”

“Secret, I need this.” He stepped closer again, his big body taking up more space than I recalled. His normally blue eyes had gone yellow, taking on a feral quality. His blond hair was longer than it had been the last night I saw him. Right after I’d had him kill five werewolves for me.

He looked wilder now, like he was coming unstrung.

“I don’t care what you need.” I moved to leave the hall and return to our table, but his arm shot out, blocking my passage.

“Just kiss me so I know.”

“Move your arm.”

“Not until you say yes.”

“And what is it you think a kiss will tell you, huh? Do you think you’ll kiss me and it’ll be like I’m a princess in a Disney movie? Somehow one smooch is going to be all it takes for me to love you again? Get a clue, Lucas. I’m never going to love you again. Not ever. And no kiss, no matter how good, is going to make me—”

His lips crushed against my mouth as he held my jaw still, stealing the kiss I hadn’t wanted to give. He tasted like desperation and longing, and when his tongue caressed the seam of my lips, instinct commanded me to open for him. Sexual compatibility hadn’t been a problem for us. I’d wanted his body since the first night we met.

But being good in bed didn’t mean we should be together.

The problem was, as he kissed me my wolf responded. She stirred. At first the response was bristling and angry, like she wanted to claw through the lining of my stomach so she could attack him.

Rip out his throat, she commanded. He betrayed us.

He deepened the kiss, leaning the weight of his body into me, and I tasted it. The cinnamon. It was buried deep, so, so deep, and it came to me like a memory of a dream, dull at first but then roaring up to the surface.

And the moment it hit my tongue, my wolf went still with a quiet Oh. She had been leashed just like that. Because the man in front of me was her king, and instead of fighting his authority, she was now willing to bow before it.

My fangs grew longer from the combined panic over being trapped by a werewolf and the unfortunate desire kissing him had created. It had been a long time since I’d let myself be properly kissed, and he was a master with his tongue.

I bit his lip.

He swore and stumbled backwards, holding a hand to his now-bloody mouth. “What the fuck, Secret?”

“I said no, and when a lady says no, you better fucking respect that.” In case biting him hadn’t gotten my point to sink in, I slapped him hard across the face.

“You felt it. Tasted it. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

I had. I’d tasted the cinnamon. And now looking at him, it still filled my mouth with its familiar spiciness. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. I felt your wolf, and I made her obey me. You’re still my mate. Still my wife.”

“Don’t you ever say that word to me again, do you hear me? Not ever. You had your chance to make me your wife, and you threw it away. Don’t pretend you want to be my husband now. Fuck you.”

Without his arm to block me, I turned on my heel and walked back towards the restaurant, fighting back the tears threatening to fall. I wouldn’t cry, not because of Lucas Rain. He’d gotten the best of me too many times.

But my wolf didn’t care about my emotions. She only knew what she’d felt. And to her, he felt like her mate.

Dumb bitch.

Chapter Nineteen

I woke at nightfall wrapped in Holden’s arms.

After we’d left the restaurant with a rushed excuse, I’d gone back to the hotel room with him and dragged him into our bedroom. At first he’d assumed I was in the mood for some rough-and-tumble sex inspired by dinner with an ex-lover. But when I’d burst into tears, all notions of naughty business had vanished.

He’d held me until sunrise, when daylight forced me into a blessed and much-needed sleep.

With a new night upon us, I hoped to be able to put my encounter with Lucas out of my mind.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Holden whispered.

I couldn’t pretend to still be sleeping since he’d obviously sensed me rise.

“No.”

“Did he do something?”

I twined my fingers with Holden’s and snuggled deeper into his embrace, needing a false sense of security more now than I had in a long time. “Doesn’t he always?”

“Need me to beat him up for you?”

I tried to laugh but it came out as a half-sob, and I struggled against the urge to start crying again. I’d already ruined the hotel linens with my blood-tinted tears; it wasn’t like I was going to make it any worse.

But I hated the idea of crying about him two nights in a row, not when I’d managed to be unfeeling about him for so long.

“I need to work. I have to figure out what Sutherland was looking for. Really looking for.”

“Are you sure you don’t need some pick-me-up sex? I’d be more than happy to provide. I’m generous like that.” He kissed the back of my neck, his lips tickling the fine hairs growing there.

“As fun as that sounds, I need to focus on something other than sex. Or love. Or relationships. I need something gritty and unpleasant.”

“I don’t know what love is like for you, but it doesn’t get much more gritty and unpleasant.” He gave me a firm squeeze, and his sharp inhalation told me he was smelling my hair. It was a rare occasion for him to use his lungs, but I’d caught him taking in my scent a few times in the past. It was sort of sweet, in a weird way.

“We have to get up,” I told him.

“No we don’t.”

“Maxime,” I said, not quite shouting since it wasn’t necessary to raise my voice. “Tell Holden we have to get out of bed.”

The young man poked his head in the door, then seeing our twined limbs and rumpled sheets, he politely averted his gaze. “Holden, Tribunal Leader Secret would—”

“Just Secret,” I reminded him.

“Secret would like me to inform you she must get out of bed.”

“Max, when did you lose your sense of humor?” Holden asked.

“On the contrary, I find this exceptionally humorous. However I am bound to do as the lady asks.”

“Be careful with that one. When she asks you to jump, it’s usually off a bridge.”

I elbowed him in the ribs.

Maxime had been busy while Holden and I were in bed. He’d spoken to the hotel concierge about Sutherland, and learned my father had asked about rental spaces in the city. Maxime didn’t know if he’d meant rental property, or storage space, but a bellhop brought us the same list of phone numbers they’d given my father.

Eight pages double-sided of potential properties. Not exactly the most fruitful start to our hunt. Since Holden couldn’t use the thrall over the phone, we couldn’t ask for a list of the numbers Sutherland had called, but we’d be able to get it later when we left for the evening. It might help us narrow down which of the spaces he’d contacted.

Unless he’d used a cellphone, in which case the trail would have gone dry before we’d even started following it.

After a quick shower I rifled through the weekend bag Holden had packed for me. Plenty of outfits that would have been appropriate for a meeting with the council, but not for going out investigating.

“Did you pack me any jeans?” I shouted.

“I’m sorry, are we going to a farm? No, I didn’t pack you any jeans.” I could hear his scorn even though I was in the bathroom and a closed door blocked the space between us.

“Did you pack me anything jean-like?”

The bathroom door jerked open, and instead of replying he sneered at me. “What is wrong with you?”

“So many things. Mainly, I chose to fall in love with a snobby, fashion-police vampire who refuses to pack me comfortable clothing.” I smacked him in the chest with a leather bustier—one I’d bought to impress Desmond—and prodded him with one finger. “What kind of investigating am I going to do in that?”

“I can think of a few things you could investigate in it. But need I remind you, you were perfectly capable of wielding a sword while wearing it, so don’t try telling me you can’t make do with the things I put in there for you.”

“I’m going to look like a dominatrix.” I scowled into the bag. “Everything in here is black. And leather. Do I own this much leather?”

“Since you started working with the Tribunal? Yes, you own that much leather.”

I lifted a skimpy lace thong from the bottom of the bag and held it up with my forefinger. “And this? You packed this because of how authoritative it would make me look?”

“No, I packed it because you have a sexy ass, and I thought that would be a nice way to display it.”

“Ugh.” Digging farther in, I found something that felt like cotton instead of leather or lace and jerked it out.

Desmond’s New York Yankees T-shirt. The one I’d commandeered months earlier that was so well-worn it should have been see through in places. I raised my gaze from the shirt and looked at Holden with both my eyebrows up as high as they dared go.

“Don’t give me your shocked look,” he said. “You like the shirt, so I packed the shirt. Don’t read so much into it.”

I hugged the shirt to my chest, knowing he was perfectly aware of who it belonged to and why it meant so much to me. “Thank you,” I whispered, sniffing the blue-and-white tee. These days it smelled mostly like me, but Desmond’s scent still lingered.

I suspected now he might sometimes put it on to refresh his mark on it, knowing I liked to wear it. It was the only way to explain how the smell never completely faded.

“But you are not wearing that.”

“Oh come on.”

“No. Absolutely not.” He reached into the bag and handed me a small fistful of items, then snatched the Yankees shirt away from me.

He’d chosen a low-cut tank top with panels of sheer black material down the waist and back, with leather accents creating small capped sleeves. The other item was a leather pencil skirt, but since I actually liked being able to move I put it back in my bag and returned to the leather pants I’d worn the day before.

Still a lot of leather, but at least I could run in this ensemble.

In his wisest decision all evening—aside from the shirt—Holden didn’t scold me about opting for pants. He gave me a look that said he wanted to say something but was wise enough to keep his opinions to himself.

At the front desk, Holden was able to coerce the on-duty clerk into printing off Sutherland’s call list. I wasn’t sure he’d needed to use the thrall on her. She took one look at his brown eyes and cheekbones and she was a goner. His ability to compel her didn’t hurt, but I honestly wondered if it had been necessary.

Cross-referencing the list we’d been delivered to the calls from Sutherland’s room narrowed our search down. He’d made three calls to the same number over two nights, and when I compared the number to the rentals list, it matched with a warehouse in the Tenderloin district.

“What the hell would he be doing looking for a warehouse rental when the council had one available for him to use?” I asked.

“If he was trying to hide something from the Tribunal, it stands to reason he wouldn’t want to use council property to do it,” Holden answered, though I’d come to the same conclusion myself.

“The council monitors the main warehouse carefully. It was outfitted with a state-of-the-art video surveillance system when they started renting it out. Sutherland would know he was being watched there. It wouldn’t matter if he had nothing to hide, but if he was up to something, he’d avoid that space like the plague,” Maxime explained.

As of right now, all signs were pointing to my dad being a council-cheating rogue. Awesome, I had two scumbag parents. I was batting a thousand in the positive role-model department.

Seeming to read my disappointed expression, Holden said, “We don’t know anything for certain yet. Maybe he had a reason to fear going back to the council warehouse. It’s been used by them for decades, so if he was worried about being followed, he might not go back there.”

“True. But we still don’t know what he found, and we can’t check out the Winchester house until tomorrow.”

“You want to go look for him in the Tenderloin, don’t you?”

“That is easily the worst name for a neighborhood I’ve ever heard.”

“Says the woman who lives in Hell’s Kitchen. In a city with a Meatpacking District.” Holden winked at me.

“Don’t be cheeky. It doesn’t suit you.” But my smirk gave me away. My stupid mouth was always ruining things in one way or another. “Yes, I want to go find out if he rented a space. He might have left something there that could tell us where he went. I’m willing to take any clues right now.”

“What if they tell you something you don’t want to know?” Holden asked.

“Like my dad being a traitor? You’ve met my mother, do you honestly think finding out my father is a rogue would be the worst thing to ever happen to me?”

Unless he decided to stick a bullet between my ribs with his bare hands, my dad was going to be Father of the Fucking Year compared to my mother.

Chapter Twenty

“Are you sure this is the right address?” I squinted at the crumbling edifice of the U-Save Studio Rentals building.

The apartment complex that had fallen on me days earlier had looked sturdier than this place. I was worried a powerful sneeze might knock the entire structure down.

But it had survived near-daily earthquakes over the last several decades, meaning it had to be made of stronger stuff than I was giving it credit for.

“Yes. I’m a hundred percent sure. Just like I was the last three times you asked.” Holden stuffed the paper with the address back into his coat pocket and followed my dubious gaze upwards.

“It’s a shit-hole,” I said.

“A very apt description, yes.”

“Why would someone who has the financial backing of the council need to rent a shit-hole?”

“We aren’t paid in cash,” Maxime explained. “We all have credit cards that draw from a central pool. Any purchases Sutherland made would be accessible by the council. He’d have used his own money for this, and I doubt he has much. Most of the young ones haven’t learned to build outside savings. This was probably all he could afford.”

Cans rattled near the side of the warehouse, and a man emerged, pushing a shopping cart full of garbage. He wore a heavy overcoat—which I was learning was a summer necessity in San Francisco—and had long hair matted into gray-brown dreadlocks. Having seen the people of this city, I couldn’t tell if he’d been homeless so long his hair had come to look that way over time, or if he was just a hipster from the Mission with terrible style.

He grunted at us and opened the lid of a nearby garbage bin, rummaging inside for cans and bottles to add to his collection. He kept right on muttering as he worked, completely unconcerned by our arrival. I wondered what things he must see on a daily basis to make the three of us look right at home here.

As we approached the building, a group of five people in their early twenties stumbled out from inside. Two girls—whose hair looked strikingly similar to that of the homeless man—and three young men all came to a halt in front of us. They reeked of cheap beer and pot.

“Heeeyyyy,” one of the girls said, her tone loopy. “Watch where you’re going, ’kay?”

I couldn’t tell if it had been a threat or a concerned gesture. Was she telling us to watch our step inside, or berating us for getting in their way? With her high and saccharine voice it was impossible to know.

They all began giggling like maniacs and mimicking her ’kay over and over until she was blushing furiously, her cheeks a bright pink that made her look young and far too sweet to be out here at night.

People thought the only thing they had to fear in the night was other people. Sometimes I wished they understood how much there was to be afraid of in the darkness. It wasn’t that I wanted to strike terror into the hearts of mortals, but I did wish they knew more. Really knew what was out here in the streets with them.

“Guyyys.” She staggered a step as she lurched along with them. “Isss not funneeeee.”

Maxime’s nostrils flared, and he tilted his head as he watched her go. The way his eyes narrowed I knew what he was thinking. He was imagining how easy it would be to follow them. To wait until the girl lagged behind again, stopping to catch her breath from all the giggling. In that moment he could grab her and pull her into a back alley. She would never remember what he did to her.

I knew what Maxime was thinking because the same careful expression colored Holden’s face too. I knew, because I was thinking the exact same thing.

We were all predators, and no matter how domesticated you try to make a predatory animal, it will always have the instinct to hunt.

Inside me, my wolf was imagining how fun it would be with a pack, trailing the group from both sides and picking them off one at a time. She was no better than my vampire half. Every part of me craved the chase, and I didn’t give myself enough outlets for that anymore. I used to make do by hunting and killing rogue vampires.

What did I have now?

I was a killer by nature, and I’d managed to find myself locked in the nicest cage imaginable. But it was still a cage, and I was still denied my only release.

I shuddered and shook the feeling off.

The homeless man had stopped rattling his bottles and was staring at us with renewed interest. His eyes—visible even through the cloak of night—were an icy blue and showed no signs of warmth. They did, however, convey a sharp awareness I hadn’t previously believed the man had. He wasn’t drunk or crazy. This guy was watching us very carefully.

A pit of worry gnawed at my belly, overriding the guilt I was accustomed to feeling there. Something was off about the homeless man, and this whole place gave me a serious case of the willies.

“Let’s go.” I refused to take my gaze off our observer until we were inside the building.

The warehouse had been modified from one large space into individual units. We were greeted by a seemingly endless hallway with a series of doors on either side.

Since we’d been unable to contact anyone by phone in the middle of the night to find out which space Sutherland had rented, we were on our own in determining which unit was his.

Normally I’d rely on scent since it was my strongest gift with the combined force of a vampire and a wolf to fuel it, but in here my nose was as good as useless. The ammonia tang of urine seemed to be an underlying theme, but the potpourri of stink went beyond that. The whole building reeked of mold and mildew, and from the rooms were varying chemical perfumes. Weed, like the kids outside smelled of, but different types as well, some sweet and others skunky. One room had the telltale brewing scents of a meth lab, which meant this entire building was a ticking time bomb.

I smelled sweat and sex and blood. There were so many rooms, all fixed with a basic padlock but others with secondary triggers like alarm systems or deadbolts.

Noises, too, made it difficult to concentrate. Several bands were using their storage spaces for practice rooms, and the cacophonous blend of bluegrass, hip-hop and jazz floated up and down the hall. Beneath the racket were moans or soft chatter. Behind one door someone was saying, “You don’t have to do this.”

The white knight in me wanted to bust through the door and save someone from what was no doubt a bad situation. But we weren’t here for me to save anyone. Bad things happened, and people had good reason to fear other people, but right now they weren’t my job.

I had to find my father, and we needed to get out of this building fast, before the meth lab sparked, or I got overwhelmed by the sensory overload.

“Maxime, start at the end of the hall and work your way back towards us. Check every door to see if you recognize anything that might suggest Sutherland was using the space.” I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a barely used lipstick tube, handing it to Holden. “Mark all the doors occupied by humans so we don’t waste our time with those.”

Holden palmed the lipstick tube, inspecting it. “Harlot Red?” He raised an eyebrow at me. Bless his twisted vampire heart that he could make even a facial gesture seem sarcastic.

“Shush. Just mark the doors.”

He set to work, and Maxime followed my directions. There were fifteen doors on either side of the hallway, meaning we had to find one room in thirty. It didn’t seem like such a tall order, but when we started looking, the cool reality of it sank in. We were able to eliminate ten rooms right away because of their human occupants, but that still left twenty. We couldn’t just bust down twenty doors and hope one of the rooms seemed to belong to my father.

I couldn’t ask myself which space I would have selected, because the rooms would have been assigned randomly. Wouldn’t they?

I stopped—my ear pressed against a rough wooden door—and stared down the length of the hallway. Maxime was on his knees in front of another door, peering underneath it, while Holden drew flashy red Xs across two other entryways.

If I did have the option, which room would I pick?

A vampire who wanted to hide himself from others of his kind wasn’t going to go for the obvious spot. The rooms at the very back—as far from others as possible—would have been the most instinctual place for a vampire to hide if he was forced to use this warehouse.

Which would make it the first place other vampires would look for him. I took a few steps backwards and assessed the units from the center of the hall, trying to imagine this place as my father would have. He wanted to hide something, and maybe the best place to do that was in plain sight.

Where was the scent and distraction the most dense?

Taking another step backwards, I stopped in front of the room where a jazz quartet was at work. Trumpet bleats and drum snares made my ears throb. Across the hall was the room with the meth smell coming from it. Next to the meth lab Holden had already marked the door with an X, but the room beside the jazz space had an untouched door. It was protected by only the most basic padlock, with nothing fancy to distinguish it from the other rooms.

I pressed my ear against the door and listened. I’d already checked this door once but dismissed it in a rush due to all the distraction surrounding it. Maybe that was the point though. Perhaps it was my father’s gene pool I inherited the smarts from, because this would have been the perfect room to choose if he wanted someone to pass him quickly by.

I longed for my sword, since it would have sliced through the lock like it was made of butter. But my weapon choice had been vetoed by Holden at the hotel. We were on a simple informational scouting mission. A sword would just draw unwanted attention. Unfortunately he was right, so I’d agreed to leave it behind, opting for my favorite gun instead.

I couldn’t shoot the lock off, that would be too much noise in the small space and would definitely bring us an unwanted audience. Hoping no one would come out of their rooms at that moment, I braced my back against the wall and kicked the door.

The particleboard gave no resistance, practically crumbling around my foot. It swung wide, slamming against an interior wall before swinging back towards me. Holden and Maxime were drawn by the sound and came to join me in the dark mouth of the room.

“This one?” Holden asked, giving a repulsed glance into the rooms surrounding it.

“They’re all equally bad,” I reminded him. “This one felt right.”

“No vampire in his right mind would hide so close to that…smell.”

“Wouldn’t that be what he’d expect another vampire to think, though? I mean, this is the last place I’d want to hide too, but that makes it perfect.”

We stole into the room, shutting the broken door behind us to cut down on the chances of someone noticing it and calling the police. Cloaked in darkness, I became less capable than the others. I could see, but not as well as a full-blooded vampire, and I didn’t want to risk missing an important clue.

Fumbling along the wall, my hand found the light switch and a fat spider at the same time. I flicked on the light and recoiled. The spider—now exposed and irritated—raised its front legs in a challenging gesture, then scuttled down the wall and out of sight.

Fucking spiders. I’d fought a lot of scary monsters in my time, and still spiders gave me the creeps. Keaty, my PI partner, had once told me he’d been sent to recover something stolen by a fae. Turned out the fae spent his days in spider form, guarding a webbed nest of jewels and money that would make Smaug weep with jealousy.

I got a wicked case of the heebie-jeebies whenever Keaty told that story. He’d obviously survived, and knowing Keaty, the fae had not. But learning there was a type of fae who took the form of a giant spider? That was the kind of knowledge human beings were lucky not to have.

Wiping my hand on my pants to rid myself of the tactile memory of the spider, I gave the room a glance now that I could see it better. Holden and Maxime were doing the same, and I wondered if they saw anything I was missing.

The space was clean, much tidier than I’d expected given how disgusting the building itself was. A plain, scarred wood table sat in the center of the room. There was a set of pliers and a roll of soldering wire on it, but nothing to indicate what they were for. A simple chair—wood, but not matching the table—was tucked underneath. All the walls had orange carpet stapled to them, likely as a buffer from the sound in neighboring rooms. It seemed to work, because the jazz was an almost enjoyable volume from in here, the too-sharp high notes blotted down or muted out entirely.

Yellowing flyers and handbills for long-ago concerts in local bars were tacked into the carpet, and someone had spray-painted a lime-green penis beside the door so it would appear to be ejaculating on whoever was walking into the room.

Nothing here told me about my father. The clues were all remnants of a previous tenant, one who’d possibly been in a band called Lady Killers and had an affinity for alien cock.

Either I’d picked the wrong room, or Sutherland was hiding his secrets better than I expected. I’d given myself too much credit as a detective. Over the years I’d learned a lot from Keaty, but I was still the student in so many ways. If he were here…

Of course.

I jerked my cellphone out of my pocket and pressed the speed-dial key for my mentor.

“McQueen,” he grumbled. “This had better be good. It’s two in the morning.” I’d forgotten about the time difference between California and New York.

“Oh don’t pretend like you were asleep.”

“As a matter of fact I was. Sometimes I do need to yield to my basic human needs.”

Hearing Keaty confess to having human needs was about as strange to me as a serial killer liking cuddles. It didn’t fit.

“I need your help with something.”

“Naturally. Come by the office.” The grogginess in his voice began to lift after he hefted a mighty yawn over the line. “Give me ten min—”

“Keaty, I’m in San Francisco.”

Without missing a beat, he said, “I’m not coming to you.”

“No, no. But do you think you can get to a computer?”

He sighed but didn’t protest, and given the rustling sounds, I was beginning to suspect I’d roused him from a nap at his desk. The familiar creak of leather was a dead giveaway. I wondered if he slept with his eyes open.

Windows announced its alertness from his laptop with its cheerful chimes, and he said, “What am I looking for?”

“I’m going to Skype you from my phone so you can see the room I’m in, okay?”

“Fine, but what am I looking for?”

Giving him a quick review of the situation, I left out the part about Sutherland being my father. I’d tell Keaty eventually, but now didn’t seem like the right time. For years, Francis Keats had been a stand-in father figure for me. I knew our relationship had its issues because of what I was, but he loved me in his own sociopathic way, and I loved him. It didn’t seem right to tell him about my real father over the phone.

When he had the necessary backstory, I hung up and redialed using the phone’s Skype app. I might not be great with fancy-pants technology, but the video-calling feature had been forced on me by my younger sister Eugenia. Since she was all the way down in Louisiana with my uncle’s wolf pack, she liked to be able to see me.

Thinking of Genie, I felt a swell of joy in my stomach. I hadn’t known her long—we’d met for the first time that spring—but I enjoyed having at least one family member who liked me for me. My brother Ben—Genie’s twin—hadn’t yet warmed to me the way she had, but that was fine. I couldn’t expect a big Kumbaya-style hug-fest from my siblings when we’d gone eighteen years without meeting.

Genie and Ben didn’t know their father either. It seemed Mercy had trouble with commitment after Sutherland died, abandoning her twins the same way she’d abandoned me.

Keaty accepted the video invite, and his face filled the screen of my phone. He wore his simple wire-framed glasses, and his dark blond hair stuck up at the back. Instead of his usual pressed dress shirt and tie, he was wearing a rumpled white T-shirt. He really had been sleeping.

“You want me to tell you where you think this rogue hid something?”

“He’s not a rogue.”

“Oh, forgive me. You want me to tell you where this missing vampire might have stashed items he’s intentionally keeping from the council, ignoring strict order from his leaders? Better?”

“Whatever.” I didn’t want to waste time arguing with him. I’d never win, and we’d both end up irritated. Since irritation accomplished nothing, I moved on.

I pressed the option to flip my phone’s camera from the front to the back, so Keaty was now able to see the room as I did. The image of his face on my phone went from annoyed to zoned-in.

“Go slow,” he instructed. “I need to see everything from the floor up to the ceiling.”

I did as he asked, going around the room in a painstakingly slow circle, scanning the camera up and down as I went so he could get a glimpse at every nook and cranny, every visible inch of the place. As I approached the door again, my heart sank. He hadn’t stopped me once, made no comments that might suggest he’d seen something noteworthy.

“What’s that?” His voice was muffled by my hand.

“What?”

“Next to the door.”

“You mean the awful graffiti?”

“Yes, can you show me the floor?”

I pointed the phone down to my feet to let him see the ground beneath the big green wang on the wall.

“Can you see that?”

I stopped looking at his face and turned my attention to the floor. All I saw was a fine coating of dust.

“Dust.”

“Drywall dust,” he corrected.

I checked the floor in other areas, but the dust was only located in the one spot. When I looked up from my crouched position, I could see the faintest bubbling in the carpet where the graffiti was painted.

“How the hell did you see that?” I stood and aimed the phone at the gap.

“Isn’t that why you called me? Because I can see things like that?”

He was absolutely right. “Thank you. Do you want to see what it is?”

Yawning again, he smiled faintly at the screen, possibly unaware I could still see his face. It wasn’t like him to show any kind of emotion. Unless annoyance counted.

“No. You do your thing.” The screen went black before I had a chance to thank him a second time.

Chapter Twenty-One

I peeled back the carpet, exposing a panel of plain white drywall behind it. The drywall flaked more as I picked at it with my fingernail, sending a new rain of dust to the floor.

“He hid something here,” I told Maxime and Holden, as if they hadn’t been listening to my entire discussion with Keaty.

Finding a notch in the drywall, I dug my finger in and tugged. The panel groaned forward an inch but was held in place by the carpeting. Remembering the spider, the last thing I wanted to do was stick my hand into a dark hole in the wall, but if I was going to find what Sutherland had hidden, I didn’t have much of a choice.

The hole felt endless. I got my arm in all the way up to my shoulder, and my fingers were groping at nothingness. There had to be something in there.

“For fuck’s sake,” I grumbled, trying to get a new angle. I pressed my palm against the inside of the panel for support, and my fingers grazed something metallic.

The vampires must have seen my eyes widen because Maxime asked, “Did you find something?”

“I-I don’t know. I think so?” I grasped at the object and tugged hard. It came free easily, causing me to almost drop it in my overeager attempt to wrench it loose.

Retrieving my arm from the wall, I dusted myself off and opened my hand up to see what I’d found.

“It’s a key,” Holden said, like we hadn’t been able to suss that out on our own.

The key wasn’t fancy by any means, a simple Victorian-style design which might have once been silver—not real silver though, or it would have burned me—but was now a tarnished brass color. I turned it over in my palm, trying to spot any engravings or mysterious signs that might indicate what it was for.

“Any ideas?” I held it level so they could get a better look.

“It’s old,” Maxime observed, since we were all in the habit of stating the obvious tonight. “If he was looking for something at the Winchester Mansion, perhaps the key belongs there.”

I thought of the pictures Maxime had shown us of the mansion, and all the doors and secret passages, all the hundreds and hundreds of locks this key might belong to, and I sighed. The problem was, he was likely spot-on. The key didn’t belong here, and the most probable place to find the lock it fit to was to take it to the Winchester Mansion.

All roads led to a big haunted house in San Jose.

I’d been hoping to find answers here, but all I’d gotten was another mystery.

When we left the building, a pair of men hung back in the shadows, whispering to one another while exchanging a series of small packages for a large wad of bills. They kept an eye on us but did nothing to mask their transaction.

A shopping cart full of cans and bottles sat in the middle of the alley, no sign of the homeless man who’d formerly attended it. Something about his absence rankled me, giving me the same uneasy feeling in my gut as I’d had before we went in.

I was starting to get paranoid, imagining everyone was a potential threat. These men, the dark-alley dwellers, they weren’t dangerous to me. They might pose problems for others, but I had no reason to fear them. I reminded myself of that over and over while staring at the abandoned cart.

Blueprints confused the hell out of me.

I couldn’t tell the difference between a wall and a window, and looking at the layout of Winchester Mansion didn’t make things any easier for me. As far as I could tell the whole thing was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Clutching a wineglass full of warm blood, I sat cross-legged on a huge wood table in the council warehouse. Galen had found someone who’d meticulously mapped out the interior of the mansion, and the blueprints had been couriered to us. Holden was perched on a stool, his chin resting on one fisted hand, while he took in the layout with a serious expression.

“What a mess,” he muttered.

I thought I was the only one thinking it looked like a shaken jigsaw puzzle.

