Authors: Sierra Dean
Juan Carlos jerked his arm free and pointed at me. “We aren’t through.”
“I can’t wa—”
Sig looked over his shoulder at me, and I shut my mouth immediately.
“This is
over
,” he told me, but I knew he was speaking to us both. “Monica has had her last word, and she says you are fit. Tell Juan Carlos you haven’t done anything.”
“I haven’t done anything,” I repeated.
Sig turned back to Juan Carlos. “You are never to touch her again, am I understood?”
“You can’t—”
“It’s a yes-or-no question, Juan Carlos. And there’s only one answer I’m looking for. Do you understand?”
After a pause so long I thought he might actually say
no
, the black-eyed vampire said, “Yes. I understand.”
“Secret, do you think you can stay out of his way?”
“Yes.” As if I
wanted
to be anywhere near him after his outburst? Last time we’d been alone together Juan Carlos had simply been threatening. Now I understood the danger was more real than I’d thought. I’d underestimated his hatred of me.
“Then I think we’re done here.”
Sig let me slip away first, leaving them behind, but I wasn’t quite out of earshot when I heard Juan Carlos say, “For now.”
Chapter Eighteen
The next night I woke with the knowledge that an axe was suspended over my head, waiting to fall.
I might have been able to deal with it better had the blade been literal, but instead it was the threat Lucas had made. Combined with the fear over Calliope potentially being a murderer, my mother having a pack of maniac wolves at her service, and my fate with Juan Carlos and the Tribunal being tenuous at best…well, it was no small wonder I had a migraine from the get-go.
I also woke up alone. No pesky vampires, no red-hot werewolves. Just my cold sheets and my dark bedroom. Part of me was relieved, but a bigger part of me was dwelling on what my encounter with Desmond had meant the night before.
Could he forgive me and start over, or was it just relapse sex?
I groaned and rolled my face into my pillow, getting a mouthful of hair in the process. Pulling the damp strands from between my lips, I wondered what fresh hell the world would throw at me tonight. Maybe if I was real lucky, another demon bent on the total destruction of Manhattan would show up. Surely a few of my problems would have to take a backseat to that.
Apocalypse—the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.
A knock at my front door dragged my sorry ass out of bed and away from my musings over the end of days.
“Who knocks anymore?” I grumbled. “Everyone else lets their damned selves in.”
When I opened the door, I was sure I must still be asleep.
Holden and Desmond stood side by side, making my minuscule entranceway look impossibly small with their collective bulk filling all the space. The vampire looked smug and the werewolf looked like he had a terminal case of the grouchies. It was quite a change of pace considering Holden was usually the grumpiest bugger in the room.
“You let your dog out without a leash. You know the city has bylaws against that.”
Well, that explained what he was so merry about. Holden loved any opportunity to use a bad joke, especially one at the expense of my werewolves. The dog lines were getting a little old. He never seemed to consider how I shared the same canine infection he so gleefully mocked in Desmond and Lucas.
“If you hadn’t opened your mouth, I’d be fairly certain I’d died and gone to heaven.”
Desmond gave a grim attempt at a smile, but it came out skewed and tight-looking. Holden rocked on his heels, and I could practically see the gears in his head working while he waited for another opportunity to lambaste Desmond.
I stepped from the doorway and held out a hand, my welcome gesture almost comically overstated. “Why don’t you guys come in? Try not to kill each other while I get changed.” Wearing cotton short-shorts and Desmond’s Yankees T-shirt probably wasn’t the best idea when having a tête-à-tête with the two men I’d most recently shared a bed with. What
was
appropriate, given the company? I didn’t own a burka, and sadly, invisibility cloaks didn’t exist outside of Hogwarts.
In my bedroom, I had a silent panic attack.
Desmond would be able to smell Holden all over the apartment. And Holden would be able to smell me all over Desmond. Neither of them was stupid, and a third grader would be able to do the simple math equation. Man plus Secret plus other man equals slut.
I sat on the bed with a sweater in my hands.
They’re both still sitting there,
I thought hopefully. Furthermore, Holden had known for a good long time about my relationship with Desmond. Really, the only reaction here I was terrified to deal with was that of my werewolf ex. He’d left because of my connection to another man. What was stopping him from bolting now?
For one, I hadn’t had sex with Holden.
Not for lack of trying,
I reminded myself.
Slutty, slut, slut, slut,
I added.
“Ugh.”
Tugging the sweater over my head and trading my sleep shorts for jeans, I went back into the living room. Holden had both arms propped on the back of the loveseat, and Desmond was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s—?”
Holden didn’t wait for me to finish, just pointed a lean, pale finger towards the kitchen instead. “He didn’t feel like bonding.”
Desmond came out of the small kitchen and stopped where the tile met carpet, leaning against the doorframe instead of coming farther into the room. “I can’t begin to imagine why.”
“Oh my God,” I groaned. “Why are you two together in the first place if all you want to do is, like…have a sword fight with your dicks or something?”
Note to self, when you’re worried about a love triangle, try not to mention penises.
I bit my bottom lip to refrain from saying anything else. This wasn’t my fault. They should know better than to confront me when I’d just woken up.
“It wouldn’t be much of a fight,” Holden said. “I’m led to understand those little
cock
tail swords don’t hold up well against a real weapon.” He was looking at his fingernails as though he was perfectly uninterested in the whole discussion. I didn’t miss the hint of a smirk, though someone who didn’t know him well might. Sometimes his face barely moved.
