Secrets in the Shadows

by Jenna Black

  “So, where were you headed?” she asked.

  He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his coat pocket. “Gabriel suggested I move to a different hotel, since he and his friends hunt this neighborhood on a regular basis.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve got a radical counter-suggestion for you. How ’bout moving a little farther away than that. Like, say, to Philadelphia. Getting revenge on Ian can’t be important enough to you to risk betraying the Guardians.”

  “I can’t go back.”

  “Cut the crap, Jules! So you’re pissed at Eli. So what? Just get over it already.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant Gabriel may be watching me, waiting to see if I’ll bolt. He said he would. Maybe it’s an empty threat, but I’d hate to test it and be wrong. As long as he thinks I’m going to cooperate, he has no reason to try to torture the truth out of me. Or to hurt you, for that matter, since you absolutely had to come back and make my life more difficult.”

  She hated to admit it, but Jules had a point. Still, two heads were better than one. Especially when Jules was such a hothead he tended to make knee-jerk, temper-inspired decisions.

  She pulled out of the parking spot and into traffic. Jules got the map out of the glove compartment and located the hotel Gabriel had suggested.

  Hannah chewed her lip as she drove. “So, you go along with Gabe’s plan and he gives you Ian. What then?”

  “I wish I knew. I have to find a way to get out of town before he questions me. I’d love it to be after I’ve killed Ian, but if it has to be before, so be it.” He sighed. “I just wish I knew how to do it without Gabriel catching me.”

  “And we’ve got to make sure Drake gets out of town too. If you’re gone, you know Gabe’ll go for him.”

  “True.”

  That seemed to end the conversation, and the rest of the drive passed in silence. Hannah kept worrying at the problem, but she couldn’t think of a foolproof solution.

  The new hotel was a giant step up from the dump they’d just left. They checked in, then lugged the bags up to the room. Hannah fought a hint of panic as the door closed behind them. She so didn’t want to be alone in a bedroom with Jules right now.

  She started unpacking immediately, moving slowly. She concentrated hard on withdrawing her clothes from her bag, shaking out the wrinkles, carefully folding or hanging. When she was done, she’d take a long, hot bath. Alone. After that, she’d take a nap.

  Eventually, she realized Jules was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at her. She wondered how long he’d been doing that. When her step faltered, he smiled at her.

  “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten I was here,” he said.

  She rubbed her hands together, then cursed herself for the obviously nervous gesture. No way in hell she could forget he was in the room. “Look, about last night …” Her voice died. She had no idea what she’d been about to say.

  Jules raised his eyebrow at her hesitation. “Yes? What about last night?”

  “It was just a fluke, okay?” She avoided his eyes, tried not to think about how good he had felt inside her. On top of her.

  “A fluke.”

  Her bag was empty already and she knew it, but Hannah fished through some side compartments anyway. Anything to keep from having to face him.

  “You know, it didn’t feel like a fluke to me,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, it was.” She jerked open the closet door and flung her bag inside. Her hands were clammy.

  “Are you going to tell me what went wrong?”

  “Nothing went wrong.” She looked around her, hoping to find something else to occupy her attention.

  “Uh-huh. So you always cry in the bathroom after sex?”

  She winced. Who did she think she was kidding? “Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  She heard the faint creak of the bedsprings as Jules rose. Still, she didn’t turn to look at him, even when she sensed his presence only inches away from her back. His hands came down on her shoulders and she closed her eyes.

  “I think we need to talk,” he said, his voice lowered to a seductive almost-whisper.

  She shook her head. “Just leave it alone, Jules.” Reluctantly, she pulled away, her body missing the touch of his hands as soon as she did.

  Just listen to yourself, Hannah. You sound exactly like your brothers.

  She tried to shut her internal voice up, but it was far too late. The thought had taken root. Was she acting like her brothers? That was a no-brainer. Did realizing that make her willing to spill her guts to Jules? Also a no-brainer. If only Jules were better at taking no for an answer.

  For the first time since they’d entered the room, she looked up and met his eyes. Perhaps there was a way to make him take no for an answer. She almost smiled at her brilliant idea, but that would ruin the effect.

  “Tell you what. You tell me about whatever happened between you and Ian, and I’ll talk to you about why I freaked last night.”

  She saw her suggestion hit home. For a long moment, Jules seemed at a loss for words as he frowned fiercely at the floor. Then he squared his shoulders and met her gaze—and her challenge.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s a deal.”

  Hannah’s jaw dropped and her stomach lurched. Oh shit. If she’d known he’d take her up on this, she never would have offered in the first place!

  Jules turned to the bed, pulling the pillows out from under the covers and propping them against the wall to make an impromptu sofa. He toed off his shoes, then climbed up, patting the place beside him.

  Hannah swallowed hard. How was she going to get out of this? “I … Uh …”

  “Come on, Hannah.” He beckoned with his hand. “Sit and talk to me.

  Geez, she’d thought her hands were clammy before! Reluctantly, she climbed onto the bed and sat beside Jules, her pulse hammering. What’s the big deal? her saner, more rational side wondered. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me. Right? She rubbed her hands up and down her pants legs.

