by Sierra Dean
“Looking for the bedroom?” he asked, giving me a sly smirk.
“Yeah. Where do you keep your coffin? Or are you strictly a black-satin-sheets-on-a-four-poster-bed kind of cliché?”
“Are you asking for an invitation?” His grin faded and he gave me the once-over, his gaze trailing and lingering the way some men might use their hands.
I shivered. “I came to talk business.”
He pushed away from the windows and crossed the room in quick, easy strides until he was standing in front of me. Instinct told me to step back, but I fought against it. We might be in his house, but according to hierarchy, I was the biggest, baddest vampire here. Tribunal leaders don’t let sentries intimidate them.
Bastard was testing me.
“Does the business have anything to do with our little bargain, by any chance?”
Ever since I’d agreed to spend the night with him, I’d known my relationship with him sat on a ticking time bomb.
My breath hitched in my throat, and he definitely noticed.
“No. And don’t hold your damned breath on that either.”
“As you’ve mentioned on several occasions, I have no need to hold my breath.” His smile was thin and predatory. It gave me a chill that had nothing to do with fear.
“I’m not here for that,” I whispered.
“Then perhaps you should get to the point.” He dipped his head so his lips were against my ear and the tip of one sharp fang grazed the lobe. Under normal circumstances I might have found it erotic, but it slammed me back into the memory of being under Mayhew’s spell the previous night.
I pressed a palm flat against Holden’s sternum and pushed him back. My hand was trembling.
“I need you to come with me tonight.”
He caught my wrist in his hand and pressed his thumb against my throbbing pulse. His nostrils flared, and inky blackness made his pupils double in size. Anyone who didn’t know the signs would think he was exhibiting telltale hunger pangs. They’d be wrong. He was smelling my fear.
I tried to pull away, but he held fast.
“What are you scared of?”
“I think I know who might have taken Lucy.”
“Who?”
“Her Medieval Literature professor. Oliver Mayhew.”
“I thought you talked to him already.”
Looking past Holden into the wide space of his living room, I focused on the giant black-and-white photo canvases hanging on the back wall. Anything so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. The evocative prints were lurid enough to make a Bosch painting blush.
It took me a moment to realize one of the nude men—with several female arms of varying skin tones wrapped around his most private parts—was Holden himself.
“Is that a Mapplethorpe?” I asked, pointing to the huge print.
“Secret, Robert Mapplethorpe didn’t kidnap Lucy. He died in 1989.” He forcefully turned my face back to him. “Why do you think Mayhew has her?”
“I went to see him again last night.”
Holden’s fingers gripped my chin so hard it hurt. “Why would you go back alone if you thought he was guilty of something?”
“I thought he was human.”
“He isn’t?”
“Not unless a human can strike me immobile without any force. No human can do what he did.”
The vampire released my face and took my hand up again, holding it between his two lukewarm palms. “Did he…hurt you?”
Deep black pools overwhelmed the chocolate brown of Holden’s eyes until all that was left were bottomless pits of darkness. He was beyond mad.
“He stole my memories. Years of my life vanished. But, no, I don’t think he did anything to me physically. Except kiss me.”
Holden growled, and suddenly he was back across the room, facing the window.
“You can’t put yourself at risk like that.”
Anger bubbled inside me, but I bit my tongue against the tide of curses that wanted to spew out of my mouth. I was being indignant. He was right, after all. My life wasn’t my own anymore. I had responsibilities to Lucas’s pack, and more importantly I was at the head of one of the biggest vampire organizations in the world.
This was why Sig didn’t want me running around in the streets with Shane, putting myself in harm’s way.
Only now was I fully aware of how selfish I had been. I might have pretended I was doing it to save Lucy or find out the truth about who killed Trish and the others, but the honest fact was I wanted to be on the hunt again. Just like I’d wanted to be out for the kill last night when I’d chased the vampire with Shane. It wasn’t the hunter I wanted to help. I’d wanted the hunt itself.
I let out my breath in a huff. “That’s why I need you now.”
With his arms braced against the wooden frame of the window I was afraid he might crack the glass. He was rigid with tension, his whole body vibrating with unspent energy.
“You need to swear to me you won’t do this ever again.”
“I don’t owe you any promises, Holden.”
He turned, and his expression was all it took to knock me back a few steps. For all the bravado and posturing, the mood swings and the flirting, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him look the way he did right now. His features were drawn and tight as though he were racked with pain. The man had seen me nearly beaten to death, but he’d never once looked at me with such concern.
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“Why, will you try duping me into sleeping with you if I don’t agree?” I was trying to lighten the mood, but he didn’t so much as crack a smile.
After a tense pause, he shook his head. “I already did that.”
I gave him a weak grin. “So, quit your bitching. You going to help me or not?”
“What do you need?”
“I need someone to carry my gun. Someone to back me up when I go snooping around Mayhew’s office tonight.”
“You’re awfully dressed up for a break-and-enter.”
“That’s the other thing.”
He arched a brow.
