Authors: Sierra Dean
Lucas didn’t reply, but our faces were barely an inch apart, and we were both breathing hard, glaring at each other.
“For your information,” I continued, “I
have
been looking for Kellen, and I have Keaty looking for her too. The reason I’m with him…” I wheeled around to point at Holden, as if I could mean anyone else, “…is because I was attacked by four
werewolves
on my way home.”
“
What
?” Now Lucas’s rage was for someone other than me. I was right to think the rogue wolves were going to be in a heap of trouble when the two kings got hold of them.
I took a step backwards, out of his space now that the initial anger had simmered down.
“They claim to be loyalists. To Mercy.”
“Mercy McQueen?” Lucas looked as taken aback by this development as I had been. “What claim could your mother possibly have to my throne?”
“From what I gather, she believes she cannot reclaim her
rightful
place in the south. We both know Callum would sooner eat a pound of his own flesh than to let someone steal his crown. So she’s come looking for someone else’s. That’s the party line, at least.”
The wolf king frowned. “You don’t believe it.”
I shook my head and settled into the space on the loveseat where I’d cuddled with Rio the night before. I was ready for this day to end and climb into my own bed, preferably alone.
“Mercy can only have one reason to be here. The throne is a way for her to get muscle. Tell people she has rights to being queen—she has the right name, after all—and promise them power when she gets her crown? Power is the easiest way to motivate someone. It has more appeal than sex. More importance than love.” I made sure he was looking at me when I said the last sentence.
Lucas managed to ignore it. I’d thrown enough jabs at him since he’d been here, what was one more? “You think she’s here for you.”
“I know she’s here for me.”
“But she’s trying to stake a claim on my throne.”
Holden slipped out of the room, leaving me with the wolf king. There weren’t a lot of places he could hide in the apartment, which meant he was probably in my bedroom. After that showy kiss, I wondered if I’d be spending the night alone after all.
“We’re constantly trying to prove you’re not a weak king, but since Tuesday you’ve been rolling over and showing your belly all because you’re worried about a human.” I wasn’t trying to be cruel now, and we both knew I didn’t think of Kellen as
just
a human, but he had to see what he was doing. “If ever there was a time outside sources would think your throne was theirs for the taking, it’s now.”
Lucas sat, not next to me, but in the armchair nearby. He looked as worn down and tired as I felt. I didn’t want to empathize with him, but our bond made it impossible to ignore his emotional state. The worse he felt, my emotions mirrored his misery. Awesome.
“Do you think they took Kellen?”
“It crossed my mind, but it doesn’t feel right.”
“Your mother is batshit crazy. I once watched her try to shred your face with her bare hands. Do you think what’s
right
applies here?”
My head slumped back, and I propped my feet up on the coffee table. From this point I could see my sword collection mounted above the fireplace. A medieval broadsword; my go-to katana; and recently added, the silver katana I’d kept as a grim reminder of how often I was at the wrong end of a sword. For a while I’d kept the second sword stashed in my closet, but after Desmond left, I decided to put it up.
Actually, I’d had my friend Nolan hang it since I couldn’t touch silver.
“I still don’t think Kellen is missing the way you think she is. I wouldn’t put anything past Mercy, but kidnapping isn’t her style. If she wanted to make a point of using Kellen, she’d have cut off assorted body parts and had them delivered to you. She doesn’t do anything half-assed. In my experience, anyway.”
I might not be an expert on my mother, but she had never been what I would call wishy-washy, and kidnapping was a lazy villain’s game. Mercy didn’t take the easy route for anything.
“Let me worry about Kellen,” I said when he didn’t speak again. “You need to talk to Callum and figure out what to do about Mercy. One of her little henchmen was that bigoted asshole, Hank, who we met in St. Francisville.”
“Did you recognize any of the others?”
“No, they weren’t ours.” That was what he really wanted to know.
After another long silence where we neither spoke nor acknowledged each other’s presence, Lucas got to his feet and moved to the door. Before he left, he turned and stared at me until the weight of it forced me to meet his rapt gaze.
“What?”
“I need you to understand how important it is to me that you find her,” he said.
“I get it. You don’t need to remind me eight million times. She’s my friend. I care about her too.”
His hand tightened on the doorknob, making the metal creak. “Finding Kellen is the only priority in your life right now. Is that clear?”
That got me out of my seat like a fire was lit under my ass. “You don’t get to make those decisions. You
never
got to.”
Lucas opened the door, and when I was sure he was about to leave without trying for the last word, he turned around again. “You can pretend all you want with the vampire, but you and I both know who matters most to you. If my sister isn’t back within a week, Secret, I’ll have Desmond transferred to our office in Los Angeles. Permanently.”
The door closed behind him with a final click.
As if I’d needed another reason to hate him.
Chapter Ten
Inside my bedroom, Holden had been busy.
Upon seeing what he’d done, I wished I’d kicked him out before Lucas and I went head-to-head. The worst-case scenario I’d imagined was coming in and finding him naked on my comforter, waiting with a leering grin. This was worse.
He was fully clothed and cleaning.
“What are you doing?”
Holden held up a rumpled silk top and shook it at me accusingly. “This is Cynthia Rowley. What’s
wrong
with you?”
To me it was a purple shirt. I understood brand names, even respected their appeal. I’d wondered at women who paid two hundred dollars for a shirt until I owned my first one. Better made, better tailored, just all around
better
. Having a no-limit credit card didn’t hurt, either. I’d started taking for granted that I owned the finer things in life.
They were just things.
Whether my shirt was from Cynthia Rowley or Forever 21 ultimately wasn’t making my
life
any better or worse, so the shirt was on the floor with everything else I owned.
