Dark Secrets

by Madeline Pryce

  “Let me help you, Micah.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping it would help push away the headache throbbing through my temples. “Tell me where my mother is.”

  “The information comes with a price.”

  Of course it did. Castro’s main motto in life was tit for tat.

  He withdrew a folder from the inside of his pinstriped suit and handed it to me. I took the file, but the demon didn’t let go.

  “Other than making Ella want to cut off my balls? What more could you possibly want?”

  “You did that, not me. Secrets are like cancer—they fester and eat you alive until nothing is left. Trust me, I know.”

  I was no stranger to secrets. I’d been raised under a web of lies and had resented them my entire life—now more than ever.

  “Love isn’t sunshine and roses, not in our world. She gets that. She’ll get over it. Now, what’s your price?”

  “Inside this folder you’ll find the location of your mother and the details you’ll need to plan a rescue mission.”

  My heart kicked into overdrive. She was alive.

  Castro continued. “She’s being held at a privately owned hospital about three hours from here. The security detail is high, but I feel confident you’ll find a way in. When you retrieve her, bring her to the Vault.”

  I narrowed my eyes and fought not to rub the center of my chest where my unease gathered. “Why?”

  “That isn’t your concern. I need your word that you’ll bring her to me.” I opened my mouth but Castro spoke over me. “No matter what, Micah. You must promise me.”

  “That’s a broad statement.”

  The demon leveled me with a potent stare that reached in and gripped my soul. “Your word.”

  I inclined my head. “You have it.”

  Castro returned the gesture and I knew our bargain was forged. He let go of the folder and took a step back. The curling tendrils of smoke vanished when he shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at me. “Just so you know—I wouldn’t have let you kill him.”

  It took me a few silent seconds to decode his cryptic words. I met his eyes. Just one of my many dark, damning secrets danced in his gaze and I realized he knew. This was the other reason I’d been avoiding my mate. To protect Ella I’d planned on killing Richard McGregor, the man who I’d believed was my father my entire life, and Castro knew it. The trial the Shadow Agency planned was bullshit. I knew it, Roy knew it, the council knew it and Ella, while in denial, knew it.

  One way or another, Richard would find a way to take her from me and I’d be damned if I let that happen.

  I tapped the file on the open palm of my hand, the subtle thwack, thwack, thwack filling the silence. “I would have done what was necessary to keep Ella safe. I still will. No matter the cost. Even with evidence, the trial could go either way. Richard wants to punish me, and he’ll use Ella to do it.”

  Castro curled his upper lip and I glimpsed the monster the demon lord concealed with such ease. “Let me deal with Richard. He’s not to be touched.”

  The vehemence in his voice resonated through me. I cocked my head to the side to study him. I notched my chin up in a what-the-hell-are-you-hiding motion. “What did he take from you?”

  “Everything.” Castro paused at the door and gripped the molding. His knuckles went white. “This might be nothing, could be everything, but there is a rumor circulating that Richard has acquired the Blade of Souls. Look into it.”

  I shook my head at him as he turned and started down the hallway. I called out to his retreating form. “The what?”

  His reply, a clear dismissal, carried through the corridor. “Look it up.”

  Asshole.

  On a sigh, I leaned back against the obscenely large oak desk and opened the folder. I ignored the hard spine of a book that jabbed into my kidney. No, I was more focused on the loose photo. My mother smiled up at me, a sight I hadn’t seen in too many years to count. Her eyes were the same shape and color as Eli’s.

  I traced the curve of her face and tried to recall a time from my childhood when she’d smiled like that. Before we’d lost Lily. Before the weight of Richard’s anger became too great to shoulder.

  Perhaps it was before I was even born.

  Everything around me faded as I flipped through the information Castro had given me. My disgust and self-loathing ratcheted up with each new facet of information revealed. It wasn’t just my mother being held in that hospital. There were dozens of others, all linked to the Shadow Agency, all who’d supposedly given birth to demon or shifter hybrids. Forced breeding. Who in the fuck had orchestrated this?

