Secret Unleashed sm-6

by Sierra Dean

  “Then they are starved. They’re starved for decades. Sometimes for centuries. They are left in the dark, chained to the wall, until they are little more than skeletons, but all the while the brain still works. They can still think. Reason often vanishes, but thought remains.”

  I slipped the blade free from its enclosure and let the scabbard clatter to the floor. The dim light from the overhead bulb glinted off the sharp edge, making the gold dragon inlay glow like firelight.

  “Not much different from human prison in some ways. Left alone with your thoughts for an eternity.” I got out of my chair and dragged the blade behind me, the metal kicking up sparks against the concrete floor, a high-pitched wail echoing off the walls. His attention was on the weapon now, losing interest in my story.

  “I’m guessing you talked to a lot of people over the last week. I’m even willing to bet some of those people made you promises, didn’t they? Did they promise you a cushy minimum-security prison? Maybe Witness Protection?”

  His gaze flicked from the sword to my face, and I knew he’d been promised the world.

  “They were lying to you. They were your judge and jury. Do you know what that makes me?”

  “Executioner,” he whispered, attention shifting back to the sword.

  “Executioner,” I replied, placing the blade in front of his face so he could get a good eyeful. “There’s one thing I wanted to tell you first, though.”

  “Yes?” He licked his lips and looked up at me.

  “Twenty-one hours.”

  “What?”

  I raised the sword so the blade was against his throat, the sharp edge nicking his skin and making blood dribble down the metal. “You wanted to know how long it would take someone like me to heal a broken arm. Twenty-one hours.”

  He smiled. “Good girl.”

  My apartment smelled like pasta sauce when I got home.

  I kicked my boots off at the door and put the katana back up over the fireplace before I followed the smell into my tiny kitchen. In spite of Peyton still being at large—the Feds insisted The Doctor hadn’t known where he was—I wasn’t willing to hide anymore. He’d been able to find me halfway across the country, so if he wanted me, he could come get me. Now I was ready for him.

  Rio, my dumb-as-nails cat, had been living with Desmond’s sister, Penny, during my absence. Now that she was back in her old stomping ground, she had spent a full day wandering around rubbing her face on anything that would hold still. Judging by her loud purrs she was just as happy to be home as I was.

  She bumped her head against my legs and greeted me with a plaintive, “Breow.”

  Desmond stood in front of the stove, measuring dried oregano into his palm.

  “You know I don’t eat, right?” I rubbed Rio’s back with my foot, and she flipped over, clawing at my toes.

  “I tried to tell him that, but he insisted.” Holden emerged from the bedroom and leaned beside me in the kitchen entrance. Neither of them touched me, no one having the possessive upper hand here, but I could sense Holden’s gaze on the back of my neck, and Desmond was staring right at me.

  “How’d it go?” Desmond asked.

  “It’s done.”

  “And how do you feel?”

  I shrugged and let out a sigh. “I thought it would be a release. Thought I’d be done once it was over. But…”

  “It’s still there,” Holden said.

  “It’s still there. But maybe now the nightmares will let up.” I tried for a smile and succeeded a little because Desmond looked back to the sauce he was making and stirred in the oregano.

  “Why are you cooking?” I asked.

  “It helps me destress. And besides, unlike the two of you I actually do have to eat.” He replaced the lid on the pot before wiping his hands on a dishtowel and shooing Holden and me out of the kitchen. He was welcome to claim it as his domain. I had no use for it.

  Holden sat on the loveseat, and I plopped down beside him, leaving some extra space since I wasn’t sure how to behave with both of them in the same room being so…nice.

  Desmond answered the question for me when he sat on my opposite side, forcing me to smoosh against Holden, sandwiched between them. The two men exchanged a glance, and I expected them to go for each other’s throats at any moment.

  Finally when a good five minutes passed without Holden calling Desmond a dog or Desmond reminding me Holden was a walking corpse, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Either you guys drank the Kool-Aid, or I really am dead, because you two have never been this nice to each other.”