When I didn’t reply, Holden shook his head with a disgusted sneer and continued hanging things in the closet. In an order I couldn’t make sense of. I hadn’t even seen him grab some of the clothes from the living room. Damned speedy vampire.
“I sort of assumed when someone did this, they’d hang them in color order,” I observed.
“Too obvious, and really doesn’t help much.” He pointed to the left side of the closet. “Normally, this would go day to evening. For you I had to tweak it since, well…no day.” Holden smiled at me. I stuck my tongue out in return. “So we went casual to formal. Basically the same idea anyway.”
Sure enough, on the left side were all my nice T-shirts, cropped jackets and jeans, and progressing towards the right came my skirts, dresses and fancy Tribunal duds.
“Well damn,” I said. “Looks good.”
“Of course it looks good.”
I loved seeing these glimpses into the anal-retentive fashion history of Holden Chancery. His job at
GQ
had ended two decades earlier, and I’d thought his interest in clothing was only a lark, a passing phase as opposed to a life-long dedication. But he obviously cared about this stuff a great deal.
It was a fantastic distraction from Lucas’s looming ultimatum too.
As if reading my mind, Holden said, “Your wolf has free will.”
“Free will to send others away on a whim—”
“That wasn’t who I meant when I said
your
wolf.”
“Oh.”
Holden sat on the edge of my bed once the last article of clothing had been properly assigned its order and my closet looked amazing. I sat next to him, and he looped a chummy arm around my shoulder. “I know you’re worried, but remember, Desmond can say no.”
I shook my head and nestled into the crook of his neck. “Desmond can say no to Lucas about as much as you can say no to Sig.”
His chuckle vibrated against my cheek. “I
can
say no to Sig. I just choose not to because I’m fond of the current arrangement of my limbs.”
“Exactly.”
“Then I suppose we had better find the girl.”
“Is that you offering to help?”
Holden kissed my forehead. “I think we both know if I didn’t offer, you’d just force me to do it anyway. I’ve gotten wise to you, love.”
“Since you’re being so helpful, do you want to do my laundry too?”
“Are you sure you want me hand washing these?” He brought an extended forefinger into my line of sight, and dangling from it was a pair of violet-colored lace panties. I snatched them away from him. “Now don’t be modest, I’ve seen you wearing far less.”
When he reached to grab them back, I wriggled free of his arm and ended up facedown on the mattress, trying to squirm away from his attack. He retaliated by climbing over me so he was straddling my lower back and keeping me pinned to the mattress. I managed to turn underneath him, so at least I was looking up at him instead of away.
I’d thought it was a game, but now I was wondering what kind of game we were playing.
He retrieved the underwear from my outstretched hand, his chest against mine and his face so close I could have licked his smooth jaw. Once he’d won the game of keep away, he let my nice La Perla undies slip onto the floor but remained pressed to me. My heart was hammering, and there was no way it was escaping his notice.
He sniffed my throat, and a shiver thrilled through me. “Holden…”
With him on top of me, I didn’t have to question whether or not he wanted me. I knew.
His thumb traced my lower lip, bringing back a reminder of the kiss we’d recently shared. One more time he lowered his mouth towards mine, but this kiss was soft and delicate. Too sweet to suggest anything else. He withdrew, placing one last kiss at the corner of my lips, then rolled off me.
“Sunrise,” he whispered huskily.
Had he really been cleaning that long? I let out a wobbly breath I hadn’t known I was holding. Who knew the sun would be the ultimate cock-blocker?
I awoke with something hard digging into my ribs.
When I rolled over to lessen the pressure, my head smacked against Holden’s with a comical hollow
thonk
. I don’t know which of us had the empty brain basket, but the noise was loud enough to imply it was probably both.
“Guh,” Holden said, jerking awake.
Meanwhile I had discovered the culprit behind the pain in my ribs, and unfortunately there were no
Is that a gun poking in my ribs or are you just happy to see me
jokes to be made. It
was
my gun. I’d worn my holster to bed. As often as I’d cursed myself for going somewhere unarmed, perhaps sleeping with a loaded weapon was a bit much.
My alarm clock said it was pushing nine, meaning we’d slept through sunset and right into night. It meant Friday was almost spent, and I was running out of time to live up to Lucas’s selfish, one-sided threat.
“I have to see Desmond,” I announced.
It wasn’t necessarily meant for Holden, but he was the only other person in bed with me, so he took it as an invitation to respond. “And tell him what, exactly? ‘Even though you broke up with me, my other ex is using your life to leverage threats against me’?”
“You make it sound like Lucas is threatening to kill him.”
“He’s making threats about the future of someone he once claimed to be best mates with. How far off can a death threat be?”
That made a chilly lump form in my belly. Surely Lucas wouldn’t put Desmond’s life in danger.
Oh, fuck it. What did I really know about what Lucas would and wouldn’t do? I’d thought he was a good man making hard choices. Maybe he had been, once. Now? They say
heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Lucas’s head was plenty heavy, and it had turned his spine into Jell-O. His big, bloated, ego-saturated head.
“I have to go,” I repeated.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“As hilarious as I imagine that conversation would be, I think I’m better off going alone.”
Holden propped himself on his elbows and grinned at me. “Are you sure? I’m really good with dogs.”
I whacked him in the face with one of my big, fluffy pillows.
“Negative conditioning doesn’t reinforce positive behavior,” he remarked through the cotton.
“Keep it up and I’ll show you
real
negative conditioning.”
I pulled the pillow away, and he was still smirking like an idiot. “I think I’d like that.”