Authors: Sierra Dean
“Yes. If you’re calling to see if he’s following your instructions, I’m pleased to tell you he has indeed showered and shaved. As the one person who has to spend all day in close proximity to him, I thank you profusely for mandating soap.”
Clearly Dominick wasn’t too worked up over the whole Kellen situation. The Alvarez family had known the Rains their whole lives. If anyone could be cavalier about Kellen’s behavior, it would be Dominick, since he’d been exposed to it since childhood.
“How long has he been like that?” I asked.
“Don’t hedge. Just spit out your question.”
Damn him. He knew what I wanted to ask, but he’d never let me be coy about it. “Did he start acting weird because of Kellen or was it…sooner? Like…after the wedding?”
“Sorry, kid. This is new.”
I chewed on my lip briefly. It was the answer I’d expected, but at the same time I’d hoped maybe Lucas had felt at least a little bad for what he’d done to me. Apparently not.
“Keep an eye on him for me,” I said.
“I keep both eyes on him. Always.”
“Then can you do me a favor?”
A pause. “That depends.”
“If he starts drifting again, let me know. I may not be with him, but as he so crassly reminded me tonight, I’m still bonded to him. And even if I weren’t, I’m still pack protector. He’s putting everyone at risk if he’s running around like a stinky vagabond.”
Dominick made a sound like he was stifling a laugh. “I’ll do it, on one condition.”
Oh God how I hated the words
on one condition
.
“I’m not going to have sex with you,” I replied jokingly.
“You say that like it’s a hard thing to manage.”
“
Ouch
.” Okay, I deserved that. “What’d you have in mind?”
“Go see Des.”
My heart sank, feeling like a stone in my chest. “Dominick, I don’t think—”
“That’s my condition.”
“He doesn’t want to see me.” And who could blame him?
“You don’t know that.”
“Has he said anything to make you think different?”
A pause. “Not to me.”
“To anyone?” A glimmer of hope began to burn inside me, and hope was the most dangerous and unrepentantly naggy of all human emotions. Hope was something I didn’t have the time to deal with.
“Penny.”
“He told Penny what exactly?” Penny was Dominick and Desmond’s little sister, and considering she was thirteen years old, I didn’t know if I could put much stock in anything she was saying.
“He told her he misses you.”
I sighed and blinked a few times. When did this room get so dusty? “Desmond would want to make it easier on her. Who wants to explain it to a teenager?”
“He does miss you, Secret.”
“Maybe,” I conceded. “But it doesn’t mean he wants me back.”
“Go see him. Say you will and I’ll tell you everything Lucas does.”
“Now you’re making me sound like a creepy stalker.”
“No, you’re being a good queen.”
There it was, my royal title for the second time that night. “So if you acknowledge I’m the queen, why won’t you take my orders?”
“Well, for starters, Your Majesty, my boss outranks you.” I could practically feel Dominick wink.
“Damn. I call for a favor from the one werewolf who is a royalist loyalist.”
“Just doing my job.”
I forced a smile, which was pointless because he couldn’t see me. “So am I.”
Chapter Five
I didn’t call Desmond.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, because it was the only thing I wanted to do. All night long from when I woke at dusk to the repellent moment sunrise forced me out of the world, I itched to call him. To see him. I sometimes would go a mile out of my way to walk by his apartment in the off chance I might
accidentally
bump into him. My use of the word
stalker
had been a joke when I’d used it in reference to Lucas, but I was towing a line when it came to Desmond.
I knew it was wrong, but instead of calling him I was walking through the financial district towards his office. It was late, well after nine by now, but I suspected he might still be there. I had no intention of talking to him, but hearing Dominick say I should see Desmond made a need take light in me.
I had to
see
him.
Desmond was a fix I couldn’t make it through the rest of my night without indulging in.
The Rain Industries Tower was on Bank St. in spite of the fact it had nothing to do with banking. As I traversed the nearly empty sidewalk, watching a few late workers move towards the subway stations or waiting town cars, I started to think about what a terrible plan this was.
I shouldn’t be here, but bad ideas seemed to be the only ones I was capable of having lately.
I climbed between the metal paws of a lion statue in front of a bank on the opposite side of the street and sank into the shadowy cradle of its legs. The Rain business center looked out of sorts with its surroundings, too glossy, metallic and modern next to the old skyscrapers it was nestled between. The lobby was white, all the furniture and art—a Jackson Pollack series—were done in a variety of shades of the color.
Shades
of white were something I’d never understood. Was there really a difference between
linen
and
cotton flower
? They’d tried to convince me white came in shades when I’d tried on wedding dresses, but I still had trouble accepting it.
Instead I thought about what a bitch it would be to clean up blood in that lobby.
Desmond was a stark contrast to the whiteness of the space as he walked through it. He wore a charcoal-gray suit with the blazer slung over one arm and his pale green tie loosened. With the sleeves rolled up and his top two buttons undone I could see the dark hair on his arms and chest. Desire stirred in me.
When he stopped to talk to the desk man, I was afforded a view of one of my favorite parts of Desmond’s body, his tight, firm butt, which well-tailored pants made the most of. My leather jacket was suddenly much too hot. He and the older man laughed at a joke, and my throat constricted, lust fading into the painful reminder he was no longer mine to lust after. With a final wave he left the building and jogged down the steps.
Go to him
, my brain commanded.
I shifted but didn’t move from my perch.