Desmond growled but didn’t rise to the bait. He looked back into the kitchen, maybe hoping to find sanctuary within, but all he was going to find there was a shitty Ikea table and a microwave with dried blood in it.
“The sooner you guys tell me why you’re both here, the sooner you don’t have to be in the same place,” I told them.
“It wasn’t planned,” Desmond replied.
“You both
happened
to show up at the same time?”
“Unfortunately,” Holden said.
“You first.” I pointed to the vampire. “Why are you here?” I knew he was here because I’d asked for his help. It was the same reason Desmond would have come. What I needed to know was if either of them had done anything
helpful
with their good intentions.
“I found out some things about your missing socialite.”
That got both Desmond’s and my attention. “What do you know?” Desmond brushed past me and went to loom over Holden. If he thought he was going to be able to intimidate a vampire, he had a thing or two to learn about my undead brethren.
“Oh, Secret,” Holden said, gazing up at Desmond. “What big teeth you have.” He batted his eyelashes once for good measure, then waved Desmond away with his fingers.
“For Christ’s sake, Holden, stop being such a knob.”
And with that, the smirk was gone, and his expression was shuttered again. When he spoke again, his tone was cold, and all the humor had leached away. “Last night I went to speak to one of Kellen’s friends. I managed to get some details that had been missing from previous versions of the story.”
“How?” I asked.
He tapped the corner of his left eye. “I can be a persuasive conversationalist.” So he’d pulled a lie-detector-by-way-of-enthralling. Can’t say I was upset with him for it.
“What’d you find out?”
“Turns out someone
did
see her after she was dropped off. This friend met her off Canal, and they went to a club called Eleven-B.”
Not that I was up on the cool club scene in Manhattan, but I’d never heard of the place before listening to the message on Kellen’s machine. I told him as much, and he shrugged one shoulder. “From what this girl told me, it’s
very exclusive
,” he mimicked a near-perfect high-society ditz voice. “Not for the rabble, you know.”
“A secret club?” Desmond interjected.
“Sounds like.”
“Did Kellen’s friend see her leave the club?” I continued, trying to keep the information flowing.
Holden shook her head. “Last this so-called friend saw of Kellen was her going into a private room with someone. She couldn’t say who. After that she was too drunk to care.”
Some friend.
“Did she tell you how to get there?”
“She did me one better.” He reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and withdrew a small, silver object. “She gave me a key to the front door.”
Chapter Nineteen
For a secret club in Manhattan I was expecting…more.
When Holden pointed to a dilapidated building a block off Canal Street, I was sure he’d been had. Never mind that he’d enthralled Kellen’s girlfriend into telling him the truth, there was certainly some mistake here.
On one side was a Chinese grocer, whose establishment had the faint dried-fish reek I had come to expect from the shops in and leading up to Chinatown, and on the opposite side a dark-skinned man with ill-advised sideburns was trying to sell a tourist couple a knockoff Coach bag. It was a terrible knockoff too, one where the logo couldn’t have passed muster with a blind fashionista.
It was patterned Hs, for God’s sake, not the famous Cs.
The bottle blonde wearing an
I Heart New York
shirt didn’t seem to have the faintest clue. She was snapping bubble gum and telling her bored-looking beau how everyone “back home” would think she’d spent a fortune on it.
I wanted to give her a smack upside the head, but I had bigger fish to fry.
Like finding an invisible secret nightclub.
The building between the grocer and the knockoff vendor was our supposed destination, but it was nothing more than a dark, abandoned-looking apartment complex. Not even a hip brownstone that might be an ideal place for drunk rich kids to go, or an empty warehouse in Brooklyn where all-night parties were popular.
This was just…sad.
“Did you write the address down wrong?” I asked Holden.
The vampire made a face that begged the question,
Do I look like a fucking idiot to you?
“Geez, just asking.”
I was still uncomfortable standing between Desmond and Holden. There was a little too much testosterone flying, and the divided parts of my nature were all up in arms. The cool collected vampire half was calmly trying to explain why I should ditch the wolf and go with what was behind door number one. My werewolf half, who I now understood was a real, living entity inside me—damn bitch almost got us killed the first time she got into the driver’s seat of our body—was telling me lust was nothing compared to a soul-bond.
The wolf tugged me one way, the vampire held her on a leash.
Neither of them was pleased with the other.
A simple love triangle would have been great. In a human body, as a human girl, I would just have to ask myself
Who do I love more?
But that wouldn’t work here. I wasn’t a single entity making a decision based solely on love. I was a monster with divided destinies, and each of the men at my side represented a prize at the end of a path.
Choose to be a vampire and I could be with Holden. Forever.
Choose to be a werewolf and I could have Desmond back. Until one of us died.
The lifelines on my palms itched, and I rubbed them against my jeans. How many stupid decisions had I made in love because of something one of my monstrous halves wanted? I’d married Lucas because I thought it was right for the pack.
If only it was a simply human choice. Not one that would define the entire outcome of my future. Love was one thing, and though I wouldn’t call it an easy choice, it was one I could make. But I wasn’t ready to decide on my fate quite yet. I didn’t think the boys would be willing to share me until I
was
ready. It was bad enough I’d expected Desmond to share me with Lucas.
Look how well that had ended.
“Earth to Secret,” Desmond said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “The bloodsucker asked you a question. Where did you go?”
“What?”
“I asked—”
“I said—”
They both stopped talking as simultaneously as they’d started, shooting each other withering glares over the top of my head. Which wasn’t terribly difficult since Desmond was over six feet, Holden was just under it, and I was practically miniature.