by Sierra Dean
His white, sweat-dappled face assured me the point had been made.
I didn’t say anything else, because I couldn’t risk flashing fang at them. Once they were exposed, I needed to feed. If I was in better control, I could calm myself down enough to retract them, but I wasn’t going to get that lucky tonight. The monster was out, and it called for blood.
Instead, I nodded curtly to everyone and took my exit. They let me leave without further comment.
In the alley, I was once again alone with Fagan, who had relaxed his doorman attitude a little now that he knew I wasn’t a potential threat to Bramley.
“Get what you needed?” he asked me, his deep voice filling the dark alley.
I looked up at the night sky, admiring the low, three-quarter moon. “Not yet,” I confessed, keeping my lips tight and gritting my teeth together. “But I have a plan.”
Chapter Fifteen
The twenty-four-hour Starbucks on the corner of West 52nd and 8th was hardly spectacular to look at. Like several other New York outposts of the chain, the exterior was painted brown to give the white letters a little extra pop. If you made it through the doors and onto the other side, the back interior wall had a long mirror along the top half, allowing the light from the two windowed walls to reflect farther into the room. There was a row of banquette seating for several two-person tables. These tables were almost always occupied by one person and a laptop, the new New York power couple.
I walked through the doors at least once a week, but I almost never made it inside.
This particular Starbucks was special for one reason—it served as a gateway to a separate reality from the human world. The realm on the other side of the door was only accessible to someone of the paranormal persuasion who was in genuine need. However, it was forbidden for werewolves or wereanimals of any kind to enter.
Because time functioned differently there, wereanimals couldn’t count on their control to work as it should. Without the ebb and flow of the moon, they might shift unexpectedly, which would be disastrous. A werewolf who shifts against its will is not only angry, it is a force with which there is no reckoning.
My wolf had been so repressed by the calming influence of my vampire blood, I didn’t shift even at the height of the full moon. So Calliope, mistress of the alternative reality gatehouse, made a unique exception for me.
I stepped through the door of the Starbucks, and for one heart-pounding second I feared I might not cross over. My need was genuine, though. My gums were throbbing with the pain of extended fangs, and my jaw hurt from keeping my mouth clamped shut. If I didn’t end up in Calliope’s waiting room, everyone in the Starbucks would be in trouble.
Thankfully, the world got hazy and dark, and when it refocused, the room I was in looked nothing like a coffee shop. I’d never been happier to see Calliope’s oddly decorated waiting room than I was right then. The last time I’d been in the immortal’s home, I’d been so close to death at least a few people didn’t believe I was going to pull through.
The memory of the defeated look on Desmond’s face made my chest tighten. He hadn’t been able to be with me when I healed, and I doubted that had helped our situation.
The mansion was one of a kind. It didn’t abide by the laws of physics. It could expand in size depending on the need, so it could have as many or as few rooms as the moment demanded. It could also be day and night simultaneously, so the sun might be shining in windows upstairs, while the courtyard outside could be bathed in moonlight. Calliope’s was the only place I’d ever seen the sun, as artificial as it was. The mansion was an augmented reality, and even though you couldn’t trust any of your senses, there was something comforting about it.
This room in particular invited a long stay. Large, high-backed armchairs and a couple of couches lined one wall. On the adjacent side, a fire was lit, which helped the small number of wall-mounted lamps illuminate the room. Persian rugs were scattered in a haphazard fashion across the floor, most in deep jewel tones, and the whole room was adorned with paintings of Calliope.
It wasn’t that she was vain, but rather she was proud. She had been a muse for many men in a variety of her human forms, and she appreciated the art they had created in her honor. Calliope was only a half-god, but all deities loved a good offering.
I’d been in the room many, many times, and the number of occupants varied every time. Today it was empty. Sometimes it housed other paranormals in need, and sometimes there were dazed-looking teen boys who had recently donated some blood or aura energy to feed Calliope’s cravings. Those boys always left well paid and a little lacking in the memory department.
We all have our odd proclivities.
The large doors opened at the end of the room, bathing the whole space in warm light, and Calliope drifted in.
The woman herself would have looked familiar to anyone. One of Calliope’s forms on Earth had been that of Marilyn Monroe. She had taken the body of poor Norma Jean and transformed her into one of the most recognized sex symbols in the world. Then she’d gotten bored, as immortals often do, and left Norma Jean and Marilyn in an aura of mystery and eternal fame.
Sometimes she was attended by an enormous white tiger, whose origin and purpose I had never questioned. Tonight she was alone. She was leaner now than she’d been in her Marilyn years, and her hair was its natural shade of raven-wing black. Her wardrobe varied between goddess chic and twenty-something casual. Tonight she was wearing a knee-length peacock-print dress, with a low neck and back and a bouncy hemline. Her hair was braided and hung down her back in a thick rope.
“Secret!” Her voice was childlike, sweet and bubbly, and didn’t hint at the power that lurked within. She danced across the room and wrapped me into an embrace before I could stop her. Typically I didn’t like people getting too close to me, but Calliope wasn’t people, and she didn’t intend me any harm.