Just as in the photos we’d seen, the blueprint showed an endless number of rooms and stairwells—all switchback steps due to Sarah Winchester’s poor mobility in later years—and what seemed like a million doors. Some rooms had been labeled—the Grand Ballroom, the Daisy Bedroom—but others were nameless, and every single one of them had at least two entrances. Not to mention the closets.

I was overwhelmed by the number of places our key could potentially go.

“Where’s the window Eilidh wanted?”

Maxime pulled back the page we were looking at and showed me the next one, a grid of the second floor. “Here.” It was located on a staircase, if I was reading it correctly.

“How many doors are in nearby proximity?” I was mostly asking myself, but the other two leaned over it as well. There was a door beside it, jutting off from the stairwell, and a half-dozen rooms were in easy access to the stairs. From those rooms hallways fanned out and staircases went up and down to the different levels. Basically it narrowed our search to about forty-eight doors.

“There’s also a linen room here.” Maxime pointed to a narrow hall. “I understand there are a dozen or more drawers in there. Any of them could have been outfitted with a lock.”

I sipped my blood, grimacing because it had gotten cool while I inspected the map, and let my gaze tour over the blue-and-white maze before me.

“It would help if we knew what we were looking for.” I sighed.

“Our best bet is to start at the window. The tour follows this route.” Maxime walked his fingers like tiny legs over the path we’d be following on our haunted tour the next night. “When the group goes this way, we’ll hang back. By the time they make their next stop we’ll be out of earshot, and that gives us at least ten minutes before they can call another guide in to come searching for us.”

The distance between the window and the place he said the group would stop didn’t seem all that wide, but if Max believed we’d have ten minutes, I was willing to believe him.

“So…ten minutes to check almost fifty possible doors. Not counting the linen room.”

“Right.”

“And we can’t split up,” Holden pointed out. “Only one key.”

“We’ll work in a sweeping grid,” I suggested. “Start closest to the window and move back and forth in a semicircle. Check as many locks as we can before they find us.”

Again, I wished we had some better idea what it was we were hoping to find, if anything. Sutherland had hidden the key, which implied he’d left the item in the house to retrieve later. But if that was the case, where was he? What if he’d gone back already and found a way to get the item without the key?

Or had someone gotten to him before he had a chance?

What was it we were hunting that was important enough he was willing to risk being declared a rogue for it? And if he hadn’t run, what was so special it warranted abducting a vampire?

I had no idea what kind of man my father had been, but my mother had loved him, and my grandfather had allowed them to be together. For a werewolf king to like a human teenager, there must have been something good about Sutherland, something decent.

All of my mother’s goodness had faded the day Sutherland died, but was the same true of my father? I wanted to believe whatever once made him worthy of being loved still existed. I wanted to meet him and find out I wasn’t made up of entirely bad DNA.

“We go tomorrow.” I finished off my blood with a scowl. “If we don’t find Sutherland, we’re damn well going to find something.” I was sick of coming up short on answers. The last thing I wanted to find was more questions.

If I wanted questions going unanswered, I could just watch Lost.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Stop looking.”

I was alone in the dark, unable to see anything. My nighttime eyesight worked a lot like night-vision goggles in that I could see but only if there was some small spark of light to begin with. If the darkness was complete, I was blind.

I stood still, unwilling to move in case I ran into anything unpleasant or accidentally found myself on the edge of a bottomless pit. Who knew what lurked in the darkness?

Nothing moved or gave me any indication someone was with me, but still the voice said, “Stop looking.”

Shivers rocked me hard, like I’d been plunged into a vat of icy water and quickly removed. “Hello?” Holding my hand out in front of me, I hoped to feel something, but my fingers grasped at empty space.

“You won’t find what you’re after.” The voice was masculine, not a common thing for my dreams, unless you counted the ones where I was naked with Holden. But this wasn’t a fun dream. I wasn’t totally sure it was a dream.

Did I remember falling asleep? No. Nothing felt real here, and I struggled to keep one foot planted in reality.

“How do you know what I’m looking for?” My voice echoed back at me, though what it had hit to create the echo, I didn’t know. The air was so heavy I wanted to sit down, but I didn’t dare. I still didn’t know where I was or what was around me. Dream or not, I didn’t feel like plunging to my death.

“You want what I was looking for. Stop.”

That male voice was unfamiliar, yet somehow I knew it. “Sutherland?”

“I know what you’re doing. You have to stop.”

“I’m looking for you.”

“Stop.”

“No.” I shook my head in case he could see me. “I have to find you.”

“Because they want me back? It’s not worth it, girl. I’m not worth it. What you find…just stop looking.” His voice grew distant for a moment and then loud again, the way a phone with a bad connection might.

“I found the key.”

“It unlocks a cabinet of horrors.” Again his voice faded out, only now he sounded tired. “Don’t go.”

Was this my dream or his? We shared blood, so it was possible for us to communicate this way, but it hadn’t happened before. In all my twenty-three years he’d never slipped into my head, nor me into his. What had changed? Was it proximity, or desperation? And whose need had made it happen?

“Where are you?”

“I’m with The Doctor. Stop looking. Stop.”

“What doctor?”

“The Doctor. Don’t unlock the door. He knows you’re looking. You have to go home.”

I stood still, frozen in place. What was he talking about? What doctor? This dream infuriated me in new ways because it wasn’t similar to any I’d ever had. It wasn’t vague in a symbolic way; it was just vague enough to be annoying.

“Sutherland, I need to find you.”

The darkness flickered and was replaced with a dimly lit corridor. On either side, illuminated by individual yellow lights, was a series of doors. The layout was like the warehouse in the Tenderloin, except these doors all looked old and expensive.

The key was in my hand.

We were in his subconscious, not mine. I’d never seen these doors before. If only I could manipulate what he was dreaming, he might show me the right door in spite of himself.

“If I start at the window, where do I go?”

A dozen doors vanished, their lights going dark with the audible sound of a bulb burning out. I took a step forward, able to see a path through the murky darkness.

“Stop,” he protested.

“Show me the door.”

Another set of lights went out—pop, pop, pop—and I ran forward to keep from being consumed by the dark.

“You’ll regret it,” he promised.

“I regret a lot of things. I won’t regret this. I have the key, now show me the door.”

All the lights around me went out in a shower of sparks, leaving one door lit, seemingly miles away. I walked towards it, drawn like a moth to the flame, the key held outstretched in my trembling palm.

“Don’t,” he shouted.

“It’s okay,” I said.

Two feet from the door the ground gave way beneath me, a darkness unlike any I’d known before opening up. I was swallowed into the vast, cold nothing, all light gone, and I fell, fell, fell. I fell for an eternity, the chasm was so endless. The pitch-blackness stopped being a mere cloud around me, and it transformed into emotion. I was drowning in fear and sorrow and regret, and I knew everything I was feeling was what my father was feeling.

I couldn’t recall ever having woken screaming before, but I did that night.

Bathed in cold sweat and reeking of fear so thick I could smell it on myself, I was dragged from my nightmare by the sound of my own screams. Even when my eyes opened, my throat continued to make hoarse, rasping shrieks, like I couldn’t believe I was awake.

Surely this was some sort of mocking limbo. A temporary reprieve to make it that much worse when I was dragged back into the abyss again.

“Secret.” Strong hands held my shoulders, shaking me.

My screams tapered off into hiccups as I struggled to catch my breath. Holden was lying over me, his arms braced on either side of my shoulders, and he looked terrified. “What the hell happened?” he asked when I caught my breath.

“I found him,” I whispered, my throat too raw to speak any louder. “I went inside his dream.”

“Sutherland?”

“Yes.”

“Did he know who you were?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but he knew I was looking for him. He knew what we were trying to do. He told me to stop, told me I’d regret it.”

“A threat?”

“I think it was a warning.” I remembered the fear, the terrible, terrible fear. “Definitely a warning.”

“Why wouldn’t he want you to look for him, unless he was worried you’d find something he didn’t want you to?”

I put my hands on Holden’s forearms, running my hands up and down them, feeling the hairs prickle against my palms. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so I trailed my fingers over his shoulders and down his chest, the smooth, hard muscles of his stomach begging to be traced. I needed to feel something good, and he felt like a warm Sunday morning to me.

“Hold me.” It wasn’t a request, it was a raspy command. I needed him to put his arms around me, lest I be torn back into that dark place. “Hold me.” My nails scraped the skin of his back, urging him closer.

For a moment he hesitated. Had I been thinking logically I’d have understood why. One second I was screaming my lungs out, the next I had my hands all over him. But he hadn’t been in this dream with me. He hadn’t been the one to go for a midnight swim in Sutherland’s terror. I had to feel loved right then, or I might not be able to feel anything warm and good ever again in my life.

“Hold me.” I was practically crying from the need for it.

He sat back on his knees and tugged me up off the bed, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me tight against him. He wasn’t warm, but he seemed to absorb the frantic heat of my body, taking on my temperature as his own. I clung to him like a piece of flotsam in the midst of a stormy sea, the last thing floating when everything else was going down with the ship.

Holden stroked my hair with slow, soothing motions, whispering nonsense words into my ears. “Hush, hush, baby, nothing to fear, no worries, shhh.” He couldn’t know what there was to fear. I had everything to fear.

And the worst part was, I’d still go after Sutherland.

What I’d felt hadn’t been my own emotion, it had been my father’s, and I’d experienced it through the buffer of a dream. Whatever he was going through in real life, the volume of his pain, would be amplified a million times over.

I didn’t care about what the council was missing anymore. My sole mission was to find my father and bring him back from whatever was doing this to him.

I looped my arms around Holden’s back, trying to grab handfuls of his skin so I could bring him closer. If I could have climbed inside him like a sleeping bag, I would have. I wanted to wear his comfort like a jacket, wrapping myself in it.

The next best thing would be to have him in me.

“Holden…”

I wasn’t sure how my voice sounded to him, but to me it had never been so coarse with need before. The way I spoke his name was wanton and a little insane.

He pulled his head back to look at me, and his eyes were charcoal black, blotting out the beautiful brown. I couldn’t stare into the blackness, it was too stark. I closed my eyes and kissed him, dragging my nails roughly through his hair, anchoring his mouth to mine. He gave me no resistance, opening his lips for me, stroking my tongue with fevered, electric attention that sent sparks through my veins.

He cupped the back of my head in one hand while the other delved beneath the hem of my shirt, seeking out my bare skin. With each flick of his tongue and brush of his fingertips, I felt myself awakening, pulling free from the claws of the nightmare. The taste of him in my mouth was salty, almost coppery, a vibrant hint of the blood he’d taken the evening before.

“I need you,” I croaked, when he released my mouth to let me gasp for air. He didn’t need to breathe, so he could have consumed me with kisses. What a fine death that would have been.

“Are you sure?” He cupped my breasts, teasing my nipples into rigid points and torturing them by abrading the sensitive tips with his cool skin.

I sucked a breath through my teeth, as if I’d be able to refuse him when he was playing me like a sonata. What I needed from him tonight wasn’t about making choices or building relationships. I needed him to keep me from exploding into tiny fragments of fear and vanishing. I had to feel something real, and good, and he could give me what I craved.

“I’m sure.”

He stripped the Yankees shirt off me, throwing it to the floor and leaving me in nothing but the stupid thong he’d packed for me. I might as well have been naked for all the good it did in covering me.

His gaze caressed the front of my body like a third hand, appreciation for what he saw written across his face. “God, you’re beautiful.”

Coming from him the statement was ridiculous. He was the most gorgeous creature to have ever once lived, and for him to think of me as beautiful seemed outrageous.

“You too,” I mumbled, lowering my mouth to his exposed neck. My fangs were out, but I didn’t want to bite him, not yet. Biting was for later, when I wouldn’t associate fresh blood with fear. He’d need to go slow to get me there.

I raked my teeth delicately over his skin, and his whole body shuddered, his big hands clutching my waist tightly. He cupped my buttocks and lifted me onto his lap, seating me over his erection. The pressure of his hardness along my inner thigh felt glorious, even through the layer of his silk pajama pants. Why had I insisted he wear pants to bed? What false flourish of modesty had made me think that was a good idea?

I wrapped my fingers around his length, stroking him up and down, the silk slipping smoothly against his shaft. He tipped my head backwards with a tug on my hair and ran his tongue down the line of my throat until his face was nuzzled between my breasts. Each tightened nipple was lavished with his attention as he teased and licked, making sure they were painfully sensitive before he grazed them with his fangs.

The wicked sensation of it, dangerous but controlled, made me lose my grip on his cock, my hands flying to the back of his neck to keep his mouth in place. I moaned, but the sound was so feral I didn’t recognize myself.

With my attention focused on the ministrations of his mouth, I didn’t feel him move his hands until his fingers were inside the thin material of my underwear, stroking me in equal rhythm with his tongue. I was so taut from the feel of it, frantic with desire, I bit down on the top of his head, unable to think of what else to do.

His tongue and fingers stilled for a moment as if he wasn’t sure whether I’d bitten him out of passion or as a warning for him to stop. “Don’t stop,” I said. “Don’t ever stop.”

He chuckled, his laughter rumbling against my breast. “So you want to play rough, do you?”

I hadn’t bitten him hard. He’d need to wash his hair to get the blood out later, but it was barely a scratch. He’d heal in less than a minute.

“It was an accident,” I protested.

He pushed me down firmly into the soft nest of blankets and pillows. “I thought you said you didn’t want me to stop.”

“I don’t.”

“Good. Tell me what you want.”

He kept me pinned with one hand, his fingers loosely circling my neck while his other hand remained cupped over my sex, stroking in lazy, cruel, teasing gestures.

“That,” I gasped. “More.” I could barely remember how to speak, let alone form commands, and he hadn’t yet begun to really touch me.

He picked up the pace, alternating quick flicks with long strokes, never setting a rhythm I could follow and occasionally stealing my breath by inserting his finger inside me before resuming his campaign of driving me mad.

“Tell me what you want.”

I wanted him. I wanted the weight of him on top of me while he filled me inside, but I no longer knew how to form those desires into words.

“You,” I said at last, able to come up with something resembling a response to his request.

“You want me?”

I nodded furiously while he continued to toy with me, the intensity of his touch creating a ball of heat in my belly that fanned out through my whole body, making me feel light and hazy.

“But what do you want me to do?” Now I knew he was tormenting me on purpose, the evil prick. I clawed at his arms, and his fingers tightened around my throat, choking me, but in a purposeful, nonviolent way. If he wanted to hurt me, he could have crushed my windpipe with the same ease as another man could snap his fingers. This was a game, a twisted, wonderful game. “Tell me,” he insisted.

“I want you inside me,” I said, my words barely a whisper, using what air he allowed me to have.

He moved to withdraw his hand, but I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, holding him in place. “Oh you do want to play dirty with me, don’t you, my naughty girl?” I’d never heard him sound so…British before. His UK accent had long since slipped away once he’d adjusted to life in America, but his old life was there, sneaking into his vowels and coy consonants. He didn’t sound posh, not the way his American persona would lead people to believe. The accent sneaking through was all Northern, gritty and mean. I got a little wetter just to hear it.

“Keep talking,” I muttered, digging my nails into his wrist so he wouldn’t dream of releasing my throat. His grip didn’t clench farther—any more would border on risky—but he didn’t let up either. A pulse of his fingertips was warning enough he could clamp down harder at any moment, and my heart throbbed, with matching pulses hammering in my ears and groin.

“You like it when I talk this way?” he growled. I didn’t know how to reconcile this version of Holden with the one I knew. My Holden was sleek and manicured, everything in its right place, the pinnacle of handsome respectability.

This Holden was as much an animal as the beast living inside me. He was undone, and I loved him all the more for it. His usually slicked-back hair had fallen forward, sweeping over his forehead and half-hiding his wild eyes from me. When he grinned, the flash of fang was as much a sign of his arousal as it was a gesture from a predator used to mock its prey. He was telling me—in no uncertain terms—he meant to keep me, and I wouldn’t get away.

I arched my hips up to meet him, craving contact with something more than his fingers. His hand crept higher on my neck until he cradled my chin. Needing to taste some part of him but unable to rise up and go after what I wanted, I licked his thumb. He slipped the digit into my mouth, and I sucked hard, my fang nicking the skin, his blood pooling to the surface.

It wasn’t a real bite, just a scratch of teeth, but the taste of his blood in my mouth was like getting a hit off the most addictive drug possible. I didn’t want to believe I was as much a vampire as I was, but the way his blood drove me wild left little room to pretend. I sucked harder, trying to get as much from him as I could, but he pulled his hand back, locking it around my throat again.

“Bad girl.”

“Stop teasing and do something about it, then.”

His brow arched. “Was that a challenge, darling? I do love a challenge.”

God, his voice. When he went back to speaking normally after this was all through, I would miss this new voice. How had I known him so long and only heard it now? It hardly seemed fair he’d been denying me that part of himself.

“I’ll let you bite when I’m good and ready. Understood?” He gave my head a little shake. “Understood?”

“Yes,” I rasped. But I wanted to bite him again and again and again.

“Now tell me what you want me to do to you.”

He eased up on my throat enough I could speak, and I said, “I want you inside me, and I want you to talk to me the entire time. Then I want you to let me bite you.”

He stopped stroking me and pushed his pajama bottoms down with one hand, unleashing the eager erection I’d been feeling pressed between my legs. “As you wish.”

As he thrust into me with a smooth arch of his hips, I was barely able to cry out. He used his free hand and the muscular strength of his thighs to part my legs wide for him, but once he was inside me, I wrapped myself around his waist, ankles locking behind his back. If he was going to keep me held prisoner, I would do the same to him.

Continuing to hold me by the neck, he lowered himself onto me so his chest was pressed flush with mine. He found my ear with his mouth, nipping at the lobe, and started to whisper.

“I remember when I first met you, irritating girl you were, all skinny limbs and hair. I thought to myself, this girl is going to die before she sees her eighteenth birthday. And then I saw you kill. I saw a fire in you unlike anything I’d ever witnessed, and I knew I’d been wrong. I knew you were a fighter, and that was the first time I understood what kind of a woman you could be.” With him close and his voice so different, it was like a stranger saying those words. Holden’s words in another man’s voice. Something about that was both off-putting and incredibly sexy.

“More,” I commanded.

His thrusts were gentle, one hand on my throat, the other on my waist, pulling me to meet each pump, then pushing me down as he withdrew, so each time he came into me I felt the full length of him.

“You grew up, and you became beautiful. So goddamn beautiful. Every day I had to look at you it hurt because I was never supposed to have you. I was afraid of you because of your pulse and your stupid heartbeat. Whenever you breathed it reminded me I could lose you, and the longer I knew you, I understood I couldn’t lose you. I can’t.”

He licked the shell of my ear, and his thrusts became more vigorous. I gasped each time he filled me, the pleasure bordering on pain. His neck was close, but the angle he held me at made it impossible for me to reach him. Like a sexual Tantalus, I was inches from what I most desired but forbidden from drinking my fill.

Holden continued to speak, ignoring the way I scratched at his back and shoulders, burying himself into me with such force we both trembled.

“I’ve wanted you for so long. And I’ve watched you give your love to other men. I tried to tell myself it was okay, it was for the best because I loved you enough to let you have your mortal entanglements. I watched you with that stupid human boy who broke your heart, and it took everything in me not to rip him limb from limb when he left you.” It was a poor choice of words on his part, considering what had ultimately become of my ex, Gabriel, but I pushed the thought from my mind, focusing on Holden’s voice and the deliberate, commanding way he filled my body.

“I watched those dogs circle, watched how they treated you like a toy they could share. No one has ever been good enough for you. No one has loved you the way I’ve loved you.” He growled into my ear as if his love were a threat, and the way he spoke it almost was, but I wanted this, I wanted to hear it all.

He released my neck so suddenly I wasn’t sure what to do at first. “I will have you, Secret. If it takes me the rest of my life to show you I’m the one you should be with, so be it. But I will prove it to you.”

He bit me, burrowing his fangs into the tender, bruised tissue of my throat. I yelped, but not from pain. The perfect agony of his bite punctuated his escalating thrusts. When I bit him back, we both came hard, the orgasm spilling over us before the first drop of his blood ever touched my tongue.

I drank from him, and he from me, until all my darkness had been chased away and I let myself come apart, experiencing the aftershock like an explosion. It felt as if our bodies might be melting together, fused for all time. With his blood in me and mine in him, I could feel my own pulse as he must, heard my breath the way he could. I wondered if he was experiencing himself through me, learning how his closeness brought me peace as much as it did passion.

I wrapped my arms around his back, licking the wound at his neck to speed the healing.

“Thank you,” I whispered. Though there was so much more I wanted to say, I didn’t think there was a single human language that could tell him what he’d done for me. He’d saved me.

“I love you too,” was his reply.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Maxime wasn’t the best at keeping a straight face. His smirk when Holden and I emerged from our bedroom spoke volumes about how much he’d heard. At least he had the common sense not to make any cute remarks. I don’t think I could have handled that.

“You guys ready to go?”

As a kindness to Holden I hadn’t worn the Yankees shirt, even if it was the most comfortable thing I had in my current possession. It didn’t seem right to wear something that smelled like Desmond after having mind-altering sex with Holden.

Which left the leather bustier as the next best option for a top. There was no way I was wearing any of the skirts Holden had packed, so I was back in the leather pants and my knee-high boots. With the leather jacket thrown on, I looked like a dominatrix for a biker gang. The jacket wasn’t optional, though. I needed to wear it to cover my gun holster.

Since we’d be driving to the mansion, I’d insisted on bringing my sword, even though I’d need to leave it in the car. Between a silver knife in my boot, two 9mm handguns, seven spare clips—the only reason I’d ever carry a purse—and a magic fae katana, I felt somewhat protected. I hadn’t fully shaken off the tension from the nightmare. Once I’d admitted I couldn’t lie in bed with Holden for the rest of my life, the reality of the evening ahead had sunk in.

Yesterday this had seemed like a basic search mission. Go to a haunted mansion, try a key in a few doors and maybe find a clue about my father’s whereabouts.

Now it didn’t feel nearly as simple. If I had been in my father’s dream—which seemed more and more likely—this was no longer about finding a missing object. I had to find him and this doctor he’d spoken about, before it was too late. And something told me I didn’t have a lot of time left.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” I said. “Moonlight’s burning.” I was trying to make my tone light and cheery, but I didn’t have it in me to force emotions I wasn’t feeling. Holden—who had gotten to see the worst of it—placed a hand between my shoulders and rubbed up and down, giving me his support without saying a word.

According to Google Maps it was supposed to take about an hour to drive from downtown San Francisco to San Jose. Google Maps, as it turned out, was a filthy liar whose mother was a hamster and whose father smelled of elderberries. Close to two hours after we’d left our hotel, we pulled into the parking lot of the Winchester Mystery House. Between Google Maps, our GPS and Holden’s backseat driving, I was about ready to turn the car west and drive us all straight into the ocean. Adding insult to injury was the fact the parking lot was so crammed full of cars it took me an extra ten minutes to find parking.

I hadn’t expected moonlight tours through an old mansion to be so popular. Thankfully we’d given ourselves plenty of extra time for the trip, and had prepurchased our tickets online. That spark of genius belonged to Maxime, and seeing the snakelike line of tourists waiting at the ticket kiosk, I was glad I’d listened to him.

I’d have been a lot happier to bypass the tour altogether and just break into the place, but Maxime had shot my idea down in no time. Apparently the house was such a maze, many tourists a day would get lost in it, requiring retrieval. If we went in on our own without a tour guide to bring us to the Tiffany window, we’d end up spending hours going around in circles to find it. I had to admit once he’d explained it, it made more sense to do this the human way.

We queued up in the prepaid ticket line behind a family from Florida. I knew they were from Florida because they all wore identical yellow T-shirts that proclaimed, Wilson Family Vacation Florida to California (or Bust!) in giant black letters on the back.

“Man alive, what a line,” the mother said, laughing at herself like our wait time was hilarious. “Just lines everywhere.”

“Mmm,” I replied. I didn’t want to engage her in discussion. If we were going into the house to steal something, I didn’t want to stick out in anyone’s memory.

“Where y’all from?” Evidently I was wearing my Please talk to me hat today. I thought I’d burned that one.

“New York,” I said.

“Ohhhhh, New York. New York City? The Big Apple! City that never sleeps. Mad-hattan!” Again she laughed at herself as though any of what she’d said had been a joke. If she was angling for a prize because she knew eight thousand nicknames for the city I lived in, she’d be waiting for a while.

“Yup, that’s the one.”

Undeterred by my obvious disinterest in our conversation, she turned around to look at me. She had a sweet face, round cheeks and a short bobbed haircut that screamed mom. In her mid- or late-thirties, she wore the roundness of someone who no longer tried to be skinny but clearly stayed somewhat fit chasing the three rugrats at her side.

“Oh my, you look so young to have a son.” She gave Maxime a once-over.

We’d debated how best to sell Max to humans who might ask. I was twenty-three, but thanks to the blessings of my genetic makeup, I appeared younger. Young enough I’d still be getting ID’d at bars in ten years, and certainly too young to have a thirteen-year-old son.

“Younger brother,” I explained.

Her concerned expression faded. She gave Holden a cursory glance, and at first I thought she was going to ask what role he played in our weird family, but she got distracted by her cursory inspection and ended up not saying anything at all about him.

“Very nice of you to bring him out here.” Her cheeks were flushed red, and she looked from Holden to Maxime. “Do you do a lot with your sister?”

My God this woman was chatty.

“I go where she goes,” he said with a shrug, playing the part of a bored teenage boy to a T. Instead of meeting her gaze and compelling her to leave us alone, he stared at his shoes and shut down any further questions she might ask him.

“Have you been—?”

“Oh good, the line is moving.” Next time, I didn’t care how lost we got, I was going to break in instead of mingling with human tourists. They talked too much. How could people talk this much to absolute strangers? What about me invited conversation? I didn’t think I had a naturally sweet face—and had been told as much on a number of occasions—so why me?

We were ushered into a courtyard where I intentionally angled my “family” away from hers.

“Secret made a new friend,” Holden teased.

“Shhh, you’ll make her come over here. That’s the last thing we need. If Ma Florida latches on to us, we’ll never be able to break away from the tour.”

That quieted him down.

Thankfully my line buddy had two sons who were desperate to annoy the ever-loving bejesus out of our poor tour guide. We were handed flashlights, and most of the sensible adults tested them once to be sure they worked, then left them off until the tour began. The Wilson boys from Florida, though, managed to have a full-on lightsaber battle with theirs, complete with poorly conceived sound effects.

Once their mother relieved them of the flashlights, they started in on a barrage of questions, only some of which related to the house.

I wasn’t a big fan of kids, and these ones were the type so annoying they might convince non-parents never to conceive, but they were a blessing in disguise. If our guide was busy dealing with their nattering for the whole tour, we might get more time before they realized we were missing.

Point one for the Wilson family from Florida.

The tour commenced, and the guide—a chubby, curly-haired kid who was about seventeen—began his monotone, memorized speech about the house’s history. Since we were on the moonlight tour, I gathered we’d be given a few spooky bonus facts along the way, but in the initial few rooms we relearned all the stuff I’d read on the website.

The guide led us into an old storage room where all the guests wedged in together to hear him tell us about the cost of carpeting and how many different kinds of wood were ordered to make the parquet floors. The back wall of the room was floor-to-ceiling glass, and behind it were several backlit Tiffany windows.

I caught Maxime’s attention and jutted my chin towards them, wondering if the window we were looking for might have been moved among them. I didn’t see it, but I wasn’t as familiar with it as the young vampire was. He might be able to see something I was missing.

He shook his head.

The group followed our guide up a set of switchback stairs—the Wilson boys stomping loudly and making ghost noises as they went—and we remained towards the back, letting everyone else get ahead of us.

The house was just as bizarre as I’d imagined from Maxime’s history lesson, but seeing it in person made me a little sad. It lacked a lot of the color and polish I’d seen in the older pictures. Maybe it was because I was seeing it at night, but I felt as if some of what made the house special had slipped away over the years.

For a house to have life, someone needed to live in it. And though hundreds of people visited the Winchester Mansion daily, everything had the gray, dismal feeling of abandonment. No one lived here, no one loved the place the way only a homeowner can. I was sad for the house, and sad for Sarah Winchester that her legacy was these depressing walls and weird corridors.

In one of the upper parlors a vignette had been staged with actors portraying Winchester and her psychic. They’d gone overboard on the clichés, dressing the psychic in full gypsy gear with giant hoop earrings and a glowing crystal ball. Her long fingernails clicked on the glass, making the small bulb inside vibrate. The employee they had playing Sarah Winchester wore a terrible wig and gasped at everything the gypsy said.

In the back of the room, beyond a velvet rope meant to keep guests out, I saw a weak blue-white light. It drifted, barely visible beyond the old glass doors, and I couldn’t make out a face. I knew a ghost when I saw one, and there was no mistaking that glow. It seemed to be watching the playacting with the same attention as the tour guests were. When the show was over, the light bobbed slightly, then drifted out of sight.