  “You go first,” she said quickly.

  He reached over and grasped her chin, turning her head until she was forced to look at him. “Promise me that if I spill my guts here, you’re not going to renege on me.”

  No doubt she’d be tempted, but she’d do her best not to be a wuss. “I promise,” she answered, fighting another wave of panic. Hey, maybe she’d get lucky and he’d chicken out first.

  Jules released her chin and turned to stare straight ahead of him. Strain tightened his lips. She put her hand on his chest, feeling the rapid throb of his heart. She cuddled up against his side, and his arm slipped around her, holding her close.

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?” he asked. “It’s pretty ugly.”

  “I kinda figured that. Have you ever told anyone?”

  “No.”

  His pulse raced a little faster under her hand, and she wished there were something she could do or say to make this easier for him. Unfortunately, he would have to find his own way, His Adam’s apple bobbed. Then he started talking.

  “Ian and I met my sophomore year in college. I told you the guy was a loser, but in my infinite wisdom I decided he was just misunderstood. I felt sorry for him. He always seemed to be down on his luck and people tended to snub him. Of course, they snubbed him because if you actually talked to him, he’d manage to work in a subtle insult or three within the first five minutes. He always got those verbal jabs in there at me, but if I called him on it, he’d claim he didn’t mean it. And I bought it every time.

  “I always thought he appreciated my friendship. He certainly wasn’t reluctant to accept my help whenever I offered. He never really gave anything back, but I figured a guy who’d had such a tough time in life was entitled to be selfish every once in a while.” He laughed bitterly. “Unbelievable, the excuses I made for him!

  “After college, he got a job in Baltimore, and I stayed in Philly. I met a nice girl, g
ot married, had a son. I wrote to him occasionally. Sometimes he wrote back. I invited him to my wedding, but he didn’t come. Then, when Luc was two, Ian moved back to Philly. My wife and I weren’t getting along so well, so I was really glad for the excuse to get out of the house more often. Ian and I went out on the town a few times, got drunk, gambled. He must have been using glamour, because I never noticed he wasn’t drinking.

  “One night, I’d really overdone it and could barely walk I was so drunk. He took me back to his apartment, supposedly so he could sober me up before I had to face my wife. When I’d drunk enough coffee that I wasn’t completely wasted anymore …”

  Hannah had to bite her tongue to keep from prodding him. She held her breath and waited for him to let go of whatever secret pain he’d been hiding.

  “He, um …” Jules let out a thunderous sigh.

  Hannah reached for his hand and found it drenched in sweat. Her heart ached for him. “Talk to me, Jules,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  “Yeah.” His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “Okay.” One more deep breath. “Heseducedme.” The words came out in a frantic, slurred rush, and it took Hannah half a beat to make sense of them. By then, he was talking again. Fast. “Well, not really. It was just glamour but of course I was mortal then and didn’t even know vampires existed so I had no idea what glamour was and I thought it was—”

  Hannah reached up and put her hand over his lips to shush him. His eyes were glazed, looking into the past and seeing nothing of the present. His heart was beating so hard that if he’d been mortal, she’d have worried he would have a heart attack. He let out a shuddering breath, gently pushing her fingers away from his mouth and extricating his sweaty hand from hers. He dried his palms on his pants legs.

  “I guess he always resented me,” Jules said. “I thought he liked having a dependable friend who could get him out of trouble, but it must have galled him that he couldn’t do it himself. He was happy enough to use me when I was convenient, but he was never really my friend. So when Camille made him, he decided to come to Philadelphia and show me who was boss.”

  Jules slouched forward and Hannah laid her hand on his back, feeling the need to touch him even though she didn’t know what to say. What a way to repay a friendship! No wonder Jules wanted to kill the bastard.

  “I’ve never been able to shake it,” Jules said. His voice was hoarse. “I know it was glamour. I know it was force. But it didn’t feel like it at the time, and that just makes me sick. What he did to my body was bad enough. What he did to my mind …” He shook his head. “Why didn’t I see through him? Hell, everyone else did!”

  “So what, you’re like one of those rape victims who thinks if she hadn’t been wearing a sexy dress she might not have been raped?”

  He leaned back again and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I guess I am. It’s stupid, I know, but—”

  “Actually, it sounds kind of normal to me. I’m sure it was exactly how he wanted you to feel. It was a sick, twisted thing to do.” She tried to imagine how she would feel if Ian used his glamour against her like that. She shuddered. Even knowing it was glamour, and even without the sense of being betrayed by a friend, her mind balked at the idea. Better to be physically forced than to have your own body and mind betray you like that. Poor Jules.

  “You’d think that after this much time, I’d have gotten over it.”

  She snorted. “Who thinks that? I sure don’t. Especially not when you’ve been carrying it around inside you without telling anyone for so long.”

  He managed a weak, unconvincing grin. “Well, now that I’ve talked about it, I’m all better.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “And it’s your turn to talk.”