  Holden brushed my hair back, and Desmond squeezed one of my hands. “Look,” Desmond started. “This isn’t…perfect. I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, but we both love you. And considering everything that happened, and how we both almost lost you for good…”

  If they proposed a happily ever after ménage a trois, my poor little brain was going to explode then and there. It wouldn’t work, of course, but I couldn’t help think that’s where this insane discussion was going.

  “We’re calling a truce,” Holden finished for Desmond.

  “A truce?” Not as sexy as ménage a trois.

  “For right now, at least, we won’t fight for your affection. We’ll respect that you have feelings for us both, and leave it there. For now,” Desmond explained.

  As far as arrangements went, it might be as good as I’d ever get from them. And I didn’t have it in me to choose between them, not now. Not after everything.

  “Okay.” I nodded, but nudged each of them on the shoulder, drawing their attention to how tightly packed we were on the loveseat. “But is it okay with you guys if I move to the chair? You’re kind of squishing me.”

  About the Author

  Sierra Dean is a reformed historian. She was born and raised in the Canadian prairies and is allowed annual exit visas in order to continue her quest of steadily conquering the world one city at a time. Making the best of the cold Canadian winters, Sierra indulges in her less global interests: drinking too much tea and writing urban fantasy.

  Ever since she was a young girl she has loved the idea of the supernatural coexisting with the mundane. As an adult, however, the idea evolved from the notion of fairies in flower beds, to imagining that the rugged-looking guy at the garage might secretly be a werewolf. She has used her overactive imagination to create her own version of the world, where vampire, werewolves, fairies, gods and monsters all walk among us, and she’ll continue to travel as much as possible until she finds it for real.

  Sierra can be reached all over the place, as she’s a little addicted to social networking. Find her on:

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/sierradeanbooks

  Website: www.sierradean.com

  E-mail: sierra@sierradean.com

  Twitter: @sierradean

  Boys of Summer, Book 1

  Emmy Kasper knows exactly how lucky she is. In a sport with few opportunities for women at the pro level, she’s just landed her dream job as head athletic trainer for the San Francisco Felons baseball team. Screwing up is not an option.

  She’s lost in thought as she pedals to the spring training facility, her mind abuzz with excitement as she rounds a corner—and plows head-on into two runners. The end of her career dances before her eyes when she realizes she’s almost run over the star pitcher.

  As Tucker Lloyd watches the flustered Emmy escape with his bandana tied around her skinned knee, the view is a pleasant change from worrying about his flagging fastball. At thirty-six, the tail end of his career is glimmering on the horizon. If he can’t pull something extraordinary out of his ball cap, the new crop of rookies could make this season his last.

  The last thing either of them needs is a distraction.

  The last thing either of them expects is love.

  Warning: Contains a down-on-his-luck pitcher, a good-girl athletic therapist, chemistry that’s out of the park and sexy times that’ll make them round all the bases.

&n
bsp; Enjoy the following excerpt for Pitch Perfect:

  Emmy Kasper had been thinking about her luck when she managed to drive her bike headfirst into a batch of the bad kind.

  She’d been so busy musing about her new job she’d sort of neglected to think about the important things in the present, like watching the road for joggers. When the two men stepped out in front of her, she was struck by a moment of absolute stupidity.

  Oh, there are people in the road. What should I do?

  A second later, her brain caught up. Oh shit, there are people in the road and I’m about to fucking hit them.

  She shrieked, because screaming like a girl seemed to be the only thing she could think of to warn them. It worked, because two heads pivoted towards her as she finally remembered how the handbrakes on her bike functioned and squeezed down on them for all they were worth.

  The world went upside down suddenly, and she was vaulted from her bike seat ass over handlebars and landed in a heap directly in between the two men she’d narrowly avoided maiming. Adding insult to injury, her bike decided to keep rolling forward and only stopped when it slammed into her. Pain formed an ache at the center of her back, but it was the giant smear of blood on her knee that really caught her attention. The line of blood on the pavement didn’t look so good either.

