Keeping Secret: Secret McQueen, Book 4 (22 page)

“There is a pack of fucking Lost Boys on an island in the swamp. They are kidnapping and raping tourist women and making them give birth to their offspring, and then
turning
the children.”

“How do you—?”

I drew his attention to the mud and blood.

“Did they…?” Lucas asked the question, but his words dropped off before he could finish the sentence. “Are you…?”

“I don’t think their Alpha will be siring any new pups anytime soon. And I definitely didn’t make any friends. But I’m fine.”

“My God,” Callum said.

“I don’t want to tell you your business, Callum, but I think your last goal should be expanding into
our
territory when you have a dissenting pack not one hour from your front door.” I leaned across the table and fixed him with a hard stare. “You know how bad a dissenting pack can make you look, don’t you?”

Callum didn’t appear too impressed with me right then. He turned to regard Lucas, as if to ask if my king had put me up to this, but I think Callum knew me well enough by now to understand that no one put me up to anything against my will. “Yes,” he said at last. “I do know.”

“So do we have your word that for the time being, until your feral problem has been dealt with, you won’t be trying to move into our territory?”

He sat back and once again spoke to Lucas. “Look at what you East Coast wolves do to my nice Southern girls? She’s cutthroat.”

Lucas shrugged. “Blame Canada.”

I smiled.

“She’s going to make one hell of a queen, Rain.”

“She will if you let me marry her.”

The Southern king leaned back in his chair and chuckled in a warm, smoky way. “Like I could stop you with her involved.”

And with that, we had what we’d come for. I let out a sigh of relief.

“In fact, why stop there?” Callum added, and the sigh got caught in my throat.

“I don’t—”

“Your sister is home now, and your brother is here too. Let’s go for broke. You two will proclaim your mate-hood here. Tomorrow night, during the full-moon ceremony.”

Shit.

Chapter Thirty

Alone in our little cabin, I was allowed to pace back and forth, for all the good it did me.

“What does he mean,
proclaim our mate-hood
? You already activated our mate bond.”

“It’s different.”

“Okay, fine. Explain it to me.”

Lucas was sitting on the couch, watching me pace. “There’s a ceremony all werewolf couples must participate in at the full moon. They declare their bond in front of the whole pack, share blood, and then—in the eyes of the wolves—they are married.”

“But we’re getting married in a week. For real.”

He shook his head. “That’s a human custom. This ceremony is the real marriage. We would have done it after our wedding at the next full-moon gathering. I wanted to tell you after our wedding in the city, to give you time to adjust to the idea.”

I sat down on the stone hearth and tried to run my fingers through my hair. I needed a shower. And blood. But more than anything I needed
not
to be forced into a full-moon ceremony. What would happen when I couldn’t change? How was I supposed to explain that to Callum and his pack? And what would it mean for Lucas?

“I can’t do this.”

“I don’t see what choice we have.”

“But I can’t shift, Lucas.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“I haven’t shifted in over twenty years, not since I was a baby and even that I don’t remember.
I’m
worried about it.”

“You’re a werewolf attending a full-moon ceremony with two kings present.” He smiled like this should explain away my fear. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t help.”

“Secret, trust me.”

“But—”

“No, no buts. You have active werewolf blood in you. I don’t care how many shields you have up, or how deeply you think you’ve buried that part of you. No werewolf can resist the shift when they are in the presence of their king.
None
.”

“Boy will your face be red tomorrow when I prove your theory wrong.”

“Actually it will be furry and sort of golden, from what I’ve been told.” He got up and crouched in front of me, taking my hands in his and kissing my forehead. The wrinkling of his nose didn’t escape my attention. “Now go have a shower and I will take you to the ceremony site so you know what to expect.”

I smelled like raspberries and anxiety.

The werewolf ceremony site was deep in the oak forest, in a clearing with a giant fire pit in the middle that reminded me
way
too much of my dream with Mercy. I’d never been here before, but the details were spot-on. It made my stomach queasy.

At least this time I was wearing clothes.

Lucas tracked the circumference of the fire pit, prattling on about the way tomorrow’s ceremony would go. Goody, I got to attend two rehearsals and two weddings in one week. Both of them mine. I didn’t want to get married here. My pack was in New York. Those were my people.

And what about Desmond?

Oh God. What about Desmond? This felt like such a betrayal because I couldn’t explain the circumstances to him ahead of time. I would come home married in the eyes of werewolves everywhere, and I hadn’t given him a chance to prepare himself. I couldn’t even call to tell him. He was out at the mansion with the rest of the pack preparing for their own rituals. I wanted to call him right then, but not only did my cell phone not work, could I really explain something like this to him over the phone? What could I say? The only proper way to talk about it was in person, and there just wasn’t going to be time.

“Secret, are you listening?”

“No.”

He came around the unlit fire pit and stood in front of me. “This is important.”

“It isn’t right. We should be doing this at home.”

“I don’t know if we’ll get a second chance to continue with Callum’s permission. He could revoke his approval at any moment, and then where will we be?”

“Square one. I think we’re pretty familiar with it by now.”

Lucas forced a smile. I could always tell when he was faking his smiles because there was no warmth in his eyes. I crossed my arms over my chest and didn’t return the disingenuous expression.

“I don’t like it either,” he admitted.

“And it wasn’t what he and I agreed to.”

“Well, he agreed to let us get married. Did you specify the when and where?”

I gritted my teeth. “Fucking loopholes.”

He hugged me. “If I explain it again, will you listen this time?”

“Can I be glib?”

“As if I could stop you.”

