Cold Hard Secret (Secret McQueen)

by Sierra Dean

  He’d developed something to forcibly turn a werewolf from human to wolf form. “Goddammit. I’m guessing they didn’t ship an antidote with it?”

  Mouse snorted. “You think Peyton or whoever sent him that shit was concerned with reversing the process?”

  No. I didn’t.

  But this meant I wasn’t getting the cure from Mouse because there was no cure to be had. At least not in France. Callum had implied we might be able to reverse things if I could get Desmond in immediate contact with a wolf king. I might not be Lucas’s biggest fan, but he was the best shot we had of putting Desmond back in a nice Desmond-shaped package.

  Like I had time to deal with this.

  “I have one more question.”

  He eyeballed me warily but lifted his chin as an invitation to continue.

  “Do you know where I can get a wolf-sized kennel?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Since Fate seemed hell-bent on making me interact with my wolf-husband, I figured it was high time to bite the bullet and head home to New York. If I’d had things my way, I would fly from Paris to Winnipeg and haul ass to the country to make sure Grandmere was okay. But I couldn’t let Desmond cool his heels as a wolf, and Callum had promised me he’d keep his mother safe. I had to believe he would be true to his word, at least until I could get there myself.

  The one perk of flying in a private plane—aside from being able to protect myself from the sun—was that I didn’t have to keep Desmond stowed in the storage hold. The pilot had drawn the line at letting the wolf wander freely though, which meant he was stuck in the metal crate Mouse had helped me track down on short notice.

  Desmond was not impressed with his in-flight digs.

  I couldn’t blame him, but I also couldn’t let him out, as per pilot orders.

  “I’m sorry,” I said for the seven hundredth time on the flight. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”

  He growled in reply. I had a feeling I’d get a not-so-friendly nip when I finally released him. I’d allow one free pass on biting. I had it coming.

  “We’re less than an hour out. I’m going to take you straight to Lucas as soon as we land. I swear to you we’ll have this sorted out before the night is through.” We’d had to time our flight so we left Paris while it was still dark but would arrive in New York when the sun was down. It was a tricky plot that should get us into LaGuardia right around sunset.

  I was exhausted.

  Moving from one night to another didn’t exclude me from the day, and I’d napped hard on the plane, unable to resist the pull of daylight. It had been a hell of a twenty-four-hour stretch, and I didn’t foresee a time when I’d be able rest easy in my near future.

  The timing of the flight worked beautifully, and I was able to hire a shuttle van that didn’t make too much of a stink about the “dog” I had with me. Funny how the promise of a hundred-dollar tip could change people’s minds on things.

  When we pulled up in front of Rain Hotel, I paid the driver and released Desmond from his cage. The wolf, as predicted, gave my hand a firm chomp, and I laughed it off as a love bite when the shuttle driver gaped with open horror. An extra hundred seemed to allay his concerns over my well-being.

  In the lobby I was greeted by the stern, disapproving face of Melvin, the night-shift concierge. Melvin, a were-ferret and no great fan of mine, always seemed to be working on the nights I got my hands the dirtiest. Yet I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to see him. He was something familiar, and to see him frowning at me meant some things hadn’t changed.

  “Ms. McQueen.”

  “Hello, Melvin.”

  “To what do we owe the pleasure this evening?” A few other guests had taken note of Desmond and were moving away from our end of the desk. Leave it to the hoity-toity upper-crust to be too proper to scream when they see a wolf.

  “I’ve come to see Lucas.”

  He looked at me, then down at Desmond. Being a shifter himself, Melvin was well aware of who Lucas was, and by extension what that made me. In spite of the whole mess of my wedding day, technically I still had all the wife rights given to a queen. I didn’t particularly want them, but sometimes they did come in handy.

  “You know where he lives.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve come straight from the airport and don’t have my card.” The elevator up to Lucas’s three-story penthouse worked on a keycard system, with each person choosing a code unique to their card.