In a house this old any number of spirits could have gathered, but I had my suspicions I was seeing the former owner herself.

Poor Sarah. In life she’d wanted so badly to avoid being haunted she’d moved here to build this place. Now she was forced to roam the halls of her unfinished monstrosity forever.

We followed slowly, not wanting the acting employees to notice us lagging behind. They were an element we hadn’t considered, and I had to hope they’d go back the way we’d come in, rather than trailing after the tour.

Now that we were on the second floor my heart had begun to beat quicker. Every door teased me because it wasn’t the door in my dream. I wasn’t sure that door existed, but since it was the only clue I had to go on, I was going to follow my gut.

“And here we have the most expensive window and the least expensive window in the house installed side by side.” The guide’s delivery suggested this was meant to be a punch line, but I’d missed the joke if there had been one. The group’s forced laughter told me I hadn’t missed anything.

We were wedged into a corridor near a flight of stairs, our guide leaning against the wooden balustrade. He told us about how much the Winchester fortune had been worth, and how much Sarah had siphoned into the house on a weekly basis.

“The window to my right…” he pointed to his left, “…cost a thousand dollars at the time of purchase. For perspective, that was about the same amount Sarah earned in a week from her husband’s fortune. It was designed by Charles Tiffany for Sarah, in the hope he’d created the most beautiful stained-glass window to ever be touched by the sun.” Whoever wrote their speeches had a flair for the dramatic. “Unfortunately, when the window was installed, it was placed on this interior wall and has tragically never seen the light of day. Now if you’ll follow me…”

This was it. We were at the window. Part of me had expected our answer to leap out and bite me in the tush as soon as we arrived, but nothing happened. It was just a window—a pretty one—but nothing about it suggested it was worth killing or dying for.

I wondered why Eilidh wanted it so badly. Did she honestly think if she stood in the light as it passed through this window she’d be able to bear it? That seemed crazy to me.

But now that I’d walked in sunlight, even for a couple short days, I could see the obsession. I’d chased daylight too, because unlike vampires I’d never had an opportunity to experience it before. Now that I’d had it warm my skin without burning, would I give anything to have the feeling back? Almost.

I’d given it up willingly, but still dreamed of it some days, and those dreams were more of a vicious tease than anything soothing.

We weren’t here for the window though. Eilidh and the other Tribunal seats might have assumed I’d bring it back for them, but I knew how to abuse loopholes in vampire requests. They’d sent me to get Sutherland because he had something of value to them. Since the window was still safely mounted in the wall, it couldn’t be what they were after.

The key was hard and warm in my hand, slippery from perspiration. I squeezed it, fearing if I put it in my pocket or let it out of my sight for even a moment, I’d lose it forever.

None of the doors in our immediate vicinity were the one from my dream, but they had the same antique feel to them as the corridor from Sutherland’s memory had.

“I think I know what we’re looking for,” I told the boys, keeping my voice low to not draw unwanted attention. “Can you trust me on this?”

I was asking them to give up what little time we had and go with my gut instead of a more logical trial-and-error system. Holden would likely side with me—mostly because he didn’t care about doing favors for the West Coast Tribunal—but I didn’t know how Maxime would respond.

“What makes you so sure?” Maxime asked.

“Have you ever shared a dream with Rebecca?” I wasn’t looking at him, my gaze sweeping down the halls instead, hoping to catch a glimpse of the door from my dream.

“Yes.”

“Sutherland is my vampire sire, but he’s also my biological father.” I met Maxime’s gaze then, staring him right in the face. “We share blood on every conceivable level. If I see the door in his dream, I’m going to believe that’s real.”

“In his dream?” Maxime followed close behind me as we moved down one of the dark hallways, using only the moonlight through the windows to guide our way. “Don’t you mean your dream?”

I shook my head. “His dream.”

Maxime caught my arm at the elbow, stopping me with his alarming vampire strength. “Secret, that’s not how those connections work. A sire can speak to his offspring, but vice-versa? That’s unheard of.”

I didn’t have a lot of experience with sire-kin dream sharing. From what Maxime was telling me, though, it was different from the dreams I shared with Holden or Brigit when she’d been alive. Brigit had been considered my offspring within the circle of the council, but I hadn’t been the one to turn her. She’d been able to slip into my dreams because I took her on as my ward, a connection which functioned in more than name for vampires. Much like claiming a human as mine, making Brigit my ward had marked her as something belonging to me and was not to be trifled with.

Fucking vampire brain mojo. There were so many strata of power, and so much sharing of power, I’d long since stopped paying attention to most of it and took a que sera sera attitude about the whole thing.

Whatever will be, will be. I sure as hell wasn’t in a position to stop something that had developed over thousands of years.

Plus, I liked having the ability to reach out to Holden and Bri during my resting hours.

When Brigit had died, I’d felt the severed tie like a physical blow. In spite of her immortality, I’d known she was gone when she slipped away. Seeing her in my dreams now was just my psyche’s way of mocking me.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Max. I saw the door. I know what we’re looking for. You’re going to have to trust me.”

Neither of them had much of a choice. If I said we were going, we were going. Since I was a Tribunal Leader—regardless of which coast my throne sat on—they would have to listen to me.

Some vampires got a foul taste in their mouths having to take orders from a breather, but the ones back home had learned to hide their disdain. So far, aside from marveling at my pulse the first time we met, Maxime had shown no signs of disapproval towards me. He followed my instructions and was always helpful.

Now, he nodded, accepting my request. He released my elbow so I could start walking again.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

“It’s an interior door—though in this place who the hell knows—and was yellow, with an ochre trim. No windows, simple brass knob.” It was a pretty basic description and could have referred to several of the doors we’d passed on the main level, but I suspected we were in the right place being closer to the Tiffany window.

When one hallway yielded no results, I reversed my course and went down the opposite hall. We were beginning to run low on time, and I felt certain our guide must have noticed our absence by then. I had to find the door now.

Stepping over the threshold of a bedroom, I could tell even in the darkness the colors were familiar. The buttery yellow and rust tones matched those of the door in my dream. Aside from the entry I’d come through there were two closed doors in the space. One had glass panels, ruling it out, and the other appeared to belong to a closet.

Clutching the key between trembling fingers, I advanced on the closet door. I was alone in the room but didn’t pause to wonder about Holden and Maxime. They were likely keeping an eye out for new tour guides, and I wasn’t worried about getting hurt opening a closet door.

I slipped the key into the lock and turned. The tumbler clicked in a profoundly satisfying way, and my heart thumped. Twisting the handle, I opened the door and saw what was waiting for me.

On the floor of the closet was a broken window, shards of stained glass catching the dim moonlight. Circular prisms sat amongst the bits of broken wood. It was hard to be sure in the darkness, but it looked an awful lot like the Tiffany window we’d just seen in the hall.

“What the hell?” I asked to no one in particular.

“Such a foul mouth,” a voice behind me replied. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

Before I could spin around a hand clamped over my mouth and fingers pinched my nose shut. I writhed, struggling like an angry alligator attempting to go into a death roll.

As oxygen stopped filling my lungs, the dark room grew hazy and my strength waned.

The last thing I heard before it all went black was, “Don’t worry, Secret. The Doctor has you now.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

My blood had a distinctive scent.

The way some people could recognize the perfume of a lover, I was able to smell my own blood.

Waking up facedown in a pool of it might have helped narrow the options somewhat, but the blood staining the concrete floor and smeared on my face was definitely mine.

I sat up, and a wave of nausea smacked into me, making my stomach roil. Gagging back the urge to vomit on the floor—never a pretty picture when all you ate was blood—I cradled my head in my hands and waited for the feeling to pass.

When I thought I might be able to move without heaving, I raised my gaze to see where I was. Cell was the best description of the room I was in, although there were no metal bars. Four blank gray walls surrounded me, with an obnoxiously bright blue door set into one. Otherwise, there was nothing in the room except for a drain in the center of the floor.

My blood had begun to seep towards it while I was out, leaving a mean, red river across the concrete. Streaks of rusty water stains marred one wall, and the room smelled dank, like mold. If I had to bet money, I was in a basement. And since I was in California, that basement had probably sustained some serious structural damage over the years.

I scrambled away from the blood puddle and pushed myself into one of the back corners. Scanning the ceiling for signs of a video camera, I was genuinely surprised not to see one, but who knew with technology these days?

Thinking of cameras reminded me of my phone, and I patted my pockets with foolish hope. Of course I’d been left with nothing. My guns were gone, my phone was gone. I unzipped my boot, and sure enough they’d found the knife I kept hidden there.

“For fuck’s sake.” I kicked out at the floor as if I could retaliate against my abductor that way.

The Doctor.

That’s what he’d called himself right before I’d passed out. Hadn’t Sutherland used the same name? Didn’t he tell me The Doctor had him?

I gnawed at my thumbnail while trying to get a grip on the situation. For a wild, crazy moment I wondered if there might be a way for me to get out through the drain, but common sense reminded me I was a werewolf, not a mystical shapeshifter, and a wolf wasn’t going to fit through a drain pipe.

I’d thought my days of being kidnapped had ended when I joined the Tribunal. The title alone should have kept people from making attempts on me since there wasn’t much point in kidnapping a Tribunal Leader. The only intelligent thing to do was to kill us. Kidnapping was stupid, because once I was returned, the kidnapper would be disemboweled by the council. Not much chance to enjoy the spoils of whatever ransom might be requested.

Killing me would assure someone my throne, though.

Maybe I wasn’t here to be ransomed. Maybe this was my killing floor.

I stared at the blood, touching my cheek tentatively to assess any damage. My hair was tacky with congealed plasma, and I pulled the strands free from my face. I must have been injured for that much blood to have come out, but I didn’t feel hurt. Aside from the nausea I was fine.

What had happened to Holden and Maxime?

My chest hurt when I thought Holden might have died to protect me. He hadn’t been in the room, and he’d been so careful to stay by my side since Peyton had been freed. He wouldn’t have let me out of his sight unless…

No. I refused to believe it. There was no way anything had happened to Holden. I’d been the target here, not him. But still, worry gnawed at me.

Whoever had taken me had been able to incapacitate two vampires without me hearing it. He’d been able to grab me without my being able to overpower him. And yet the man who’d taken me—The Doctor—he’d smelled human. I had no doubt he’d been a mortal man.

But what human could overpower three vampires?

I got to my feet and immediately regretted it. My head felt as light as a helium balloon. Again the urge to vomit struck me, and I bent double, bracing my hands on my knees. This time I wasn’t able to keep the nausea down and threw up on the floor, my stomach churning angrily.

I stayed bent over for a long minute before moving again, but I had to check the door. Even though logic told me it would be locked and I wouldn’t have the physical strength to open it, I still had to give it a shot.

The knob was cold to the touch, almost painfully so, making me jerk my hand back in surprise when I first grabbed it. I’d been raised in the Canadian prairie though, and a little cold metal wouldn’t be able to deter me for long.

I latched on to it a second time and tried to turn it. Of course it didn’t budge, didn’t even rattle, but that didn’t stop me from using all my strength to attempt twisting it.

When it became clear I couldn’t turn the knob, I made it my new mission to rip it right off, bracing one foot next to the door and tugging. A normal knob would have yielded with no work on my part. The amount of strength I was using was enough to rip a man’s arm clean off, but the door was unmoved.

I threw my weight against it a few times, but the only result of those efforts was a bruised shoulder.

Physically spent from my useless exertion, I returned to the back of the room—avoiding my puke on the floor—and slipped back down the wall, burying my head in my hands.

This was not where I was supposed to die.

I could accept going down nobly, fighting my way to the finish, but I wouldn’t die in an ugly gray room.

Calliope had seen my death. She’d told me I was going to die standing next to someone I loved. I held her words like a precious gift, letting them cast a hopeful glow on me. Calliope was an Oracle, and she could see the future. If she said I was going to die next to someone I loved, there was no way this was the last stop for me.

I ran my hands through my hair, snagging my fingers on the bloody strands. My kingdom for a hair elastic, I thought, trying to keep my foul mood from making the situation any worse.

Wrapping my arms around my thighs, hands tucked behind my calves, I propped my chin on my knees and waited. All the while, I reminded myself, You won’t die alone. You can’t die alone.

For several hours I watched the door, expecting it to open any moment. Sunrise came and stole my consciousness, but I couldn’t fight it, not without fresh blood in my system.

I awoke at nightfall, and the floor had been cleaned, the room stinking to high heaven from pine-scented cleanser. Rather than feeling assured or relieved that I’d been untouched during the cleaning, I got paranoid. They’d had a perfect opportunity to kill me, yet hadn’t.

What the hell was going on here?

“Hello?” The raspy voice surprised me, and had I not known it was my own, I wouldn’t have recognized it. How long had it been since I’d last said anything out loud? “Hello?”

No reply, just my own rough voice echoing back at me off the walls.

“I want to see The Doctor.”

Staring at the door, I half-expected him to come in and introduce himself. He might announce his nefarious plot to me and perhaps laugh at my situation while petting a fluffy white cat.

Okay, so I didn’t actually expect him to be Dr. No, but with a name like The Doctor it was hard not to picture him as a cartoonish movie villain. I did think he’d come in when I called for him, though.

He didn’t.

For four days I was left there, given nothing to eat or drink—they must have known I’d be able to live without water—and nothing to hint at why I’d been taken.

On the fifth day, The Doctor came.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The door opened with such ease I began to imagine they must have unlocked it at some point while I slept, otherwise how could it be opened without some jangling of keys or other noises?

At first I was convinced I was seeing things. After five days locked alone in a concrete box with no outside contact or sustenance of any kind, I was getting a little squirrelly. I’d jump at imaginary noises, and had started talking to myself so I’d remember what language sounded like.

Five days alone doesn’t seem so long of a time until you’re entombed in a private prison in hell.

I recognized his eyes first, the cold, icy blue I’d been able to spot across a dark city street. The homeless man from the Tenderloin. He didn’t look homeless now, though. Instead of matted dreadlocks and a beard, he was clean-shaven with a smartly styled haircut right out of the fifties. He had an angular face with thin lips that curved up into a cruel smile.

I could have slit my wrists on his cheekbones.

He dragged a chair in behind him, the metal legs screaming against concrete. I winced at the sound, my ears no longer accustomed to loud noises.

I curled myself into a ball, as if I could avoid him seeing me if I could make myself small enough.

“Good evening, Ms. McQueen.” He sat in the chair and placed one hand on each of his knees. He had an accent. German, or maybe Austrian. It made him sound scarier for some reason. “I trust you have been enjoying your stay with us so far.”

He was kidding, right?

Were the Germans really known for their sense of humor?

I lifted my chin and glared at him with the best approximation of defiance I could muster. I was so weak a toddler could have taken me out in hand-to-hand combat, but I’d be damned if I was going to let him make fun of me.

“You must be wondering why I’ve brought you here.”

“No…shit…Sher…lock.”

“Ah.” He clucked his tongue and wagged one finger at me. “That language. So unbecoming a pretty girl like you. While you are with me, there will be some requirements of you. My house, my rules, is that not the American saying?”

I’d have raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t have the muscular strength to spare.

“You will not swear while you are here.”

“Fuck…you.” It didn’t have the venom I was hoping for, but I think I managed to get the point across.

The Doctor snapped his fingers, and a young man wearing blue hospital scrubs came in. He carried a black object in his hand that looked like…

My eyes widened, and I struggled to get across the floor but only managed to tumble sideways and drag myself a few pathetic inches. The guy in scrubs ignored my attempts at biting him as he affixed the black object around my neck. Once it was secured, he left without so much as a backwards glance.

I was wearing a collar.

That pissed my inner wolf off to no end. Too bad she didn’t have the energy to help out in this situation.

“Very good. Where were we? Ah yes. There is to be no swearing.”

My brain said, Don’t do it. Don’t do it. He’s not bluffing, don’t be an idiot.

“Go…fuck—”

My swear was cut short by a scream. A shock of electricity tore through me with such vigor I thought I must be dead. It stopped after less than a second, and had I not already been slumped on the floor, there would have been no way I’d have stayed upright.

I wheezed, gasping for breath, and the pain continued to steal through my body like a shock wave. My hands and legs moved involuntarily as the electric current animated them, then everything went still except the rise and fall of my chest.

“I think you can now see I’m quite serious.”

The heat of electricity was replaced by the cold fingers of fear, and I trembled, looking up at him from the floor, all my fighting spirit oozing out and seeping down the drain.

“Are you ready to talk to me now in a manner befitting the lady you are?”

“Yes.” That one syllable hurt. I closed my eyes against the pain, willing my body to shut down. How could I be in such agony and still be conscious? Didn’t scientists claim the body would induce a coma-like state to protect the psyche from pain?

So why was I still awake?

This was too much. Too much.

I tried to cry, but there wasn’t enough blood in my system to allow it, making my eyes ache and a migraine bloom behind my sinuses.

“You’re going to play nice, aren’t you?”

I wanted to nod, to save myself from the pain of speaking again, but my head was listless and unresponsive. “Yes,” I said, once I understood movement wasn’t going to happen.

“Good.” He clapped his hands, and the sound was louder than a shotgun. “I’ll be back for you in a few days.”

I was more animal than human when he returned.

It had taken more than a day for me to be able to sit up, and I’d only managed to prop myself back into the corner. With each new sunset I got weaker, and I was beginning to suspect I was sleeping well after moonrise.

How much longer could I do this before I stopped waking up altogether?

A full-blooded vampire could last centuries being shackled and starved, and I now understood why it was the perfect punishment. I could feel my vitality being leached away with each new evening. Strands of my hair were beginning to fall out whenever I touched my head, so it was a small favor I was no longer able to lift my hands that high.

Each night was a new struggle to keep my eyes open, to keep my chin from lolling down to my chest.

He left me for three days after our introduction before he came back. His arrival in the room made me feel equal parts terrified and elated.

There was a strange hope in seeing the face of another person, even if he was my captor. When he came, the door opened, and with it a sip of air from the outside, a glance of hallway. Signs of freedom. They were tiny embers, but it was all I had to go on.

I wanted to ask him about Holden and Maxime. I had dozens of questions but lacked the ability to ask any of them.

Again the scream of metal on concrete sounded his presence in the room. I raised my eyes, barely able to lift my chin anymore, and gazed up at him. He smiled his cruel smile and folded his hands in his lap, looking pleased as punch to be sitting across from me.

“How are you feeling today, my dear?”

I lolled my head back, smacking my skull hard against the wall. Feeling pain right then was preferable to feeling nothing at all.

“Where…Hol…den?”

“Your vampire lover?” The Doctor leaned back in his chair, balancing one foot on his knee and lacing his fingers together over his belly. “What an unusual choice he was for you to make.”

Was. Past tense. I closed my eyes, trying to block him out, the familiar ache of uncried tears building behind my eyeballs.

“Alive?” My fingers dug into my thighs, poised to hear the worst-case scenario.

“He is a vampire, dear girl. Of course he’s not alive. By their very definition vampires are dead. Undead. Whatever that means. Undeath, as if something so final could ever be undone.”

Unable to keep my head upright, I let it slump down again, my chin pressing hard into my chest.

“You look terribly unwell, I must say.” He was ignoring my question. A question it had taken all my available energy to verbalize. “Would you like something to drink?” He played the part of a perfect host, asking a dinner party guest if they might want their wine topped off.

I raised my gaze, not able to do much else. I couldn’t feign disinterest with a casual shrug. I couldn’t nod.

“Well?”

“Yes,” I hissed, the word rattling out of my lungs like a cough.

“Yes what?”

Was this guy for fucking real? I squeezed my eyelids shut, imagining I might be able to count to ten and this whole place would vanish. I might wake up in a hotel room in Holden’s arms, discovering this had been another nightmare.

It had to be a nightmare.

“Yes what?” he said more forcefully when I didn’t reply right away.

“Please.”

“Good girl.” He snapped his fingers, and a man with scrubs arrived. I couldn’t recall the face of the one who had put the collar on me, so I didn’t know if this was the same man or a new one. It didn’t matter. If I lived long enough to get out, I’d see them all burn.

But for now, I loved this man. I loved him more ardently than I was sure I’d ever loved another human being. My heart sang for him.

He was carrying a plastic bag of donor blood, which he tossed onto my lap before leaving the room. I reached for it, but my arms wouldn’t respond. My brain—still somewhat sharp—shifted all my focus onto the small red bag in my lap, demanding some as-of-yet-unused synapses to fire and give me the push I needed to grab it.

My hand flopped limply beside it, unable to take hold, let alone lift it.

I sobbed.

It was a loud, guttural noise, and I surprised myself to find I still had it in me to make such sounds. I’d thought for sure my lungs had begun to shrivel up.

“Would you like some help?”

I didn’t bother trying his patience this time. If I was the lab rat, I’d already learned his maze. “Plea…se.”

He rose from the chair, his movements full of liquid grace like a dancer or a feline shifter. When he crouched over me, straddling my outstretched legs, my mind filed through a thousand different ways I could kill someone who was that close to me. I fantasized ripping his throat out with my bared fangs until I was soaked red from swimming in his blood. I wanted to bury my hands up to the wrist in his chest and squeeze his heart until it burst in my fist.

I stared at him, and he met my gaze unflinchingly.

Without glancing away he lifted the baggie from my lap and removed a small pocketknife from his trousers. He carefully cut away a hole at the top of the bag, then held it to my lips, tipping it upwards so the liquid would pour into my mouth.

When the first drops dribbled from my lips before I could swallow, he took my chin firmly in his hand and forced my head back. Blood filled my throat—cold and probably old—but nothing had ever tasted so good. The only thing I could have imagined being better would be drinking it straight from this man’s artery.

“There. Good girl.” He patted my leg as I struggled to swallow, and when it was all gone, he wiped away the stray drops from my mouth with his thumb.

I wish it had been enough. I wish one bag of blood after over a week without food had been enough to give me a sudden rush of strength and power. Enough that I could have grabbed him by the throat and yanked his windpipe out with my fingers.

He touched my cheek, and I was able to hold my chin up on my own. Small victory.

“If you behave yourself, we will feed you. Not daily, of course.” He grinned the way I imagined the snake in the Garden of Eden had leered at Eve. “But enough you won’t feel so bad. Does that sound fair?”

“Where’s Holden?” It still hurt to speak, but my lungs no longer felt like deflated balloons. I didn’t feel strong or powerful, but I wasn’t a useless bag of bones anymore either.

“Why do you care about someone else, when you should be worried about yourself?” He sat down in the chair, pulling it a few inches closer to me, leaning forward on his knees so our faces were almost level. “Do you know how much trouble you are in, Secret?”

Trouble? Tell me something new. This was the same shit of my everyday life in a different pile. At least that’s what I was trying to convince myself.

The truth was, the longer I was here, the more I related to the hopelessness and fear of my father’s dream. Each passing night it stopped being the memory of someone else’s hell and started becoming my own.

I didn’t want to think about it too long, because if I did, a nagging voice started to whisper, Calliope was wrong. You’re going to die here. Alone. Forever alone.

Chapter Twenty-Six

On the ninth day, when I awoke, I wasn’t in my room.

My first thought was, Salvation!

Except I didn’t think salvation would come in the form of wrist and ankle restraints. I squirmed, attempting to sit up or roll over, any movement would have done, but I was bolted firmly to a table, my waist cinched in place by a metal band.

Bright spotlights popped on overhead, blinding me from any view I might have had of the new room I was in.

The Doctor’s face blotted out the light for a moment as he loomed over me, and I blinked to chase away the ghost lights in my vision so I could focus on him.

“Do you feel well rested, my dear? I hope the blood has helped, because today is going to be…difficult for you. There’s no way around that I’m afraid. Best you steel yourself for it.” He patted my cheek.

“What?”

“I couldn’t test you the way I wanted when you were at full strength—you would have fought me, struggled too much—but having you near death wasn’t going to be any fun. These sorts of tests are much more informative when the subject is alive.”

He began undoing the front of my shirt. Each hook and eye being separated felt like a bit of my soul being stripped away. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t very well do what I need to with you dressed like this, now can I?”

“What are you doing?” I screamed, trying to move out of his reach, which was a pointless effort since I was pinned down.

“If you think this is going to be sexual, you can put your mind at ease.”

For some reason that did allay a few of my concerns. But if he wasn’t removing my clothes to molest me—and I was grateful he wasn’t—then why? What possible need could he have for—?

He reached out of sight, and when his hand came back into view, he was holding a scalpel.

“Now, dear, this is going to hurt tremendously, and I understand if you feel the urge to scream, I really do. But please remember it will do you no good, and will only draw from your energy.”

My eyes were open so wide I was surprised they didn’t roll right out of my head. I saw the knife, and I heard his speech, but all the same I still asked, “What are you do—?”

The scalpel tucked into my flesh, and the blade was so small and sharp at first all I felt was a faint sting. Down the center of my belly was a red line at least a foot long. I stared at it in shock, wondering why he was drawing lines on me.

Until he stuck his hand inside me.

The pain was tremendous, and I couldn’t have screamed if I wanted to. I was used to external pain, the kind caused when the nerves on the surface of my skin were in charge. Inside my body there were a million new nerves, and I couldn’t compute what I was feeling. It wasn’t pain like a cut or a gunshot. It was an invasive, squirming agony. My whole body wanted the unfamiliar presence of his hand out but could do nothing to stop his exploration.

I gagged, unsure if the clenching in my stomach was a reaction to what I was seeing, or if he’d physically done something to it. He made two other incisions before peeling back my skin and whispering, “Marvelous.”

When he stuck his hand under my ribs, my brain decided enough was enough, and the room went black.

A sharp scent snapped me back into reality, though I had no idea how much time had elapsed. The Doctor stood over me, his bare hands covered in a thick coating of my blood, reminding me precisely where he’d just had them. A nurse backed away with a bottle of smelling salts still clutched in her hand.

Glancing down in panic, I was relieved to see my stomach wound had closed, the angry red lines of his incisions beginning to heal.

“It really is fascinating to watch your kind patch themselves back up again.” He was staring the same place as I was, watching the skin regrow, building itself over the wounds until nothing was left but pink irritation marks which would soon fade away as well. “But you’re different. Different from the rest of them.”

He stepped out of view, and the only sound in the room was running water and my pulse loud in my ears.

When he returned, his hands were clean, but he was holding another scalpel.

“Don’t. Please, please…please.”

“How wonderful. You’ve learned some manners after all. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” He winked at me, but of all the things he’d said to me since I’d met him, none had been half as scary as that idiom.

He knew what I was.

When my gaze met his, he must have seen something in my expression—shock, perhaps, or comprehension—because his smile turned into something almost comforting and paternal.

“You will be my greatest discovery,” he whispered, squeezing my shoulder. “Take comfort in that.”

He rested the scalpel on my chest between my exposed breasts, and I stared at the point of it aiming up at my chin.

“Subject was able to heal a series of fine incisions in a matter of thirty minutes. All major organs appear to be normal size and are identical to a human counterpart. Subject’s stomach is below average size for a human woman of her same build and apparent age, but this is likely an evolutionary advancement due to her mainly liquid diet. We’ve taken samples from the subject’s stomach, liver and kidney to assess whether any unique traits exist within, but I hypothesize they will resemble those of a normal vampire.”

He stopped speaking and stared down at me again, reclaiming the scalpel. “Next we will have a look at the heart.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

My reward for not dying was a pint of blood and the cool reprieve of my cell. Since my bustier had been discarded I was given a thin blue scrub top like those the nurses were wearing. At some point prior to the surgery I must have been prepped, because my hair was no longer matted with blood.

It was a small favor, one I couldn’t fully appreciate right then.

I had a graphic imagination when it came to torture. Though I didn’t enact my plots often, I had come up with a few doozies in my time. More than once I’d fantasized about ripping someone’s heart out and showing it to them before they died.

Never again.

Not now that I’d seen it. The Doctor had cut open my chest cavity, split my rib cage open…

He’d lifted my heart without severing the arteries or veins, and he’d held it in his bare hands just high enough I could see.

I whimpered, rubbing my still-healing chest with the tips of my fingers. I’d lost consciousness seven times, and every time I’d been forced back so he could run his experiments on me while I was awake. Healing was the only thing he didn’t seem to need me alert for.

He’d cut out my heart.

My whimpers became sobs, and I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself, grateful it had been left for me. It felt like decades ago Dominick had given it to me. Since then, it had been to hell and back with me.

If a jacket could survive my life without falling apart, surely I could too.

I huddled in the corner, relieved to finally be able to cry. I knew it was a useless waste of energy, but I needed it. I’d spent days with no sign of rescue, no word on Holden or Maxime. If they were dead, how would anyone find me? The council would be looking, but what would they come up with if they went after me? Was there any trail to follow from the Winchester Mansion to wherever we were?

Since I hadn’t the faintest fucking clue where I was, I couldn’t imagine anyone else having an easy time locating me. My sleeps had been near comatose, and I hadn’t dreamed once. The psychic energy it took to reach out to someone was exhausting. In the past I’d been able to see things, communicate with my loved ones when I’d thought the end was near.