  A subtle tingling at the base of my spine pricked my attention. The sensation spread, kicking my heartbeat into a faster tempo, and I looked to the doorway. Ella. Waves of pure, unadulterated, pissed-off female preceded her into the room. The sight of her stole my breath and hardened my cock.

  Her long dark hair was starting to dry in loose waves that curled around and behind her shoulders. The slender crimson lines magically inked along her arm, collarbone and down to cup her breast filled me with pride. She was mine.

  Dressed in a sports bra and a skimpy-as-hell pair of shorts, she might as well have been walking around in her damn underwear. She slammed the door closed behind her, sealing us inside one of the only soundproof rooms in the house.

  When I really wanted to make her scream and beg, I brought her here.

  I shook the thoughts from my head. Ella was probably a few seconds away from striding over and kneeing me in the nuts. I spoke before she could.

  “My mother and thirty-seven other women—all of whom were reported dead—are being held at a privately owned and operated institution in upstate New York, near Albany. Every patient can be linked to the Shadow Agency.”

  She crossed her slender arms under her breasts, a move that pushed her tits up and almost out of her sports bra, and glared at me. I ran my gaze over the tops of her breasts, down her taut belly to the flare of her hips and licked my lips. I knew how every inch of her skin tasted, which spots made her squirm and which ones made her all soft and vulnerable.

  “Eyes up here.” Ella’s eerily calm words were a true indication of her ire.

  My girl didn’t yell, not when she was truly pissed. I scraped a hand through my hair and pushed the wet strands back, out of my face. The insistent tap, tap, tap of her foot against the carpet grated on my nerves. The anger pouring off her invaded, infecting me with it until I couldn’t tell my emotions from hers, something that had been happening with increasing frequency. Not for the first time, I wondered what would have happened between us without the bond forcing our hand.

  I snapped the folder closed and threw it on the cluttered desktop behind me. “You’re pissed, I get it.”

  She uncrossed her arms, dropping her hands to her sides as she strode to me. Part of me wanted to meet her halfway, to sweep her into my arms and plunder her mouth. The other part, the one dominating me, suggested I throw her onto the ground, tie her up and fuck her. My neglected cock wept at the thought.

  Ella stopped in front of me, close enough for me to touch, close enough for the demon to taste her scent and demand more. She tilted her head back so she could meet my gaze.

  “What gave you the impression I was upset?”

  A month ago, a bout of hot, angry sex would have put us to rights. This time, though, I didn’t think it was going to work. I might have fucked up more than I’d thought. She wasn’t just pissed—she was hurt.

  “I’m not required to tell you every detail of my life the second it happens. I was going to tell you when I had more information.”

  So what if it was a partial truth? Something she and I had gotten quite good at over the last several weeks.

  “This isn’t a detail, Micah!” she shouted, her voice hitting the thousands of multicolored books and bouncing back. “This is your mother! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  The betrayal, the doubt in he
r eyes might as well have been a fucking knife to my gut.

  She was right, damn it. I should have just talked to her about it.

  “How long have you been keeping this secret from me?” she asked.

  I crossed one foot over the opposite ankle, opting for an indifferent pose. “Two weeks, give or take.”

  “Give or take,” she mocked.

  Ella looked to the ceiling, something she did when she was trying to gather what little self-control she possessed. Three seconds passed before her bright, unnaturally blue eyes returned to mine. Something petty and mean danced in her gaze and I braced myself for whatever she was about to say.

  “You’ve been hiding this information since the last time we fucked. Am I right?”

  I clenched my molars together to keep my anger in check, something that rarely worked. The deep breath I drew in flared my nostrils and fanned the flames coiling inside me.

  Fucking—a carnal meeting of bodies where pleasure dominated and emotion had no bearing.

  I’d seen inside her head, knew her secrets, her past and her desires. Ella had no idea what it meant to be truly fucked. Julian, her douche-bag sire, had tried and failed. An uncontrolled burst of rage filled me at the secondhand images rolling through my head. Julian on top of her, behind her, buried deep inside her.