  My card was buried in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, having lost its regular place in my wallet. I’d considered cutting it up, but like a shopping addict with an emergency AMEX, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There might come a time—like now—when I’d need it.

  Too bad I hadn’t had that foresight when packing for France.

  Melvin gave an exaggerated sigh, emphasizing how this would be the worst part of his whole evening. He picked up the phone and—honest to God—hit a big red button at the top. I imagined a red phone in Lucas’s office lighting up beneath a Plexiglas dome.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir.” He paused and nodded. “Yes, I understand. Yes, sir, but I think this is perhaps worth interrupting you for.” He glared at me, evidently unable to understand what it was Lucas found worthwhile in me. “No, I don’t presume to know the value of your time.”

  Good to know Lucas was a douche to everyone and not just me.

  I crooked my fingers towards him, suggesting he pass me the phone. Melvin hesitated, but only briefly. I don’t think he wanted to spend any more of his evening being berated by a werewolf king. He placed the handset in my palm.

  “Lucas.” I cut off the stern lecture he was in the process of giving.

  “Secret?”

  “I’m downstairs, and I don’t have my card.”

  “You’re downstairs?” I might as well have told him the call is coming from inside your house by the stunned way he was behaving.

  “I need your help.”

  He must have really needed to collect his thoughts because the silence lasted longer than was polite on a phone call.

  “You need my help.”

  “Yes, and not with having my words repeated back to me, though you’re doing a bang-up job.”

  “I’ll send Dominick down, hold on.”

  I didn’t warrant a visit from His Royal Assholeness himself, how lovely. But when had I ever? The first night I’d come to Lucas’s hotel, he’d sent Desmond to collect me. He never did the dirty work himself.

  Handing the phone back to Melvin, I thanked him and moved to wait by the elevator. A minute later it chimed, and a short, muscular man with his blond hair shaved on the sides and slicked back on the top stepped out.

  “Nice haircut, Dom.”

  “Thanks, lady. I took a picture of Justin Timberlake to the stylist. He got a bit carried away on the sides, but hey, Cas thinks it’s sexy.”

  “That’s all that matters, right?”

  Desmond, who had been sitting next to the desk, plodded over and stood between his brother and me.

  “Jesus,” Dominick exclaimed.

  “Careful, he’s grumpy.” I showed him my hand, the bite marks now mostly healed. “He’s mad at me for keeping him caged up the whole way home.”

  “What happened?”

  “Long story, and I only want to tell it once. Can we go see King Dipshit, please?”

  Dominick, Lucas’s personal bodyguard, leveled me with a warning glare. “Play nice.”

  “I promise I won’t kick him.”

  “Secret…”

  “Look, I take spousal abuse as seriously as the next girl. But that shithead has a beating coming to him, and someday I’m going to see he gets it. You can’t stop me. Tonight I’ll play nice, though.”

  “I suppose I can’t ask for miracles.” He placed his hands in Desmond’s fur, stroking it and scratching the wolf behind the ears. It was sweet, seeing him comfort his brother.

  “I think we should keep our miracles where we need them.
”

  The ride up to Lucas’s suite filled me with a mounting sense of dread. I’d come here so positive he’d be able to help, but what if he couldn’t? What if Desmond was stuck like this? I couldn’t imagine my life without him as part of it, but I hadn’t considered him being trapped in wolf form forever.

  It would certainly simplify my love life.

  I banished the thought, feeling infinitely guilty for letting it cross my mind in the first place.

  The door slid open in the foyer, and Lucas stood waiting. He wore a soft gray V-neck sweater and a pair of well-worn jeans. About a week’s worth of stubble gave him the impression of a beard without the actual bulk of what he’d once grown. Had his eyes always been such a bright blue, or did his disapproving glare make them pop?

  One thing that often bothered me was how beautiful he was. It didn’t matter how much I hated him or how bad I wanted to slap him, he was still gorgeous.

