Something Secret This Way Comes: Secret McQueen, Book 1 (8 page)

I heard a low growl but could not pinpoint its location. It came at me from every direction and never from the same place twice. Through the thick fog of trees the growl was coming closer, and I realized it was not one growl but many.

A pack.

My instinct was to run, and who was I to ignore my fight-or-flight reaction? My feet moved to escape but became tangled in the long dress I hadn’t noticed I was wearing. The only dresses I owned were short and low cut, designed to titillate vampiric thirst. The garment I now found myself in had layer upon layer of rustling tulle skirts cinched together at my waist in a breathlessly tight corseted top.

A wedding dress.

I tried not to focus on why I was wearing a wedding gown in the woods. Instead I turned my attention back to the pack of growling wolves I could hear but not see. My heart pounded against my sternum as I grabbed armfuls of fabric and started to run through the woods. The smells and surroundings became more and more familiar as I fled. Branches pulled at my hair and dress, and I realized I was following the same path I’d chased Henry Davies down the night before. It meant the Great Lawn couldn’t be far. My dress caught a low exposed root, and I toppled to the ground, cutting my hands on rocks and sticks as I braced my fall. I got to my feet and picked up the hem, where I accidentally smeared blood from my palms on the perfect white.

I felt guilty for ruining the fabric.

The wolves drew nearer as I began to run again. This time I made it to the lawn, where I could see someone who looked human standing alone on the empty field. I tore across the grass with all the speed I could muster. I didn’t think anyone could save me from the monsters at my heels, but just seeing another living person felt like finding salvation. As I got closer I saw that my mysterious savior was Lucas.

He wore a tuxedo cut so well James Bond would be jealous, and smiled when he looked at me.

I reached him in a panic, out of breath, collapsing in a foamy white pile at his feet with my arms covering my head, braced for the gnarling teeth of wolves to rip me apart.

But there were no teeth. The growls, too, were gone. The only sound in the night was a soft chuckle from above. I looked over my shoulder and confirmed that there were no wolves in the field.

I felt a strong hand on my shoulder and was soothed by it.

“Lucas, you must think I’m an idiot.”

The hand squeezed and the chuckle became a low, menacing laugh.

“Secret McQueen,
mon chéri,
I believe you are no man’s fool.”

The voice didn’t belong to Lucas, but I knew it all the same. It was pure Cajun loathing. A bone-jarring shudder rolled over me, and my head was slow to respond to my body’s fearful commands, but I finally looked up.

Just in time to see Alexandre Peyton, vampire in my wolf’s clothing, lunge for my throat.

Chapter Twelve

Waking up wasn’t as dramatic as the dream. I didn’t scream or sit bolt upright; I merely awoke with my breath stuck in my throat and a layer of icy sweat on my skin.

It was dusk again and my senses were at their prime. It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, and it took less time still for me to recognize someone else was in the room with me. He was sitting in the plush armchair next to my bedroom door.

My pulse leaped a little, which made me feel stupid because once I recognized who it was I knew he’d heard the change in my heart rate.

Though neither of us needed the light to see, I turned on the lamp next to my bed and propped myself up on a pillow.

“You’re out awfully early, aren’t you?”

Holden frowned, which was not all that unusual since he rarely smiled. “As you must have anticipated, the Tribunal would like to have a word with you.”

“Oh, Holden. I think you and I both know they will have a lot more than
a
word for me.”

I noticed he wasn’t looking directly at me, and when I looked down I understood why. During my fitful sleep I had stripped off all my clothing, and the only thing covering me was a thin floral sheet.

“Oh.” With the sheet still pulled close, I grabbed my silk robe from the foot of my bed and slipped it on, cinching it around the waist. “Better?”

The wolf part of me wasn’t shy about nudity. But I respected that Holden came from another time. An era in which having a conversation with a lady who was naked would be unheard of.

I also knew well enough that he wasn’t always this shy when it came to being up close and personal with women. It made me wonder if me putting on the robe protected his sensibilities or subdued his desires.

