Cold Hard Secret (Secret McQueen) (17 page)

“It should be me, but every time I see the end in sight it turns out to just be one more false finish.” I laughed and stripped off my jacket, snapping my holster closed again. “Maybe I’ll feel better if I admit it’s
never
going to be over.”

“Secret…”

“Or maybe it’ll be over when Juan Carlos realizes I’m part werewolf and rips me into tiny pieces in the middle of the Tribunal chamber. I won’t have too many things to worry about after that happens.”

“Juan Carlos can’t kill you. It would defy all the rules of the Council for one Tribunal leader to kill another. As much as he despises you, he is a stickler for the rules.”

“He’ll find someone else to do it.”

“You’re very difficult to kill.”

I snorted. “I should put that on my resume.” As I flopped backwards on the bed I considered Holden’s words, thinking over and over about Tribunal leaders and the position we often found ourselves in.

Tribunal leaders…

I was shocked out of my reverie, sitting upright like I’d been stuck with a cattle prod.

“What’s wrong?”

“In Paris, Mouse said the letter he got with the shot was signed
A
.”

Since I’d already explained Desmond’s situation via text, he didn’t need to ask about the shot. He did ask, “Who is Mouse?”

“He was our informant. A little double-crosser too, since he was working for Peyton. He sold us up the river. Or the sewer, in this case.”

“And you’re trusting something he told you?”

“I know, I know. Chances are as good he’s lying as they are of him being honest, but still… Do you remember the West Coast Tribunal?”

“They were so charming. How could I forget?”

“Galen, Eilidh and
Arturo
.”

“Your point?”

“I thought the person who betrayed us while we were out there was an underling, a sentry or warden. But what if it was someone with real power? What if the A who sent Peyton the shot was Arturo?”

“That’s a stretch…”

“Maybe.” Except now that the thought was in my head, I couldn’t shake it. Arturo had the power to send my father out on the mission that ended up getting him snagged by The Doctor, and he had the influence to make Eilidh think the whole thing was her idea. He could cover his tracks because he was above suspicion.

“Isn’t it almost exactly what Daria did when she framed you? Think about it. Shift attention away from the real villain. They brought in outside help, even appealing to Sig to make it seem like they were, I don’t know…innocent?” My mouth was working faster than my brain now.

“You can’t accuse a Tribunal leader of treason without proof. And that’s what this would be, if he was caught conspiring with a known rogue. He would be bound and locked away. If you’re going to run with this theory, you need more.”

Ugh, just what I needed. Another project.

If what Holden said was right, I couldn’t hop on a plane and fly to Los Angeles to kill Arturo myself if I proved he was the bad guy here. I couldn’t be on two Tribunals.

I flopped back again and raked my fingers through my hair, trying to chase away my mounting headache. When had I last eaten? Hours? Days? I couldn’t remember the last blood I’d had, which was probably contributing to my cranky mood and my throbbing temples.

“I stopped in to see the Oracle before I came,” Holden said, reading me like the seasoned pro he was. “There’s fresh blood in the fridge.”

“Thanks, want any?” It was an empty offer. He’d only drink bagged blood if it was the absolute last option available. I wasn’t too keen on it myself lately, recalling the way I’d been rewarded for good behavior by being tossed clear bags of donor blood. But since I wasn’t about to start feeding off live humans—willing or not—I stuck with what I could stomach.

At least with blood from Calliope I felt relatively sure it had been donated freely at some point or another.

I made my way into the kitchen again and heated a glass of A positive in the microwave for twenty seconds before returning to the bedroom, sipping the liquid slowly. With each mouthful I felt a little more like myself.

“So the fur ball is…well, he’s a fur ball?”

“On his behalf I say
hey
. And yeah, Lucas is working on him now.”

“You trust the wolf to do what’s right?”

I shrugged and swallowed back the rest of the contents of the glass. “I don’t have much choice.”

Honestly, I didn’t trust Lucas as far as I could throw him. And strong though I was, I couldn’t throw him very far.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I wasn’t free from the nightmares.

I woke, panting, to the sound of my cell phone ringing in my ear. Fumbling to answer it, I cursed whatever tech genius had decided phones no longer needed actual
buttons
.

“Hello?” I mumbled, still not fully awake. I rubbed my chest where the phantom sensation of fingers clung to me, nails digging beneath my sternum. So much for escaping the dreams and panic attacks they brought with them.

“Secret, it’s Dominick.”

That grabbed my attention, chasing off the last of my imagined ailments.

“Desmond? Is he okay?”

Dominick hesitated. “
Okay
is sort of a loose stretch. He’s not bad. He’s human again and he’s resting, but the forced shift did a number on him.”

“I’m on my way.” I was already halfway into a pair of pants as I said it.

“No.”

“No?”

“He’s healing. Lucas has insisted no one can see him until we know for sure this form will hold. If there are lingering effects from the medication he was given, he might slip back into his wolf form, and there’s no knowing how he’ll react. It’s not safe for you.”

“Bullshit. I’m coming.”

“
No.
”

My fingers hovered over the fly of my jeans, and I glared at the darkness as though I might be able to express my anger to Dominick just by thinking mean things at him.

“I swear I will update you the moment things change. I know you want to be here, and if I thought you being here was a good idea, I wouldn’t tell you to stay away.”

“Lucas told you to call, didn’t he?”

“He thought, and I agreed, you’d believe it more coming from me.”

Damn, they had me pegged, didn’t they? Dominick was Desmond’s brother, so if he said I shouldn’t visit, he had good reason to say it, and not just because his boss told him to.