Calliope was a trusted friend of the vampire council. They would send her newborn vampires who were still unable to control themselves within the human population. She weaned them with bagged blood and helped them learn to keep their fangs to themselves, or at least to willing victims.
A vampire needed to be able to feed without killing before the council would trust them out in the world, and that was where Calliope came in. Her help meant the council got to keep its secrets and new vampires got to avoid meeting me alone in the dark.
I hugged Calliope back and relaxed. I’d never met a pure-blood fairy, so I didn’t know if they had a scent I would recognize or if the god part of her cancelled out anything I might be able to pick up on. Calliope always smelled like nothing.
She placed a hand on either side of my face and looked me in the eyes. She was still smiling, but her gaze told me she was judging my condition. “Let’s see.”
I opened my mouth, and she clucked her tongue at me. “Left it too long, I see.”
“Almost,” I admitted.
“Come on, then.” She took my hand and led me out of the room.
In a bedroom I had started to view as mine, Calliope sat me down on the sun-dappled window seat and leaned in close to get a good look at my eyes.
“Secret, why do you push yourself like this?”
“I was busy, and—”
“There are no excuses.” She sat on the bed and fixed me with a stern look. The Oracle, in spite of how youthful she looked, had always been something of a mother figure to me. To see the look of disappointment in her eyes made my heart sink.
“I’m sorry.”
“You could have lost control.” She leaned closer to me and placed the back of her hand against my cheek. “The risks are too high for you to be so foolish.”
I bit my tongue. She was being a little harsh. I knew I’d left feeding for far too long, but nothing had happened. Her reaction was a bit dramatic.
“I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this. I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Calliope dropped her hand and sat back. I coul
d tell she wasn’t happy. “You are closed to me.”
I had no idea what she meant, but I didn’t like the sound of it. She opened a small fridge hidden inside the nightstand and threw a bag of blood to me.
Then she continued. “Your whole mind is focused on the need to consume. It’s drowning out your spirit.” She cocked her head to the side and watched me as I bit open the bag and began to feed. “Your future is lost.”
I choked on the blood. “Lost how?”
“There is much I need to tell you, especially about your warden. But your path is no longer clear. Without your spirit intact, I know nothing. I can’t see what your future holds.”
She stood up and touched my hair, shaking her head sadly, then turned and left the room.
She didn’t come back.
I exited the Starbucks an hour later, my cheeks rosy and a conspicuous Styrofoam container clutched in my hands. Having eaten, I no longer felt the need to kill every human in a twenty-foot radius. The contents of the container meant I wouldn’t need to worry about getting that bad for another week.
I was nearly home, which was only a three-block walk from the Starbucks, when my phone rang. It had been awhile since I’d been on the receiving end of a call, and the sound of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” coming from my jacket pocket startled me. I fumbled for my phone, precariously balancing the cooler on my hip as I flipped the cell open to talk.
“Hello?”
“Can we talk?” It was Lucas.
Now that I was in front of my building, I paused and said nothing.
“Secret?” I could tell by his tone he was trying to be patient, but I knew I sometimes made this difficult. I wedged the phone between my shoulder and ear, listening to him breathe while I tried to find my keys. I wished he were breathing next to me.
“What is there to say?” I asked, unlocking my entrance door and stepping into the small landing. I leaned against the wall, not ready to be alone in my apartment with his voice in my ear.
“I don’t regret what I did to bring you home, and I won’t apologize for doing it.”
Well, we were off to a good start. My sharp intake of breath must have let him know I wasn’t pleased with his statement.
“Goodbye, Lucas.” I wasn’t actually prepared to hang up yet; I just wanted him to know I wasn’t impressed. He took advantage of the pause that followed my false farewell.
“Listen to me.” His tone was even, but it was an order. I didn’t want to yield to his power as king, but I was half wolf, and that part of me found it impossible not to listen. “I am sorry you were hurt, and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what the vampire had planned, but that’s because I didn’t know. And I couldn’t tell you anything, because you didn’t tell me a damn thing about where you’d gone.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I should have told you where I was going.”
“You never should have left in the first place.”
I sighed angrily and kicked my front door. Not enough to damage it, because I was sure I didn’t have enough in my bank account to pay for a new one. “You don’t get to decide that, Lucas.”
“You didn’t give me an opportunity to talk you out of it.”
“You couldn’t have.”
“Could Desmond have done it?”
And there it was. The two of them could pretend all they wanted that they were okay with sharing me, but I’d known it bothered Lucas more than he had let on, and now he had all but admitted I was right. It must have cut deep that even though he was the king, it was his second-in-command who had gotten me into bed first. And second. And third.
“No,” I answered truthfully.
Another long pause.
“I left because of what happened. I left because I was worried you and Desmond would never be able to look at me the same after you found out what I was. I mean, I drank your blood, Lucas. Isn’t that sort of a relationship deal breaker?”
“Goddammit, Secret. This isn’t time to be glib.”
