by Sierra Dean
I was wrapped in the blanket, up and off the couch, having pushed him away from me, and was standing next to my fireplace before he had a chance to complete the sentence. It should have made the situation funny, somehow, that Desmond was left naked on my couch, still in the midst of making his move.
I wasn’t laughing.
“Jesus, how did you move that fast?” he asked.
“You’re going to want to be answering questions rather than asking them.” I hugged the blanket closer to me as he righted himself on the couch and looked for all the world like he couldn’t be less uncomfortable. In fact, he already seemed right at home with his arms outstretched across the back of my loveseat.
“Well, then. Ask a question.”
“What do you mean you’re moving in?” The pitch of my voice bordered on hysterical. It felt like arguing with Lucas all over again. If I thought vampires were frustrating, I had a thing or two to learn about how annoying werewolves could be.
“I don’t see how that can be misunderstood.” He pointed at the bag by the front door. “You and I will be cohabitating.”
“No.” I shook my head firmly and stamped my foot in frustration. “Hell no.”
“Secret…”
I was fed up. I threw the blanket at him and stormed into my bedroom, but it was impossible to properly express my irritation when my carpet wouldn’t allow me to slam my door and I was stomping around butt naked.
Desmond stood outside my half-closed bedroom door, and I slumped into my armchair so I didn’t have to face him. He had the good sense not to come in, but that didn’t mean he went away.
“Even if I say no, you’re staying, aren’t you?” I didn’t want to sound so defeated, but I already knew this battle was lost. When the wolves got it in their mind that something was going to happen, there was no arguing. They were a lot like the Tribunal in that sense. I hated how little control over some aspects of my life I had. I’d expected more respect from Desmond.
“Trust me, I wish this had happened differently. I wish you’d asked. I wish it had been my choice.”
Of course. Of course this had Lucas’s name written all over it.
“He thinks I’m going to leave again.”
“He says it’s because he worries your work with the council puts you at risk. But, it’s more than that.” He measured the look on my face and answered my question with, “Yes. He thinks you’re a flight risk.”
I turned and looked at him over my shoulder. His face was impassive, and trying to read his eyes was like trying to find a right angle in a Pollock painting.
“And what do you think?”
His cheek was against the frame of the door. “Lucas wants—”
“I don’t care what Lucas wants right now. I asked what you thought.”
Desmond’s jaw tightened. This was hard for him. He was being torn between the duty he was bound to do for his king and yielding to my will.
“You won’t leave again.”
“Why not?” I was all the way around in the chair now, watching him.
“Because it would kill me.”
The frankness of his words cut me right to the core. I got up and pushed the door back open, standing in front of him and looking up at his eyes. There was a thin film of emotion shining there, threatening to cheat him of his masculine posturing.
“So you’re moving in?”
“Yes.”
“And Lucas ordered you to do this?”
“He didn’t have to break fingers or anything, but it’s by his decree. Officially I’m your bodyguard. The Queen’s Guard, if we’re being titular about it.”
“Queen’s Guard,” I repeated, taking one of his hands in mine so our fingers twined together. “That sounds serious.”
“Very serious.” He pushed my hair off my shoulder and stepped across the threshold of the room so only a sliver of summer-hot air separated us. He trailed his fingers down my arm so slowly I thought they might be beaded sweat. I shivered.
“You’ll have to stay close to me.”
“Yes.” He dipped his head and kissed the space where my neck met my collarbone. Once, a vampire had bitten through that same bone, and though it had long since healed I still felt a cold chill whenever anyone touched me there. A visceral reminder of how close I could come to death.
No one was untouchable.
I took his hand and placed it on the small of my back as we moved together towards my bed. The hard, muscular curve of his pelvis pressed against my stomach.
“Desmond?”
He was kissing his way down my chest, his lips dangerously close to my left nipple and the point of no return. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced him to stop.
“Did Lucas ask you to move in before or after our dinner?” I didn’t know why, but a lot rested on his answer. Perhaps all my hopes for saving my relationship with the wolf king. It seemed like a funny thing to worry about at the moment, but then again, when was a good time to worry about it? If Lucas had asked before, it meant nothing I said at dinner factored in at all and he’d never intended to trust me. If he’d made his request after our fight, I could understand why he’d worry about me bolting.
“After,” Desmond mumbled, taking no time to think up a lie.
It was the answer I’d needed to hear. I released his head, and immediately his mouth latched in to place and my eyes fluttered shut. There would be no more questions tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was snowing.
I walked down the sloped paths of the Ramble barefoot and in step with Sig, and felt each cool flake melt beneath my warm soles. I was wearing a thin cotton slip for pajamas, but in spite of the chill in the air I wasn’t bothered by the cold.
We came to a footbridge overlooking the lake. The reflection of sleeping giants glittered over the still surface, not yet frozen over, and huge feathery flakes of snow dropped like precious gems in the light.
I was dreaming.
“I was in bed,” I said to Sig.
“You still are.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s winter.”