Since I was already half-dressed, I finished the process and said, “Promise me you’ll keep me posted. I want you to call the
second
he’s stable enough to see me.” Selfishly I hoped it wouldn’t be long, because I needed to get to Manitoba, like, yesterday. The longer I waited, the more
Grandmere
was at risk. But I didn’t feel right abandoning Desmond.

“I promise.” He didn’t hesitate at all in saying it, which made me believe he would. Promises were no laughing matter in the supernatural community.

He hung up, leaving me to pace my bedroom like a caged animal. What did I do now? And where had Holden buggered off to? He’d been with me when I settled in to sleep, but I’d drifted off well before sunrise, so there was nothing binding him to the apartment. Since he wasn’t here, he must have slipped out before the sun came up.

I couldn’t blame him for not spending the night, considering I was impossible to sleep next to these days, and the loveseat in the living room wouldn’t make for a comfortable place to crash. Especially considering the living room wasn’t light safe.

After retrieving my gun from under the pillow, I shouldered my holster on and stalked through the apartment, either looking for something to shoot or some sign of what I ought to do next.

A tap on the apartment door brought my pacing to a halt.

Anyone who knew I was home had a key.

I withdrew a gun, erring on the side of caution, and unlocked the door—nice of Holden to think of that when he left. Maybe I’d get my wish of shooting someone sooner rather than later.

The door swung open, and Sig stood on the other side, as effortlessly graceful and relaxed as always. He reached out and lifted my fang pendant, rolling the tooth between his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m glad it was worth it,” he said, letting the necklace fall.

I swallowed hard, not liking his tone or his word choice one bit. I’d known I was going to get kicked in the ass because of my Paris trip, but I was hoping I still had a few more days.

“Sig, I—”

“No, I think this is going to be one of those occasions where I speak and you listen. Sit down, please.” He backed me into the apartment, shutting the door behind him.

Without any option except to obey, I retreated to my loveseat and sat, placing my gun on the coffee table. I wouldn’t be able to shoot Sig even if I wanted to, which I currently did not. After surviving two thousand years, I doubted a pistol would be the thing to finally bring the master vampire down.

“Imagine my surprise, when after
eight years
of keeping your secret, I received a phone call yesterday from Bertrand on the Parisian council, informing me of an interesting rumor circulating his city’s streets. Do you have any idea what he told me?”

“Yes,” I muttered.

“Speak up.”

“
Yes.
”

“And what was it I might have heard from Bertrand?”

“They know. About my wolf.”

“Correct. They know about your wolf. Every vampire in Paris, and probably half the major European cities, are talking about this very, very popular rumor. A vampire Tribunal leader who is half
werewolf
.”

“It’s not like I wore my
Kiss Me I’m a Werewolf
shirt, Sig. They were Peyton’s sidekicks. Can’t we just discredit—?”

“If they were rogues, why didn’t you do your job and nip this situation in the bud before it became an issue? Rogues are disposable.”

“Killing them would have meant letting Peyton go free.”

“This gossip is beyond our control now. It would be one thing to call them liars at the start, but we’re past that point. They’ll want proof.”

“Tell them you’ve sampled my blood, then. Tell them what they want to hear.”

“And they’ll believe me, why? We share a bloodline. Juan Carlos has openly expressed his misgivings about you, and apparently not only to me. The jig, as they say, is up.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“I can’t protect your secret anymore. Juan Carlos wants to take the issue to the council. He’ll be asking them to elect a replacement.”

“They can’t
elect
a replacement.”

“It’s not a political coup he’s asking for. It’s a council-sanctioned order of execution.”

They would pick my replacement, and that replacement would assassinate me. I understood it now all too well.

The vampire council was going to kill me.

“You’re just going to sit back and watch this happen?” I stared at him, wondering if I’d ever really known him. I used to believe he cared about me, but now that I knew he’d lied to me for years about our true connection, I didn’t know what Sig felt or wanted.

“Don’t be foolish. Would I be here warning you if I intended to watch you die? No. You know you’re not without friends on the Council. There’s a chance this may yet go in your direction instead of his. You have done a fair job thus far as a Tribunal leader. I don’t think any of the elders believed you’d live as long as you have, yet you continue to surprise us all.”

Was this his idea of flattery?

Somehow, though, I was buoyed by his words. He had a point. Up until now I
had
served the Tribunal well. I’d even met the approval of…

“Monica. Sig, Monica knew what I was, and she didn’t care. She thought I was fit to be on the Tribunal. That has to be good for something.” Monica was one of the creepiest vampires I’d ever met, and that was saying something. Thousands of years old, she was forever trapped in the body of an eight-year-old and had a peculiar ability for seeing a vampire’s whole history with one bite.

I’d only met her once, but when she’d sampled my blood, she seemed delighted about my mixed heritage, over the moon that she could still be surprised at her age. She hadn’t outed me to the Council in spite of knowing what I was.

Sig sat back, contemplating. “I hadn’t considered the Monica angle. The Old One has a short attention span, though. I’m not sure she’d be the best witness to you when it comes to the elders.”

“The elders are scared of her, Sig.” Anyone in their right mind was scared of her. “If she vouches for me, it will carry a lot of weight.” Plus Monica wasn’t terribly fond of Juan Carlos, which went a long way to help me.

“It’s an avenue worthy of exploration, I agree. But this isn’t something the Council will forgive easily.”

“Doesn’t it matter to them that
you
didn’t care?” Since he was the true leader of the Tribunal, shouldn’t his opinion matter more than Juan Carlos’s?

“To some it will be enough. To others, your werewolf blood will be… What is the phrase I’m looking for? It cannot be overlooked.”