“I need you to not say a single goddamn word to Lucas tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
We arrived at Columbia a half hour later after Holden had traded his casual duds for a designer suit. He had my gun tucked into the back of his pants, but he’d insisted on checking the safety forty or fifty times before he’d acquiesced to hiding it there.
Guess he was worried about accidentally taking a silver bullet in the ass.
The newly constructed Rain School of Business had replaced an old dormitory that had burned down the previous summer. Nestled between another dorm hall and an aging Chemistry building, the new building looked far too shiny and ostentatious.
“Someone’s overcompensating,” Holden scoffed.
“You’re a regular comedian, Chancery. Get it out of your system now.”
He shrugged, but I could still see the glimmer of mirth in his eyes. This night was destined to be nothing but trouble. What had I been thinking, bringing Holden to a party where I was supposed to be showing the Southern packs what a good little mate I was to Lucas?
“I’m serious,” I warned. “There are people here tonight who could spell a lot of trouble for Lucas’s pack.” When those words didn’t seem to get through to him, I stopped walking and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Trouble for Lucas is trouble for me.”
Holden raised both palms in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. Play nice with the dogs.”
“And whatever you do, don’t say that. There are visiting emissaries from my uncle’s pack here, and I don’t think they’ll laugh off your slurs quite the same way. Lucas can’t have a vampire belittling him on his own turf. It would—”
“Secret. I get it. You don’t need to explain to me the finer points of pack politics. I’m a vampire. I know how ridiculous supernatural society can be. I’ll behave.”
“Sorry.” I blushed faintly. “And thank you.”
Ahead of
us a small group of people entered the brightly lit building. They were dressed in tuxedos and evening dresses, and a few of the women were sporting fur coats. I’d forgotten I was supposed to dress for the cold and had worn only my velvet blazer. Holden, similarly, wore only his suit jacket. We earned a few sideways glances when we merged with the crowd going in.
“So glad we found a parking spot so close,” I commented, laughing.
Holden shook his head like it wouldn’t have occurred to him to make an effort to explain our lack of outerwear. “Yes. How lucky.”
Inside the door there was a coat check set up, and we split away from the rest of the group as they debated the safety of leaving their expensive furs with a twenty-something coat-check girl who was snapping her chewing gum.
At the top of the stairs was a huge atrium that served as the hub of the school. From where we stood, all the different annexes, stairwells and main lecture theaters were within easy access. In the center of the atrium was a bronze bust depicting Jeremiah Rain, and the plaque underneath read, A man’s worth is not measured in money, but in the ability to earn what is his.—J. Rain.
Then, further proving the creepy qualities of our new mate bond, I felt Lucas’s presence from across the room. It was still strange to me to be without the cinnamon flavor in my mouth, but being able to sense another person without seeing them was entirely new. It was as though he was a light bulb and I was a moth. The lingering warmth of him pulled me through the growing crowd until I was on the opposite side of the atrium. Holden had waited at the stairs.
Lucas turned as the people closest to him moved aside, and we both stood stock-still about fifteen feet away from each other. He drank in my appearance, and I held my breath. I hadn’t known until right then how much I cared about what he thought of my outfit. When his cheeks flushed and his lips parted in a soundless sigh, the message was clear.
He said it anyway. “You look fucking amazing.”
An old lady nearby heard his curse and shot him a withering glare. He didn’t notice her. Instead he looped me in his arms and pulled me close. I’d expected a peck on the cheek, but instead he greeted me with an open-mouthed, hungry kiss that turned my spine to a limp noodle and forced me to hold his forearms for balance when my ankles wobbled. He came up for air and noticed for the first time we’d attracted a bit of an audience.
He kissed my cheek for good measure before letting me go, then switched effortlessly into his public persona. A young man and a middle-aged woman stood closest to us, and Lucas angled me in their direction. The man was twenty if he was a day. He looked more likely to still be in his late teens. It was obvious his hair tended towards the curly side, but it had been cropped close to his head, giving him a messy bedhead look that defied control. The suit he wore was expensive, but he seemed uncomfortable in it.
The woman, on the other hand, appeared as if she’d been born with a broomstick surgically inserted up her rectum. Her posture was so perfect and her expression so sour, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or apologize.
“Amelia, it’s my absolute pleasure to introduce you to my mate, Miss Secret McQueen.”
So these were Callum’s people. It was brave of Lucas to use a phrase like mate within earshot of a hundred humans, no matter how low his tone could get.
Amelia offered me her version of a smile, which was a less-frigid version of her frown. “Amelia Laurent,” she said, shaking my hand. “And this is Ben McQueen.”
The young man nodded brusquely, then shook my hand a little too hard. “Hi,” he barked.
So Callum had sent family up for this meeting? I couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or not. Ben must have been Callum’s son, or my aunt Savannah’s. I was taken aback, wondering how many relations I had down south who I didn’t even know existed. Ben looked equally mystified by me. Although he’d stopped staring at me once our handshake ended, I saw the less-than-subtle glances he kept sneaking in my direction.
“A pleasure to meet you both,” I said. “Lucas and I do so appreciate you making the long trip up here so we could…chat.”
