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“Yes. He came to me because a new wolf within his territory wasn’t abiding by the laws. Your laws. This wolf was using his newfound strength in human form to force himself on local women. Marcus was worried it would bring your people to the attention of local authorities. When the boy attacked Marcus’s human daughter, things came to a head. ”
“Oh God. ” Lucas looked away from me. “Why didn’t he come to me? We have ways to handle these things. ”
“Marcus didn’t ask me to kill the boy, I need to make that clear. He asked if I could use my unique abilities to make the boy leave the Albany territory. The boy sealed his own fate by thinking he could best me in a fight. ”
The tension in his jaw and the furrow of his brow told me my news had hit him harder than either of us had anticipated. I had been killing my own kind for six years. I’d seen the look of betrayal and grim determination on the faces of the council as they placed death warrants in my hands and sent me to kill their brothers. I was a suitable means to an unhappy end, but everything was handled in a businesslike fashion.
When Marcus asked me to deal with the werewolf in his territory causing such trouble, I didn’t see it as a business arrangement. I had only seen the father of a ruined daughter. Not until now, looking at the despair on Lucas’s face, did I realize the death of one wolf could impact the entire pack. That the king himself would mourn the death of one. Or that Marcus’s vendetta would hurt him as well.
Neither of us said anything for a long time. Muted tones of early sunrise had started to filter in under the blinds, and I was thankful they were closed. The sunlight wouldn’t kill me the way it did a real vampire, but it would be difficult to explain why I had third-degree burns rather than a tan.
In spite of the drawn curtain I felt a familiar sense of panic. I needed to go home. I had to get back to the safety of my basement apartment, with its thick gloomy shades, where daylight never penetrated.
“Lucas…”
He raised a hand to silence me. I could imagine what he was thinking. I had the right smell, the right taste and the right name. For all intents and purposes the only thing keeping me from being his perfect soul mate was my own stubbornness. Then I dropped the bomb—Oh by the way, dear, I kill monsters.
“Do you remember his name?”
“Pardon?”
He fixed a hard glare on me, his sorrow overcome by anger, and his voice quivered with an uneasy mixture of the two emotions. “The boy you killed. ” It sounded so filthy the way he said it. “Do you remember his name?”
The way he asked it told me a lot rested on my response, possibly my very life. I might not be human—I was paid to be a killer and I could be more of a monster than those I killed—but I was not without a soul.
“William Reilly. His name was William Reilly. ”
Lucas nodded. He must have already known the name. I didn’t remember the names of everyone I’d ever killed, but I remembered the ones I felt bad about.
This had gone from precoital intensity to feeling like after-school detention in the span of seconds. I for one was ready to be done with it.
“If there’s nothing else, I mean, if you’re done with me…” I inclined my head towards the door.
“For tonight. ” He kept watching me as I rose to leave. “I’m sure this has been more than enough for one evening. ” His phrasing implied he hadn’t totally written me off, but I was going to get out of here while I was still in his good graces.
“Secret?” He apparently wasn’t quite done.
I stopped halfway to the door, turning to look at him. He padded towards me, and I admired the flashes of bare stomach his open shirt granted me. As he approached, once more the taste of him filled my mouth. I wondered what I tasted like to him. I sighed in spite of myself when he placed one large hand on each of my shoulders.
His blue eyes were so close to mine I saw a circle of gold around each iris, and I imagined again what he must look like as a wolf. I felt the urge to eliminate the distance between our mouths.
Only in the company of supernatural beings is it normal for moods to shift so suddenly.
“I forgive you,” he said.
It wasn’t forgiveness he was giving me as much as a royal pardon. The proud part of me wanted to tell him to stuff it, but the Secret who was accustomed to the rigid formality of the vampire council nodded with mute acceptance. He’d needed to do it, and as his subordinate I needed to accept.
I turned again to leave, but he held on to me, his hands stronger than I’d anticipated.
“You will have dinner with me. Tomorrow night. ” He looked at the watch on his wrist and laughed, then corrected himself. “Tonight. ”
“Umm. ” It hadn’t sounded like a request, but the look on his face told me he was still expecting a response. “Okay?”
The coming night was shaping up to be as relaxing as the previous one had been. Meet with Holden and the Tribunal. Explain to Keaty about my new puppy fan club. Deflect Mercedes’s questions about Lucas. Have dinner with my billionaire soul mate in his penthouse.