But this was real. This was the end of my days reaching out to me with arms spread wide, and I couldn’t talk to anyone. If I couldn’t find Holden now when I needed him most, I feared that meant the worst. He would stop at nothing to find me, to reach me by any means possible, but if he was dead, his fight for me was over.

If he was dead…

I didn’t want to think about it, but it made sense.

Unless The Doctor was holding him, starving him the way he starved me. Holden was a full-blooded vampire and could last infinitely longer than I could without blood. If he was being starved, it stood to reason he wouldn’t be able to reach out to me, or me to him. Two nearly dead batteries can’t complete a circuit, not the way fresh ones could.

A starved vampire was an appalling sight. It was considered a fate worse than death for most, but right then I was wishing that fate on Holden. I wanted him to be starved, prayed for him to be in agony.

I didn’t want him to suffer, but if he was suffering, he wasn’t dead.

All alone, with enough blood to be lucid, I started contemplating what I knew about the man who held me captive. I’d seen him before he took me, dressed as a homeless man, so it was possible he’d been following me for a long time, disguising himself to avoid recognition. But how long? Was it just in California, or did this go back longer?

Was he acting alone, or had someone hired him?

Sutherland had told me in his dream he’d been taken by The Doctor, which I believed now that I’d experienced those blistering emotions for myself. I understood why he’d told me to stop looking. Was he still here somewhere, or had this room been his first, until The Doctor finished with him?

I zipped my jacket up to my throat, like the leather could protect my chest from further penetration.

The entire time he’d been cutting me open, he prattled on, making notes and comparing my parts to those of other creatures. He seemed fascinated by my normalcy in a lot of ways, commenting on how similar my organs were to those of a human.

What did he want from me? Did he want to open the hood to see how the gears worked before sending me on my merry way? It was unlikely.

I suspected once he got bored of timing my healing process, he was just going to dismantle me entirely. And I couldn’t fight back. Between the minimal amount of blood I was being given—barely enough to recover what was being lost in the surgery—and all the healing my body was forced to do over and over, I didn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t best him in a fight.

I might be able to land a few blows, but he had a full staff with him as far as I could tell, and he only spent time alone with me when I was weak or incapacitated.

He was smart, and had obviously perfected a system to keep supernatural beings from getting the best of him.

But for what?

Science?

Was he trying to create a real Dungeons & Dragons monster guide, some sort of ultimate physiological compendium of how we beasties ticked?

If that was the case, I could respect how rare a specimen I was for him. I didn’t empathize, because the guy wanted to filet me, but I kind of saw how I might appear to him. A white whale of sorts.

But how…how did he know about me?

The pocket of people who knew what I was had grown over the past couple of years, but they were all people I trusted, people I’d relied on. If one of them had spilled the beans on my condition, it had been under duress.

Unless it hadn’t been a friend at all.

Two people who knew what I was wanted me dead.

My mother had known from day one, and she’d abandoned me because of it. She’d worked closely with Alexandre Peyton in an effort to overtake the city, and though I don’t think she’d ever told him what I was, she hadn’t hidden what she was.

Peyton had spent years alone with only his thoughts, and in that time I was willing to bet he’d thought about me an awful lot. Enough for him to realize a girl with a werewolf mother who was half-vampire had to be hiding something.

They both hated me, but my mother wanted to see me die in front of her eyes. I knew that because I wouldn’t be satisfied with her death unless it was by my hands, and she and I were cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways.

So this torture? This starvation and pain?

This was all Peyton.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I paced the cell in a tight circle, glad to have use of my legs for however long the blood allowed it. I wanted to run—my body craved the adrenaline—but I wouldn’t get a chance to run any time soon.

The longer I thought about my captivity and the way in which I was being treated, the more certain I became Peyton was responsible. Like my mother I’d thought he would prefer to kill me in person, but he was pragmatic too. He was a smart, cunning vampire, and if he hadn’t gone rogue, he would have risen far in the council ranks.

He had what it took to be in my seat, if he hadn’t been bat shit crazy.

A man as smart as him would know how hard it would be to get to me once he was free. I was pretty sure he’d tried through Grendel, and it had almost worked. But this was sheer genius.

I wasn’t sure how he’d managed it. He’d have had to know I was coming to California, which meant he still had friends within the council. My trip hadn’t been a secret from the other vampires, but he’d have needed someone inside in order to find out.

So he had a mole. We’d suspected it, but now I knew for sure.

Would he have come to California himself, wanting to be present for my capture and to witness what The Doctor was doing to me? Or was he hiding somewhere else, anywhere in the world, watching footage sent to him?

I slapped the wall with my palm, the gritty surface stinging my skin. The last thing I needed right now was another wound to heal, as my aching chest could attest.

How was I going to get out of this?

It would be one thing if they were trying to get me to share secrets, but this was experimentation, plain and simple. The Doctor wanted to know how I worked, the same way a mechanic sought to understand a car engine. Without any information to offer him, he was only going to take me out of the cell when he wanted to poke around inside me.

There had to be something, some way I could have him release me from the room without being bound, and convince him I needed my full strength.

I looked at my hand pressed flat against the wall. My brittle, cracked nails seemed to be telling me something, and I didn’t think that something was You need a manicure.

You must be stupid, my wolf told me, piping up for the first time since we’d gotten here.

My wolf.

My wolf.

She was right. If the answer had been any more obvious, it would have smacked me in the face. The Doctor was fascinated with me because he knew I was half-vampire/half-werewolf. He’d never seen or studied a creature like me in his life.

If he truly was a man of science, wouldn’t he want to see what I could do?

I cleared the room in an excited bound, pounding the door with my fists. “I want to see him,” I shouted, my throat stinging from the screaming I’d abused it with throughout the evening. “I need to see The Doctor.”

I kept right on shouting and pounding, doing everything short of swearing up a storm. Shocking myself half to death was a last resort, but if it came down to it, they’d come in and stop me before I did permanent damage to myself.

I yelled until a speaker I couldn’t see announced, “Step back from the door.”

I did as I was told, scurrying into a far corner and raising both hands in a gesture of submission. I didn’t want to project any menace. The only way this plan was going to work was if I made him trust me. Maybe not as a person would trust a friend, but perhaps as a lab scientist might trust a rat not to bite him.

The door sighed open with a rush of warm air, and one of the male nurses came in, leaving it slightly ajar.

Run, my wolf urged. Knock him down and run.

She didn’t seem to understand escape wasn’t an option. Running wasn’t going to happen. Walking was hard enough. I ignored her, but didn’t overlook how happy I was to have her back. I’d need her soon.

“What do you want?” the nurse asked impatiently.

“I want to see The Doctor.”

“You don’t dictate that sort of thing. Haven’t you figured that out yet? You’re not a guest, you don’t get to make requests.”

“He’s going to want to see me.”

The nurse sighed, rolling his eyes. He’d heard this before. I had to wonder how many others had been in this room before me, and all the different ways they’d attempted to woo these people into letting them go. If I’d had my full strength, I would have tried to enthrall the nurse, I couldn’t pretend otherwise.

He was accustomed to that dog-and-pony show, though, because he wasn’t looking me right in the eyes. Some people who knew how the thrall worked would focus on my forehead so it at least appeared like they were meeting my gaze. This guy was fixated on my chin. If his gaze had dropped any lower, I’d be convinced he was staring at my tits, but I doubted he saw me as a sexual object.

Hard to be attracted to someone when they were bound to end up like a biology class frog. Once you’d seen someone’s literal guts, it had to be difficult to think of them as a hot commodity. I wasn’t offended. I didn’t plan to use my feminine wiles to get out of here.

“He’s seen everything he needs to see from you today.”

“He’s going to want to see this,” I insisted.

The man turned to go, and I panicked. This plan only worked if I was going to get out of the room, and to do that I needed to convince this guy I wasn’t talking out my ass.

“Wait. He’s a scientist right? You all are. I mean, this isn’t a hospital, so we’re in some kind of lab. Right?”

He didn’t say anything, but he did stop his attempt to leave.

“I get it,” I said, trying to sound calm. “My grandmother, she’s a scientist. Studied genetics and biology. She taught me to respect science, to look for an explanation. I understand why you guys are doing this. I’m different. I defy logic, and you want to make me make sense, right?”

The nurse stared at me, and a variety of expressions battled for supremacy over his face. He looked conflicted and angry but also confused and a little sad. I’d read somewhere making yourself human to those who might want to kill you would at least give them pause. If they stopped thinking of you as an object—or in my case a monster—and started relating to you on a human level, you had a better chance.

“My name is Secret,” I told him. “I live in New York City. I have a boyfriend and a family. I have friends and a job.” This had been the wrong tactic. He appeared disgusted, either with himself for listening or me for trying something so obvious. I backpedaled. “I know none of it matters. I know you guys just see me as a mystery you can solve by taking me apart. But I can do things.”

That got him back to me. “Do things? What kind of things?”

In the condition I was in I could perform such astonishing feats as walking, talking and breathing, but he didn’t need to know how limited my current range was.

“I have abilities.”

“Show me.” He crossed his arms and stared at my chin.

What I wouldn’t have given right then to be Eugenia. She hit the hybrid jackpot compared to me, by inheriting Grandmere’s witchy skills and our mother’s lycanthropy. I didn’t know if there was a precedent for were-witches, but she could have given this guy a hell of a display with her glowy-handed mojo.

“Only him.”

“Bullshit,” the nurse scoffed. “You can’t do anything.”

His dismissal rankled me, and for the first time I got decidedly sick of being treated like pond scum on a microscope slide. This guy was nothing, he was a human and he was not going to stop me from getting what I wanted.

“I am a werewolf queen,” I snarled. “I am the head of the vampire Tribunal. I am the great-granddaughter of the scariest witch I’ve ever known, and I have beheaded a fuc…frigging demon. You listen to me, you pathetic approximation of Darwinism. I want to speak to The Doctor. I will only speak to The Doctor. I don’t care how much power you think you have, because when you leave this room you are just a man. You are a man with a family and friends, and since you’ve chosen not to respect that fact about me, I won’t respect it about you. Your life is disposable to me. You are nothing. And if you think I don’t have a way to show my people your face, you are sorely mistaken.” I glared at him, never moving or making my threat physical, but putting every ounce of my formidability behind it. I wanted to swear at him, but my words would lose a lot of oomph if I was writhing around on the floor by his feet. In my head I was adding a lot of fucks though.

“You don’t scare me,” I continued. “You can’t intimidate me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re already dead. But I am afraid of him. And I’m asking you to get him for me. So stop jerking off and get me The Doctor.”

“No,” he replied evenly, before walking out and leaving me alone again, all out of plans, with no bluster left.

Several hours later the door opened, and this time it was The Doctor himself. He’d changed out of the scrubs I’d last seen him in and was wearing a simple dress shirt tucked into gray pants. He wore horn-rimmed glasses I hadn’t noticed before, and his tie was loosened at the neck.

“I understand you wish to speak with me.”

“So glad you got the message.”

“A bit dramatic, perhaps, telling poor Geoffrey his number was up. I think you might have done better with kindness.”

“You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar…that old saying?”

“Precisely.”

“Where’s your chair?” I asked.

“I have no plans to stay. We can dispense with all the formal chitchat, I think.”

“Yeah, we’re old friends now, aren’t we?”

“Geoffrey said you claimed to be able to do things. He said you would only show these things to me, though. I have spent much of my evening assuming this was a lie and once you had me here you would kill me and escape.”

The man had a gift for calling a spade a spade.

“If you thought so, why did you come?” I had been sitting on the floor but got to my feet, wanting to see how he’d react. He didn’t flinch, barely seemed to register my movement at all. He also didn’t balk at looking me right in the eyes, which was unnerving.

“You intrigue me, Ms. McQueen. I have seen many incredible creatures in my time. Things you couldn’t imagine.”

I snorted. My imagination had plenty of fodder to fuel it for a good long time. I was willing to bet The Doctor here had never been to a fae realm or had pixies give him the stink eye. If he wanted to trade notes on all the crazy things we’d seen, I was willing to bet I’d come out on top.

He’d be a clear winner if it came down to which of us had taken apart the highest number of mythological creatures, though.

“You scoff?”

“I don’t think you give my imagination enough credit.”

At that he smiled. “No, perhaps not. But you asked me why I came here, if I believed it was your intention to kill me. First, I have a very good understanding of your healing capabilities now. I know how much strength you get from feeding, and I’m quite certain I’m in no danger from you physically.” He gave an apologetic shrug, as if I might have found his assessment offensive.

“So you came because I can’t beat you up?”

“In part. I must admit, though, I thought on it for a long time. But what Geoffrey said piqued my curiosity. He suggested you might have gifts unlike any I’ve ever seen, and how can a man of science turn down such an invitation?”

That was the response I’d hoped for.

“I’ll show you, but there are conditions.”

“I’d expect nothing less from a smart girl like you.”

“I want out of this room.”

“Go on.”

“And I want you to tell me what happened to Holden Chancery.”

“Wouldn’t you rather see him, instead?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“He’s alive?” I asked, my voice trembling. I’d wanted to stay cool and pulled together, showing no sign of emotion, but when I’d asked The Doctor to tell me about Holden, a large part of me was expecting to see a corpse. Or worse still, a pile of ashes.

“We’ve had this discussion, you and I. A vampire is not a living thing. That’s what makes you so special. You’re one of them, yet your heart…”

When he said heart, I recoiled, my body shuddering violently. I turned away from him, momentarily wishing the wall would open up and swallow me whole. All from one word.

If he noticed my Pavlovian response, it didn’t slow him down any because he went on to say, “Your heart beats. It’s such an amazing thing. You are a true marvel.”

The way he looked at me bordered on adoration. I couldn’t make sense of this man. He cut me open and wiggled his bare hands around inside me, stealing bits of my organs for God only knew what purpose, and yet he could still gawk at me like I was a beautiful sight.

“I want to see him,” I said.

“I know exactly what you want, and I intend to deliver. But I’ve never let anyone out before, you understand.”

“You’ve never had anyone like me here before.”

He laughed, and it was deep and warm, the kind of laugh a good man should have. This was not a good man. This guy was a modern-day Josef Mengele as far as I was concerned. I didn’t lightly go about comparing people to Nazi doctors with a penchant for human experimentation, but it seemed apt in his case. Regardless of what kind of monster he was, I was willing to do whatever it took to appease him if it meant getting out of this cell.

I thought I could withstand anything, but the last week had proven just how finely drawn my limits were. I wanted to leave here and go home. I wanted to sit on a couch wedged in the middle of Desmond and Holden and never, ever choose between them, and I wanted to see Keaty and Cedes. I wanted to hear my grandmere’s voice and see Eugenia over video chat. I wanted to ask for a thousand things, but right now I would only ask for two.

“I want to see him.”

“You look frightful. Let’s take care of that first, then we can discuss a plan.” He tapped on the door, and it was opened from the outside, only this time no one closed it right away. He stepped into the hall and turned back to me. “Are you coming?”

He glowed like an angel framed in the fluorescent lights from the hallway. I took a step closer and hesitated. It was a trap, it had to be a trap. There was no way this plan could work so easily.

My gaze drifted to the drain on the floor, recalling how I’d woken next to it coated in my own blood. I remembered every awful moment spent in these four walls, and I suddenly didn’t care if it was a trap. If it meant getting out of here, I’d leave without so much as a backwards glance.

He crooked his fingers at me, and like a shy puppy I crept forward until I reached the threshold.

“In case you’re wondering why I’m being generous and allowing you to come on your own, I have a trigger for that collar around your neck, and I can make it do things far worse than a simple shock.”

Most of the genius aspect of my plan wilted with those words. I couldn’t get free and run for it. If he really did have a remote for this stupid collar, he’d be able to blow my head off.

I needed to get the remote or kill him.

I knew which option I preferred.

The Doctor offered me his elbow like he was walking me into our senior prom. The thought of touching him made me almost physically ill, but I bit back the sudden urge to vomit and slid my hand around his arm. My fingers were trembling so badly it was impossible the shaking would go unnoticed, but he didn’t say anything.

Chances were good he enjoyed me fear. My fear of him meant he was in control, meant he maintained the upper hand. I couldn’t pretend not to be terrified of him, and I lacked the energy to repress my reactions. Let him know I was afraid, and it might work in my favor as far as making him trust me.

I was escorted to another room, though this one lacked the coldness of my former chamber. It wasn’t fancy, more like a cheap motel room or a military barracks, but it had a bed and a shower, and in one of the drawers someone had left clothes. Real clothes.

“Dawn is getting close. You’ll stay here through the day, and tomorrow evening you and I will have a chat,” he told me. “The collar is quite safe in the shower, if you were concerned.”

Once I was alone I bathed quickly, scrubbing off over a week’s worth of dirt, sweat and dried blood. Evidently, only parts of me had been cleaned in preparation for my surgery. I lathered soap over every inch of my body, hoping I might be able to wash away the entire ordeal. I succeeded in scrubbing off the top layer of my skin. Washing my hair, I was relieved to see it had stopped falling out, and I hadn’t lost an alarming amount while I’d been starved.

I toweled off and greedily brushed my teeth, wanting those small day-to-day luxuries I’d been denied for so long. Once I was clean I returned to the main chamber of the room and rifled through the drawers. The clothes hadn’t been selected for me personally, so there was a generic assortment of items.

I avoided the scrubs and picked some black sweatpants with a drawstring waist and an army-green T-shirt. There were no undergarments provided, so I went without, though I’d have loved a bra to combat the cold temperature in the room.

I found a pair of socks, and just having my feet bundled felt good. I didn’t want to put my boots back on until I needed to. I sat on the bed, a metal-framed twin, and looked around my new temporary home. The bed and dresser were the only furniture, and there were no mirrors in either the bedroom or the bathroom. I did another tour of the space and noticed there were no electrical sockets or phone jacks. There was no glass in the space whatsoever, and the bed was bolted to the floor. The shower curtain hung on a flimsy plastic rod, and the sink was just a basin sticking out of the wall with no exposed pipes.

They had this place locked down like a mental hospital. With the exception of the green Oral-B toothbrush, there was nothing in the room I could use as a weapon. And unless my biggest foe was tartar deposits, the toothbrush wasn’t of much use to me.

I went back to the bedroom and lay down on top of the thin blanket. Compared to my former accommodations, this might as well be the Ritz-Carlton. Even the flimsy mattress felt like memory foam compared to a concrete floor.

The full weight of my exhaustion pressed down on me, holding me into the mattress like a giant hand. I had to think about my plan, figure out what I would do the next evening after seeing Holden, but my body didn’t care. Plans weren’t going to happen tonight.

I fell asleep thinking of the last bed I’d been in and imagining Holden’s arms. I made a silent prayer I’d be in those arms again tomorrow.

An unfamiliar man was standing over me when I woke up, and my immediate reaction was to slap him.

The response was instinctive, and I was thankfully so weak it didn’t do any serious damage, but he still seemed surprised, hollering, “Ow. I thought you said this one was incapacitated.”

He rubbed his cheek and glared at someone on my opposite side.

“No, I said she wasn’t at her full strength. You’re the idiot who got in her face. You know better than to approach the subjects.”

“She was sleeping.”

“She’s part vampire, and you didn’t check the sun chart. Idiot.” The other person was a woman. The nurse who I’d slapped wasn’t Geoffrey, the man I’d threatened the day before. I wondered if he’d requested a transfer off Secret duty or if it just wasn’t his shift yet.

Both nurses stood back from me now, looking uncertain of how to deal with my potential violence.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sorry at all, but if they thought I was going to start attacking people, they’d move me back to my cell. “You surprised me. I’m so sorry.”

I tried to sound contrite, which wasn’t something I was naturally talented in, but it came across genuine as far as I could tell. They didn’t know me well enough to understand how rarely I was remorseful about violence.

The female nurse didn’t look too forgiving, even though I hadn’t touched her, but the male nurse said, “I shouldn’t have gotten so close.”

Was he…apologizing to me? I didn’t know what to do with that, so I just stared at him.

“The Doctor will join us shortly, but he requested we take a few notes before he arrives. Do you mind?” he asked.

Would it matter if I did?

“What kind of notes?”

“He wants to see what progress you’ve made after yesterday’s procedures.” The male nurse was holding a clipboard and pen.

I imagined stabbing him in the throat with that pen. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing big.” He was treating me like I was a nervous patient he was trying to soothe instead of a walking, talking experiment. “Blood pressure, heart rate, and um…we need to check for scarring?” His gaze drifted to the front of my shirt.

“No scarring.” This wasn’t entirely true, but they wouldn’t see the kind of scars one would expect to find on a human.

“We need to check,” the woman said.

I stood up and pulled my shirt off, bracing my hands on my hips and glaring at her defiantly. In spite of the thin pink lines on my chest—which the female nurse was noting on her clipboard—I said, “No. Scarring.” I turned to the male nurse who was blushing furiously—I was starting to think he must be new—and asked, “Is that enough, or do you need to touch?”

“Th-that’s enough,” he stammered. “Thank you.”

I tugged the shirt back over my head and plopped onto the bed, holding my left arm out to them. “Do whatever you came to do.”

They set about checking my temperature, heart rate, blood pressure and a half dozen other bizarrely normal things, as if I were a human patient recovering from surgery in a real hospital.

“What do you get out of this?” I broke the silence when it became too much for me to just listen to them work. “What does he tell you about us that lets you justify your actions to yourselves?” I stared right at the new guy, who fumbled while writing something on his clipboard. He couldn’t look at me.

“He tells us not to listen to you for starters,” the woman informed me.

“Because he doesn’t want you to figure out we’re real. We’re people.”

“You’re not a person.” She took the blood pressure cuff off my arm and rattled off the numbers to her partner. I continued to watch him instead of her, his fingers trembling on the pen.

“He thinks I’m a person,” I observed.

“He doesn’t know any better yet. But if you talk to him like you talked to Geoff yesterday, he’d come to the conclusion pretty quickly. Why don’t you tell us about how our families are disposable?”

I shifted my attention to her, noting the way she fixated on the bridge of my nose. She’d been here a long time if she was willing to stare that close to my eyes.

“You’ll all get what’s coming to you,” I whispered. The male nurse’s pen clattered to the floor.

I could go for it. My strength was still up from the previous night’s feeding, enough I felt confident I might be able to take these two out. My gaze was transfixed on the pen, wondering how quickly I could kill them both and get through the door. How fast would security come down on me?

How long would it take before the collar blew?

The fucking collar.

I swore internally as loud as I could. Instead of going for the pen, I sat perfectly still and looked at the nurse again. “You dropped your pen.”

He scooped it up, and I asked, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

Judging by the aggravated sigh the other nurse let out, I assumed they weren’t supposed to engage in personal conversations with us. That made sense, considering I couldn’t have been the first one to threaten an employee’s family.

“Me too,” I told him. “I bet this is your first real job. Good salary? Health benefits too? I’m guessing you’re thinking about how bright your future is with this real medical job on your resume.” The female nurse grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him towards the door. “But you’re not doing good work here. You think we’re the monsters? You’re the monsters.”

They left, and a moment later the door reopened. This time the familiar figure of The Doctor filled the frame. Tonight he was dressed up, wearing a nice pair of slacks and a velvet tuxedo jacket in a rich blood-red color. On another man it might have looked ridiculous, but he owned it somehow, appearing fierce and regal.

He scared the shit out of me.

Before now I’d thought the only person I could be so afraid of was Sig. But what had me afraid of Sig? The idea he had the power to kill me? He and I shared blood. He loved me in a demented way, and I’d spent such a long time being afraid of him I hadn’t really noticed.

The Doctor didn’t love me. Not unless Madame Curie loved polonium. I was a discovery to him, and the awe and adoration on his face whenever he looked at me was nothing more than a gross fascination with what my existence could mean to him.

Fortune and glory. Wasn’t that the ultimate goal?

I was his polonium. His insulin or his skeleton of the first homo sapien. The Doctor had no interest in me as Secret McQueen. He didn’t care about my history or my life. He just wanted to glean what he could.

That made him scarier than anyone I’d ever known. Because I couldn’t reason with him or barter with him. He already had what he wanted from me, and that was my body. I needed to convince him my body was more valuable alive than dead for the time being.

“Are you going to take me to Holden?” I asked.

“We made a deal, did we not? Do I strike you as a man who does not live up to his word?”

“You strike me as the man who held my…heart…” I struggled with the words, suddenly short of breath as I recalled the experience. “Someone who held my heart in his hands while I was still awake. That’s the man you strike me as.”

“And what a fine, strong heart it is.”

He was totally unmoved by my words, further convincing me words would not be the key to unlocking my prison. A damn shame, too, since one of my greatest skills was talking.

The Doctor held out a dress. It was the same color as his jacket, which explained why I hadn’t noticed it strung over his arm when he’d arrived.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a dress.”

He didn’t tell me to wear it, didn’t give me any long-winded explanations of why he wanted me to put it on. He just held it out, and I took it. That might have been the thing about him that bothered me the most. The way I obeyed.

Six years working with the council hadn’t broken me.

Two years with Lucas and his pack hadn’t broken me.

Nine days with this man and I would have come if he snapped his fingers.

I didn’t want to obey. I loathed myself for not putting up a fight, and I knew my wolf was thinking of me as a traitorous coward, but I was doing what I had to do. I’d long believed there were two options when it came to survival—fight or flight.

Now I knew better.

There was a third option, and no one talked about it. Fighting was brave and running was smart. The final choice was neither and both at the same time.

Confronted with the end of my life, I didn’t go down fighting.

I kneeled.

I bowed to my goddamn captor. Rolled over and showed him my belly. It disgusted me how easily I’d let it come to this, but the sad, honest truth was…I didn’t want to be hurt anymore. I was standing on a thin line between sanity and absolute madness, and for the moment I was still myself, but I wasn’t sure how long that would be true if I had to see what my own internal organs looked like again.

Wasn’t I already flirting with a very dangerous version of myself? Who was this woman who threatened strangers for doing their jobs? Who was I to imagine taking a life because someone had measured my blood pressure?

Who was I?

Maybe the scary truth about this place wasn’t that they studied monsters. Maybe this was where monsters were truly made.

Chapter Thirty

The Doctor was a consummate gentleman.

He held doors open for me, pulled out my seat at a lavishly set dinner table, and waited until my beverage was poured before helping himself. I stared at the wineglass, wondering if he expected me to drink it, and whether I’d be punished if I didn’t.

The dress he’d made me wear was pretty, and under normal circumstances I’d have been thrilled to receive it. It was knee-length chiffon with a swishy hem and a sweetheart neck. My collarbones stuck out, showing how much weight I’d lost while being here.

The blood-red material made me seem paler than I did normally, but without a mirror I couldn’t tell if it made me look sick. I couldn’t imagine I was very attractive.

Thankfully the dress fit tight in the waist, meaning I didn’t have to worry about it slipping down without straps. He’d even provided me with shoes, a nice pair of flats so I couldn’t contemplate using the heel as a weapon.

I played with the dress’s hem and stared down at the empty plate in front of me, wondering what kind of experiment this might be.

“Can you eat?” he asked.

Ah. So this was going to be the old “see if a rat will eat a cupcake” scenario. He knew I needed blood to live, but now he’d see how I responded to human food, was that it?

“I can.”

“What can you eat?”

I lifted my gaze from the plate and met his. I hated that he could meet my eyes fearlessly, yet I got squeamish from his attention after mere minutes.

“What can you eat?” I wasn’t necessarily trying to be defiant, but I wanted him to know who I was. I was not a meek and cowering puppy. But I would flinch if he came at me.

“Touché.” He took a sip of his wine, and I watched his throat as his Adam’s apple bobbed with each swallow. I could almost see the quivering pulse in his artery, could practically taste the flavor of his blood laced with the wine.

“What do you prefer to eat?” he asked, maintaining a polite tone.

My stomach growled, a comically timed response that made him chuckle. “Steak,” I admitted. If I was going to pretend to be a willing participant in his fact-finding mission, I might as well play along for a while. “My werewolf half can get sustenance from meat, but the closer to raw it is the better. Wolves don’t eat their kill off a barbeque, and I guess our internal wolves are no different. I can eat anything a normal human can, but I don’t gain anything nutritionally from it. Blood and meat, that’s it.”

I half-expected him to start taking notes, but he set his wineglass down on the table and regarded me with quiet contemplation for a moment. “Internal wolf?”

Mine growled at him, but thankfully the sound was something only I could interpret.

“You’ve never asked a werewolf about it? How it works?”

“I’ve observed the mechanics of it a number of times, but most of those subjects were not as forthcoming as you.”

“Shocking.”

“Please, go on.”

“I can’t speak for others, only myself, and for obvious reasons my experience may be different from theirs. I…coexist with my wolf. She is her own entity, has her own thoughts and her own personality. I can feel her as if she is a part of me, but she is independent as well. If that makes sense.”

“And why do you believe this to be different from the experience of others?” He seemed utterly fascinated. I don’t think Jane Goodall would have been this thrilled if her gorillas walked up and started talking to her one day.