Desmond stopped abruptly at the bottom of the steps, and his eyes widened slightly. He sniffed the air. Oh goddammit, of
course
he sniffed the air. Why was I constantly forgetting about the natural abilities of werewolves in their human form? I hadn’t been this close to him, hadn’t
seen
him in the three weeks since he’d taken a bullet meant for me.
I’d spoken to him, though.
Damn, I had spoken to him just the night before. I’d stayed on the line and listened to him breathe after he’d fallen asleep in the middle of our conversation. I had it bad.
Now he seemed to be looking right at me, but human-form werewolf vision was only good at night if the wolf had time to adjust. He’d just come out of a bright lobby, and there shouldn’t have been time for him to spot me in the shadows.
I tried to push myself farther under the lion without drawing more of his attention.
Go to him.
My brain had a one-track mind.
“Secret?” He was whispering, his tone uncertain like he wasn’t quite sure he could trust what he was smelling. Hearing my name from his lips was so painful I wanted to run across the street and put my arms around him.
I didn’t move.
He raked a hand through his short black hair and scratched the dark stubble on his jaw. After a final sniff and a small shake of his head, Desmond sighed and walked off down the street. When he vanished, I slipped out from my hiding place and watched the space where I’d last seen him. If I ran, I could catch him.
Instead I turned and walked the opposite way.
Chapter Six
The next night, shortly after moonrise, I slipped through the front door of a brownstone with
Keats & McQueen—Private Pest Control
etched on the glass. I’d lived with Keaty a mere three years, but that was all it had taken for this place to feel like home to me.
Though Keaty himself hadn’t quite felt like family.
I loved him dearly, but in the way you love a pet snake. He was important to me, and without him I’d have never learned to survive in this city, but Keaty didn’t
love
things. If pressed, I might admit Keaty was very likely a sociopath. Only he didn’t try to fake emotion, he was just a blank slate.
The blank slate in question called to me from the open door of his office.
“The prodigal daughter has returned,” he said, his tone unreadable.
As I often did in the office, I kicked my shoes off at the door and made myself comfortable. I padded barefoot into Keaty’s space and slid backwards over the arm of one of his high wingback chairs, letting my legs dangle off the side.
“Oh, yes, do make yourself at home.” The man himself sat in a leather chair behind his big wooden desk. He was probably north of forty, but he didn’t look it. His dark blond hair hadn’t begun to show signs of gray, but he had firm frown lines permanently etched around his mouth. Still, though, he was in excellent physical condition for a man of any age.
For the first time in years something else sat on the desk in front of him, and be still my heart it was a laptop.
“You own a computer?”
“In spite of your opinion of me, I
am
perfectly aware it is not 1943 and I am also not Phillip Marlowe.”
“Sam Spade,” I teased.
He grunted. “I always preferred Chandler to Hammett, myself.”
“You read books?” I asked with mock surprise. In for a penny, in for a pound. If I was going to poke a sleeping bear, it might as well be a sociopath who killed monsters for fun.
Monsters like me.
“I used to have this marvelous thing known as
spare time
. Then I met a sassy, bothersome teenaged vampire hunter, and what do you know? My time disappeared.”
“You love me.” I picked up a paperweight on his desk, a crystal rose, and turned it over gently in my hands. Last time I’d taken something off his desk it had supposedly contained the soul of a big bad shaman or something. Ever since then I’d been careful not to handle things, but I was feeling fidgety and it was shiny.
“Unfortunately,” he replied. I set the flower down and stared at him. In seven years it was the closest thing I’d ever gotten from Keaty that resembled an admission of emotional attachment.
Given some of the training methods he’d had for me as a teenager were borderline torture—psychological and physical alike—I’d never thought I’d hear him say he was proud of me, let alone that he loved me. He was the ultimate hard-to-please parent figure, and I thought the best I’d ever do was
Well, you’re still alive
.
“Are you dying?” I asked.
“Don’t be stupid.” As though his mortality couldn’t possibly be in question.
“You always told me to rely on my natural gifts.”
“Only you would think stupidity was a gift.”
I grinned at him. “Dumb luck. I am the master of it.”
“To what do I owe the great, rare presence of your royal wolfish, vampire Tribunal-leading self in my office? Aren’t you otherwise occupied with running the underworld?”
Ah, was that bitterness I smelled? It was hard to tell with all his subtlety.
Looked like it was also going to be
call-Secret-on-her-shit day
. Nice. Kick a girl when she was down.
Except in this case I sort of felt like I deserved all the kicks I was getting.
“I need—”
“Oh yes,” he interrupted me, leaning back in his chair and loosening the blood-red tie he wore. “
Please
tell me what you
need
.” His tone wasn’t outright mean, but I got the point. I’d been asking a lot of favors, and a partnership was supposed to be give and take. Instead it had been take, take, take, and I’d been the one doing all the demanding.
I sucked. Thanks, everyone. Point taken.
I bit my lip and swallowed the snarky reply I wanted to make. Hard to be high and mighty about your hurt pride when people are making completely valid points. My hurt expression must have shown because Keaty softened slightly.
“You understand why I’m…unhappy with you, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been a shitty partner.”
Keaty nodded. “I would have said ungrateful, but shitty is accurate too.”
“I
have
been taking cases.”
“How marvelous. Those two extra cases every month were such a burden. Thanks for getting those off my mind.” Oh good, sarcasm. Probably a sign I shouldn’t be defending myself right now.
“Look, I do need your help with something.”
“Fancy that, because I need yours.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”