  In spite of all evidence she was the only one who’d been hurt, she awkwardly blurted out, “Are you guys okay?”

  “Aside from almost being killed?” This from the shorter, slightly chubbier of the two.

  “We’re fine, are you okay?”

  When Emmy finally focused on the taller of the two, her heart caught in her throat, and it wasn’t because he was gorgeous. Which he was. Staggeringly so. No, she kind of wanted to curl up and die because of who he was.

  “Oh, Christ. You’re Tucker Lloyd.”

  “Guilty.” He crouched beside her and reached his hand out to her. She was so awestruck by his long, beautiful fingers she didn’t realize what he was doing until he’d already rolled up her ripped pant leg. Emmy let out a shuddering breath and gasped when his fingers brushed against her knee.

  “Ow.”

  “Sorry.”

  The jolt of pain brought Emmy back to her senses. She appreciated Tucker’s immediate attention to her injury, but she should have been able to take care of it herself. And not in the I’m a tough, modern girl, I can handle myself kind of way. In the I’m an athletic trainer, and dealing with this is my job kind of way.

  She tried to pull away, but his fingers tensed. The feel of his calloused skin, hot against her—thankfully shaved—knee made her shudder involuntarily. He gave a brief, concerned smile as one might to an injured animal that was ready to bolt.

  “Let me look at it,” he instructed. His voice was soft, but she could tell he meant business.

  She started to argue since she was perfectly capable of fixing her own oozing road rash, thank you very much, but when he pushed the hem of her pants higher, Emmy relaxed into his touch and sat on the hard ground staring at him. Her back and bloody knee throbbed in time with her fluttering pulse.

  Tucker removed the bandana he wore over his dark brown hair and gave her another tentative smile.

  “Oh, um, you really don’t need to do that,” she insisted. In her medically trained mind, Emmy thought, Oh yeah, awesome plan, clean my wound with a sweaty bandana. She placed her fingers on his wrist in an attempt to stay his hand. It was nice to have a smoking-hot MVP pitcher attending to her, but he was the MVP pitcher she would soon be attending to. Professionally. How could he respect her as his therapist if he thought she didn’t know how to look after a little scrape?

  “It’s okay, I know what I’m doing,” Tucker insisted, his gaze meeting hers, and up close she got a chance to marvel at his famous eyes.

  A lot of baseball players had pretty eyes. Sometimes it was all you could make out of a man with the brim of his cap pulled low and a serious scowl on his face. Tucker’s eyes were famous because of how unusual they were, though.

  He had heterochromia—a mouthful to say, but a glory to behold. One eye was a warm melted-chocolate brown. The other was so blue it put the spring sky to shame. He was a bit of a freak, but in a good way.

  Staring at his eyes made her forget whatever argument she’d been about to make, and she pulled her hand away from his wrist.

  Oh, what the hell? He’s just trying to help. She made a mental note to douse her knee in rubbing alcohol when she got home.

  Besides, his touch was distracting her from the pain, and that was something she wouldn’t have been able to do on her own.

  She looked from Tucker to his friend, and knowing who the pitcher was, the realization of his sidekick’s identity sank in. Alex Ross. She’d almost run over the star pitcher and the team’s only reliable catcher, all in one fell swoop.

  For someone who’d been hired to keep the players of the San Francisco Felons in good working order, Emmy was doing a hell of a job.

  She’d joined the Felons club over the winter as their new head athletic trainer. The competition had been fierce—every trainer worth their salt wanted to have an MLB team on their resume—but she’d been the only candidate who needed more than mere skills. She was a woman seeking access into the almost totally male-dominated world of professional baseball, and she’d known from the outset getting her dream job wouldn’t be easy.