I took the words at face value. It was winter here, of that there was no doubt. I asked something more pressing instead. “Why don’t you ever wear shoes?” I sounded petulant.
Sig smirked and looked down at our equally naked feet.
“I’ve learned to watch my step.”
The night was still, as though my imagination could remember only fragments of what winter was and couldn’t quite conjure up the rest. Sig handed me a wrapped, rectangular package tied with a silver ribbon. He hadn’t been carrying it before.
“What’s this?”
“Happy birthday, Secret.”
I awoke, sucking back words not meant to be spoken out loud. In the dark confines of my room I was able to register that everything still looked the same and I was back in the real world. All was as it had been, with one exception.
Across my chest, a masculine arm was laying and a broad hand was possessively cupping one of my breasts. Even at rest, Desmond was staking claims. He was sleeping on his stomach, his other arm tucked under him and his face angled towards me. A fresh crop of stubble had shown itself during our rest, giving him a darker appearance than usual.
What caught me most off guard, though, was how peaceful he looked. His lips were parted, and he had given himself over to sleep. Shifting while away from the pack, twice in one night, must have taken a toll on him. Otherwise he never would have slept through the whole day with me.
I rolled over and placed my hand on his backside, giving him a playful squeeze. I’d have done something a little more provocative, but the wily man was sleeping downwards, so he wasn’t providing me the necessary access.
He groaned, still half asleep, but a smile played on his lips.
“You can’t want more already.”
“Rent is due,” I teased.
His eyes opened and his face lit up with a grin. “Is that how this wo
rks, then?” Lightning quick, he jerked me against him for a languid, sweetly familiar kiss.
A girl could get used to waking up this way.
I moved to wrap my leg over him, but instead I kicked something hard at the end of the bed. Startled, I broke away from him mid-kiss and reached down to collect the offending object. Funny, the size and weight of it felt precisely like the thing Sig had given me in my dream.
I flicked on the bedside lamp, wanting to see the finer details of it better than I could in the dark. It was a book, old and worn looking, but not smelling of must or decay. I thumbed through the stiff, cream-colored pages while Desmond watched me with passive interest.
When I passed a page in the middle, a sheaf of white paper fell out. I recognized the handwriting, and in fact, the whole book was filled with the familiar scrawl. Every page was written in Holden’s strong, demanding hand. I picked up the note, which appeared to be recently written and was addressed to me.
Secret,
You will be awake soon enough. It did not seem necessary to wake you or the wolf, as time for explanations grows short.
Be sure Sig reads this. I believe you will understand the relevance.
Yours,
Holden
I handed the letter to Desmond so he wouldn’t think I was hiding anything from him, and opened the book to the page where the letter had been.
December 7, 2008
Any hopes I have of advancing beyond the position of warden were dealt a blow this past evening. Ever diligent in her mission to infuriate and exhaust my patience, the young Miss McQueen may now be legitimately planning to be my undoing. In the four years I have been entrusted with her guardianship, I have never seen such reckless abandon used by a ward of the council.
She would think me remiss if I did not begin by stating for the record, yesterday was her birthday. For those of us who have long since put to rest our Lives Before, the idea of a birthday, let alone the idea of celebrating one, has died along with the memories of who we once were. It is, admittedly, difficult for me sometimes to recognize that Secret still maintains many human attachments, owing to her unusual heritage. Apparently, by her approximation, the desire to celebrate her twentieth year of living required some sort of festivities.
I scanned the pages, trying to see if Holden would come to a point where he wasn’t bitching about my foolish human traits, and how silly it was for a twenty-year-old girl to want to celebrate her birthday. Having a bicentennial gave him the right to be dismissive of my own life milestones, it seemed. Better yet, I doubted he would even understand why reading this would irritate me.
Skipping ahead, I found the part of the entry that finally hit home.
Upon our exit from the theatre, Secret caught the scent of blood. I don’t know how I missed it, whether it was the crush of smells from the theatre patrons, or my own foolishness, letting my guard down in public, but regardless of the reasons, she smelled it before I did. Enough of it she refused to brush it off as a passing incident. We followed the smell to a vacant storefront, and in the basement discovered…
But I didn’t need to read more to know what we’d discovered. I remembered it perfectly. I remembered Holden agreeing to take me to see The Lion King on Broadway for my birthday, and how he’d actually enjoyed himself no matter how hard he’d tried to fake a grumpy scowl. I remembered smelling the blood and going down the rusted metal ladder into that basement, which was colder than the streets outside, the walls slick with melting ice.
And the cots.
Threadbare mattresses on crumbling old military frames. Six on each side of the room, and each one had a body on it. I remember them as bodies, because even though they were alive it was hard to think of them as people. They were hollowed-out husks of their former selves, with slack mouths, gaunt skin and eyes wide and dry with a frozen look of horror.
The air had reeked of human discard and the sticky-sweet smell of blood.
That was the night I had hunted down and killed my first rogues without sanction of the council. I had found them and done things to them no warrant would have ever allowed for. If I’d thought they could be made to live on, forever wincing in remembrance of that night and frightened of their own shadows, I would have found a way.