  In a few days, the day before the trial, the undead asshole was holding some asinine party for Ella—a coronation ceremony I’d been informed I couldn’t attend. If I did—or if Ella refused to go—the contract Julian’s team of otherworldly attorneys had drafted when her sire had saved her life two months ago would become void. Apparently, the opportunistic fuck had some way to use his vampiric bond to harm her. The air shifted under the weight of my emotion. Ella responded in kind. Her spine stiffened and her eyes darkened. Swirling shadows danced within her irises—her predator, as she liked to call it, was awake and drawing mine out.

  My voice was low, dangerous. “I thought we were above the term ‘fucking’, but if you want to call it that, fine,” I ground out. “I found out that night after I left you naked and passed out in bed.”

  The same night I’d stared into her eyes while I thrust into her—completely consumed. The same night I’d made her come half a dozen times. The same night I’d lain awake long after she’d fallen into the post-sex coma she was prone to and watched her sleep like a man truly obsessed.

  “What other secrets—oh I’m sorry—details of your life haven’t you told me?”

  I snorted, the disgruntled sound matching my mood. “Why does there have to be anything else? I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know if it was true. My mother, a key eyewitness, is the testimony we need for your trial. Which, by the way, is in four days, you know, the one after that fucking party you’re being forced to attend. I didn’t want to get your hopes up or let you down if it didn’t pan out.”

  “Bullshit,” she seethed.

  I swept my tongue over my bottom lip. Some small, asinine part of me held on to my secret with both stubborn hands and refused to part with it. “I don’t think you understand the implications of what this information means. Richard lied to me about my mother. He was the one who found her with her brains blown to shit. He’s the one who sat me and Eli down and told us to man the fuck up because our spineless mom had taken the coward’s way out.” Rage built, consuming me. “Richard is in on this somehow, I can feel it in my gut. If I’m right, the information Castro gave me has the potential to bring down the entire Shadow Agency.”

  Hurt crinkled the corners of her eyes. “So why not tell me?”

  I shrugged and tried to find the right words, ones that wouldn’t cause her any more pain than what she already harbored. “You were worried about the trial, Julian, demons, vampires and your sister. You’ve got enough on your plate without piling my crap on top of it too. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a shit storm. I’m trying to protect you.”

  I pushed off the desk and crossed to her, the need to touch her a compulsion I was too weak to resist. I cupped her cheek, got only the briefest stroke of my thumb across her cheek before she slapped my hand away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Fuck that. I caught her wrist and tugged her close until her breasts slammed against my front. Where we pressed together, her heart thundered in the same erratic rhythm as mine. Electricity gathered where skin touched skin.

  I glared down at her and wished she’d let this go. “What the hell is your problem?”

  “You’re my problem,” she yelled and struggled to push away from me.

  Over her raised voice, I barely heard the knocking at the door. Whoever it was could wait. I captured both of her wrists and wrestled them behind her back. I slammed my mouth to hers hard enough to cut my lip on one of her fangs. The flash of pain throbbed through me and my swollen cock jerked.

  The sweet tang of blood touched my tongue and I knew if I could taste it, so could Ella. The second she gasped, I swept inside, dominating her mouth with a delicious, wet slide of tongue.

  She bit me.

  I pulled back on a hiss and glared. I didn’t dare let go of her arms to dab at the cut on my lip, not when violence lurked her in eyes. Hunger flared and her needs whipped through me. She hadn’t fed—taken blood—since the night we’d made love. Jesus. I was a Grade A asshole.

  Regret gave me some semblance of control. I lowered my voice and nudged her nose with mine, trying to coax out the soft kitten I knew existed. “You’re blowing this entire thing out of proportion. I didn’t tell you one little thing. One thing. You’re acting like I cheated on you or something.”

  Ella stiffened from head to toe. Her eyes flashed and I saw something break inside her—a physical severing of trust she had in me. What the fuck?