“Thank you.” He turned to face me.

I wanted to point out that while he’d been watching me sleep the sheet hadn’t been pulled up at all, but I let him have the illusion of his modesty.

“They want to see me right away?” The clock on my nightstand told me it was seven thirty. The growl in my belly told me I needed to eat before I went.

He must have heard it because he gave me a slight nod.

“They requested I bring you at nightfall. Do you have food or will I need to take you to the Oracle?”

I looked at the clock. I had enough food in my fridge, but given the events of the last twenty-four hours I wouldn’t mind a visit with Calliope.

Calliope, better known among the paranormal community as the Oracle, was the fourth and final person who knew what I was. She owned a large mansion in the middle of the city, which existed on a plain outside human reality. Only those of the supernatural persuasion walking into the Starbucks on West 52nd and 8th in genuine need of help would find their way into Calliope’s home. She insisted the location was arbitrary, but I knew she had a sweet tooth for caramel macchiatos.

And the blood of male virgins.

Calliope was a true immortal. Vampires used the phrase
immortal
because they could not be killed by age, disease or random accidents the way humans could. But a stake to the heart, exposure to sunlight or, as I often demonstrated, a bullet to the brain could all kill them beyond revival.

Not Calliope. She was the daughter of a fairy queen and a god.

I had laughed in her face when she’d told me that the first time. She had politely reminded me most people would scoff at my parentage as well. Gods, she’d explained, at least in the Greek, Roman and Norse tradition, were not as divine as they’d have mortals believe.

There was a level of truth to most of the popular myths that came out of the polytheist religions. She told me that in the ancient years of Earth’s history, true immortals were not as publicity shy as they became in later centuries. They used their power and influence to achieve a godlike status and began to believe they truly were as divine as humans believed them to be. This delusion of divinity led true immortals to use the word god to describe themselves long after polytheistic religions fell out of popularity.

Fairies, on the other hand, prized their privacy. They existed in a separate reality, only deigning to cross over when something caught their curiosity or they found babies or women to steal.

Fairies never stole men.

Calliope’s mansion was a border station between human reality and the realms of fairies and immortals. It was a fascinating and terrifying place to visit. Calliope herself was part of the appeal. She had once lived among the mortals, using her particular gift for being the center of attention to its full advantage.

She had taken over the life of a small-town girl who had died without anyone’s notice, and reinvented herself as the ultimate blonde-bombshell glamour icon. When she’d had her fill, she left the body without further explanation. It remains one of the greatest mysterious Hollywood deaths.

To see Calliope now, she looked exactly like the icon once painted by Andy Warhol, only her hair was no longer short and blonde but restored to a long, smoky black. Her figure was bodacious, her pout still as alluring. I did a double take whenever I saw her.

Looking the way she did it was strange to hear her tell me what my future held. True to her title, Calliope was an oracle and could see the future of those around her. Her visions were often vague, but she was always right.

She also dealt in blood. Food for vampires without fangs or those still too young to hunt without being dangerous. The council sent all sanctioned newborns to live in Calliope’s care until they could be trained to behave.

I went to her because although I had fangs, I could not bring myself to feed off humans, willing or otherwise. It would cross too many lines for me. I could eat human food and enjoyed coffee and the occasional alcoholic beverage, but they did nothing for me nutritionally. I liked caffeine and booze because the acceleration of my metabolism meant I felt their effects almost instantly, and they burned off too fast for any lingering unpleasantness afterward. The downside was, going on a bender after a bad week was pretty much impossible because I was never drunk longer than an hour, and I couldn’t blame my bad judgment on impaired sensibilities. And while I could eat, I still needed blood. In a pinch I could eat blue-rare steak, or even raw meat, as they appeased the hunger of my wolf. But both monsters craved blood, so that was the only thing that really satisfied me.

I had my fridge well stocked, which meant we didn’t need to see Calliope tonight no matter how badly I wanted to.

“I’ve got some O neg in the fridge. You want?”

Holden grimaced. He’d attempted, and failed, to understand my aversion to drinking from the source.