“I was born with active lycanthropy.” I wasn’t going to get into the finer details of how werewolves turned one another. He didn’t need to know about the Awakening ceremony, or the hierarchy of the werewolf pack. But any idiot who had seen a creature feature would know it’s not normal to be born a werewolf.

“Born?”

“Yes.”

“Is such a thing even possible?”

I held my hands up in front of myself as if to say, Well?

“Remarkable.”

“It’s rare but not unheard of. It…” I stopped, not sure I wanted to tell him any more details. If I told him babies were only born with active lycanthropy when the mothers experienced physical trauma, what would he do with that information? To me it was just a known fact, but in this man’s hands I could picture a dozen pregnant werewolf mothers being abused in God knows how many ways, trying to turn their babies into wolves. “It’s rare,” I concluded.

Now that my mind had gone down this new track I didn’t want to tell him anything. If he knew how I’d been created, what was to stop him from bringing in those pregnant werewolf mothers and force-feeding them vampire blood?

I was suddenly dizzy.

What if that was his ultimate goal? Not research or scientific understanding, but reproduction? Did he want to study me so he could learn how to make more of me? I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of a mass-produced army of vampire/werewolf hybrids.

For one thing, they’d be a pretty ridiculous army. Couldn’t go out in sunlight, couldn’t shift without the presence of a pack, basically…strong but not stronger than vampires. All of the weaknesses, only half of the perks. Story of my life.

Why would anyone want more of me?

Maybe if I could make him understand the negatives outweighed the positives, he wouldn’t want to do it. But if he hadn’t yet conceived of the idea, would I be giving it to him?

Or worse yet—for me anyway—would I be handing him a list of all the best ways to hurt me?

My plate became the most fascinating thing in the room again.

“I can’t give you more blood today, I hope you can understand why.” Why did he have to sound like Mr. Nice Guy all the time? It made it difficult for me to think of him as a villain. And he was a villain.

There weren’t a lot of heroes in my life, but I’d met more than enough bad guys to recognize one when I saw them.

“Where did you study?” I asked.

“University of Vienna for my undergraduate. Stalingrad for my Master’s.” Stalingrad. He’d been in Russia when it was still the Soviet Union. That made me feel very, very young. “My PhD was received in Berlin.” So he really was a doctor.

“What was your specialty?”

“I started with research on the mutations caused by nuclear fallout, spent a great deal of time investigating the Chernobyl meltdown. People said the children born from radiation poisoning were monsters, but they were not. Just…different.”

My wine was teasing me, coaxing me to drink it. I needed something to keep me from going stark raving mad in here, but I knew alcohol would only hinder me. I had to stay sharp.

“How did you make the leap from deformed babies to vampires and werewolves?”

“Is it not a natural progression to look at what humanity deems monstrous and wonder what is a real monster? I wondered what it was about ugliness or cruelty that would make someone call another human a monster. So I began to search for the real monsters. It wasn’t difficult, not when you really look. Especially in cities like Moscow or Berlin. Big cities always have what you need, as long as you know which rocks to turn over.”

“What about Paris?”

He went still, his smile shriveling up faster than a deflated balloon. “I didn’t mention Paris.”

“No, but you lived there, didn’t you?”

His silence was all the answer I needed.

“You had someone there to help you find your monsters. Didn’t you?” I’d been thinking a lot about Peyton while I’d been locked up, playing out the ways he’d have known The Doctor and how he would have been able to convince a man like this to take me. My capture had been a risky one, not just picking up a single wolf or vampire in the night. I’d had protection.

“That’s enough.”

“I know. You’re not the only one who can see other people’s secrets, Doctor.”

He got to his feet slowly and came around the table so he was standing behind me. I knew I’d made a mistake the moment his hands rested on my shoulders. I shouldn’t have played the Peyton card, shouldn’t have let him know what I knew.

His fingers grazed the sharp points of my collarbones, pressing into the skin, making me aware of how little protection there was between the surface and the bone.

“Put your hands on the table, please.”

I didn’t want to. I held them in my lap, fingers trembling, wondering if an apology would work.

“Put your hands on the table,” he repeated, and this time he didn’t say please, stripping away any illusion it had been a request rather than a command.

I did as I was told, putting my hands palm down on the smooth linen tablecloth.

“Let me tell you some things I have learned over the thirty years I have been studying. Would you like that?”

No. “Okay.”

“I have learned a werewolf confined to a small space during the full moon will not survive a shift. I kept one in a very tiny box once, and she became irreversibly deformed. Perhaps she and her wolf fought for supremacy over her body. Neither of them won.”

He kneaded my shoulders, his deft fingers avoiding interaction with the collar yet somehow reminding me it was there.

“I’ve learned what happens to a vampire if you lace their blood supply with silver. They quite literally melt from in the inside out. It’s quite grotesque.”

Sliding his hands lower on my arm, he stooped closer, pressing his lips against my ear. His breath was warm, but the words chilled me when he whispered, “Do you know what I’ve done with your vampires?”

“You said you’d take me to Holden.”

“All in good time.”

He stood straight again, his chest solid against the back of my head. “I want to tell you one other thing I’ve learned first. For the average vampire, it takes about forty minutes to an hour. The typical werewolf…a little over a day.”

“What?”

He lifted my right arm off the table with such delicacy for a moment I thought he was going to kiss my hand. Then he squeezed my wrist and braced his other hand against my shoulder. When he bent my arm backwards at the elbow, I still didn’t believe what he was doing.

The bone snapped, and I screamed, falling out of my chair, trying to wrench my arm free of his grasp, but he held firm, giving my elbow an extra twist to drive home the pain.

I saw nothing but white spots, my hearing went hollow, just buzzing noise to blot out the sound of my own screaming, but through the haze I heard him say, “I wonder how long it will take for you to heal a broken bone.”

Chapter Thirty-One

After he dragged me to my feet and I finally caught my breath, The Doctor outfitted me with a makeshift sling he constructed from a torn dinner napkin. He tied it around my neck with such tenderness I was agog.

He was careful not to touch my elbow, but he’d had to bend it back the right direction—which hurt as much as the initial break—and when he was done, he patted my cheek. “There we go. You’ll be good as new.”

Using the napkin from his place setting, he blotted my cheeks, inspecting the white cloth when it came away pink.

“Interesting.”

Vampires cried blood. Werewolves cried tears. Mine met somewhere in the middle.

“Are you ready to see your friends now?”

I was ready to die. Ready to sit down in the middle of the floor and tell him to get it over with. Instead of yielding, though, I nodded. Even the tension of such a small movement sent sparks through my broken arm, making me feel like the whole limb was on fire.

Something nagged at me. If I was going to see Holden, was that the last piece in Calliope’s prediction for my death? I’d believed I couldn’t die here because I was meant to die next to someone I loved. But wherever The Doctor was taking me, I’d be with a man I loved.

I was going to die.

I was going to die.

The stark, chilling reality of that slammed into me, and I was torn between needing to see Holden and wanting to avoid him so I could live a little longer.

But live how? This wasn’t living. I was nine days into my captivity and wondered what else this man could conceive of doing to me if I stayed longer. How many more tests were there? How long did his average subject last?

I didn’t think I could manage another day, let alone another week. Or a month. He would cut me just to watch me bleed, break me just to watch me heal. There was nothing outside the realm of possibility, but my imagination could only take me so far before my brain stopped it. There were things he could do I couldn’t think of because my brain considered them too horrible.

If I couldn’t imagine them, how was I going to survive them?

“I want to see him.” Fuck it. If I was going to die, I wanted to see Holden again. I’d rather die next to a lover than die alone with this psycho.

“Very good. And you let me know how that arm is healing, won’t you? I’m interested to see how you do.”

So many doors.

It was what struck me first as we walked down a nondescript hallway with dim lighting, not unlike that from Sutherland’s dream. With the exception of how plain these doors were, it was startlingly close to what he’d shown me in his mind.

Was he in one of these rooms?

Or was The Doctor already done with him?

When I’d been removed from my cell the previous evening, there were no other rooms between mine and the space I’d been moved to. I was being kept apart from the others. Did he know about our ability to communicate mentally? Had he somehow been blocking any form of psychic communication?

If he’d been studying vampires for thirty years, I found it hard to believe such a juicy tidbit would have escaped his attention, so it wasn’t surprising to think he’d found a way to put a damper on my connection with Holden.

We stopped in front of an unmarked gray door. There was nothing to distinguish it from the dozens of others, no window to show which occupant was held within, yet he knew.

On the wall next to each of the doors was a black square, and The Doctor withdrew a plain white keycard from his jacket pocket and tapped it on the black box. A red light changed to green, and the bolts of the door clicked to signal their release.

“After you, my dear.”

I pulled on the exterior handle, my broken arm protesting the effort, making me wince with pain. Every movement—no matter how small—reverberated through my broken limb, amplifying the pain to new levels.

A hissing sound accompanied the opening of the door, like the air pressure inside the rooms was different. I recalled how warm the hallway air had felt whenever someone would enter my cell, and was greeted with a chilly blast when I stepped inside Holden’s room.

The vampires were being stored at meat-locker temperatures.

The room was dark, with only the light of the hallway helping guide my way. At first I thought I’d been tricked and I was being taken to an empty cell to be starved all over again, until I saw a heap in the corner.

It looked like a sack of laundry, not a man.

The heap twitched and groaned, barely moving, but slowly a head rose from the rest, and I saw his eyes. They’d gone black, any sign of white erased by the madness of hunger, but they were still Holden’s eyes.

“Holden?”

“Ssssss…” His voice was as rough as a cat’s tongue on sandpaper. “Ssseee…”

“It’s me,” I replied, trying to give him a reprieve from his attempt to say my name.

“Ooookkkaaayyy…?”

My lower lip trembled as he shifted into a sitting position. That slight adjustment costing him, he closed his eyes, and since he didn’t breathe he looked dead. Really dead.

He was gaunt, his cheeks sunk in, making his beautiful cheekbones and jaw seem frightfully skeletal. The skin beneath his eyes was taut, giving a frightening glimpse to the lines of his skull where they formed the ridge of his eye sockets. He still had his hair which seemed remarkable, all things considered, but the color had begun to leach away. His clothes hung off him like he was wearing those of a much larger stranger.

His eyelids fluttered open again, and he saw me but was confused. “Seeee…”

“It’s me. I’m here.” I crossed the room in two wide steps, crouching in front of him, using my good hand to touch his face, his arms, his chest, trying to convince myself he was really there.

“You…’kay…?” he asked.

Tears slid down my cheeks, staining his shirt. “No,” I answered, unable to force a kind lie.

His gaze shifted lazily to my arm, but he didn’t react. “Hurt.”

“Yes. I’m hurt. I’m very, very hurt.” I pressed my palm to his cheek. “What has he done to you?” His skin felt so thin I worried it might turn to dust under my fingertips.

“No…food.”

He’d been starved for nine days.

I let out a sigh of relief that gutted me. I was happy. He was starving to death, and I felt good about it. But compared to the things I imagined being done to him, starvation was a slap on the wrist. They’d literally done nothing to him except leave him alone in the dark.

“You?” he wheezed.

“No.” I shook my head and grabbed his hand. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

A tick in his forehead suggested he was trying to frown, but he couldn’t manage the gesture.

“Hurt.”

“We aren’t going to talk about it.” With him in this condition, the rage would just eat him from the inside. His worry had probably done a number on him already, but I tried to put myself in his shoes. If I’d been left alone for nine days, fearing the worst, only to find out the worst couldn’t even begin to cover what had happened to my loved one?

He’d want to kill them. And his inability to make it happen would gnaw away at him until he was an empty husk inside, destroyed by his own hatred and thirst for revenge.

No, I wasn’t going to put that on him.

“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered, finding new resolve to lie now. It was a lie I wanted very badly to believe. I sat down beside him, the cold, rough floor shocking my bare legs. I pressed my left side against him and squeezed his hand lightly, trying not to accidentally break any of his bones. “It’s going to be okay,” I repeated, wondering if it might sound more believable a second time.

It didn’t.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” The Doctor scolded from the doorway. “We still have two more stops to make before it’s time for your end of the bargain.”

“Feed him.”

“Absolutely out of the question.”

“Feed him or I won’t show you anything.”

This gave The Doctor a moment’s pause. I couldn’t make out his features with the light of the hall behind him, but he seemed to be contemplating my words. “You’re sure you want to ask for favors so soon? I’ve told you we’re not yet done.”

It didn’t matter what he had to show me. I needed to help Holden, and if that meant cashing in whatever chips I had to play here and now, I’d do it.

“Feed him.”

“I want you to remember this, because I think in a few moments time you’ll feel quite foolish.”

I’d regretted a lot of things in my life, but getting Holden food wouldn’t be one of them.

Recalling what The Doctor had told me about blood laced with silver, I added, “No tricks. No experiments. You give him good blood. Untainted blood.”

Through the darkness I saw his smile. “Such a clever girl.”

Minutes later someone entered the room, giving me and Holden a wide berth, and threw a packet of blood at us. Knowing Holden would be unable to open it himself, I raised the packet to my mouth and gnawed through the sturdy plastic with my regular teeth. I needed blood too, and my fangs weren’t reacting the way they ought to when I was hungry.

My stomach growled in protest as I removed the bag from my mouth without drinking and placed it at Holden’s lips. At first it sat, trembling in my awkward left-handed grip, then he licked the opening. Once the first taste of blood hit his tongue, he drank the contents of the bag with greedy ferocity, yanking it from my hands. I’d thought he was done until he tore the plastic open and began to lick the inside of the bag.

Why hadn’t I thought to do that?

It wasn’t enough to fully restore him, not even close, but as the blood coursed through him his face lost its skull-like visage, his eyes became less black, to the point I could see their natural brown again, and he became more like Holden.

A weaker, less robust version of the vampire I knew and loved, but Holden nevertheless.

“What did they do to you?” he asked once his mouth worked properly. “What happened to your arm?”

“We’re running a test on Ms. McQueen at the moment, to see how her unique anatomy adapts to outside influence.”

“He broke my arm to see how long it will take to heal.” I kept my tone flat. I didn’t want to let any of my fear or rage show, so I had to keep a level head. “He knows what I am.”

Holden’s face was mobile enough to register shock. “How is that possible?”

“Peyton,” I said. The Doctor already knew I was on to him, knew I was aware of his connection to the rogue, so I saw no sense in keeping the information quiet now. Besides, Holden already hated Alexandre Peyton. Giving him another reason wasn’t going to change anything.

“Time’s up,” The Doctor told us, coming to offer me a hand to my feet.

Holden snarled, but our captor was unmoved, clucking his tongue as he pulled me into a standing position. “None of that, please. I’ve been very gracious to you this evening, but if you don’t behave, my hospitality won’t continue.”

If this was him being a good host, I shuddered to think what would happen if we made him inhospitable. “It’s okay, Holden. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not fine,” he said, unable to force himself off the floor.

He was right, and he knew me well enough he was able to see through my lies. I saw the anger on his face and realized I’d failed to do the one thing I set out to do—keep him calm.

“I have to go,” I told him.

We stared at each other for the few seconds we were allowed, and my heart swelled up into my throat, trying to get free for the second time in two days. My lips parted, and a small sob bubbled out. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see him again.

“I love you,” I choked out.

He looked momentarily stunned, and then the gravity of my words hit him, and I saw the understanding in his eyes.

I wasn’t really telling him I loved him.

I was telling him goodbye.

Chapter Thirty-Two

There wasn’t anything in my stomach to throw up, but I managed it anyway, a pink foam soiling my shiny new ballet flats.

“I did warn you,” The Doctor said.

Crouching down, I cradled my head in my good arm, trying to obscure my vision of the room, but where Holden’s had been dark, this one was as brightly lit as a grocery store.

Maxime was strung from the ceiling, bound at four points, caught like a jumping jack in midair. He was stark naked and had been slit down his torso, with almost everything that should be inside him now on the outside.

The only blessing I could see was he was unconscious.

“What the fuck?” I screamed, realizing my mistake a moment too late. The shock from the collar zapped me, making my whole body spasm uncontrollably.

I collapsed to the floor, landing on my broken arm.

I had nothing left as far as screaming or wailing went. My body was spent, and now lying here, looking up at Maxime’s ruined form, I felt my soul shut down. I’d never believed I could feel my soul as a tangible entity, but I did in that instant.

All the hope leached out of me, going down the drain with the vampire’s blood. I lay on the concrete, breathing hard as my arm throbbed in agonizing protest beneath the weight of my body, but I couldn’t make myself move.

“We know complete regeneration is impossible,” The Doctor said, his tone still the same warm, charming one he’d used whenever we spoke. “But I did want to see how long it might take a vampire to heal this kind of wound. The organs are all still there.” He gestured to the trail of intestines spilling out from Maxime’s belly. “I wanted to know if his body would just suck them all back up. Like spaghetti.”

He laughed.

Dragging me to my feet in spite of my efforts to remain a dead weight, he rubbed my back in slow circles I suspected were meant to soothe me. “I did tell you it would get worse.”

He was right. Holden was on a beach vacation compared to what The Doctor was doing to Maxime. I didn’t want to regret getting Holden much-needed blood, but a nagging voice told me I could have saved Maxime from this if I hadn’t been so rash.

“I’m so sorry, Max.” I don’t know why I bothered saying it. If I had any pull with whatever higher powers might be out there, right now I was praying he wasn’t hearing or feeling any of this. His body, at least, had the common sense to shut down mine clearly lacked.

He was better off dead, as much as I hated to think it.

“Come on, then. One last stop.”

“No.”

“You asked for this. You wanted to see your friends, I’m showing you your friends.”

I turned my back on Maxime, not able to look directly at him anymore, the tableau too grim, too hopeless.

“I don’t want to see anything else.”

“I think you’ll like this last one.”

There was only one other vampire he might have who he’d assume I had an interest in, and that was my father. I’d never met Sutherland Halliston, and after this week I wasn’t sure I was ever going to meet him. But if I had any say in the matter, my first introduction to my biological father would not be in this madhouse. I wasn’t going to have that be my first and last memory of him.

“No,” I said.

“Does that mean you’re ready to show me what you promised?”

I nodded, choking back a new surge of bile burning the lining of my throat. “I’m ready.”

“Good girl.”

“But not here.”

He glanced over my shoulder to the suspended form of the vampire, then smiled at me. “I suppose that’s a reasonable request.”

Back in his dining room I found myself staring at the seat I’d occupied during dinner. The tablecloth was still rumpled from where I’d placed my hands, and the chair had been knocked over when I fell out of it. It remained on its side on the Persian rug.

“Let’s see what you’ve got.” He sat in his own chair and placed a small black fob on the table. It looked like a car starter, with a big red button in the middle, but I knew what it really was. He was showing me the remote detonator for my collar. Reminding me what was at stake if I tried anything funny.

“I need blood.”

He snorted. “Nonsense.”

“I need blood,” I insisted. “Maybe if you hadn’t broken my arm, I would have been fine, but it takes a lot out of a girl to rebuild bones in under twenty-four hours.”

He stared at me, his gaze raking over my face, trying to read my intentions from there. I don’t know what he saw, because I was all out of emotions, and my face had to be as blank as the rest of me right then.

Maybe it was the lack he found to be a relief. I wasn’t angry; there was no maliciousness in my eyes. There was nothing.

I felt nothing.

Fingers were snapped, and a glass of blood was soon produced. I wondered how it was his people were able to bring the exact right thing without him ever asking for it, but I suspected we were being monitored constantly. Some eye or ear in the sky was keeping tabs on The Doctor and all his pet projects.

I drank the blood without coming up for air, wishing I could shatter the glass and lick it clean as Holden had done with the bag. That might come across as threatening though.

The pain in my arm dulled, giving me a break from the near-constant, stabbing ache making me want to gnaw it off. I felt lightheaded with the power from the blood, stronger than I had in days. I wasn’t strong by any means, but I no longer felt like a human orderly could best me.

I licked my lips, and they were full and soft. I wasn’t on the verge of falling apart anymore.

He hadn’t been lying when he said he knew how much blood a vampire needed to get by. I hadn’t been given a full pint, not like the day before. He’d given me a top-up, a little boost. It was enough for me to feel good, but not enough for him to have to worry.

If I’d been a vampire, that is.

The thing about my metabolism was it wasn’t the same as a vampire’s. I needed to eat more often than they did, but I didn’t need to eat as much. I could make do with less blood because I’d learned to run on less. Whereas a vampire might half-drain a human in one feeding, I could go a full day on one donor baggie. On a good day, anyway.

The starvation and constant healing meant my normal amount wasn’t enough to build my strength up again.

But the boost had helped. It had helped more than he could possibly understand.

“Show me what you can do.”

I stepped closer so my knees bumped his. “You’ve watched a wolf shift, right?”

“Many times.”

I’d half feared my inner wolf had abandoned me. I’d been a terrible partner to share a body with recently, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d buried herself in an act of self-preservation. Disconnected from my psyche and vanished forever.

When she heard me cry wolf though, she was there, ears perked, attention focused on the man who’d caged us. She was going to like what I had planned.

“Always during the full moon?”

“Yes. I’ve attempted on numerous occasions to force the shift when the moon wasn’t full, but I’ve only succeeded on the day before or after. Never mid-month.”

“How long until the next full moon?” I asked, knowing full well when it was.

“Ten days.”

I leaned close, my movements those of a seductress, though it wasn’t my sexuality that appealed to him. I wanted to bait him with the promise of a show, though, and wanted to keep him slightly off balance.

As I pressed one palm flat on his chest, he smiled up at me, totally unconcerned. His arrogance fueled a flame lit deep within me, coaxed it up until all I felt was the blistering white-hot taste of my own rage.

Now I was feeling something.

My wolf paced, waiting for the word. I projected a thought of what I wanted, showed her the perfect mental image of it, and just as I’d suspected, she was thrilled.

Yes, she said. Oh yesyesyes.

“I’m going to show you a trick,” I whispered. “Are you ready for it?”

Yes, the wolf answered, though my question hadn’t been for her.

“Show me,” he said eagerly.

I took all the hatred, all the rage and agony built up inside me, and I channeled it into my wolf. She resisted at first, trying to fight the discomfort, but then she remembered our goal, what I’d promised her we could do, and she swelled through me, an impossibly large energy, too big to be contained.

The bones of my hand cracked, but compared to everything else I’d been through, I was numb to it. Shifting was natural. It was right, and it was what my body was designed to do. My nails grew and became claws, slicing away the fine, expensive material of his shirt.

At first he was fascinated, watching my hand shift while the rest of me stayed human. I hadn’t been lying; I knew it was something he’d want to see. But he should have kept me at a distance.

He should never have believed he was invincible.

My claws continued to grow, and without his shirt in the way, they pierced flesh. As my bones moved into a new arrangement and my skin covered with fur, he realized for the first time I wasn’t stopping.

Ribbons of his skin peeled away under my claws, and he tried to push away, but I hooked my ankle behind the leg of his chair, keeping him held in place. I kept right on digging, burrowing my nails into his chest until his breastbone gave way with a soft, pliant crunch.

I withdrew my hand, a bizarre mix of human fingers and wolf claws and fur, and kicked his chair out of reach of the small fob he’d placed on the table.

“Should have kept it in your pocket.” I tipped his chair backwards so he fell to the floor.

I moved around the fallen chair to where he lay on the concrete and stepped over him to straddle his torso. His chest looked like a flower in full bloom, shiny red petals with scraps of white in the middle. His hands fluttered like tiny birds around the new opening in his body, a hole where one should not be.

My clawed hand couldn’t move the same way a human hand could, so when I sat on his stomach, my knees tight against his sides, it was my human hand I stuck inside him. Even with a broken arm keeping my gestures limited, I burrowed deep in him, my pain forgotten with a new purpose flowing through me.

His hummingbird hands went still as I wormed my fingers past the broken gristle where his sternum had once been.

“How about we try an experiment, you and I?”

My hand wrapped around his heart, and it pulsed against my hand in a steady rhythm. Ba-bump ba-bump ba—

I squeezed, and for a moment his heart went still, then I loosened my grip and it beat again, more hurriedly than before.

“Do you know what your heart looks like, Doctor? Do you know how long it takes you to heal?” My voice cracked, going high-pitched and crazy.

I registered a click, and my brain told me the sound was familiar, but I was too far gone to think. I leaned close so my face was right near his, and his creepy little grin was nowhere to be found.

“I bet you don’t regenerate either.”

“Ma’am,” a voice bellowed, muffled but alarmingly close. “Step back, and put your hands where I can see them.”

Ignore it, the wolf cajoled. Finish him.

I squeezed, and he let out a bubbling moan, a thin foam of blood seeping from his lips.

“Ma’am, put your hands up, or I will shoot.”

Shoot?

I looked up and was staring down the barrel of a rifle, the matte-black gun aimed right at my head.

Security, I thought, my chance to finish the job vanishing before my eyes. I took a good look at the man holding the gun, his blue-black Kevlar armor and the helmet he wore. Then I saw the eight other men in identical uniforms standing around the room, their guns leveled on me. One turned away from me, sending a signal into the hall with his fingers, but I saw the back of his armor.

Big yellow letters against the dark blue material.

FBI.

“What the fuck?” I asked, and the shock went right through me into The Doctor before I slumped off him, unconscious.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Heaven looked like a hospital room.

Or maybe that was a sure sign I was in hell.

I was dressed in a thin blue hospital gown, and my broken arm was propped over my stomach with a new, proper sling holding it in place. My good hand had returned to normal, no sign of hair or claws, just chipped nails in bad need of some polish.

The overhead lights were dimmed but still bright enough to make me uncomfortable.

Several tubes were connected to the crook of my elbow and the back of my hand, tethering me to a bank of whirring, beeping machines beside my bed.

The first sign I wasn’t dead was the headache I became almost instantly aware of. That coupled with the resurgence of nausea made me certain I hadn’t been introduced to Saint Peter and the pearly gates.

“Bloody hell,” I grumbled. My whole body felt like one giant bruise. It didn’t hold a candle to the pain of the previous week, but I wasn’t about to get up and run a marathon. Or hug anyone. I think a hug might have killed me.

One of the needles I’d been stuck with was feeding me blood, which wasn’t quite the same thing as feeding me blood, but it seemed to be helping. The aches and pains aside, my skin had some color back—as much as I was ever going to have anyway—and I couldn’t see the outlines of my bones anymore.

But, still, I was in a hospital, and there was no way that was a good thing. I’d never been to a hospital as a patient before because the risk of my blood showing up as abnormal was too high.

The blue curtain surrounding my bed rattled on its metal hoops and was pushed partially aside. At the sight of a nurse I recoiled, growling, “Get away from me.”

She stopped, color draining from her face until she was almost as pale as I was. “You’re awake.”

“Sorry to put a damper on whatever psycho tests you wanted to run.” I started to tug out my tubes, apparently finding the one attached to my heart rate monitor first. One of the machines screamed at me, and before I had a chance to get anything else pulled free, three more nurses and a doctor were around me, the curtain pushed all the way back.

I stopped what I was doing and stared past them. Open hallways, other beds with patients in them, but no sign of locked doors or cells. The doctor who leaned over me was a doctor. He wore a white lab coat and had a stethoscope around his neck. In the pocket of his coat were several pens, ones he didn’t seem concerned about having in grabbing distance.

“Where am I?” I tried to swat away their meddling hands, but I was overwhelmed. I only had one functional hand, and between the lot of them they had ten. Unfair advantage.

“Ms. McQueen, my name is Dr. Bernal. You’re at a military compound about an hour south of Sacramento. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

“Guns.”

“Can you be more specific?”

One of the nurses reattached the heart rate monitor, and the screaming machine got a hold of itself.

“I was trying to rip someone’s heart out, and the guy with the gun stopped me. I think they were FBI? My collar—” My good hand flew up to my neck, groping for the black plastic time bomb I’d been wearing. All I felt was skin, smooth and unadorned.

I might never wear a necklace again.

“We were able to remove the device without much difficulty. It was about a ten-thousand volt charge rigged to zap you.”

“Fuck, shit, bitch, cunt, asshole, fucker.” Once I was done, I laughed. I laughed loudly and for far longer than any sane woman should have, especially since I hadn’t said anything funny, and neither had he. “Did I kill him?” I asked, once I stopped cackling.

“No. If anything the shock to his heart restored it after you’d squeezed it.” He checked my lines, flicking a bag of fluid to ensure it was still dripping. “I’m sorry.”

I was sorry. Why should he be sorry I hadn’t murdered someone?

“Do you know what he did to me?”

The doctor stopped toying with my equipment and turned to the nurses. “You can go. I’ve got this under control. Tell the agents she’s awake, please.”

Before speaking again, he pulled my blanket up higher and placed a hand on my knee. I jerked away. I wasn’t trying to be rude, and it wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the kindness of his gesture, but I suspected it was going to be a very long time before I felt okay letting a stranger put their hands on me.