  “Let me go,” she hissed. “Now.”

  I lifted my hands and stepped back, cautious of her shifting mood.

  She wrapped an arm around her stomach, clutching it as if she had a bellyache. Her voice was so low I barely heard her words. “Did you cheat on me? Is that what’s really going on here? You were upset about your mom, Julian, whatever, so you went out and…”

  Shock loosened my muscles and my mouth dropped open. I’d rather cut off my dick than touch another woman. Ella was my it. My everything. We were bound together on a metaphysical, soul-deep level that made it hard for to even leave the house without her. “You’re serious?”

  She backed up a step and took a piece of me with her. Her doubt, the speed and ease she’d settled into it, ate at me. Had I wanted her so fiercely that I’d imagined what had grown between us?

  “Everything makes so much more sense now.” She cupped her throat. When she spoke again, her voice was a rough whisper. “You cheated on me. This,” she gestured wildly between our crotches to indicate our lacking sex life, “has nothing to do with the information you were hiding from me. It’s been two months and you’re already tired of me. How’d you get around the mating bond?”

  Her lack of trust brought out something in me I hadn’t known existed—a furious indignation that left me cold. I stalked forward, each step measured with violence. Voice the temperature of ice, I said, “Are you serious? Tell me you are not indicating I’ve been with another woman. Whether we chose this shit or not, we’re soul mates.”

  Someone pounded on the door again, and I knew whoever waited in the hall couldn’t hear the raging battle within, couldn’t hear how close I was to losing complete control. They couldn’t feel the swirling emotions churning in the air. The intercom beeped. Hannah’s voice filled the room. “Put your clothes back on and open the door.”

  The interruption was enough of a distraction for me to get my shit together and calm down.

  “Take a deep breath. Let’s both calm down.” I reached out and cupped the back of her neck. I squeezed, trying to rub out the knot of tension from her muscles. She vibrated with stress, something I’d put there. Ella had her lids closed tight enough to wrinkle the corners of her eyes. I
tucked a few errant strands of hair behind her ear and stroked her soft-as-silk skin. “Babe, look at me.”

  She shook her head, sniffled and turned away, giving me her back. Ella, the strongest woman I knew, was running. I’d thought we were past this. What kind of bastard did it make me that I was tired of chasing? Shit got rough, she took off and I dragged her back while she spat, kicked and fought me every inch of the way.

  Ella crossed to the door and opened it. She was short enough not to block the doorway, so I could easily see who waited. Hannah and Dante, one of the few people I called friend, stood waiting for us. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Hannah took one look at Ella, shoved her out of the way and strode into the room on three-inch death stilettos. How women didn’t break their necks on those things was a fucking mystery.

  The slinky red dress she wore adhered to her slender curves, exposing more skin than I needed to see. She held her head high, like some Amazon princess on the warpath. The fierce glare in her eyes should have filled me with pride. Instead I felt annoyed as hell at the interruption. Hannah was still riding her self-empowered high and ready to tear me a new one.

  Wonderful.

  “Micah McGregor, what did you do to my sister?” she hissed.

  I shook my head and started for the door, ready to put this craptastic night behind me with a bottle of bourbon. “Your sister swallowed crazy pills. That’s what fucking happened,” I growled. “I can’t believe she’d actually think for one second…” I brushed by Ella on my way out the door, and our gazes locked as I passed.

  The hurt on her face was almost my undoing, but I knew that no matter what I said, Ella wasn’t going to hear it. She’d thought I’d fucked another woman. Turned out she didn’t need to know about the circumstances surrounding my birth to think I was a piece of shit. She’d come to that conclusion all on her own.

  My lip curled up in a sneer. “I’m going out. Don’t wait up. You never know what I’ll pick up at the bar.”

  She lifted her chin. Fire filled her eyes. If I’d been closer, she probably would have kicked me in the nuts—not like they were doing me any good. “Don’t let the door hit your ass on your way out.”