  His cinnamon flavor filled my mouth like a Red Hot, reminding me that although my heart had checked out a long time ago, our metaphysical love match was still intact. So much for that being a one-time fluke.

  I had to get away from him as quickly as I could. I hated putting myself in a position where I could get suckered in by his allure again. What was worse, I hated knowing he maintained any appeal for me, even if it was entirely primal.

  If happiness were a pair of skinny jeans, Lucas was the pint of ice cream standing in my way.

  “I thought after what happened in San Francisco I wouldn’t be—” He stopped short when Desmond followed me out of the elevator.

  What I appreciated most about the wolves was their ability to recognize who Des truly was while trapped in his furry form.

  “What’s going on?” Lucas looked from me to Dominick then back.

  “Peyton.”

  “That son of a—”

  This time I cut him off. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.”

  “But he managed to give Desmond a shot of something. He got it from The Doctor.”

  “Oh.” Though Lucas hadn’t been around for the whole Doctor debacle, he’d heard enough about it from others to understand the gravitas of what had gone down.

  At least as much as anyone who wasn’t present could understand it.

  I was there for the whole thing, and I didn’t fully grasp it yet.

  “There isn’t an antidote. I talked to Callum, and he seemed to think you might be able to reverse it with your big, bad wolf magic.”

  “You spoke to Callum McQueen about a problem in my pack?” He sounded furious. Leave it to Lucas to miss the point altogether.

  “Can you focus on one issue at a time?” I pointed to the wolf sitting next to me. “Desmond is stuck like this, and we need your help.”

  For the first time since I’d arrived it crossed my mind Lucas might say no just to spite me and to stick it to Desmond. He’d made it abundantly clear he wasn’t impressed with our ongoing relationship, and it had caused a monumental rift in their friendship. I knew Lucas was capable of being petty, and he’d used Desmond as a bargaining chip against me more than once. But would he honestly let Des stay in wolf form just to prove a point to me?

  I hated that I couldn’t dismiss such a fear as me being silly.

  “Do you know what was in the shot?”

  I shook my head, relief slowly trickling in. “I wasn’t around when they got him. It had to be fast acting though. We weren’t separated all that long. He’s still in there, though, he responded to my…” I glanced up at Lucas, afraid to tell him too much about my wolf. “He responded to me. It’s the only reason I’m not dead.”

  Lucas grunted and gave me a look that told me he wasn’t buying my weak cover, but he didn’t ask any other questions. “Bring him into my room.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and strode with purpose towards the staircase leading to the upper levels. He took the stairs two at a time and was soon out of sight.

  “Isn’t he a ray of sunshine?” I grumbled.

  “You two do bring out the best in each other,” Dominick reminded me.

  “We do fine when we don’t have to talk.” It was filthy, but accurate. In bed, Lucas and I were a kinetic force to be reckoned with. But once we had to function like a normal couple, everything fell apart. We were a mess. “Besides, he doesn’t need to like me right now as long as he helps Desmond.”

  I led Desmond up the stairs, and after the wolf hesitated a moment at the metal steps, we met Lucas in his palatial bedroom. The first time I’d been in his master suite I’d been stunned to silence by the size of it. Now neither it, nor its owner, did much to impress me.

  Wolf-Desmond chose to stick by my side, lying on the Persian rug when I took a seat in the leather chair facing Lucas’s desk.

  “What were you thinking, going after Peyton alone?”

  “I wasn’t alone. I had Desmond.”

  “You could have both been killed.”

  “We weren’t.”

  “Maybe not, but now one of my wolves is trapped in his lupine form.”

  “Look, Lucas, if I wanted a parental lecture, I would have gone to Keaty. But I don’t think you would have liked his solution for this situation very much.” It didn’t take a wild stretch of the imagination to know Keaty would have proposed putting Desmond down. Permanently.

  That was Keaty. Practical to the point of inhumanity.

  “Nice to see near-death has done nothing to dampen your sunny disposition,” he said.

