Cold Hard Secret (Secret McQueen) (9 page)

One of the guards kicked me from behind, and I stumbled forward, landing at the edge of the drop. These guys watched too many movies. If he shouted,
This is Sparta,
before punting me in, I would be seriously annoyed.

From deep within, a chilling growl emanated, making the hair on my neck and arms stand on end. I tried to scramble backwards, not wanting to make the acquaintance of whatever was down there, but Peyton came up behind me, keeping me in place with a boot placed firmly at the small of my back.

“Now, now, Ms. McQueen, giving up already? What a boring way to fail my test. You kill what’s down there, and if you come out standing,
then
you get your stab at me. So to speak.” He laughed a cruel, merciless chuckle and kicked me, sending me spilling over the edge and down a dozen feet to the damp concrete floor below.

The shock of the fall left me frozen briefly, but the growling noise—now much louder and closer—brought my wits back to me, and I skittered away, my spine pressing to a stone wall that wasn’t nearly far enough from the beast in my opinion.

Something nagged at me, a worried kind of bubble in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. I assumed it was related to the absolute terror I felt at being trapped in some sort of to-the-death cage match with a monster of unknown origin, but it wouldn’t go away.

My eyes started to adjust to the darkness, and I licked my lips, trying to chase off the dryness.

I tasted lime.

No.

Lights mounted around the circumference of the pit snapped on, bathing the circle in blinding white. I blinked back tears, trying to see through the sudden brightness. Hoping I wouldn’t see what I feared I would.

On the opposite side of the well, his black fur ruffled up at the back and his canine teeth exposed in a menacing snarl, was Desmond.

Werewolf Desmond.

And we’d just been set against each other in a death match.

Chapter Twelve

“Oh. Des. No.” I shook my head, barely able to comprehend what I was seeing. We were nowhere near the full moon, and Desmond lacked my ability to partially shift, let alone to fully shift his form without the lunar influence. Yet here he was in front of me, and there was no mistaking it was him. “What did they do to you?”

He snarled in response, saliva dripping in long ropes from his mouth.

The curved stone surface of the wall behind me was smooth and slick with sewer wetness. Climbing out to evade Desmond wouldn’t be an option. I had my sword and knife, but as far as I was concerned there was no way in hell I would be drawing a weapon against my own boyfriend, werewolf or not.

“He looks hungry,” Peyton commented from above.

I glanced up to see him peering over the edge, a wicked grin on his face. He was just perfectly fucking delighted with himself over this one.

“What did you do to him?”

“I’ve worked with wolves before, Secret. You don’t think I learned a thing or two about managing them in that time?”

Managing them.

I thought back to the time he’d teamed up with Marcus Sullivan, the former alpha of Albany and my mom’s psycho main squeeze
du jour
. Peyton had used Marcus’s men as guards instead of trusting vampires, but those wolves had all remained in their human form. Nothing about that encounter explained how Desmond was all furry right now.

When we’d gone to the fairy realm, he’d lost control of his wolf and been forced to shift. Was it possible he was better able to change forms without the help of the moon now?

No, that seemed unlikely. We’d been back for months, and he hadn’t shown any signs of it until now, unless he was keeping them from me.

But Desmond wasn’t the one who kept secrets. I was.

I ran my palms over the wall again, hoping a handhold might reveal itself, but what was I going to climb out to? They wouldn’t help me out at the top, they’d just kick me back down. I’d managed to make it through one landing without serious injury, but I wasn’t immune to broken bones. I couldn’t risk a second fall.

For the time being Desmond seemed content to growl at me and wasn’t lunging or snapping his teeth. Yet.

“Desmond…”

The hair on his haunches stood on end as he stooped his body closer to the floor. I knew wolves pretty well, and this was textbook attack behavior. Guess he wasn’t in the mood to chat.

My wolf had been feeling motivated a few minutes earlier in Peyton’s chamber, and I wondered if she might be willing to participate in this situation. When Desmond had shifted to his wolf form in the fairy realm, he’d been borderline homicidal. My wolf had been able to control him then. Maybe she’d be able to help now.

Anytime…

Desmond edged forward with an exaggerated pounce. It was an intimidation gesture, and it was working. He was an alpha wolf, for crying out loud. He’d be scary if he was a normal wolf size, but he was like a pony-sized wolf. He could get my head into his mouth with very little effort.

I didn’t want to give him the chance to try.

His ears were flat against his skull, and his lips pulled back to show a terrifying, toothy grin that would make the Joker proud.

Actually, it would probably make the Joker shit himself.

“Okay, bitch, anytime.” She was my wolf. I didn’t feel the need to be polite.

We can’t hurt him.

At least she was awake.

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

He is our mate.

“I
know
. Just make him behave.”

She growled, and inside I could feel a sensation that defied explanation. A human couldn’t comprehend having a werewolf come alive inside their skin. I could feel her, all fur and heat and yearning. She unfurled, opening like a fist unclenching, and the prickly feel of it made me shudder.

She was getting stronger.

Desmond must have sensed her because he stopped advancing and instead of growling, let out a low whine.

Let me out,
she demanded.

I didn’t like the sound of that. “We can’t shift. Not here.”

Let me speak.

That I could do. “Fine.”

My body jerked as if I’d taken an electric shock to the spine. I crumpled to the floor, panting, and spasmed several times. What was she doing? I’d told her we couldn’t shift, and this was suspiciously shifting-like in its symptoms.

“
Stop,
” I gasped.

I shuddered violently, and without realizing I’d moved, I was now crouched in a low squat, my palms flat on the stone. When my mouth opened, it wasn’t because I was trying to speak, yet words came out anyway, and they weren’t mine.