The sympathy and pity in his expression told me everything. “It’s going to take us quite awhile before we’re able to go through Dr. Kesteral’s files. Possibly years, and that’s if the FBI is willing to put even half the time and effort into it as they should. But to answer your question, yes, I do know what he did to you. Your file was new, but it was…extensive.” Dr. Bernal tried to smile—I think he wanted me to feel better—but his lips only managed a grimace. “I’m very sorry, Ms. McQueen.”

“So you’ve read his notes.”

“Yes.”

“And you know what I am?”

He looked confused. “Of course.”

“But you’re not…surprised.”

This time he did smile. “Ah. You think because I’m human I should be running from the room in a panic, waving my arms and screaming to the masses about monsters. Is that it?”

The way he phrased it made me feel guilty for thinking it, but… “Yes.”

“Your kind isn’t nearly as clever as you’ve led yourselves to believe. You think after thousands of years coexisting with vampires we haven’t figured it out?” He lifted his hand as if he was going to touch me again, then thought better of it, putting both hands in his pockets. “There will be plenty of time to discuss it, and perhaps the agents might be better able to answer some questions, but I don’t want you talking to them for long. You need rest.”

He started pulling the curtain closed, but a question came to me that couldn’t wait. “Dr. Bernal?”

“Yes?”

“Were there other survivors?”

He stopped tugging on the curtain. “At the time of the infiltration there were twenty-two other captives on-site. We were able to retrieve eighteen. Six wolves, ten vampires and two CUOs.”

“CUOs?”

“Creatures of unknown origin.”

The curtain was almost closed when I asked, “One of the vampires…was his name Holden?”

“Your friend is fine. He’s being a rather distracting pain in the ass and has been asking for you since we brought him in, but aside from some weakness and other symptoms associated with vampire starvation, he’s doing well.”

“Maxime?” My voice was small.

The doctor became quiet. “No. I’m sorry. Now please, try and get some rest.”

He left before I could ask about my father.

I lay still, staring up at the stained ceiling tiles and counting the beats of my own heart as they echoed on the ECG. They were slow, but that was normal for me.

After I’d counted to a hundred, the curtain rattled again. A man in a nondescript black suit came in. He was a little taller than me, and Latino, his black hair short on the sides in a severe buzz cut. He couldn’t have screamed government employee any louder unless he had mirrored aviators on and drove a black SUV.

“Good evening, Ms. McQueen. My name is Special Agent LaRoy. Sorry to bother you while you’re recovering, but my partner and I were hoping to ask you a few questions if we could.”

“Is your first name Special Agent?” I asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“Tell me your first name, and I’ll answer your questions. You’ll have to forgive me for not wanting to talk to anyone who uses a title instead of a name, considering The Doctor and all.”

“Of course.” He smiled, and it was a nice smile, one that warmed his face and made his eyes twinkle. As far as G-men went, this guy seemed okay. “My first name is Emilio.”

“Hi, Emilio. My name is Secret.”

“A pleasure, ma’am.” The curtain rattled and was pushed back. “I believe you know my partner? Special Agent Tyler Nowakowski.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was nice to know I could still be surprised.

It was also a good thing the collar had been removed. “Jesus fucking Christ, are you fucking shitting me?”

Emilio coughed into his hand to cover his laughter and clapped Tyler once on the back. “I’ll give you two a minute, go get us some coffee before we start the interview, okay?”

He didn’t wait for our response, just vanished into the hospital.

“Tyler?”

“Hi, Secret.” He looked different. I was used to seeing him in dress pants and button-down shirts, but in his FBI suit he appeared less beaten down. The stubble normally coloring his jaw was gone in favor of a clean-shaven face. This was the Tyler I’d gone on a blind date with years ago. This was Tyler the way I’d imagined he’d been before he met me.

“Special Agent Tyler?” That was more of a mouthful than Detective Tyler. It might take some getting used to.

“Guess the cat’s out of the bag.”

“How are you an FBI agent? I just saw you in New York less than two weeks ago working at the police station.”

“That’s my cover now.”

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. I couldn’t make sense of this. “Now? So you were a cop first and then a special agent, or a special agent pretending to be a cop?”

“I used to be just a cop, then after the incident with Gabriel Holbrook, and that…thing pretending to be you? I know you did me a favor by not taking my memory, but I had a hard time accepting the truth. I started doing some searches online. Turns out the FBI don’t just monitor the Internet for assassination threats and bomb recipes.”

“They came to you?”

“They came to me and asked what I knew. I left you out of it, but I told them I’d seen vampires, told them what I’d witnessed in the basement of the precinct. Told them about those murdered teenagers at Christmas. Everything. I thought they would think I was insane and lock me up, but they gave me a job instead.”

“What kind of job?”

“Primarily informational. We investigate reports of supernatural activity based on web searches similar to mine. Usually the people are crackpots, but sometimes something real comes up.”

“Why keep your day job?”

“Because of you.”

“Me?”

He sat on the edge of my bed, his hip against the side of my leg, but I didn’t pull back.

“You saved my life when you could have let that monster take Mercedes and me. I know what you did, telling your vampires I was yours. That’s akin to putting me under your protection. You took a big leap letting me in.”

“And you went and told the government.”

“The government already knew, Secret. You think vampires don’t like to dirty their hands in politics? Are you honestly so naïve you think no one knows about vampires and werewolves and all the rest of it?”

Apparently I had been naïve because I had believed this entire time our secret had been kept. Now I was finding out everyone seemed to know. Military, FBI, whack-job psycho doctors.

“So why isn’t it public knowledge?”

“You think the public could handle knowing something like that?” He shook his head without waiting for my answer. “No. I consider myself a levelheaded, educated guy, and even I didn’t take the knowledge well. I don’t know how Mercedes did it for so long without going nuts.”

“She’s not…”

“No, she didn’t register a blip. If she’s Googled the word vampire, she must have been looking for Twilight reviews, because she never showed up on the system.”

Discovering my best friend wasn’t in the mix on this multi-leveled lie relieved me somewhat. “You said you stayed because of me.”

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way.”

“Okay?” I wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but if he was about to make a confession of love, I wasn’t sure this was the time or place for him to do it.

“You are a magnet for trouble.”

“I… What?”

“You draw things to you. In the few years I’ve known you, from what you’ve allowed me to remember, you killed a creature who was dismembering teenagers, you beheaded a demon who was able to steal human forms, and you almost died at your own wedding because of a jealous werewolf. Can you think of a better place for me to get field experience? Because I sure can’t.”

“You stay in New York, working as a police detective, because you like how much trouble I get into?”

“More or less.”

“Will things change now that the FBI has a file on me?”

Emilio announced his return with a polite warning cough and handed Tyler a coffee. “I asked the doc if you were allowed one, but he said no dice.” He gave an apologetic shrug.

“Thanks for trying.”

“Secret is asking me about her file,” Tyler said, catching Emilio up on the only pertinent fact he’d missed.

“Did you get to the good part?”

“There’s a good part about having the federal government know you’re a super-freak?” I asked.

“There is,” Tyler assured me. “I’ve convinced my supervisors on the project you’re more useful to the good of humanity if you’re kept on the streets as opposed to…” His voice trailed off, gaze drifting over my broken arm and the choir of machines.

Studied. The word he couldn’t say was studied.

“I’m guessing The Doctor’s notes might prove to be more information than they need for the next while,” I said quietly. “Thank goodness for small favors.”

“It did help,” Tyler admitted. “What he did to you is horrible, and I know nothing I can say or do can help make up for what you’ve been through.”

“If you did anything to keep it from happening again, you’ve done more than enough. Thank you.”

“There’s more to it…”

“My freedom comes with an asterisk?”

“A small one,” Emilio said. “Teeny tiny.” He held his fingers so close together light could barely pass through the gap.

“I don’t have a list of spies I can give them or anything.”

“We’re not the CIA.” Emilio sneered and sipped his coffee with a loud slurp.

“What’s the catch?”

“Well…you’re sort of a government asset now.” Tyler stood up as if he was afraid I might slap him, which would have implied he said something bad, only I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.

“An asset as in an employee or an informant?” I asked.

“More like an asset we could stick a label on that says Property of the US Government.”

I struggled to sit up, because surely even in my condition there had to be a way for me to strangle two smirking government employees to death with my bare hands. “What?”

“It’s a formality, just a paperwork thing. This way you can be incorporated into the project but you don’t show up in any personnel documentation. Your asset tag is assigned solely to us.” Tyler pointed from himself to Emilio. “We’re your handlers.”

“I’m not totally sure you heard me the first time, so I’m going to say it again. What?”

“For all intents and purposes, you now belong to the US Government,” Emilio said, leaving no room for me to second-guess his meaning.

“But I’m Canadian.”

“We won’t hold that against you.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Before the boys had a chance to tattoo a serial number on me or inject me with any tracking chips, they went through a standard debrief. What should have been a quick question-and-answer turned into an hour and a half of me reliving the last week of my life for them.

When I was finished, Tyler assured me Dr. Kesteral would be made to pay for what he’d done.

“No court in the world can punish him the way he deserves to be punished,” I said. My headache was returning with more vigor than before, and the blood bag attached to my elbow had gone dry.

“He won’t be tried in a public court. He won’t be tried at all. There’s a special panel that will review what he’s done, get whatever information they can from him and then…”

“Then?”

“He’ll be disposed of.”

“If your panel needs any help, I think the government owns a tool that would be mighty useful to them in psycho doctor disposals.” I tried to make a joke of it, but the truth of the matter was if I ever saw The Doctor again, I would shred him until nothing but a fine red mist remained.

“Do you need anything before we go?” Emilio had left his card with me in case I ever had a request for him when Tyler was unavailable. They both assumed I would continue to trust Tyler as I had before, in spite of the fact he’d been lying to me for over a year.

I didn’t know how I felt about this new revelation, or how to process the news that the Government of the United States knew about vampires and werewolves but suppressed that knowledge from the general public. I shouldn’t have been shocked to learn politicians would lie to the people they represented, but this seemed like an awfully big secret to keep buried.

“I want to see Holden,” I said.

“I don’t think—”

“I want to see Holden.”

“Emilio, can you maybe go discuss it with the doctor?”

The shorter agent left. Ten minutes later Tyler disappeared as well, going to see what was holding up the process.

Twenty minutes went by, and I had all but given up hope of my request being fulfilled, when a wheelchair was pushed through the curtain.

He was pale, but that was nothing new. His cheekbones had a malnourished look still, but he was moving beyond the concentration-camp gaunt and back towards model thin. My heart leapt into my throat, making my words catch there. The nurse who’d brought the chair in did a perfect impression of a strict Sunday school teacher when she said, “Mr. Chancery is to stay in his chair. Ms. McQueen is to stay in her bed. You’re both healing, please respect the healing process. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

I barely heard a word of what she had said after Mr. Chancery. He looked like shit, but he was alive, and that made him the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on.

Ignoring any warnings he’d received, he stood up, legs still wobbly, and climbed into the bed beside me. In spite of my theory about not wanting hugs, when he wrapped his arms around me, I melted into him like I was butter and he was the pancake.

“I thought I’d never see you again.” I burrowed my face into the crook of his neck.

“I know.” He brushed back my hair and placed a kiss on my forehead. “Has he been in to see you yet?”

“You mean Tyler?”

“Tyler? The gangly detective? No, why on earth would I mean Tyler?”

I tilted my chin up, abrading my nose on the stubble covering his jaw. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Holden with stubble. “Who are you talking about?”

“Desmond.” His confusion got more pronounced when he saw my face. If I looked half as shocked as I felt, my expression must have been a doozy.

“What?” It was my new favorite question over the last couple of hours, though in fairness people were telling me a lot of things that were hard to process.

“Desmond is here. They wouldn’t let him in to see you, not sure why, something about protection was all I overheard. I assumed they would have told you though.”

If I’d known Desmond was anywhere within a hundred-mile radius, I would have kicked off the covers and gone looking for him myself. Since mobility might be an issue, I would have insisted they let him in to see me.

“Why is he here?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t who he was trying to see. I just listened to what I could hear from where they had me. He really hasn’t been in to see you?”

I shook my head and tried to sit up, but the movement made me dizzy. How long was it going to take before things got back to normal and I started feeling like myself again instead of a half-dead walking skeleton?

“You’re sure they said Desmond?”

He sat up beside me, wincing. For the life of me I couldn’t imagine what Desmond would be doing here. I was elated to know he was close, but I couldn’t comprehend his presence. He had no interaction with the council—not the one back home or the one here—so how could he have figured out where to look for me?

Aside from our brief conversation en route from Los Angeles to San Francisco, I hadn’t spoken to him in days. Almost two weeks if I factored in the time I’d been kept locked up.

Questions swam around in my brain, bumping against one another to derail my thought process. I would just about have a grasp on one idea when another would push its way to the forefront. Tyler and Emilio had asked all the questions to fill in whatever blanks they had, but it hadn’t occurred to me that between us we would have a complete picture. I should have been more thorough, made them tell me what they knew. Then I might have the slightest hope in hell of understanding the whole story.

Desmond might have some of the answers I so desperately needed, but more than that I needed him. I had dreamed of him the way a prisoner dreams of freedom, and now I was out and he was so close, but he was still out of my reach.

I squeezed Holden’s hand, looking back at him. “Did they tell you anything?”

“Only that you were okay. That was all I needed to know.”

“Did they…did they tell you about Max?”

He grimaced and swallowed hard, I think to fight off any display of emotion. His expression became stoic and he said, “I heard.”

I didn’t ask if he knew all the details. Knowing Maxime had died was bad enough; I didn’t want to burden him with how. Gruesome details of the scene would be burned into my psyche for the rest of my life, and only one of us needed to be haunted by those images. Besides, no words existed to paint a proper picture of what The Doctor had done to him, and maybe that was for the best.

I fought the urge to escape from the bed and go in search of Desmond. The nurse who’d brought Holden to me had said we’d only have five minutes, and for those five minutes I would stay in his arms. Leaning back into him, I twined the fingers of my good hand into his and settled my head on his shoulder.

“Holden?”

“Yes?”

“Did we really make it out, or is this just some dream you’re giving me to help me let go?”

His fingers twitched against mine, squeezing harder, almost to the point of pain before he relaxed them. “If I was going to give you one last dream, don’t you think we’d be naked?”

I laughed even though it hurt. “Maybe you thought that would be too obvious.”

“No. We made it. We’re out.”

“I gave up, you know.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I did. I thought I’d seen you for the last time. I didn’t think I was going to leave that place alive. I gave up.”

“You don’t know how to give up.” He was stroking my hair, placing delicate kisses along my temple and cheeks. “You don’t have a quitter in you.”

“When I saw Max…”

“Secret, shhh.”

“I gave up,” I whispered, pressing my lips against the cool blue fabric of the gown he wore.

“If you’d given up, we’d all be dead. You didn’t give up, you just…let go.”

Calliope had told me once my fatal flaw was my need to be a normal person, to act in a way that I could pretend I was human and not a monster.

But Holden was right. I hadn’t given up.

I’d just kissed my humanity goodbye.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Four days later

Government assets were not supposed to make demands.

I’d learned that much from the exasperated expressions I continued to receive from Tyler and Emilio whenever I asked for something new.

That’s what they got for labeling me as property.

A Dell laptop might not ask for a lot from its government-assigned owner, but if these two thought I was going to politely do their bidding and not ask for anything in return, they needed to be set straight sooner rather than later.

My first request had been to see Desmond.

I’d been denied.

My second through twelfth requests had also been to see Desmond, and each in turn had been shot down. They tried to be polite about it at first, but in the end Emilio and a military doctor had told me to stop asking. Desmond was a civilian, and it turned out architects do not merit military clearance. And certainly not walk-on privileges at a top-secret military hospital.

From what I gathered he hadn’t liked the news any more than I had, but his reaction had been a bit…stronger. For the four days it took for the doctors to be satisfied with my recovery, Desmond had been kept in the stockade.

Now that they were sure I was fully mobile and healthy, instead of rewarding me with a visit, I was being debriefed. Again.

I’d been left in a small interrogation room in the hospital’s basement. From what I could tell the hospital itself was one part of a much larger complex, but since I hadn’t been taken outside during my stay, I couldn’t figure out how big. Chances were good I’d never be privy to that information. The less I knew the better as far as they were concerned.

The same theory extended to discovering the wellbeing of others. Aside from five-minute visits with Holden each night, I hadn’t been allowed to see my father. The doctor said he was in no condition to receive visitors, which suggested I’d been wise not to see him while we were in captivity. Anything that would take a vampire more than five days to heal couldn’t be good.

I’d been ready to get out of bed on my second day, but they’d wanted to be cautious.

I paced the ugly yellow interrogation room, none too pleased about being locked in a small space after what I’d been through. I’d never enjoyed tight quarters, but now even a twenty-by-twenty room felt cramped to me.

The door opened, and Tyler entered, along with a man in full military dress. Tyler settled into one of the vacant chairs across the table from me, and the officer removed his cap, tucking it under his arm.

He was a good-looking man, perhaps forty or a well-preserved fifty, with dark brown hair going gray at the temples and eyes the color of rich espresso. He had crinkly lines around his eyes and mouth suggesting a lifetime spent smiling. Across his left breast lapel were a number of service ribbons, telling me he was an officer of some important rank.

“Good evening, Ms. McQueen. My name is Major Logan van Buren.” He extended a hand to me, and I considered ignoring it but thought better of it. If I was going to curry any favor with these guys, I would have to play nice.

I shook his hand, maybe a bit too firmly, and said, “Tribunal Leader Secret McQueen. Queen of the Eastern werewolf pack.” If we wanted to play a game of ranks, I was willing to pull out the only big guns I had. I didn’t like using either of my titles when I was with my own kind, but I figured they might give me some weight to throw around here.

Van Buren sat next to Tyler and indicated I should take the seat across from them. I obliged him.

“That’s a mouthful of names you’ve got, Ms. McQueen.”

I considered requesting he address me by my appropriate titles, but decided if he was going to be casual, so would I. I might be a government pawn now, but I wasn’t under his command. “It certainly is, Mr. van Buren.”

“Let’s dispose with formalities, shall we?” He was on to my game and seemed willing to play. “You can call me Logan. Can I call you Secret?”

“You can call me the Whore of Babylon if you’ll let me see Desmond Alvarez.”

Tyler, who had a stack of folders in his hand, placed one in front of the major. Logan opened it, and I saw Desmond’s photo affixed to the top left corner.

“Mr. Alvarez…” Logan flipped through the documents quickly, but from what I could read upside down they had a pretty complete history of Desmond and his family in there. I wondered how thorough it was. If they knew what I was, did they also know what he was? “It seems Mr. Alvarez went to a great deal of trouble to find you.”

“He did?”

No one had told me anything about Desmond’s part in this whole thing, so I still didn’t know where or how he factored in.

“Very brave. Very foolish.” Logan closed the file and slid it back to Tyler. “We normally have a way of dealing with this kind of civilian interference, but with respect to you we’ve held off with Mr. Alvarez.”

“What, do you guys have a vampire on retainer who can come in and enthrall humans so they don’t remember anything?” I snorted. When the men exchanged a loaded glance, my mouth fell open. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Our practices are not the concern here, Secret. Not at the moment. I understand you may find our methods questionable, but tell me this…would you prefer we employ a vampire to augment human memories, or would you rather we make those humans…disappear?” Logan folded his hands on the table and met my eyes boldly.

He had a point.

“I want to see Desmond.”

“In due time.”

“I’ve waited days. People keep dodging me. Can you just tell me if you have any intention whatsoever of letting me see my boyfriend?”

“I thought the vampire was your boyfriend,” Tyler said.

“I would assume the werewolf king would be your husband given your title of queen.”

Smarmy bastards.

“Well, the wolf king would agree with you, Logan, but if your file has any press clippings on me from the past year, I think you’ll understand why I don’t feel the same.”

“Lucas Rain is the werewolf king?” Logan lost any pretense of decorum in that moment, becoming more excited than a child on Christmas morning. “Well, isn’t that interesting?”

Oops.

“You guys sort of suck at researching this paranormal stuff, you know that, right?”

“That’s why we have you now,” Logan replied.

“Awesome. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Desmond Alvarez is in the room next door. If you are willing to sit and talk with me a few minutes longer, yes, I will give you a private audience with him.”

My heart flip-flopped, and I stared at the wall as if I might have newly acquired x-ray vision and could potentially get a glimpse of him. Sadly my powers remained limited, and sarcasm was not the same as being able to see through walls.

Tyler handed Logan another folder, and this one was passed along to me. I opened it, then immediately shoved it back at him. “Forget it.”

“Secret…” Tyler started.

“Why are you doing this to me? I’ve answered every question you’ve asked, and I just want to see Desmond. I don’t see why I need to go over all this again.”

Logan reopened the folder and pushed it back to me. “I understand this is difficult—”

“I don’t think you do. I think this is words on paper to you. I don’t think you have the faintest goddamn idea what I went through.”

“Then explain it to me. Because right now, Dr. Kesteral’s fate is up to me to decide. So you explain to me what he did, and maybe I’ll have a better handle on how to deal with him.”

I glanced down at the folder, and a glossy eight-by-ten photo of The Doctor stared back at me. Bruises under each eye made the blue of his irises even colder. He looked sick, making me think the photo was taken recently. I wanted to know if they had any pictures that showed what I’d done to his chest, but I thought better of asking.

The tab stuck to the side of the folder read Friedrich T. Kesteral. Friedrich. It wasn’t a name to strike fear, but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to think of someone named Fred the same way.

I turned the photo over so he would stop staring at me, and what came next almost made me throw the folder in Logan’s face. Apparently The Doctor had meticulously documented the things he’d done to me, because the file continued with more photos. Here was my chest opened up for the world to see, and next to it pictures of my split belly.

My hands shook violently as I flipped the photo over. Tears ran down my cheeks, but I tried to pretend they weren’t there as I paged through a half-dozen more photos showing things he must have done while I was unconscious.

The last photo of me was the most recent and had been taken after my arrival at the hospital. My eyes were closed, and they had been kind enough to give me some false modesty by covering my body from chest to thigh before photographing me. My arm hadn’t yet been set in the photo and bent sideways at an awkward angle. I’d likely rebroken it when I crammed my hand into The Doctor’s chest.

Pink faded scars still showed where he’d cut me open, though they’d mostly healed by that point from the extra blood I’d had before the FBI team arrived.

It was my face that upset me most. The deep blue bags under my eyes looked like bruises, and my skin was so pale I could have passed for dead. This photo more closely resembled autopsy pictures than evidence of a living woman.

The next photo was Holden when he’d arrived, looking like he’d just wandered out of Auschwitz. There were no photos of him during his stay with The Doctor, and I thanked my lucky stars for that.

Before going on I hesitated. “Are there…? Is Maxime in here?”

“No. We thought it best to… We didn’t think it was necessary to include those.” Meaning the photos existed, but not in this file.

“You couldn’t have extended your consideration to the photos of a man wriggling his hands around in my guts?” I snapped, my fingers clenching hard on the photo of Holden, wrinkling his face under my palm.

Tyler appeared sheepish, but Logan was unapologetic. “I need you to remember this, Secret. I need you to tell me everything.”

I flipped the page over, and an unfamiliar face stared up at me. No, not unfamiliar, but…new.

I’d always thought I looked more like my mother because we had the same nose and the same curly hair. But the man in the photo staring back at me could have been my younger brother.

And not the younger brother I actually had, who looked nothing like me.

As with the photo of me when I’d arrived at the hospital, Sutherland was unconscious in his portrait, making it impossible for me to tell if his eyes were the same brown as mine, but so much else was similar.

His hair was the same pale blond. We shared the same mouth, the same sun-starved complexion and the same ears. I touched the photo tentatively, not letting myself see the unhealed wounds marring his chest and arms, because all that mattered was his face.

This was my father.

It was hard to wrap my head around the idea at first since the man in this photo was younger than me, forever frozen at seventeen. But I couldn’t deny the resemblance, and my heart and stomach both flip-flopped to see his face.

“Is he…? I never asked. Is he okay?”

“He took longer to heal than one would expect from a vampire, but yes. He’s up and moving again, doesn’t seem worse for the wear. Physically anyway.” Logan emphasized the last part, and I understood what he was telling me. Sutherland was nuts.

I tried to empathize with him. My father had been turned against his will. He’d tried to murder his family and almost succeeded. He had no vampire sire to ease his transition into living with the council, but he’d still tried to be good.

And he’d been punished.

Punished because of me.

Using the heel of my hand, I roughly wiped tears from my cheeks and closed the folder without looking at any other photos.

“We couldn’t help but notice the resemblance,” Tyler commented. “Now that he’s recovered it’s…well, it’s uncanny really. Are you two related?”

I nodded, grating my fingernails down the front of the folder. “He’s my father.”

“Your…father?” Logan sounded unconvinced.

“Vampires don’t age,” I reminded him. “He’s my biological father. He was turned at seventeen, right before my mother gave birth.”

Logan nodded, and Tyler reached across the table to retrieve the folder from me before I dug my way though the cover.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” I said. “Any details not covered by the notes, anything I have to give you, it’s yours on one condition.”

“I’ve already promised you can see Desmond,” Logan told me.

“And I’ll hold you to that, but I want you to promise me one more thing.”

“It depends on what it is.”

“When you have everything you can possibly learn from him and there’s nothing else he can tell you, I want you to put me in a room with Friedrich Kesteral. I want that room to have no windows, and I want you to leave me alone with him for an hour.”

“I don’t think that’s a good—”

“When this man’s usefulness to you is spent, you will put me in a room with him, do you understand? Because he’s going to die one way or another, and whether it’s sanctioned by the government or not, I will be the one to kill him.”

Logan looked afraid of me for the first time since he’d walked into the room. Then he extended his hand and said, “Deal.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It took Logan seven hours to ask me everything he wanted to know. In those seven hours I told him what I’d seen of the way the compound worked, how many different employees I’d interacted with, and repeated every conversation I’d had with The Doctor.

I still couldn’t think of him as Friedrich. The name was too normal and too soft for the man it was attached to. I’d thought giving him a human name would help me feel better about things, help me humanize him and think of him as something other than the boogeyman in my nightmares, but it didn’t do any good.

He was still The Doctor. He would always be The Doctor.

The only way I was going to exorcise my demons would be when I eradicated him from the face of the earth. I needed to be the one who killed him because otherwise I’d never believe he was gone. Until my skin was stained with his blood and I saw the light go out in his eyes, I wouldn’t be free from the power he had over me.

Nine days was all it had taken for him to beat me down, and now he owned me.

It didn’t matter that he was in captivity or I was supposedly free, because in my mind I was still wearing the collar. I was still shackled to him and would be as long as he stayed alive.

Once the major was done asking his questions—some of which were new, most a repeat of the same old story—he got to his feet and shook my hand. Tyler followed suit, giving me a firm handshake and a supportive smile.

“I’m looking forward to working with you in the future, Secret. I think this team can do great things.” Logan nodded from me to Tyler. “Of course, I don’t need to remind you your affiliation with us would best be kept quiet. I understand your vampire council likes to believe they’ve got everyone fooled. Let’s let them keep thinking that.”

“That might not be as easy as it sounds.”

“You’re their leader, aren’t you?”

“I’m one third of the leadership of one of the councils. But even there I’m outranked by one.”

“You think you’re going to have any difficulty lying to one vampire?” Logan asked.

“If you’d ever met Sig, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

“Come a time you feel you’re no longer safe, you make the call and we’ll extract you.”

I laughed, my first real non-crazed laugh since I’d been free, and the sound was so unfamiliar to me I almost jumped. “Logan, with all due respect to you, I’m not a double agent. You need me for intel on all the things that go bump in the night, fine, I’ll help you. But I’m not giving anyone up, and I’m not telling you anything I don’t feel comfortable sharing. I appreciate what the FBI did for me, and whatever part the military played, I’m grateful to you too, but you don’t understand the first damned thing about vampires. So here’s my first bit of insider information for you.”

“What’s that?”

“The moment I no longer feel protected by my own council, I’m already dead. Because that’s the only way I get out of there. Understand?”

“Yes, Ms. McQueen. I believe I do.”

“Good. Now bring me Desmond Alvarez.”

They left, Tyler offering me a brotherly pat on the shoulder before taking his exit, and I resumed pacing the room. Logan had told me Desmond was in a room next door, yet the time between their exit and his arrival felt interminable.

When the door reopened, I froze in my tracks, staring at the entry like a frightened deer stares at an oncoming car, knowing what was inevitable but unable to move out of its way.

He wore a similarly shocked expression, like he hadn’t believed he’d get to see me when they brought him into the room.

“Secret?”

I’d missed him. I thought I’d understood the depth to which I could long for someone, but seeing him in front of me told me I had no idea. My hands trembled to touch him, and a hideous-sounding sob wrested free of my throat.

I’d been drowning, and he was the oxygen I hadn’t known I needed.

“Des—”

He didn’t give me an opportunity to finish saying his name. In one moment he was filling the doorway with his body, and in the next I was in his arms. He lifted me full off the floor and supported my weight easily with a hand on either thigh, latching me to him.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him like he was the last refuge on an angry sea. When he kissed me, I felt years of my life being restored. His kiss and its sweet-and-sour limey tang was the last piece of the puzzle falling into place.