I wanted to ask if there was ever an appropriate time for me to be glib, because it seemed like all the times I did it weren’t the right ones. I unlocked my front door after a long struggle with the key and let myself in to the dark apartment. We both breathed at each other over the phone and said nothing.
“I thought you would hate me,” I admitted, putting the container of donor blood bags in the fridge. “And I wanted to avoid knowing that as long as I could.”
“I don’t hate you,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper.
“Dominick says you needed me back so you could assert your authority better. He says I’m the pack protector now.”
“Yes, but that’s not why I needed you back.”
I made a mental note to ask him more about my new position within the pack later, because this didn’t seem like the appropriate time to change the subject. “Why, then?”
He sucked in a breath, and I could hear him pacing back and forth over a hardwood floor. It sounded like he was in his bedroom suite at the hotel. He’d come in from the country, and being so close to the full moon, with an unsteady pack on his hands, meant he’d come for only one reason. Me.
I sat on one of the two small stools in my puny little kitchen and let my head rest against the wall behind me. Neither of us spoke for a long time. “Tell me why, Lucas.”
“I needed you back because…” He searched for the right words, which I already knew, but had to hear him say.
“Say it,” I whispered.
“Because I love you.”
After what felt like an eternity, I said, “I forgive you.” Then I hung up.
Chapter Sixteen
Try as I might, I couldn’t relax after my conversation with Lucas. I attempted to watch TV, but I couldn’t focus on what people were saying in the cheery 1960s romantic comedy I had on. I tried to fall asleep early, but I was too amped up from the blood. When I willingly picked up Rio and scratched her behind the ears, I knew I had to leave the apartment.
The purring kitten protested with little mewls as I tied up my running shoes, but I ignored her. I dug my iPod out of the bedside dresser and was thrilled to see it had maintained a little battery life since I’d been gone. Enough for a run, anyway.
Back in Central Park for the second time that night, this time with only an hour or so until sunrise, I turned my iPod on and began to run. My running music of choice was a mix of Nina Simone and Bob Seger, which wouldn’t make sense to most, but the slower pace of the music kept me from running too fast. If I ran at the speed I was capable of, it might draw unnecessary attention.
Not that anyone was outside right then to witness it, but it was always best to keep up my illusions whenever I could. If you got too sloppy, it could spell trouble later on when it really mattered. Bob began to sing “Night Moves”, and I let my feet fall into step with the music as I headed towards the Ramble. Being in the deeper woods reminded me of Elmwood and made my wolf half feel relaxed.
The music took me away from my thoughts, and running on the twisty hills and unpaved paths of the Ramble meant I had to pay attention to something other than the churning worry in my gut. The night was still hot, but it no longer smothered me, and every so often I would round a bend and feel the reward of a slight breeze over my cheeks.
After about ten minutes, and in the middle of Nina Simone’s “Feelin’ Good”, I heard a sound, like the crack of weight on dry wood, that made me stop dead. I ripped the headphones out of my ears and stood, not breathing, in the middle of a low path with rock faces rising above me and the moon reflecting off the surface of the pond to my right.
I was so still I could have heard anything, from a rabbit moving in the brush, to the swishing feet of the swans in the water. A pair of joggers came down the path towards me, their feet slapping pavement in perfect unison. They nodded to me as they passed, and I turned to watch them until they were gone. The sound of their shoes was nothing like the noise that had m
ade me stop, but I was prepared to admit my music might have distorted my perception. I pivoted back to the path.
Where I walked directly into Sig.
I kept from screaming, but just barely, and only because I recognized him. Even so, he’d doubtlessly noticed the change in my heartbeat and could probably smell the fear I was feeling.
“Nice night for a run,” he said.
I could have killed him.
Sig couldn’t have looked more pleased with himself. He was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and well-tailored black slacks. The slacks made me wonder what happened to the brown leather pants he used to favor so much. He had his hands placed in his front pockets and was barefoot as usual.
I often marveled at how Sig moved around the city without bothering to put on shoes and never seemed to be any worse for it. Vampires couldn’t fly, but he must have had some uncanny gift to keep from stepping on glass. It made me wonder if he left the comfort of the Tribunal all that often, or if coming to see me was more unusual than I had previously considered.
He rocked back on his heels and smiled his sly smile at me. The Tribunal leader was up to something.
“If you’re here to kidnap me, I’ve had my quota for this month, thanks.”
“Nonsense, Secret. If I wanted you to come with me, you’d come.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it terrified me. I didn’t want to believe I’d be powerless against him, but if I was the betting sort, I’d put my money on Sig being absolutely right.
My iPod switched over to Seger’s “Turn the Page”, but the sound was coming from farther away since my headphones were draped over my shoulders.
“Walk with me,” he instructed.
The stubborn part of me that wanted to show him how independent I was insisted I stay rooted to the spot. But this wasn’t a time for playing games with an old and very scary master vampire. Sig had never done anything to me to warrant my constant fear of him, but a vampire didn’t live for twenty centuries without being a little cutthroat. Sig’s greatest power was in convincing people he meant them no harm.