  If I didn’t need his help so badly right now, I would have smacked the smug look right off his face.

  “I don’t need this bullshit from you, Lucas. You have no idea what I’ve been through. Just help Desmond.”

  “Fine.” I’d half-expected him to ask what he was going to get out of it and was momentarily stunned by his agreement. “But you can’t stay.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but he slammed both palms down on his desk, making the old wood creak in protest. “Stop.”

  “I-I didn’t even say anything.”

  “You’re always saying something, Secret. You can’t get through ten minutes with me without disapproving somehow. Just stop. I know you’re mad. I know you’re finding it difficult to forgive me, but you need to let this go.”

  Desmond growled, and it took all my restraint not to do the same.

  “How dare you tell me what I need to do. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “I’m your—”

  “If I were you, I’d think twice before dropping that husband bullshit on me again, Lucas.”

  “Is this something you learned growing up in Canada? This blatant disregard for authority? I’ve never met anyone as completely pigheaded as you before.”

  “That’s only because you’ve never met yourself.” I leaned back in the chair now that the worst of his outburst had passed. “And I take offense to your Canada comment. We’re a Commonwealth country, still. If anything, growing up in Canada taught me to have a passive respect for royalty.”

  Lucas, stymied by his inability to make me cower before him, took a seat in his desk chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You can’t stay,” he repeated, more calmly this time.

  “Why not?” I wasn’t being snarky, just asking honestly.

  “Because I don’t know if it will work, and I don’t know what extremes I’ll have to go to. You aren’t stable when it comes to shifting, and if I have to force his shift, I have no idea what it would do to you if you were in the room.”

  So maybe he wasn’t always selfish. Only 99.9999% selfish.

  In this case his reasoning was sound. I’d been in Lucas’s presence the only time I’d shifted, so he obviously had the ability to bring out my wolf. I wasn’t in a position to mess around with shifting right now. I needed to be a nice, human-shaped monster if I had a hope in hell of getting to Manitoba to sort out the Mercy situation.

  A wolf might be more menacing, but I couldn’t exactly tell the jet pilot where the closest small airp
ort was if I was a quadruped.

  “Fine.”

  Lucas arched a brow. “What, no argument?”

  “Do you want me to argue?”

  “No, but you fight me on everything. I assumed this would be no different.”

  “You of all people must be familiar with what they say about people who assume.” I smiled weakly, glad I could get in one more barb before saying the most dreaded words I could imagine uttering to Lucas Rain, “You’re right.”

  “Whoa.” He leaned back and rested his hands on his cruelly toned tummy. “Do my ears deceive me?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Look, leave Desmond with me, and I’ll do everything I can to get him back in human form.”

  “Thank you.” I was still waiting for him to name his price, and when none came, I didn’t know how to handle it. Was it possible for Lucas to do something nice for me without demanding a quid pro quo? I’d have gladly given whatever pound of flesh he asked for if it meant restoring Desmond, but as he walked me to the door he had yet to make his request.

  “I miss you.” He leaned against the doorframe and stared at me as I backed into the hallway.

  “Why?” I asked, unable to comprehend a single reason he could honestly want me back in his life.

  He shrugged and looked at the carpet, appearing more lost and uncertain than I’d ever seen him. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  That made two of us.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It felt wrong to leave Desmond behind, but I knew it was the right thing to do. If anyone would be able to restore him to his former glory, it would be Lucas. In the meantime, I had the rest of the evening in New York to myself, and plenty of people who must have wanted a piece of it.

  I should have gone to find Holden, told him how things were progressing. I’d texted him after I landed, so he knew I was back in New York, but he still didn’t know all the details of Peyton’s execution or The Doctor’s role in Desmond’s shift. There were some things I couldn’t explain properly via text message.

  Part of me wanted to go see Calliope for a little insight into what was going on. The Oracle might be able to help me determine what was happening with my mother, but I really wasn’t in the mood for riddles just then.