His lips tasted salty, and when I pulled my face back, tears were streaming down his cheeks. I kissed each one, reveling in the joy that brought rather than the horrible anguish that had been causing mine.

“I thought…” He drifted off when he began placing soft kisses on my cheeks and nose before finding my mouth and seizing it in a way that left me clinging to him and gasping for air. His kiss was ferocious and claiming, burdened with need. I knew what he’d thought because I’d seen the look on his face once before when he believed I was dying.

He’d thought the same thing I had about Holden.

Desmond had believed he was never going to see me alive again.

I touched his face, letting my fingers memorize every line and groove, savoring the rough tug of his short beard on my palms. When I’d left he’d had a bit of stubble, but it had evidently been quite some time since he had bothered with a razor.

“I like your beard,” I mumbled, scratching it with my fingernails.

He laughed lightly and pressed his forehead against my sternum, where his laughter vanished into tears. When he righted himself and put me on the floor, his cheeks were stained from crying, but I didn’t think I could recall ever seeing him so damned happy.

“They wouldn’t tell me anything. I wasn’t allowed to see you, and no one would explain what had happened to you. What happened?”

The idea of telling my story again so soon after the major’s rigorous debriefing was more than I could bear. I shook my head and placed a hand on his chest over his heart. “Not now.”

“Tell me something.”

“How much do you know?”

“The last time I spoke to you was two weeks ago when you were flying to San Francisco.” He guided me to the chair Logan had previously been sitting in, then took Tyler’s former seat for himself. “I waited about two days since I knew you were on council business and I didn’t want to interrupt anything at the wrong time, but when you hadn’t called me in over forty-eight hours, I started to worry. I tried calling you, and I tried calling Holden since I knew he was with you, but neither of you were answering. So I called Lucas.”

I’d almost forgotten seeing Lucas at the hotel. It felt like a different lifetime now, him kissing me in the hall while his famous girlfriend waited inside the restaurant. I longed for a time when dealing with my messy love life was the worst of my problems.

Desmond continued, “He told me a bit of what happened, but I gather he was leaving some details out. He did say you were upset when you left him.”

“Me? Upset with Lucas Rain? Never.” I smiled and pulled my legs up under me. I’d been sitting in these uncomfortable metal chairs for hours, but it sounded like Desmond was just getting started on his story.

“I thought you’d bolted.”

Ah, yes. It wasn’t the most absurd thought he’d ever had because I had run from my problems in the past. “I told you I’d never leave without telling you. I promised you,” I reminded him. In the supernatural community a promise meant a lot more than your word. It usually represented a solemn oath. I was a bit offended he believed I’d go back on mine so easily.

“I know, and I’m sorry for thinking it. But after he told me what he’d done, and you weren’t answering…”

“You thought I ran off with Holden, didn’t you?”

He nodded, not pretending otherwise. “You’re a PI, Secret, tell me what you would have assumed given the evidence?”

He was right. Even a rookie detective would have jumped to the same conclusion. But the fact Desmond was here and I’d been rescued from hell made me believe he hadn’t planned on letting me go without a fight.

“I wanted to be sure. You had promised me, and I believed you intended to keep your promise. It didn’t make sense to me that you’d up and leave. So I called Vivienne.”

“You called Grandmere?”

“I did. I assumed if there was anyone on Earth you would feel you had to tell where you were going, it would be her. She hadn’t heard from you either, which is when I started to really worry. I called everyone. Everyone. I spoke to Callum and Eugenia and half the Southern pack, hoping you might have made contact. I knew you’d gotten close to your sister, and I thought she might have spoken with you, but she hadn’t. She was able to tell me you hadn’t been active on Skype for over a day, which she explained was a sure sign your phone was either turned off or the battery was dead.”

Smart girl. I had no idea how to change my status on the video chat program, so it was always on. And anyone who knew me also knew I wasn’t in the habit of turning off my phone.

“Since your bloody phone is always on, that meant it had to be dead. Your voicemail was full, which meant you weren’t retrieving your messages, and I have my texts set to tell me when the recipient reads them. You hadn’t seen a single one I’d sent. I knew something was wrong.”

“I’m so sorry.” I hated that he’d been worried, but at the same time I wanted to hug him for not giving up. “What happened next?”

“I went to Mercedes.”

Clever. When he exhausted his supernatural resources, he’d gone for a more conventional one. The last time I’d run off, I told Mercedes where I was. Since Lucas had approached her then, I was betting he’d told Desmond about his failed attempt to coerce information from her. I felt a sudden pang of guilt. Oh God, Cedes needs to know I’m alive.

Seeing my flustered expression, he grabbed one of my hands. “Tyler had someone call her. He couldn’t do it himself because she doesn’t know about him. From what I’ve been told, and the thirteen nondisclosure agreements I’ve been forced to sign, none of us are supposed to know about Tyler.”

“How do you know then?” Would Tyler have been stupid enough to let Desmond see him? That seemed like an awfully big risk unless there was more to it than I’d heard so far.

“Tyler was with Mercedes when I went to speak with her. I’ve got to say, he’s got the innocent vibe down pat because he toed the company line the entire time I was there. I even filed a missing persons report to make it official. But Mercedes told me she hadn’t heard from you either. She said she’d make some calls to the SFPD, but I’m betting there won’t be much of a record. Not if Tyler got to it first.”

I couldn’t handle the chair anymore, so I got to my feet and started pacing again, this time in small circles near Desmond.

He went on. “Tyler came to see me that night. He asked me if there were any details I’d left out, then told me he knew what you were. He said you’d claimed him?”

“I’ve marked him as being mine. It’s a vampire thing. It means he’s under my protection.” As his brows knit together I added, “Before you start thinking it means anything, I’d like to point out I’ve also claimed you. And Cedes. Aaand Nolan, Shane, Keaty and a few others.” I smiled at him and shrugged. “I’m a property whore, what can I say? Point is, it keeps you guys safe from other vampires when I’m not around. At least vampires who obey council laws.”

“I told Tyler about Peyton,” Desmond said when I finished. “And about your mother. He said he had the resources to help. I didn’t know what he meant, but I was willing to do anything. So I told him.”

I stopped pacing. “Did he find them?” If Alexandre Peyton and Mercy McQueen were somewhere in this complex and no one had told me, I was going to lose my shit in short order.

Desmond shook his head, letting some of the steam out of my rage teakettle. I wouldn’t put it past the government to lie to me. Or lie by omission, anyway. After all, they were keeping a huge secret buried from the general public, so what was one little secret kept from me?

“As far as I know the search never involved them. It was focused on you and Holden. I mean, it’s possible other things happened, but to the best of my knowledge you were the main target of the investigation.”

Because Tyler wanted to keep using me. Because I was his asset. It made sense, in a twisted way, that he’d be dedicated to finding me. You don’t put that much time and effort into something just to let it vanish without a trace. I was his pet project, so he’d fought for me.

Tyler Nowakowski was demented. In a sweet way.

“But if the FBI was responsible for finding me, why are you here? Not that I’m not thrilled.” I sat down again, squeezing both his hands. “But why did they involve you? And why did they throw you in lockup?”

He blushed. “The stockade thing was my own fault. When they brought you back here, they wouldn’t let me in. I’d come with the FBI escort, and I’d assumed I’d be given access, but I was suddenly declared civilian, which in military terms means persona non grata. When they told me hell would freeze over before I was ever allowed into the hospital, I sort of…lost it.”

Desmond was the calm one. He was the cool, level head and voice of reason in my otherwise chaotic life. “Lost it how?”

“I might have turned over a Humvee and destroyed all the furniture in the hospital lobby. That was as far as I got before they tasered me.” He shrugged as if to say, Shit happens. “I can’t be mad. I sort of had it coming. Woke up in a cell, and I’ve been there until today.”

“How were you involved, though?” I still couldn’t understand why they would bring him this far only to shut him out in the end. What part had he played to make it pivotal for him to come across the country?

“I found you.”

“You…what?”

“I told them you were my mate. I explained how the mate-bond functioned.”

So much for my keeping his wolfy nature a secret.

“But we’re not mate-bonded. You didn’t mark me, I would have known.” And more importantly, he knew better than to do it without my permission, which was how Lucas had completed the bond.

“They didn’t know that. I made them believe the only hope in hell they had of finding you was bringing me along for the ride. Turns out I was right.”

“So how did you find me?”

“Well, getting to you was a joint effort, but it helped to have FBI resources on my side. We knew you’d planned on going to the Winchester Mystery House the night you vanished. Tyler confiscated all the park tapes. There aren’t any inside the house, so we didn’t see you being abducted, but we were able to see which of the tour guests were missing when it was all over. You, Holden, the boy you were with—”

“Maxime.”

“Yes. And one other.”

That didn’t take a genius to figure out, since I knew who’d taken me. “The Doctor.”

“Dr. Friedrich Kesteral, yes.”

When I’d first woken in my cell, I had wondered how The Doctor was able to take three vampires by force so easily when he was human. After hearing him tell me about all the experiments he’d run, I hadn’t wondered anymore. Thirty years of research was a long time. Long enough to know vampire weaknesses, and certainly long enough to develop a way to incapacitate them.

No wonder the government was so keen to go through The Doctor’s research. Soon enough they’d know every weakness a vampire had, plus a half dozen we probably didn’t yet know existed.

“I take it the FBI was able to figure out who he was.”

“Apparently face recognition software is real. Dr. Kesteral didn’t have a criminal record, but he was considered a person of interest for quite some time, I gather. I didn’t get a lot of the finer details, but they were able to find an empty parcel of land he owned near Palo Alto. Then they decided to use me.”

I sucked air in through my nostrils. “You were their bloodhound, weren’t you?”

He nodded. “The place looked deserted enough, but I was able to pick up your scent. I knew you were there. It took them nearly fourteen hours to find the entrance.”

During which time my arm had been broken and I’d almost gotten away with murder.

“But they found me.”

“They found you.”

“The FBI assumes Kesteral had help removing you, Holden and Maxime from the house, likely through a workers’ entrance. Unfortunately there weren’t any cameras back there to help us find out who.”

“He had plenty of people to choose from. The guy had a bloody staff.” All of whom were probably in an FBI prison somewhere, having their identities erased from public record.

I’d wanted them all to burn, but I’d take what I could get.

“You found me,” I corrected.

Desmond nodded. “I’d go to hell and back to find you.”

I squeezed his hands, worried if I let go, he might vanish. Part of me was still terrified this was all a dream.

“You did.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Secret McQueen. Two SIG P226 9mm handguns. Seven ammunition clips, silver. One silver knife. One leather holster. One pair leather boots. One leather jacket. One Kate Spade purse…leather. One Samsung cellular phone.”

“Something that isn’t leather,” I said, having picked up some attitude from the woman handing me my belongings.

Holden sat next to me, a stony expression on his face.

The woman continued, unimpressed with my interruption. “Holden Chancery. One iPhone. One pair Armani shoes. Leather.”

“That’s it?” I asked when she passed him a plastic bag with his brown shoes and phone enclosed.

“It was all I wanted back.”

I hugged my jacket close to me and handed my bag of belongings to Desmond for safekeeping.

“I want Maxime’s things too,” I insisted.

“The vampire had nothing of value on his person.” She sneered when she said person.

“And Sutherland Halliston?”

“Why on earth would I give you his belongings?”

“Because he’s my father. And because something in there might save his damned immortal life. Now give me his stuff.”

She frowned but didn’t offer further argument. I was betting someone had told her I had the right to claim on Sutherland’s behalf—Logan or Tyler probably—otherwise she might have argued longer or called a supervisor for permission. Instead she returned with a small baggy.

“Sutherland Halliston. One wallet, leather. One Nokia cellular phone. One pendant, crystal.”

When she said crystal, my pulse jumped. He really did have it, the one thing that might save his life with the Tribunal. I hadn’t known what I was looking for, but when the clerk said crystal, I knew. I knew what he had without a sliver of doubt in my mind.

That stupid broken window I’d found in the closet before the Doctor grabbed me. He’d somehow managed to swap them. Sutherland might be crazy, but it looked like resourcefulness ran in the family.

“Thank you.” All of the surliness vanished from my tone, replaced with genuine appreciation. “Thank you.”

“Desmond Alvarez,” she continued, ignoring me, though I saw her lip twitch into a momentary smile. “One BlackBerry. One wallet, leather.” Since Desmond hadn’t been stripped on arrival like Holden and I had, it made sense he would have the least to collect when we left.

“Sign here,” the clerk said, passing us a clipboard. “You sign twice.” She tapped the line by Sutherland’s name. I obliged her.

“One more thing,” I said, which seemed to surprise her. “Do you have a cellphone charger?”

Seven hundred and forty-one new texts.

One hundred and eighty-seven missed calls.

Ten voicemails, which was the maximum number my phone could accommodate.

I didn’t know where to begin.

I cleared the missed-call log immediately. I knew who I would have missed calls from, and I’d get back to each of them in turn. I skipped the texts for the time being because, well, there were too many for me to go through without an afternoon of free time. I jumped into the voicemails.

Lucas calling to apologize for his behavior.

Desmond. Desmond. Desmond.

Grandmere.

Desmond.

Mercedes.

Tyler.

Desmond. Desmond.

As I cleared the last of the messages, the phone began to buzz in my hand. I didn’t bother checking the screen before answering. It didn’t matter who was on the other end, I was about to get an earful.

“Hello?”

“Just where in the hell have you been?” Aha! So Sig could get angry.

“I can’t really get into it—”

“Don’t. Don’t start. I will not listen to excuses.”

“I wasn’t making excuses.”

“You vanish off the face of the planet, leaving Ingrid in Los Angeles to make excuses for you, while the goddamn Tribunal thinks you’ve made off with some precious artifact. I’ve got Eilidh complaining to me about a window, and she assumes you’ve run off with Holden, while Rebecca would love to know what you’re doing with all her offspring.”

I was glad I was already sitting because it was a lot to hear all at once.

“I didn’t run off. I went looking for Sutherland like the Tribunal requested. It just took longer to recover him than expected.”

“Two weeks longer? And your phone has been off the whole time? I find that hard to—”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. I’d held my composure pretty well over the past several days, all things considered, but I wasn’t about to take a browbeating from Sig because he believed I was shirking my council duties. I would not be guilt tripped or talked down to. Not after what I’d been through. “I don’t care what it looks like, Sig. I don’t care what the West Coast council or Ingrid think. I have been through hell getting my father back, and I refuse to explain myself to them, to you or to anyone else.”

Static filled the line, making me think I’d lost the connection.

“You aren’t going to have a choice. You have to explain it to the West Coast Tribunal, and sooner rather than later.”

“Why?”

“Because this morning Galen Altos issued a warrant for your death.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I didn’t imagine the first time I’d meet my father would be because I was trying to get us both out of a death sentence.

When I was younger, I’d thought about him a lot, the way I imagined most girls with no parents did. My grandmere warned me about my mother to high heaven, so I didn’t have the same fantasies about Mercy as I had with Sutherland.

The man I’d imagined as a child was not the man I met in the lobby of the military hospital. I’d used what limited pull I had with the FBI—and through them Major Logan—to secure my father’s release. It was amazing what people were willing to do when you explained your life was on the line.

I didn’t kid myself that my wellbeing concerned them. Tyler might have cared, but to everyone else I was a resource they’d invested time and money into. If letting a crazy vampire out of a military hospital was what it took to keep me alive, they were apparently okay with signing him over to me.

He emerged from a back office with an armed attendant. Normally I’d have said it was uncalled for, but given what Logan had told me about Sutherland’s mental state, I wasn’t going to question any precautions the humans wanted to take.

The first thing that struck me was how young he appeared. He’d been fed and had physically recovered from his wounds—whatever they’d been—and now he looked like a boy. It was hard for me to think of this man as my father.

“Hello,” he said sweetly when he reached us, his voice sticky with a Southern drawl much like the rest of my family’s. He nodded to me and Desmond, then to Holden. “Hello.” The o sound was drawn out, and something about the way he spoke was a bit…off.

“Sutherland, do you know who we are?” Holden touched my father’s arm, and seeing them side by side was too bizarre to comprehend. Holden was forever frozen in his early thirties, whereas Sutherland would have to show ID for liquor for the rest of his unnatural lifespan.

“Yes.” Sutherland nodded, his hands clasped in front of him. I followed the bobbing motion of his head but didn’t see any understanding on his face.

If the eyes were the windows to the soul, Sutherland’s were looking in on a vacant suite.

“My name is Holden. This is Desmond. And this…” he nudged me forward so I was close enough to touch, “…this is Secret.”

“Hello.” He didn’t seem to know who we were at all because my name caused no reaction.

“Secret McQueen,” Holden added, placing extra emphasis on my last name.

That did it. My father’s eyes widened, and his hazy expression became clear when he focused his attention back on me, this time as if seeing me anew.

“McQueen?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?” His brown eyes—the same color as mine—narrowed into slits.

“Twenty-three.”

“Where were you born?”

“St. Francisville, Louisiana.”

He chewed on this for a while, looking to Holden and Desmond as if he wanted them to validate his suspicions before he spoke again.

“Who’s your mother?”

“Mercy McQueen.”

His eyes went wider, and now he looked more excited than suspicious. He took a step closer, but I wasn’t expecting it and stepped out of his reach on instinct.

“Who’s your father?” he asked quietly.

“You are.”

Instead of moving closer, he toyed with his hands, fingers nervously tugging at the hem of his shirt. He was forty years old, but still acted like a teenager.

“I knew you were alive,” he said after a long pause. “I knew…knew I hadn’t killed you.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“I wanted to meet you, but…I didn’t know where you were.”

“I know. Vivienne hid me.”

He nodded, seeming to accept this fact without question. He probably assumed she’d been hiding me from him, when in fact she’d been keeping me away from her own children, fearful of what Mercy or my Uncle Callum would do to me.

“You look like her. Like Mercy.” He smiled, obviously thinking he was paying me a compliment.

“I think I look more like you.”

When his smile broadened, I knew I’d said the right thing. “It’s nice to meet you. Secret.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.” I wanted to say Dad. Wanted so badly to call him by that title since I’d been missing out on using it for over two decades. But when I was presented with a chance to finally say it to his face, the word froze in my throat and I couldn’t. Instead I said, “I need to ask you about the pendant.”

Ingrid was the first person Holden, Sutherland and I saw when we entered the Council headquarters in L.A. later that same night. Once I’d found out what my father knew about the pendant he’d been carrying, I secured us safe passage back to Los Angeles.

Desmond understood why he couldn’t join us for this leg of the journey and had volunteered to get our belongings from the hotel in San Francisco. I’d never been so grateful to accidentally stay at a Lucas Rain Hotel before. Under normal circumstances our things would probably be long gone, but since my ex-fiancé owned the hotel, Desmond told me our room had been left untouched, the expenses ignored at Lucas’s request.

He’d even arranged to get our towed car out of impound, hopefully with my katana still in the trunk.

As much as I hated Lucas sometimes, he could occasionally do something to remind me why I’d fallen in love with him in the first place. Love wasn’t what I felt now, but perhaps loathing might yield to grudging respect someday.

Sig had called Ingrid on our behalf to make arrangements for a conditional surrender. As long as we were back on council turf before sunrise, we wouldn’t be attacked. In spite of the assurances, I still felt like I was being watched the entire trip from the airfield back to the council headquarters.

Ingrid met us at the front entrance, and I could tell by her expression she was disappointed in me. Whether she was disappointed I had screwed up, or because I didn’t die, I couldn’t be sure.

“It’s a long story.” I still refused to go into detail with anyone.

“It had better be a good one.”

“Actually it’s pretty awful.”

That made her frown, and some of the bluster went out of her sails. “I see you found Sig’s missing kin.”

“I did.”

“And did you find the object Tribunal Leader Eilidh was so…impassioned about?”

The pendant felt heavy in my pocket. If it did what Sutherland claimed it could, there was no small wonder Eilidh wanted it so badly, or why she was willing to sacrifice our lives if it meant no one else would have it. In the wrong hands it would be a powerful weapon.

I just wasn’t sure Eilidh’s hands were the right ones.

If I’d been given a choice, I would have brought the pendant to Sig. Unfortunately I didn’t have that option. Part of me wanted to keep it for myself, but even with the power it provided I would have been a fool to believe I’d get away with running.

“I have it,” I confirmed. “Are they ready for us?”

“Yes. They’ve been patiently awaiting your return.” Sarcasm sounded funny coming from a seven-hundred-year-old. Yet somehow it managed to endear her to me. Obviously Ingrid hadn’t enjoyed her stay with Galen’s council in my absence.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “We’ll be going home soon enough.”

“About damn time.” The elevator arrived, and she selected one of the lower floors but didn’t join us in the lift. “Secret?”

I held the door before it could close. “Yeah?”

“For what it’s worth…I knew you hadn’t run.”

I was too stunned to reply, so I let the door shut instead. Holden and Sutherland were silent the whole trip down, but my father had a goofy smile stuck on his face, the same one he’d had since we got on the plane back to L.A. I’d have asked what he was happy about, but I wasn’t sure he’d know the answer.

Outside the Tribunal chamber two wardens tried to insist I enter alone, but I pulled rank and forced them to let me bring the men along. There was no way in hell I was letting either of them out of my sight, not until this whole mess was resolved. As of right now I had to consider the council enemy territory. When I had assurances we were all safe and the warrants were called off, then I’d take alone time into consideration.

Eilidh, Galen and Arturo were seated in the same arrangement they had been the last time I saw them. Tonight Eilidh and Galen were dressed in matching emerald green, while Arturo had opted for a black suit.

“How kind of you to grace us with your presence, Secret.” Eilidh tried to sound bored, but her voice maintained an edge of malice.

“I wasn’t aware there were time restrictions on my mission.” I’d practiced what I would say to them in my mind, going over it a thousand times on the flight south. Now that I was actually standing in front of them, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to remember any of it.

“No, but we weren’t aware you would disappear without a trace.”

“My methods, unconventional though they may be, yield results. You wouldn’t have asked my council for help unless you wanted results, yet now you want to question how they were obtained?”

“Results?” Eilidh sneered. “The window still sits in San Jose. I see no results.”

“I’ve returned your warden.” I indicated Sutherland, who stood in front of Arturo.

“Hello,” he greeted.

“Wonderful. You’ve brought us a mad vampire. What a delightful treat.”

“Eilidh…” Galen didn’t threaten her, but his tone implied she should rein herself in. She was behaving like she was in charge here, but she wasn’t. This was his dog-and-pony show, and she obviously got away with speaking out of turn because she was Galen’s sister.

“Don’t Eilidh me,” she snapped.

Galen grabbed her wrist and squeezed. Though the expression on his face remained calm and pleasant, he had to be hurting her because she squeaked.

“I believe my sister was trying to ask why it has taken you two weeks to do what another could have accomplished in two days?”

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the crystal pendant, letting it catch the low light of the room, reflecting prisms onto the floor in a wide arc of rainbows.

“Your council was not entirely honest with me. I’d like you to start by admitting as much.” I closed my hand into a fist and returned the pendant to my pocket. “You claimed the window was what interested you, but that wasn’t true, was it?”

“We did want the window,” Galen said. “But I suppose you have uncovered our reasons for wanting it.”

“Maxime thought Eilidh wanted the window because she believed she’d be able to stand in the light it cast. But that wasn’t its power at all. The real power was in one of those thirteen crystals.” I patted my pocket. “The one I now have.”

“Are you trying to…barter with me?” Galen asked, sounding equal parts impressed and offended.

“I’d like to think of it more in terms of Let’s Make a Deal.”

Arturo must have been the only one who watched game shows in the seventies because he chuckled while the siblings remained stony.

“Please, tell me what you want that would make you behave so recklessly,” Galen demanded.

“I want Sutherland Halliston remanded to my custody. Permanently.”

“You are asking us to give you ownership of your sire?” This time Galen did laugh. “Unheard of.”

“No,” I said, cutting his laughter off abruptly. “You forget I’m here in Sig’s stead. I’m requesting you give his blood kin freedom to move to the East Coast council. I will make sure he arrives safely.”

“Why?” Eilidh asked. I could understand her disbelief. To her, Sutherland was a crazy, useless baby vampire. Certainly not worth trading for what I had in my pocket.

“Because he figured out what you were after from the start, and instead of taking it for himself he spent God knows how long recreating that stupid window so he could bring it back to you without being discovered. But more importantly, I want him with me because you have a traitor here, and I won’t leave any of my people behind.”

Eilidh’s mouth went slack while Galen and Arturo both shifted forward in their seats. “I beg your pardon, Secret, but do you know what kind of an accusation you’re making?”

“Yes.” The truth was I believed we had a traitor in the council at home as well, but they didn’t need to know that. “Moreover I’m not making wild assumptions. I know you have a traitor. My people and I were followed while we were in San Francisco, and we were attacked. The same person who attacked us had already seized Sutherland, which was why he’d gone off the grid. Now I know who was responsible for attacking me, and I know Alexandre Peyton was involved somehow. But for Peyton to know we’d gone from Los Angeles to San Francisco, someone here had to alert him. That same someone would have known Sutherland was my father, otherwise there would have been no sense in him being taken ahead of time.”

The Tribunal stared at me.

“Of course, I’m not suggesting any of you are responsible. But I am saying your Council Elders need to be looked at very seriously.”

“And what of Maxime?” Eilidh asked. “I notice he is not with you now. He knew you were moving. He knew who Sutherland was to you.”

“He knew after. And Maxime is dead. Don’t you ever suggest to me again he had anything to do with this.”

She went silent. Galen sat back in his throne with a thoughtful expression. “Is that all?”

“I want a full written pardon clearing myself, Mr. Chancery and Mr. Halliston of any wrongdoing.”

“Naturally.”

“And I want your assurances that if the traitor in your midst isn’t brought to me within a month’s time…I will be back. And it won’t be for a friendly visit.”

“Duly noted. Consider it done.” Galen shot Eilidh a glare before she could protest, rendering her silent. “The pendant, please.”

I pulled it out again and cleared the gap between us, placing it in his outstretched palm. “Does it really do what she thinks it does?” I asked as I withdrew.

He closed his fingers around it, keeping it for himself rather than passing it to Eilidh as I’d expected he would. “It does.”

“Then it’s not to be trifled with. Don’t make me regret giving it to you.”

“You have my assurances it will be used wisely. You and your people may go. I’ll ensure the signed documents you requested are ready for you upstairs, and I will be in contact with Sig in regards to the…security problem you claim we have.”

“I know you have.”

“Indeed.”

“Thank you, Galen.”

“A pleasure, Secret. Though you can understand why I hope to never see you again.”

“Likewise.”

We left the room, Holden hot on my heels with Sutherland dawdling behind. Once we were back in the elevator, Holden could no longer restrain himself. Evidence of his curiosity had been written all over his face since we’d left the chamber.

“What was it?” he asked.

“The pendant?”

He gave me his patented are you stupid look.

“Remember how Maxime said Eilidh believed the Tiffany window had magical properties? He was half right. The window itself wasn’t special, but the crystal Sutherland had on him was one of the thirteen prisms set into the window, and it is magical. Very magical.”

“What does it do?”

“Worn as a pendant, the way it’s set now? It will allow a vampire to walk in sunlight.”

The three of us went quiet, only the rattle and buzz of the elevator filling the silence. Sutherland was still beaming. His expression hadn’t wavered once.

“You gave it up? For him?”

I shook my head. “No. I gave it up because it wasn’t mine. And I gave it up because it might help me find Peyton. And anything that will help me find him is worth the sacrifice to me.”

Holden leaned against the back wall of the elevator, crossing his arms over his chest. “You think Peyton was responsible for our kidnapping, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

The elevator pinged, and we exited. A warden was standing with Ingrid, holding a sheaf of papers as Galen had promised. Before we got off, Holden grabbed me by the arm and tugged me back, holding me in place in front of him.

“This need you have to get vengeance, you can’t let it consume you. I want Peyton dead as much as you do, but you can’t let him be your sole purpose for getting out of bed every night. Otherwise he’s won.”

I pulled free from his hands and met his eyes, trying not to look as lost as I felt.

“There are other things that get me out of bed,” I promised.

“Secret…this is a dark path you’re going down.”

I touched his cheek and smiled faintly. “The path is long gone. There’s no turning back now.”

Chapter Forty

When I’d made Major Logan van Buren promise to leave me alone in a small room with The Doctor, I hadn’t dreamed of what he’d do for me. But a week following my arrival home from California I got a visit from Tyler, letting me know it was time for the government to make good on one of their promises to me.

A black SUV picked me up outside my apartment and took me to an abandoned building in the Meatpacking District.

No one questioned me for bringing a sword.

An armed guard let me into a small gray room, nearly identical to the one I’d spent over a week of my life in, and the door locked behind me. A metal chair sat in the center of the room, over a metal grate, and a black shape was huddled in one corner, just out of the reach of the single bulb lighting the space.