Lucas rested his hand on my lower back, and I could feel the tension spark when I spoke. He was definitely worried about me saying the wrong thing. I couldn’t blame him. There was no filter between my mouth and my brain, and one wrong word to Amelia could inadvertently start a war.
I scanned the crowd as Lucas relieved me of conversational duties. Holden had moved to the bar and was chatting with a pretty Asian girl in a bright red dress. She thought he was hilarious, because she kept giggling and tossing her shiny black hair back, exposing her throat. I knew Holden, he wasn’t that funny.
Near the makeshift stage, Dominick was talking to another familiar-looking werewolf whose name I couldn’t recall off-hand, which meant he was from an outlying pack. Dom saw me looking and jerked his chin up in greeting. I smiled. The smile died shortly thereafter when my wandering gaze met a steely glare across the foyer. Morgan, wearing a green floor-length dress slit almost all the way up to her crotch, was scowling at me.
“Do you agree, Miss McQueen?” Amelia’s Southern accent cut through my staring contest with the petty little bitch across the room.
I had no idea what was being discussed. Turning to Lucas, he smiled at me and offered the slightest nod.
“Oh, absolutely,” I replied, pretending I wasn’t lost.
“Yes. As a pack we are stronger than ever since I found Secret.”
Like I was a lost sock. Amelia’s smile mirrored mine: forced and humorless. “Callum will be delighted to know it. Certainly, though, you might want to spread the word of your pack’s strength and unity to the pack itself.” She cocked her head to the side, practically daring Lucas to react to her words. “I mean, if your pack was really so strong, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”
To his credit, Lucas forced a smile. I would have slapped her. Lucas’s smile didn’t falter as he said, “Perhaps, Ms. Laurent, it would be advisable to let me run my kingdom as I see fit. I’m sure Callum didn’t send you here to make suggestions on his behalf.”
Amelia didn’t have a response, but Ben’s faint smirk told me he was enjoying seeing her put in her place. I bet she was a real peach to travel with.
“If you’ll excuse me, ladies.” He nodded to Ben. “And gentleman. It’s time for me to make a short speech. But I think you’ll all enjoy it.” Lucas kissed my hair and squeezed my arm. “Don’t run away.”
What he was really saying was, “Don’t say anything stupid while I’m gone.”
As soon as Lucas left, Dominick came to stand between me and the new arrivals, buffering me from their chilly demeanor.
“Hey, kid,” he said, elbowing my ribs.
“Hey yourself.” He earned my first unguarded smile of the night.
Lucas took the stage, standing behind a glass podium. In his black Brooks Brothers suit and a blue silk tie that made his eyes impossibly bright, he looked so handsome it stole my breath. He also looked like he was about to announce his candidacy for president. He smoothed out his suit, straightened his tie, then smiled.
That one smile was all it took for a hush to fan out across the room. All eyes were focused on the wolf king.
“Good evening, everyone. I want to thank you all for coming tonight. As many of you know, Columbia was both mine and my father’s alma mater. This school is special to the entire Rain family.” A smattering of applause. “When Dean Portsmouth came to me with the idea of a new business school, some of my financial advisors warned against it. They said I was a fool to make a no-return investment.” He paused dramatically, smiling at the rapt crowd. “So I fired them.”
Hoots and cheers and much more enthusiastic clapping were the response. He had them hooked now. “An investment in education will always reap returns. My father believed the greatest gift someone could give themselves was the gift of an open mind.” I saw pain flicker in Lucas’s eyes, but his smile remained fixed. “Anyone lucky enough to have known my
father, and there are many of you here, know this school would have meant the world to him. It was a labor of love, designed by a family-owned firm, and built by one of our contracting companies. This school is Rain through and through. And I hope new generations of businessmen and women will come into the workplace from these halls. I just hope none of them are after my job.”
More laughter.
“On a personal note, I wanted to express to you all how much it means to me to have you here with me tonight, and not only because we’re opening this new school.” He sucked in a breath and took a half step away from the podium. I could feel a sudden spike of anxiety from him that made my own heart rate pick up.
Resting my hand on Dominick’s arm, I whispered, “Something’s wrong.”
“Shh,” he said, then rubbed my back in small circles.
The whole room, myself included, held our collective breaths.
“Since losing my father, it’s been a difficult transition for me. Moving from a carefree youth to suddenly being responsible for billions of dollars and thousands of jobs is enough to test the strongest man. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it without a strong network of support.” His hand hovered over his heart. “In particular, there is someone here who has changed the entire course of my life. Before I met her I was a ship without sails. Since she came into my life, I know what it means to be complete.”
There was a soft aww and several dreamy sighs from the audience. I still hadn’t remembered to catch my breath. Lucas stood behind the podium, hand over his heart, and he was staring right at me. I thought I might throw up from the swell of anxious energy building in my chest.
“Secret McQueen,” he said, in case I’d forgotten my name, which I had. “Before you, I had a life without meaning. I was a man without drive. You’ve given me something worth fighting for.”