  Oops. She’d almost let herself forget about the quid-pro-quo thing. He probably had more talking he needed to do to clear the poison out of his system, but the look on his face was not promising. There was only so far she could push him.

  “So, what happened last night?” Jules prompted when she showed no signs of starting to talk.

  Hannah’s fingers curled around the edge of the blanket that lay beneath her. “It wasn’t what I expected.”

  Silence stretched for a long minute. “What did you expect?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “If this is your idea of talking it out, I’m less than impressed.”

  She glared at him. “I don’t want to talk it out. I think I made that pretty damn clear.”

  He met her glare with one of his own. “Well I didn’t want to talk about Ian. But I did.”

  “Okay. Fine.” She plucked a piece of lint off the blanket, focusing her gaze on the bedspread. “I don’t like men who are bossy in bed. And you were damn bossy.”

  Jules processed that for a moment. “I’ve never been like that before,” he admitted. “But then, you’re not the kind of woman I usually take to bed.”

  She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have detected a hint of an insult in that. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, I’ve had a preference for what you would probably call girlie-girls. You know, meek, mild-mannered.”

  “Submissive. Living to serve.”

  She could almost hear his grin, though she refused to look at him. “Something like that.”

  She sniffed in disdain. “So I suppose it pissed you off that I wasn’t one of those shrinking violets, and you decided to put me in my place.”

  He reached out and brushed an errant curl away from her face. She felt the pressure of his eyes on her but kept her own gaze on the bedspread.

  “I think you know perfectly well that wasn’t what happened,” he murmured.

  Her throat tightened, but she forced herself to talk. “All right, then. If you know so much, why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “I’d say I let passion take precedence over finesse. And every nuance of your reaction said you liked it that way.”

  She flinched, then wished she hadn’t.

  “So that’s the problem!” he said as if all was settled.

  “Jules …”

  “You don’t like that you liked it.”

  “Please shut up.” Her cheeks glowed with heat. She wondered if she could use arcane mental powers to create an interruption to get her out of this. Hell, she’d even be glad to see Gabriel right about now.

  Jules crowded back into her space and laid an arm around her shoulders. His side pressed against hers. The heat in her cheeks intensified at the feel of his chest bumping the side of her breast. She tried to pull away, but her heart wasn’t in the effort.

  “Why is that a problem, Hannah?” His voice was warm and velvet-soft, causing heat to curl in her belly even while her mind screamed that she needed out of this conversation.

  She reminded herself that she didn’t have to answer him. To hell with their deal! Then again, seeing as she’d slept with him, he probably deserved an answer.

  She squirmed and cursed herself for being such a wimp. If she could trade insults with Gabriel, she could talk about her feelings. Embarrassed by how hard this was, she forced words out of her mouth.

  “You might have noticed I’m a bit of a control freak?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, I’d noticed. You know that old saying, takes one to know one?”

  She nodded, her cheek rubbing against his shoulder. She’d never thought about it that way, but now that he mentioned it, she realized he liked control at least as much as she did. Which no doubt made what Ian had done to him hurt even worse.

  “Last night, you were in control,” she admitted. “And I wasn’t. And I don’t like that.”

  His hand stroked up and down her arm and he laid the top of his head against hers. “Sure you were. You could have told me to stop.”

  She pulled away a little, turning her head so she could see his face. “And would you have?”

  “I really hope you already know the answer to that.”

 
She heard the hint of hurt in his voice and cursed herself for lashing out at him. “Sorry. You’re right. I know I could have called a stop.” She smiled faintly. “But I wouldn’t have. Not for a million bucks.”

  She met his eyes and saw rampant speculation in them. Which, naturally, put her on high alert.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  Without a word, he slipped off the side of the bed. She frowned, wondering what he was up to. He put one of his suitcases on the luggage stand, then opened it and rummaged for a bit. When he turned back toward the bed, she saw that he was holding a couple of ties.

  The blood drained from her face, and she scooted away from him, hands out in an instinctive defensive gesture. One corner of his mouth rose in a half-smile.

  “Relax. These are for me, not you.”

  She could have sworn her heart skipped a beat. She knew her eyes must be cartoon-character wide.

  Jules sat on the edge of the bed and laid the ties between them. He smoothed one of them out with those strong, clever fingers of his.

  “Last night, you trusted me enough to give up control, even though you weren’t comfortable with it. I want to return the favor.”

  Oh, man. Arousal overdrive! The image of this powerful predator lying helpless before her made her insides clench. Even the nervousness of his expression added to the heat in her core.

  Last night, she’d abandoned herself to him. Yes, it had scared the crap out of her. But there was no question she had liked it, had liked trusting someone so much that she could let go of the reins. But for her, it had been a heat-of-the-moment thing, not requiring a conscious decision.

  “Are you sure about this, Jules?” Her voice shook.

  He flashed her one of his cocky, arrogant smiles, though she still saw the nervous glint in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re losing your nerve already.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You think all you have to do is goad me to get me your way?” She tossed her head. “I’m not that easy.”

  His grin looked more natural now. “The hell you aren’t.”