We walked back to where the ceremony would begin, and he went over what Callum would say, what Lucas and I would be expected to do. The process wouldn’t take long, and there wasn’t too much to remember. A little song and dance, some professions of love, my promise to honor and obey—
pfft
—and some run-of-the-mill blood sharing.

“Do we get to cut our hands open and high-five like blood brothers?” I held my hand up.

He gave me a look.

“You said I could be glib.”

“I said I couldn’t stop you.”

“So, we exchange blood, then we’re married.”

“Yes.”

“And then all the werewolves change and eat me because I can’t shift.”

“I told you not to worry. So don’t worry.” He sounded annoyed with me now. I don’t think kings are used to having their word questioned, let alone outright doubted.

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

“I said trust me.”

“Okay. I trust you.”

He grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me to face him. There was something…alluring about the way he looked at me. “Trust me.”

I blinked, then decided to see how far I could push my luck. “And what if I don’t?”

Lucas growled and a shiver ran through me. “Take off your jacket,” he instructed.

I hesitated for a moment, but I let the garment drop to the ground.

“Now your pants.”

“Bossy,” I replied, but my voice came out husky. I complied. My shirt came next, all my clothes in a heap next to the fire. I stood, feeling too exposed in my underwear and profoundly self-conscious of the Victoria’s Secret panties I wore that said,
Take a picture, it will last longer.

Lucas stripped down until he was in his black boxer briefs. Seeing the muscled expanse of his chest illuminated by the moonlight made my knees turn to butter. I licked my lips.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

“No,” I lied.

“Then you’d better run.”

“I—”

“
Run
.”

He dove for me, and I dodged. The smile on his face was wild, his blue eyes shining chartreuse. This close to the full moon little signs of his wolf were starting to show themselves through the veneer of his humanity. My heart pounded with excitement, and all my anxiety melted away.

If the wolf king wanted a chase, I could give him a chase.

I sprinted out of the circle and into the dark waiting arms of the oak trees. The ground was soft and spongy underfoot, with none of the sharp pine needles I was used to when I ran barefoot at home, but the extra layer of moss made it feel like I was running in sand. It slowed me down. Manitoba ground might be pointy, but at least it was hard.

Lucas was right on my heels. His fingers grazed the small of my back and sent me spinning out of his grasp and off in the opposite direction. He lunged for me, and I jumped, grabbing a low-hanging branch. I swung up then turned to face him, swinging again for more leverage before I kicked off the trunk and over his head.

I ran.

The April air was cool and invigorating, and since my sprint wasn’t fueled by fear, I ran like I was flying, streaming through the spaces between the trees as though the night had loaned me wings and I could run and run forever.

Lucas caught me, his arms latched around my waist. He slammed us both against the nearest tree, his breath rising and falling with mine, excited pants against each other’s skin. He licked my neck, and a shudder rocked me from the bottom of my spine to the top of my head.

“I caught you,” he murmured into my sweat-dampened shoulder.

I dug my fingers into his hair, letting him support me against the moss-covered trunk of the oak. Instead of rough, the tree felt soft on my bare skin. “What are you going to do with me?”

His teeth grazed my neck where his tongue had just been, and he cupped my chin with one big hand, holding me up easily with one arm. His strength was staggering. Lucas angled my face upwards with a gentle push then dragged his hand slowly down my throat. I let him, knowing that by exposing the most vulnerable part of myself to him I was showing him I trusted him completely.

He bit me again, and I moaned.

My clever panties met a dramatic end, ripped off with one hand.

“I liked those,” I teased.

“I don’t care.” He pushed his hips against me—hard—and the only thing holding me up now was his pelvis. I wrapped my legs around his waist, my heels anchoring into the place where his back curved into his toned ass. When his hands cupped my breasts, I arched my hips against him, trying to find a way to will his hardness inside me while both our hands were otherwise occupied. He growled again while I continued to rock myself against his erection.

“What do you want?” he whispered, his teeth nipping my earlobe, making my scalp tingle.

“I want you to fuck me,” I rasped. “Now.”

I opened my eyes and was staring into the pupils of an animal. The blue eyes I knew so well had vanished, replaced by the amber-green eyes of a wolf.

“Are you afraid?”

“No.” My fangs couldn’t hide anymore. Passion and hunger rode a fine line for vampires, and he was testing the limits of my control. I grinned and showed him my razor-sharp canines. “Are you?”

He ground his pelvis into me. “No.”

“Then shut up.”

He lifted me, both hands on my bare ass, and I reached between us, pulling his hard cock free from his boxers. In one motion he lowered me onto him while he thrust hard. I tensed around him, intensifying the friction, and he made a noise somewhere between a moan and a growl. His fingers dug into my hips while he buried himself so deep inside me I rode the line from pleasure to pain and back again.

Faster and faster he thrust, and each time our skin smacked together in a rough, desperate frenzy, I lost a little more of the hold I kept on my control. When his teeth bit down on my nipple and he drove into me so fiercely I thought I might end up inside the tree, I buried my fingers into his hair and jerked his neck to the side.

He didn’t stop biting me, not even when my fangs pierced his artery.

His blood filled my mouth, and every time he pumped into me, more of that precious liquid spilled over my tongue. I drank deep while he fucked me, and then it came. The moment that brings vampire blood donors back for more. The stinging pain of the bite changed, and the pleasure rode him. He cried out, fingers digging so hard into my skin I would be bruised, and his rhythm became more vigorous as the ecstasy of the bite mingled with the cresting orgasm from our wild coupling. I pulled back, licking the wound to seal it, and gasped as his thumb circled my core while he drove into me, pushing us both over the edge.