“Good evening, Doctor.”

I crossed the space from the door to the chair and took a seat, facing the wall instead of the stooped figure.

“How’s your chest?” I placed my katana blade down on the floor, holding the hilt between my palms. It was still encased in its glossy black scabbard, so for the time being it was more an object of beauty than an outright threat.

Once I took it out, I wouldn’t be putting it away again until the blade had tasted blood.

A fae once told me I’d tainted the sword by killing vampires with it. I wasn’t sure if that meant the sword was now touched by evil somehow, but at the moment I didn’t care. If my katana wanted to kill, it was only because it stole the desire from me.

Right now I wanted to kill a human worse than I’d ever wanted anything in my whole life.

“I asked you a question.”

The form shifted, and The Doctor pushed a thin wool blanket off his head, allowing me to see his face for the first time. He’d lost some weight since I’d last seen him, but not enough to make him look unhealthy. He’d grown a short gray beard, and his hair was unruly, but apart from that he was the same striking figure he’d once been.

“I lack your speed for healing,” he replied. “A shame, really.”

“Tragic.”

“You’re looking lovely, my dear. No worse for the wear, it seems.”

I choked out a laugh. No worse for the wear? “There are some things even a monster can’t heal.”

He shrugged, pushing the blanket off entirely. “I don’t put much stock in psychology.”

“That’s too bad. You’d be a therapist’s wet dream.” I lifted my sword into my lap, stroking my hands down the smooth case. “In all your time studying my kind, did anyone ever tell you how a vampire is punished for being naughty?”

He shook his head, but I’d clearly piqued his interest. Even in here, two feet away from a woman with a sword, he was obsessed with his quest to understand. If his single-minded focus had belonged to anyone other than a sociopath, the things he could have learned would have been remarkable.

“How?” he asked.

“A vampire is chained up in a tiny room. You must know by now silver works best for that sort of thing.”

He nodded.

“Then they are starved. They’re starved for decades. Sometimes for centuries. They are left in the dark, chained to the wall, until they are little more than skeletons, but all the while the brain still works. They can still think. Reason often vanishes, but thought remains.”

I slipped the blade free from its enclosure and let the scabbard clatter to the floor. The dim light from the overhead bulb glinted off the sharp edge, making the gold dragon inlay glow like firelight.

“Not much different from human prison in some ways. Left alone with your thoughts for an eternity.” I got out of my chair and dragged the blade behind me, the metal kicking up sparks against the concrete floor, a high-pitched wail echoing off the walls. His attention was on the weapon now, losing interest in my story.

“I’m guessing you talked to a lot of people over the last week. I’m even willing to bet some of those people made you promises, didn’t they? Did they promise you a cushy minimum-security prison? Maybe Witness Protection?”

His gaze flicked from the sword to my face, and I knew he’d been promised the world.

“They were lying to you. They were your judge and jury. Do you know what that makes me?”

“Executioner,” he whispered, attention shifting back to the sword.

“Executioner,” I replied, placing the blade in front of his face so he could get a good eyeful. “There’s one thing I wanted to tell you first, though.”

“Yes?” He licked his lips and looked up at me.

“Twenty-one hours.”

“What?”

I raised the sword so the blade was against his throat, the sharp edge nicking his skin and making blood dribble down the metal. “You wanted to know how long it would take someone like me to heal a broken arm. Twenty-one hours.”

He smiled. “Good girl.”

My apartment smelled like pasta sauce when I got home.

I kicked my boots off at the door and put the katana back up over the fireplace before I followed the smell into my tiny kitchen. In spite of Peyton still being at large—the Feds insisted The Doctor hadn’t known where he was—I wasn’t willing to hide anymore. He’d been able to find me halfway across the country, so if he wanted me, he could come get me. Now I was ready for him.

Rio, my dumb-as-nails cat, had been living with Desmond’s sister, Penny, during my absence. Now that she was back in her old stomping ground, she had spent a full day wandering around rubbing her face on anything that would hold still. Judging by her loud purrs she was just as happy to be home as I was.

She bumped her head against my legs and greeted me with a plaintive, “Breow.”

Desmond stood in front of the stove, measuring dried oregano into his palm.

“You know I don’t eat, right?” I rubbed Rio’s back with my foot, and she flipped over, clawing at my toes.

“I tried to tell him that, but he insisted.” Holden emerged from the bedroom and leaned beside me in the kitchen entrance. Neither of them touched me, no one having the possessive upper hand here, but I could sense Holden’s gaze on the back of my neck, and Desmond was staring right at me.

“How’d it go?” Desmond asked.

“It’s done.”

“And how do you feel?”

I shrugged and let out a sigh. “I thought it would be a release. Thought I’d be done once it was over. But…”

“It’s still there,” Holden said.

“It’s still there. But maybe now the nightmares will let up.” I tried for a smile and succeeded a little because Desmond looked back to the sauce he was making and stirred in the oregano.

“Why are you cooking?” I asked.

“It helps me destress. And besides, unlike the two of you I actually do have to eat.” He replaced the lid on the pot before wiping his hands on a dishtowel and shooing Holden and me out of the kitchen. He was welcome to claim it as his domain. I had no use for it.

Holden sat on the loveseat, and I plopped down beside him, leaving some extra space since I wasn’t sure how to behave with both of them in the same room being so…nice.

Desmond answered the question for me when he sat on my opposite side, forcing me to smoosh against Holden, sandwiched between them. The two men exchanged a glance, and I expected them to go for each other’s throats at any moment.

Finally when a good five minutes passed without Holden calling Desmond a dog or Desmond reminding me Holden was a walking corpse, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Either you guys drank the Kool-Aid, or I really am dead, because you two have never been this nice to each other.”

Holden brushed my hair back, and Desmond squeezed one of my hands. “Look,” Desmond started. “This isn’t…perfect. I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, but we both love you. And considering everything that happened, and how we both almost lost you for good…”

If they proposed a happily ever after ménage a trois, my poor little brain was going to explode then and there. It wouldn’t work, of course, but I couldn’t help think that’s where this insane discussion was going.

“We’re calling a truce,” Holden finished for Desmond.

“A truce?” Not as sexy as ménage a trois.

“For right now, at least, we won’t fight for your affection. We’ll respect that you have feelings for us both, and leave it there. For now,” Desmond explained.

As far as arrangements went, it might be as good as I’d ever get from them. And I didn’t have it in me to choose between them, not now. Not after everything.

“Okay.” I nodded, but nudged each of them on the shoulder, drawing their attention to how tightly packed we were on the loveseat. “But is it okay with you guys if I move to the chair? You’re kind of squishing me.”

About the Author

Sierra Dean is a reformed historian. She was born and raised in the Canadian prairies and is allowed annual exit visas in order to continue her quest of steadily conquering the world one city at a time. Making the best of the cold Canadian winters, Sierra indulges in her less global interests: drinking too much tea and writing urban fantasy.

Ever since she was a young girl she has loved the idea of the supernatural coexisting with the mundane. As an adult, however, the idea evolved from the notion of fairies in flower beds, to imagining that the rugged-looking guy at the garage might secretly be a werewolf. She has used her overactive imagination to create her own version of the world, where vampire, werewolves, fairies, gods and monsters all walk among us, and she’ll continue to travel as much as possible until she finds it for real.

Sierra can be reached all over the place, as she’s a little addicted to social networking. Find her on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sierradeanbooks

Website: www.sierradean.com

E-mail: sierra@sierradean.com

Twitter: @sierradean

Boys of Summer, Book 1

Emmy Kasper knows exactly how lucky she is. In a sport with few opportunities for women at the pro level, she’s just landed her dream job as head athletic trainer for the San Francisco Felons baseball team. Screwing up is not an option.

She’s lost in thought as she pedals to the spring training facility, her mind abuzz with excitement as she rounds a corner—and plows head-on into two runners. The end of her career dances before her eyes when she realizes she’s almost run over the star pitcher.

As Tucker Lloyd watches the flustered Emmy escape with his bandana tied around her skinned knee, the view is a pleasant change from worrying about his flagging fastball. At thirty-six, the tail end of his career is glimmering on the horizon. If he can’t pull something extraordinary out of his ball cap, the new crop of rookies could make this season his last.

The last thing either of them needs is a distraction.

The last thing either of them expects is love.

Warning: Contains a down-on-his-luck pitcher, a good-girl athletic therapist, chemistry that’s out of the park and sexy times that’ll make them round all the bases.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Pitch Perfect:

Emmy Kasper had been thinking about her luck when she managed to drive her bike headfirst into a batch of the bad kind.

She’d been so busy musing about her new job she’d sort of neglected to think about the important things in the present, like watching the road for joggers. When the two men stepped out in front of her, she was struck by a moment of absolute stupidity.

Oh, there are people in the road. What should I do?

A second later, her brain caught up. Oh shit, there are people in the road and I’m about to fucking hit them.

She shrieked, because screaming like a girl seemed to be the only thing she could think of to warn them. It worked, because two heads pivoted towards her as she finally remembered how the handbrakes on her bike functioned and squeezed down on them for all they were worth.

The world went upside down suddenly, and she was vaulted from her bike seat ass over handlebars and landed in a heap directly in between the two men she’d narrowly avoided maiming. Adding insult to injury, her bike decided to keep rolling forward and only stopped when it slammed into her. Pain formed an ache at the center of her back, but it was the giant smear of blood on her knee that really caught her attention. The line of blood on the pavement didn’t look so good either.

In spite of all evidence she was the only one who’d been hurt, she awkwardly blurted out, “Are you guys okay?”

“Aside from almost being killed?” This from the shorter, slightly chubbier of the two.

“We’re fine, are you okay?”

When Emmy finally focused on the taller of the two, her heart caught in her throat, and it wasn’t because he was gorgeous. Which he was. Staggeringly so. No, she kind of wanted to curl up and die because of who he was.

“Oh, Christ. You’re Tucker Lloyd.”

“Guilty.” He crouched beside her and reached his hand out to her. She was so awestruck by his long, beautiful fingers she didn’t realize what he was doing until he’d already rolled up her ripped pant leg. Emmy let out a shuddering breath and gasped when his fingers brushed against her knee.

“Ow.”

“Sorry.”

The jolt of pain brought Emmy back to her senses. She appreciated Tucker’s immediate attention to her injury, but she should have been able to take care of it herself. And not in the I’m a tough, modern girl, I can handle myself kind of way. In the I’m an athletic trainer, and dealing with this is my job kind of way.

She tried to pull away, but his fingers tensed. The feel of his calloused skin, hot against her—thankfully shaved—knee made her shudder involuntarily. He gave a brief, concerned smile as one might to an injured animal that was ready to bolt.

“Let me look at it,” he instructed. His voice was soft, but she could tell he meant business.

She started to argue since she was perfectly capable of fixing her own oozing road rash, thank you very much, but when he pushed the hem of her pants higher, Emmy relaxed into his touch and sat on the hard ground staring at him. Her back and bloody knee throbbed in time with her fluttering pulse.

Tucker removed the bandana he wore over his dark brown hair and gave her another tentative smile.

“Oh, um, you really don’t need to do that,” she insisted. In her medically trained mind, Emmy thought, Oh yeah, awesome plan, clean my wound with a sweaty bandana. She placed her fingers on his wrist in an attempt to stay his hand. It was nice to have a smoking-hot MVP pitcher attending to her, but he was the MVP pitcher she would soon be attending to. Professionally. How could he respect her as his therapist if he thought she didn’t know how to look after a little scrape?

“It’s okay, I know what I’m doing,” Tucker insisted, his gaze meeting hers, and up close she got a chance to marvel at his famous eyes.

A lot of baseball players had pretty eyes. Sometimes it was all you could make out of a man with the brim of his cap pulled low and a serious scowl on his face. Tucker’s eyes were famous because of how unusual they were, though.

He had heterochromia—a mouthful to say, but a glory to behold. One eye was a warm melted-chocolate brown. The other was so blue it put the spring sky to shame. He was a bit of a freak, but in a good way.

Staring at his eyes made her forget whatever argument she’d been about to make, and she pulled her hand away from his wrist.

Oh, what the hell? He’s just trying to help. She made a mental note to douse her knee in rubbing alcohol when she got home.

Besides, his touch was distracting her from the pain, and that was something she wouldn’t have been able to do on her own.

She looked from Tucker to his friend, and knowing who the pitcher was, the realization of his sidekick’s identity sank in. Alex Ross. She’d almost run over the star pitcher and the team’s only reliable catcher, all in one fell swoop.

For someone who’d been hired to keep the players of the San Francisco Felons in good working order, Emmy was doing a hell of a job.

She’d joined the Felons club over the winter as their new head athletic trainer. The competition had been fierce—every trainer worth their salt wanted to have an MLB team on their resume—but she’d been the only candidate who needed more than mere skills. She was a woman seeking access into the almost totally male-dominated world of professional baseball, and she’d known from the outset getting her dream job wouldn’t be easy.

But she’d fought for it, clawing her way up the ladder from intern to the head of the athletic department at her alma mater. She had her master’s degree while many of the men in her profession made do with their bachelor’s degrees and prominent internships. More than anything, though, she had a passion for baseball, and it had shown when she’d gone through her interviews.

It wasn’t only about a good job. Emmy had wanted to be an integral part of the team. She wanted to matter to the clubhouse. Even if she couldn’t play the game herself, she wanted to do her part to lead a team to victory.

She’d never been a cheerleader, or a baseball groupie. Emmy was a true lover of the game, and she’d laid her desires on the table during her interview. She must have seemed crazy to the managers, but something about it stuck out because they offered her the job later that same day, and a week later she was moving from snowy Chicago to Northern California.

And now—on her first day at spring training—she’d almost taken two key players in the Felons lineup off their roster.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, directing her comment to Alex since Tucker was focused on her leg, and she didn’t think she could watch him work without cringing over his improper medical hygiene.

“It’s nothing to get bent out of shape over,” Alex said, then laughed like he’d made a joke only he understood. Normally it would drive Emmy crazy when a guy thought of himself as hilarious, but Alex somehow managed to make his boorish behavior charming in a ridiculous sort of way.

It also kept her mind off the fact that Tucker had wrapped his bandana around her knee, until he secured it snugly and the extra pressure brought her attention reeling back to the pain. “Oh. Ow. Owowowowow.”

“That’s going to swell something nasty. You’re going to want to—”

“Ice it. I know.” She could let him be the knight in shining armor if he wanted to, but she wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t know how to look after her knee.

“You a doctor or something?” Alex asked, his tone teasing.

“Or something.” In spite of the fact they would be meeting her officially in a few short hours at the team’s first practice, this wasn’t how she’d imagined introducing herself. And she couldn’t bring herself to tell the Tucker Lloyd she was his new athletic trainer after he’d gone to all the effort of wrapping her up. Especially not when he was kneeling by her side, giving her such a sweet, concerned look.

“Thanks,” she said.

“No problem. You think you can stand up?” He offered her his hand.

Emmy was struck dumb momentarily when she met his eyes. She shifted her gaze, staring at his hand like she didn’t understand what its purpose was. “Stand up?” She must have still been woozy from the fall.

“Like, on your feet?” Alex suggested. “Did you sustain any head injuries we didn’t see?”

“No,” she said with forced certainty and took Tucker’s hand, letting him draw her up to a standing position. The front of their bodies brushed against each other, making her cheeks flush. His chest was hard and toned and felt warm through the threadbare material of his shirt.

Too bad she couldn’t blame her blush on an imaginary bump to the noggin. What had gotten into her? She never got worked up around famous athletes.

“I have to go.” She pushed herself off him, letting her touch linger a moment longer than was respectable before snatching her hand away and giving herself a stern internal lecture.

Bad Emmy!

Her bike hadn’t sustained any serious damage, so when she climbed back on, the frame was still in excellent shape to help her make a speedy getaway, though her knee protested something fierce.

“Hey,” Tucker called after her. “What’s your…?”

His voice trailed off as she turned a corner. She realized too late he’d been trying to ask her name, and she’d run off without so much as a backwards glance.

She’d just completely blown off Tucker Lloyd.

Miss Misery, Book 1

Jessica Moore thrives on misery. Literally. Thanks to a goblin’s curse, she gets a magical high from humanity’s suffering. A shameful talent like that could bury a girl in guilt, so to atone, she uses her dark power to hunt murderers, rapists and other scumbags—until one of them frames her for his crimes.

In desperation, Jessica seeks refuge with the one person she trusts to not turn her in—a satyr named Lucen. Like every member of his race, Lucen uses his lusty magic to control Boston’s human population, and Jessica isn’t immune to his power. But the murder victims belonged to a rival race, and when they discover Lucen is harboring Jessica, dodging the cops becomes the least of her problems.

With only five days to find the real killer, Jessica faces a danger far more serious than the brewing magical war. The danger of succumbing to Lucen’s molten seduction.

Warning: Contains a heroine with a lust for misery, creepy murders, and creepier goblins, satyrs so hot you’d sell your soul for one, and scaly sewer rats masquerading as dragons. Who said magic was all sparkles and tiaras?

Enjoy the following excerpt for Wicked Misery:

I slumped off the sofa, and my butt hit the floor with a thud. Dull pain flew up my back. Add that to my despair and every pred in a ten-mile radius probably knew I was having a bad night. No wonder Lucen wasn’t touching his wine. I provided enough of a buzz.

“Little siren…”

“You mean stupid, dead woman.”

“Jessica, it won’t be the end of the world. Hitting that Gryphon with a chair was not in your best interest, but it was in mine, so I appreciate it. But so what if the Gryphons decide you can’t be trusted among humans anymore? You’ll live among us. You see we’re not so bad.”

I twisted around so I could laugh in his face. “Yeah right. Except when you’re all trying to turn me into an addict. From my perspective, that’s plenty bad, thanks.”

“Has anyone tried to addict you yet?”

“Not yet, but Dezzi’s counting on my help. When she’s done with me, any of you could.”

“And I’ve known you for ten years. If I wanted to addict you, I’d have done it. Don’t you think?”

Actually, no. I didn’t know what to think about that. Never had. I should have kept my mouth shut, but fear made me angry. “No. I don’t know all the details about addictions. For all I know you’re waiting for the right time. For one of your addicts to die or something.”

“You know as well as I do that I could cut one or all of them loose at any time. It’s not a question of not being able to handle one more.”

“So why wait? You could break my will just like that.” I snapped my fingers. Brilliant, Jess. Just challenge him to do it, why don’t you?

“Do you think I’d enjoy that?”

“I know you would.” Oh yeah, I was earning a Ph.D. in stupidity tonight.

“You’re right. I would.” Lucen scowled and flopped back on the sofa.

I held my breath. Maybe I’d gotten lucky and my outburst wouldn’t get me in trouble, after all. Strange, but I was almost sad about that. I’d primed for a fight. I had anger to expel.

Then Lucen sat up, the scowl gone and replaced by a devious intensity. My stomach twisted. Okay, perhaps a fight hadn’t been a good idea. And I hadn’t gotten lucky. But it was too late now.

“Actually I’m far more insidious than you give me credit for. Your gift was cursed. My magic is inherent in my nature. You can’t compete, and therefore can’t really comprehend what I’m about. But, you see, being evil is a lot like sex. The release is fantastic, but the release is fleeting. It’s the buildup to the release that’s so sweet and lasting. Once I break you, it’s over. Done. But this way I can toy with you for a while, build your fear, prolong the anticipation—ten years so far—and savor the possibility that one day I’ll be too tempted not to finish you off.” He reached toward me, and I stiffened. “What do you think now?”

His fingers brushed my hair. My blood raced, but my breathing stopped. I couldn’t move.

Lucen pressed in closer, and his breath coated my ear like honey. “I haven’t touched you in ten years, little siren. Ten years because you simply asked me not to. What…” He tugged off the band around the bottom of my braid. “Are.” Started undoing the twist. “You.” I wanted to tell him to stop, but I was paralyzed. “Afraid of?”

The last of the braid came apart in his hands. I shivered, breaking the paralysis. “The potential.”

I closed my eyes, wondering what I meant. The potential for him to break me? For me to lose myself and become emotionally attached? For my humanity to drain away? I didn’t know. I didn’t even know whether I should take that speech of his seriously.

Lucen’s hands were on my shoulders now, and my ability to think clearly was fading. “I would never hurt you, little siren. I promise.”

I wanted to believe him, always had, but it seemed suicidal. All the promises in the world didn’t change what he was. He’d practically said as much me to the other day. He was what he was. He did what satyrs—what preds—did. He enjoyed it, and he could do it at any time. Letting him touch me was like baiting a lion. The best animal trainers could get away with it for a while, but occasionally their beasts turned on them.

Lucen’s cellphone rang in the kitchen. Saved by the bell, or the ringtone, rather.

It rang again, and he made no move to get up.

“Aren’t you…?”

“This is more important.” He moved closer, and his knees pressed into my back.

“But it could be Dezzi with information.”

“I doubt it’s urgent. She’ll leave a message. Jess.” He ran his fingers through my hair, lifted it off my neck. The phone made a last desperate plea for attention and went silent.

Crap. Now what?

Every bit of tension from where Lucen’s fingers played with my hair slid from my scalp down into my groin. Each muscle tensed with anticipation. Stop it, I wanted to say, but it was impossible. Even my mouth was too enthralled by his attention. “Why are you doing this?”

“I want you to trust me, little siren, but you won’t. You came to me on Monday because you felt you had no choice. You didn’t come to me because you trusted me, or because you thought I’d help you.”

“That’s not—” Well, it was a little true.

“Please, Jess. I can read you better than you read yourself, because you hide things from yourself and you can’t hide them from me. But it’s not a good idea. Don’t you see? You were right when you said nothing can be the same again. And that means you’re going to need to trust someone, and you don’t.”

“So you’re trying to earn my trust by breaking it?” But my body didn’t care how warped Lucen’s logic was. My will was cracking.

Araneae Nation, Book 3

Once the future Segestriidae maven, Kaidi lived a privileged life. Now she spends her nights haunting cities ravaged by the plague. Spade in hand, she stalks rows of freshly dug graves for corpses…and then she takes their heads.

Her new life is caked in blood and spattered with gore, but it’s hers. At least until—to her fury—she’s caught napping.

A plague survivor by the skin of his teeth, Murdoch risks his neck to solve the mysteries left in its wake. Bodies have gone missing. Guards have left their posts and never returned home.

When he rouses a female dozing among the dead, he’s unprepared for the violence of her response. Or his. Beneath the grime, she’s lovely. Too bad the blood under her fingernails belongs to his clansmen.

He has no choice but to follow this alluring creature deeper into her world of winged beasts and flesh-eating monsters. She holds the knowledge he craves, but the price is high—and they may both pay for it with their lives.

Warning: This book contains one heroine in desperate need of a bath and one hero willing to wash away her sins. Expect threats, swears and general cursing. Love is a slippery slope, and these two are sliding.

Enjoy the following excerpt for A Time of Dying:

Better females than I had made the journey from Cathis to Titania inside of seven days. Late into our first morning, after a night of no sleep, I began dragging. Murdoch forged ahead, and he set a grueling pace. Though I had done my fair share of walking these past few months, and I did possess enviable endurance, those applied to my own slower gait and not to his long-legged one.

A stitch caught my side, and I put a hand to it, frustrated by pain that hobbled me further.

Murdoch chose that moment to check on me. “We’ll stop here and catch our breath.”

“Are you tired?” Though he stood waiting, I kept walking and finally passed him.

It was a short-lived lead.

“Yes.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me off my feet. “I am.”

After kicking a pile of loose pine straw into a mound at the base of a tree, he dropped onto it with a grunt and sat me across his lap. His head fell back against the trunk, and his eyes closed. I watched him breathing easily and knew we had stopped for my benefit. I thumbed his eyelid and pushed it open. His other remained resolutely closed. His lips, though, curved at their edges.

“Well?” He stared at me unblinking, which was no doubt due to my grip on his lid.

“Nothing.” The steadiness of his gaze unnerved me. “Rest while you can.”

Crooking an arm around my shoulders, he drew me close, and I nestled my face into his neck. “Only if you will.”

I shoved him. “Must everything be a negotiation with you?”

He rested his chin atop my head. “Must everything be a battle with you?”

“I have learned to fight for what I want.” It was how I had survived on my own.

“Even if what you desire would be freely given?”

“Especially then. Being offered things of value at no cost is when you should be wariest.”

“So rather than accept an offer, you think it best to force others into making the same deal?”

I huffed. “I was bargaining in terms you understood.”

“Huh.” He rubbed his bite marks. “So that’s what you were doing.”

“Yes.” I pulled at his hand. “The bite was incidental.”

“Was it?” He traced my lips with his fingertip.

I resisted the urge to nip him. He might like it too much. “It got your attention, didn’t it?”

“Yes.” His voice went husky. “It did.”

“You liked it.” My eyes widened. “You actually want me to do it again.”

His grin was at once roguish and shy. I’m not sure how he managed the combination.

“You did say if I hurried you would bite me again.” He paused. “I hurried.”

I thumped his chin. “You are incorrigible.”

“Where you’re concerned, yes.” He cupped my neck in his palm. “I possessed some sense of self-preservation before we met. After…” His thumb stroked my pulse. “I’ve been more reckless this week than I have in all of my life. I haven’t been the same since the night you stabbed me.”

“You had to remind me.” I groaned and put my face in my hands. “See a physician for it.”

Peeling aside one of my hands, he set it on his chest. “I fear my condition is untreatable.”

My heart melted. His quiet ways had won me. Why had we not met when our lives were our own? Why find one another now, when the future loomed so uncertain? Why torment both of us?

Never would I have imagined he was capable of such tenderness. The way he poked fun at a situation he had to find as strange as I did endeared him to me. Once, he said that I understood force. Perhaps that explained why these tender moods confused me.

“I’m no healer, but I have often observed Mana at her work.” I straddled his lap. Let him tug me flush against him. His heart thumped hard beneath my hand. “Let me see if I can’t cure you.”

Breathing him in, I feathered my lips over his jaw, down his neck, where I scraped my teeth.

Murdoch inhaled harshly and held his breath. I delighted in swirling my tongue across his skin while smoothing my hands over his broad shoulders and lower, past his thick arms, to link hands.

“I don’t mean to question your credentials…” he hissed when I nipped his ear, “…but is the cure supposed to hurt worse than the condition it treats?” He gripped my wrist and held it steady.

“Your heart does seem overtaxed.” I feigned regret. “Perhaps I should try curing you later.”

“I want it now.” He turned his mouth against the inside of my wrist and pressed a kiss there.

Chills swept down my arms. “You want what, exactly?”

He didn’t hesitate. “You.”

Sliding his hands through my hair, he bent me to him. Impatient for the arrival of my mouth, his met mine halfway. His lips were firm, his tongue demanding as he coaxed my mouth open to him. Murdoch’s taste was as complex as the rest of him. He filled my senses, and I moaned at it.

Too soon he turned his face aside, allowing me to taste my mark upon him.

“We can’t do this.” He was breathless. “Not while you belong to someone else.”

Part of me knew he was wrong. I no longer belonged to Hishima in heart or in body. The other part felt Murdoch hard between my thighs and didn’t care who was right.

Before I became this shadow of my former self, I had enjoyed the pleasure found in the male form. I had always been tame in my tastes, but I wondered, what might this wilder Kaidi crave?

He gripped my hips, held me down as his hips rolled to meet mine.

“If we don’t leave now,” he said, out of breath, “we won’t be leaving any time soon.”

Tempted as I was to force his hand, he was right. With supreme effort, I mustered resolve. “We will finish this. Later.”

“First we find the harbinger.” His eyes gleamed. “Then we free you from your betrothal.”

“And if we fail?”

He held my face between his palms, and the kiss he gave me set my heart afire.

“If you are the prize,” he said softly, “fear not that I will win you.”.

Secret McQueen, Book 6

After her last mission tested the limits of her humanity and took her out of this world, Secret’s friends, determined to keep her safe from her old nemesis Alexandre Peyton, keep ushering her from one babysitter to the next.

Couch surfing would be a lot more fun if Alexandre would let up on her long enough to allow her to get in some alone time with her lovers. Including Holden, her self-appointed shadow.

As if living out of coffin isn’t bad enough, Secret literally brings down the house while hunting a rogue, causing the council to exile her from New York—for her own safety, of course.

With her list of people to trust getting shorter and shorter, Secret ends up embroiled in a mystery to find a vampire warden gone AWOL and a missing artifact. Things go from bad to worse when she falls into the hands of a man who will prove that humans can be the worst monsters of them all.

Warning: Contains a cross-country journey, an unexpected family reunion, heated lovers’ embraces and a hell of a lot of trouble.

Content

Secret Unleashed
Secret McQueen 6
by
Sierra Dean

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

About the Author

Boys of Summer, Book 1

Enjoy the following excerpt for Pitch Perfect:

Miss Misery, Book 1

Enjoy the following excerpt for Wicked Misery:

Araneae Nation, Book 3

Enjoy the following excerpt for A Time of Dying:

Secret McQueen, Book 6