Yup. Sounded like a totally average Thursday.
Chapter Eleven
The sky was dark gray and overcast when I got outside. I still needed to find a cab in a hurry, but at least I didn’t have to hide the smell of my own burning flesh. While the driver shuttled me westward to Hell’s Kitchen, I called Keaty to tell him I was fine and asked him to call Mercedes for me.
Safe in my apartment, I staggered into my bedroom, which was a promising pitch black. Because of the danger posed by even one errant beam of sunlight, I couldn’t trust curtains to protect me during the day, so I’d bricked the small window closed, telling my landlord it was to keep burglars out.
Collapsing onto my bed, overwhelmed by the daytime exhaustion that rendered vampires dead during daylight hours, I fell asleep straight away.
I was back in Central Park.
I knew the moon was full without seeing it, because I had the unsettling sensation something liquid and hot was burning under my skin, looking for a way out.
I heard a low growl but could not pinpoint its location. It came at me from every direction and never from the same place twice. Through the thick fog of trees the growl was coming closer, and I realized it was not one growl but many.
A pack.
My instinct was to run, and who was I to ignore my fight-or-flight reaction? My feet moved to escape but became tangled in the long dress I hadn’t noticed I was wearing. The only dresses I owned were short and low cut, designed to titillate vampiric thirst. The garment I now found myself in had layer upon layer of rustling tulle skirts cinched together at my waist in a breathlessly tight corseted top.
A wedding dress.
I tried not to focus on why I was wearing a wedding gown in the woods. Instead I turned my attention back to the pack of growling wolves I could hear but not see. My heart pounded against my sternum as I grabbed armfuls of fabric and started to run through the woods. The smells and surroundings became more and more familiar as I fled. Branches pulled at my hair and dress, and I realized I was following the same path I’d chased Henry Davies down the night before. It meant the Great Lawn couldn’t be far. My dress caught a low exposed root, and I toppled to the ground, cutting my hands on rocks and sticks as I braced my fall. I got to my feet and picked up the hem, where I accidentally smeared blood from my palms on the perfect white.
I felt guilty for ruining the fabric.
The wolves drew nearer as I began to run again. This time I made it to the lawn, where I could see someone who looked human standing alone on the empty field. I tore across the grass with all the speed I could muster. I didn’t think anyone could save me from the monsters at my heels, but just seeing another living person felt like finding salvation. As I got closer I saw that my mysterious savior was Lucas.
He wore a tuxedo cut so well James Bond would be jealou
s, and smiled when he looked at me.
I reached him in a panic, out of breath, collapsing in a foamy white pile at his feet with my arms covering my head, braced for the gnarling teeth of wolves to rip me apart.
But there were no teeth. The growls, too, were gone. The only sound in the night was a soft chuckle from above. I looked over my shoulder and confirmed that there were no wolves in the field.
I felt a strong hand on my shoulder and was soothed by it.
“Lucas, you must think I’m an idiot. ”
The hand squeezed and the chuckle became a low, menacing laugh.
“Secret McQueen, mon chéri, I believe you are no man’s fool. ”
The voice didn’t belong to Lucas, but I knew it all the same. It was pure Cajun loathing. A bone-jarring shudder rolled over me, and my head was slow to respond to my body’s fearful commands, but I finally looked up.
Just in time to see Alexandre Peyton, vampire in my wolf’s clothing, lunge for my throat.
Chapter Twelve
Waking up wasn’t as dramatic as the dream. I didn’t scream or sit bolt upright; I merely awoke with my breath stuck in my throat and a layer of icy sweat on my skin.
It was dusk again and my senses were at their prime. It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, and it took less time still for me to recognize someone else was in the room with me. He was sitting in the plush armchair next to my bedroom door.
My pulse leaped a little, which made me feel stupid because once I recognized who it was I knew he’d heard the change in my heart rate.
Though neither of us needed the light to see, I turned on the lamp next to my bed and propped myself up on a pillow.
“You’re out awfully early, aren’t you?”
Holden frowned, which was not all that unusual since he rarely smiled. “As you must have anticipated, the Tribunal would like to have a word with you. ”
“Oh, Holden. I think you and I both know they will have a lot more than a word for me. ”
I noticed he wasn’t looking directly at me, and when I looked down I understood why. During my fitful sleep I had stripped off all my clothing, and the only thing covering me was a thin floral sheet.