“No, thank you.” He rose from the chair and straightened his blazer. He tried hard to look as if he belonged in this century, and for the most part he succeeded. He was tall and slim with a narrow waist and a well-built upper body. From what he’d told me of his youth, he’d come from a poor farming community. His build came from hours of hard labor with little to eat, making him strong and lean.

His face was chiseled with a strong jaw and lips suited for pouting. His hair and eyes were both dark brown, and depending on the mood of the evening often passed for black. The eyes defined classic vampire—deep, focused and brooding. His mouth usually set itself in a pensive angelic frown with his brow furrowed. Holden’s hair tended to be a bit too long, owing to the uncut look favored by farmhands two hundred years earlier, which he had opted to maintain. He liked to be consistent about that rather than trying to keep with the changing styles of the decades. Tonight he had pushed it behind his ears and gelled it enough to keep it there. It stopped just shy of the collar of his jacket.

It was no wonder Holden didn’t have any difficulty feeding. Human women found him irresistible. His looks combined with the vampire gift to enthrall humans, better known as the thrall, meant he could feed on as many women, or men for that matter, as he pleased.

Under the charcoal blazer he wore a plain white shirt that in spite of simplicity looked to be on the offensive side of expensive. The ensemble was completed with a pair of dark indigo jeans and black shoes polished to a high shine. It hadn’t come as a surprise to me when I learned Holden had once been an editor-at-large for
GQ
magazine.

All immortals, true or otherwise, feel the pull of the spotlight from time to time, even though their secretive nature compels them to stay away from it.

“I’ll fix your drink while you dress.”

I took my wardrobe cues from his ensemble, dressing in dark jeans, black ballet flats and a purple top embellished with Victorian touches of lace at the neck and buttons down the back. Through the lace, the top peek-a-booed an alarming amount of cleavage, which was impressive given how little I had to begin with.

I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and wore no makeup. Unless I was working I never wore any. Drinking blood flushed my cheeks and gave my lips a natural stain. Anything extra made me feel ridiculous.

From the kitchen my microwave beeped and I smiled to my reflection in the mirror. Ever the gentleman, Holden had thoughtfully heated my blood for me.

My light steps were noiseless as I walked down the carpeted hallway and met him in my tiny kitchen. When I’d visited the basement suite for the first time, the landlord kept apologizing for how small the space was, fearing the lack of cooking space would be a deal breaker for a lady such as myself. He must have thought I looked more domestic than I really was.

I had been more swayed by the old brick fireplace facade and the bedroom big enough for a queen-sized bed. Both were luxuries for an apartment in my painfully limited budget.

Now with both Holden and I in a room too small for a two-seat table, the dining space was feeling extra cramped.

He handed me the warm blood in a wineglass, which was a touch too elegant for me, but I appreciated the gesture. As I drank the blood I tried not to meet his eyes. It unnerved me for anyone else to observe the pleasure I took in this, because it was like admitting that I enjoyed a part of what I was. Acknowledging that I liked drinking blood, that I relished the sweet, coppery tang of it or that I took pride in how much sexier I felt afterward, would mean that I embraced being a vampire at least on that small level. It would mean that one of the monsters was winning. But using that same logic one could argue that the wolf would win if I gave into Lucas’s advances and let myself become his mate.

I assured myself the wolf could only win if I transformed at the full moon. I’d been able to fight that change for almost my entire twenty-two years, and I wasn’t about to give in now.

Holden was watching me drink with great interest. He’d only seen me drink in close quarters once or twice before, and it had an unusual effect on him. His own hunger, coupled with a kind of desire, was laid bare in his eyes. Though his facial expression didn’t change, I noticed a telltale darkening in his irises. With each swallow his eyes deepened from a milk-chocolate brown to an oily black, and a glimmer of intention filled them. His jaw was tense and stiff as I took the last gulp, eyes transfixed on my neck.

“
Holden.
”

The hunger vanished and he was himself again. “I apologize. In spite of your connection to us it is sometimes difficult for me to ignore that you are—”