  But she’d fought for it, clawing her way up the ladder from intern to the head of the athletic department at her alma mater. She had her master’s degree while many of the men in her profession made do with their bachelor’s degrees and prominent internships. More than anything, though, she had a passion for baseball, and it had shown when she’d gone through her interviews.

  It wasn’t only about a good job. Emmy had wanted to be an integral part of the team. She wanted to matter to the clubhouse. Even if she couldn’t play the game herself, she wanted to do her part to lead a team to victory.

  She’d never been a cheerleader, or a baseball groupie. Emmy was a true lover of the game, and she’d laid her desires on the table during her interview. She must have seemed crazy to the managers, but something about it stuck out because they offered her the job later that same day, and a week later she was moving from snowy Chicago to Northern California.

  And now—on her first day at spring training—she’d almost taken two key players in the Felons lineup off their roster.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, directing her comment to Alex since Tucker was focused on her leg, and she didn’t think she could watch him work without cringing over his improper medical hygiene.

  “It’s nothing to get bent out of shape over,” Alex said, then laughed like he’d made a joke only he understood. Normally it would drive Emmy crazy when a guy thought of himself as hilarious, but Alex somehow managed to make his boorish behavior charming in a ridiculous sort of way.

  It also kept her mind off the fact that Tucker had wrapped his bandana around her knee, until he secured it snugly and the extra pressure brought her attention reeling back to the pain. “Oh. Ow. Owowowowow.”

  “That’s going to swell something nasty. You’re going to want to—”

  “Ice it. I know.” She could let him be the knight in shining armor if he wanted to, but she wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t know how to look after her knee.

  “You a doctor or something?” Alex asked, his tone teasing.

  “Or something.” In spite of the fact they would be meeting her officially in a few short hours at the team’s first practice, this wasn’t how she’d imagined introducing herself. And she couldn’t bring herself to tell the Tucker Lloyd she was his new athletic trainer after he’d gone to all the effort of wrapping her up. Especially not when he was kneeling by her side, giving her such a sweet, concerned look.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “No problem. You think you can stand up?” He offered her his hand.

  Emmy was struck dumb momentarily when she met his eyes. She
shifted her gaze, staring at his hand like she didn’t understand what its purpose was. “Stand up?” She must have still been woozy from the fall.

  “Like, on your feet?” Alex suggested. “Did you sustain any head injuries we didn’t see?”

  “No,” she said with forced certainty and took Tucker’s hand, letting him draw her up to a standing position. The front of their bodies brushed against each other, making her cheeks flush. His chest was hard and toned and felt warm through the threadbare material of his shirt.

  Too bad she couldn’t blame her blush on an imaginary bump to the noggin. What had gotten into her? She never got worked up around famous athletes.

  “I have to go.” She pushed herself off him, letting her touch linger a moment longer than was respectable before snatching her hand away and giving herself a stern internal lecture.

  Bad Emmy!

  Her bike hadn’t sustained any serious damage, so when she climbed back on, the frame was still in excellent shape to help her make a speedy getaway, though her knee protested something fierce.

  “Hey,” Tucker called after her. “What’s your…?”

  His voice trailed off as she turned a corner. She realized too late he’d been trying to ask her name, and she’d run off without so much as a backwards glance.

  She’d just completely blown off Tucker Lloyd.

  Miss Misery, Book 1

  Jessica Moore thrives on misery. Literally. Thanks to a goblin’s curse, she gets a magical high from humanity’s suffering. A shameful talent like that could bury a girl in guilt, so to atone, she uses her dark power to hunt murderers, rapists and other scumbags—until one of them frames her for his crimes.

  In desperation, Jessica seeks refuge with the one person she trusts to not turn her in—a satyr named Lucen. Like every member of his race, Lucen uses his lusty magic to control Boston’s human population, and Jessica isn’t immune to his power. But the murder victims belonged to a rival race, and when they discover Lucen is harboring Jessica, dodging the cops becomes the least of her problems.