Death had been too kind. It had been a kindness I’d been forced to visit on those twelve empty shells.
I gagged.
Desmond sat straight up, surprised by the sudden reaction. I did it again and he moved to help me, but I placed a hand on his chest to stop him.
“What is it?”
I closed the book and wiped a stray, unwelcome tear off my cheek. I didn’t remember it happening on my birthday. Somehow, I’d disconnected the two things in my head so my birthday wouldn’t be tainted by the horrible deaths of a dozen people. But I had all the important points in front of me now, and all I had to do was draw a line.
If Holden stood accused of killing a protected elder on that date, I could prove he didn’t do it. He’d been violating a different set of laws that night, by helping me dismember a sect of rogues and bury the skeletons from their closet.
I pushed the book away from me, letting it fall with a thump onto my carpeted floor.
“Get dressed,” I whispered. “We need to go.”
I left Desmond behind, still struggling to get his left shoe on, and was halfway down the block when he caught up with me. I stopped walking and did an about-face, nearly colliding with him.
“Wha—?” He looked confused.
I had dressed in such a hurry I was wearing my shorts from earlier in the week and the discarded Yankees shirt Desmond had left at my front door. This had forced him to grab the first shirt he could find in his duffel bag, so fresh there were still fold marks in the white cotton tee. The button on his jeans was undone, and his hair stuck up to one side in fond remembrance of the pillow we had just left.
I brushed past him, digging through my purse. “Hold,” I said as I handed him my gun, which he took but held uncomfortably. I knew Desmond could handle a weapon because he’d taken mine from me in the past. I think it was the idea I was carrying a 9mm pistol in my purse that made it so off-putting for him.
I found what I was looking for and hauled the keys out of my purse. With one push of the key fob, a pair of headlights blinked at us, and my car announced itself with a chirpy honk. I’d almost forgotten I had the stupid thing.
“Is that—?”
“I’m borrowing it.”
We looked at each other, and he handed the gun back to me. I checked the safety, then slid it into the back of my pants, letting the looseness of the shirt hide it perfectly.
“Lucas would look pretty goofy in a yellow convertible,” he said, moving around to the passenger side. Farther down the block I could see his vintage Dodge Challenger sitting forlorn in the night.
I doubted I’d ever get used to being able to drive places in the city. New York was a town ruled by pedestrian law. Drivers ranked below cyclists in the hierarchy of the streets.
I got into the driver’s seat and the car purred to life.
Then again, there was nothing not to love about that sound.
Twenty minutes later we were pulling up to the Plaza Hotel, and I was loathing New York streets and cursing myself for not walking. I handed the keys off to the eager valet, while Desmond clambered out the other side, having survived the diatribe of my sailor’s tongue the whole way here.
At the front desk a stout woman with water-colored eyes and a painfully tight bun of mouse-brown hair stared at the pair of us. Her expression was like a visual sigh.
“Yes?” she deigned to address us. She would have gotten along swimmingly with Melvin over at Rain Hotel. We had skipped right over the Welcome to the Plaza, how may I assist you today? and directly into the condescending glares.
“Residential elevators, please.” I knew I was in the right place, although I’d never had to make this particular visit in the past.
“Residential…”
She looked perplexed by my question.
“I need to get to someone’s apartment.”
“No one—”
“I don’t have time for this,” I grumbled.
Desmond gently pushed me aside, then leaned against the counter with casual grace. He smiled at the lady in a way that would probably feed her fantasies for months to come. She blushed and he hadn’t even spoken yet.
“Beverley,” he crooned, glancing at her nametag. “Can I call you that?”
“Yes.” Her gaze darted over to me. I didn’t have people skills. Not the same way the men in my life seemed to. Women generally didn’t like me, and I was fine with that under normal circumstances.
“Beverley, my friend and I are trying to visit someone. We understand the need for residents here to maintain their privacy.” He winked at her conspiratorially, and she fell for it hook, line and sinker. “But if you could point us in the direction of residential access, we’ll be on our way.”
“Take the elevator to twenty-six. Take the third door to the left. There’s a second elevator there, and it goes directly to the resident floor of your choice. They’re labeled.” Desmond might as well have enthralled her, the answer was so precise.
How was his question different than mine? Sure, it was more eloquently phrased, and he was flirting instead of yelling at her, but still.
In the elevator I pouted a little, but he beamed at me with I-told-you-so variety pride.
“What are we doing here, anyway?” he asked.
“We’re here to see a woman about a vampire.”
“And she lives at the Plaza?”
“I know.” I shifted my gaze to him. “How can you trust someone who lives in a hotel, right?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sig’s daytime servant, Ingrid, was no fan of mine.
There should be some sort of support group for people who disliked me. Ingrid wouldn’t be leading the meetings, but she’d still sit in a metal folding chair with her Styrofoam coffee cup and say, “Hello, my name is Ingrid, and I hate Secret.”