“Lie down, beast of the ranks. You have challenged me before and proven unfit. Kneel before your queen or suffer.”

There’d been times in the past I wondered how Lucas had ever believed I was suitable to be the werewolf queen. As Secret, I wasn’t. But the wolf inside me? She was a different story, and she commanded so much respect, I understood now what he’d seen.
She
was the queen, not me.

Wolf-Desmond edged forward, sniffling the air, still showing his front fangs in a sign of fearful defiance. Because of the position I was in, I was now facing the wolf head-on, his snout barely a foot away from me. I was terrified, but my wolf was having none of it.

Show no fear, foolish girl. Don’t make him doubt us.

Easy for her to say since she wasn’t the one whose body was on the line. What did she care if my human face got ripped to shreds? It only mattered to her if I died.

I swallowed hard and focused on the rough feeling of the stone beneath my fingers. It was wet and slippery, and I curved my nails around one of the cobblestone edges and gripped it until it hurt. Focusing on the pain took my mind off the trail of saliva dripping from Desmond’s yaw to the floor.

“
BOW DOWN.
” The voice ripped from me and sounded like something echoing from the bowels of hell itself. If it hadn’t come out of my own mouth, it might have scared the living shit out of me, but as it was my fingers began to tremble.

What
was
this thing inside me?

I had never spent a lot of time focused on the finer details of living with a wolf trapped in my body. For much of my life I’d ignored her completely, using the cool, calming effects of my vampire blood to keep her in line. But ever since my trip to Louisiana, when I’d shifted for the first—and only—time, she was hell-bent on making me acknowledge her.

And she was winning.

More and more often now I was relying on her to engage in partial shifts, or using her power to keep others in line. Right now I was still getting the better end of the bargain, and she had yet to ask for her pound of flesh in return. But the time was coming when she would, I could feel it. She would want to shift, and she would want to run, and once we were in wolf form, I had no idea if I’d wield any control at all.

Sometimes I wondered if she would keep us in that form forever.

A small part of me asked if that would be the worst thing to happen.

Several of the vampires had reacted to my cry, crowding around the edge of the pit to look down at us and watch what was transpiring. Desmond’s lips relaxed so I could no longer see every tooth in his mouth, and he gave a short growl before finally whining and lying down, covering his snout with one paw as if ashamed to face me.

“You do not dare to disobey your queen again. If it happens a third time, I will not be gracious.”

The bitch meant business too. I could feel the truth of her words reverberate through me. She wasn’t one to toss down empty threats, and apparently it didn’t matter that Desmond was our mate—as she constantly reminded me—she
would
make him regret another assault on us.

I found it bizarre I’d needed to resort to threats against Desmond, of all people. In his human form he was the kindest, gentlest man who wouldn’t dream of doing anything to hurt me. Even the first time I’d seen him in his wolf form, he’d been so careful with me. Yet he was showing an antagonism he never had previously. It was like Desmond was hiding away a part of himself that wanted to hurt me.

I didn’t want to dwell on that thought too much.

I rose to my feet, and Desmond settled into a crouch beside me, butting his head against my thigh like a dog begging for a head scratch. I obliged him, and he licked my fingertips.

“Any bright ideas on how to get us out of here?” I wasn’t sure if I was asking Desmond or my inner wolf.

Considering Desmond couldn’t speak, he wasn’t going to be much help. And taking into account the wolf and I shared one mind, if I didn’t have any notions, she wasn’t likely to be much use either.

I have done my job.

Yeah. Helpful.

“My dear, I can’t help but notice you haven’t been shredded to a bloody mess.” Peyton didn’t sound disappointed so much as he sounded nervous.

It was then I remembered our deal.

“I’ve bested the wolf.”

“But you haven’t killed it.”

“I won’t.” He didn’t need a big speech about my reasons or a plea for Desmond’s release. If Peyton had his way, Desmond and I would be dead before sunrise, and I wasn’t going to play into his plan. He could turn Des against me, but I wouldn’t kill the man I loved.

Calliope’s voice nagged at me, reminding me of something.

You will die standing next to the one you love.

And what was it she’d told Desmond that same night?

You’ll be with her in the end.

No. I refused to believe we’d go down like this. I might be a fairly depressed and slightly morbid sack of shit these days, but I never thought I’d face off against Peyton and he’d win. Never. The plan had always been for me to leave here with his decapitated head as a trophy.

“I understand if you’re afraid to face me alone,” I called up. “After all, it would certainly be humiliating for all your minions to watch someone with a
pulse
kick your ass.” I knew Peyton would hate the idea of a human killing him, even if he knew I wasn’t altogether mortal.

He sat down on the edge of the pit, dangling his feet over. One good hop and I might be able to grab him. Maybe if the stones weren’t so slippery.

“Let’s talk frankly, shall we? Now that I have you as a captive audience.” He laughed, and the shrillness of it sent me into a full-body shudder. It might be hubris on his part, but he wasn’t scared of me in the least.

Hard to blame the guy when I was at the bottom of a pit and he’d managed to turn my backup into a wolf.

“Go fuck yourself, Peyton.”

“Or I could have you bound in silver and left to rot, and I could have my way with you until your body was nothing but bone and ash.” His voice was cold and level, but an edge of hysteria crept in as he got further along. “Because silver chains
would
bind you, wouldn’t they, Secret? Don’t pretend you’re mortal. I don’t feel like playing dumb with you anymore, little bitch.”

Jesus. I’d thought it strange when he was behaving like a manic child, toying with me in a gleeful way. The guy was nuts, but given how much he hated me I thought this whole situation had been strange from top to bottom. But here it was, the venomous loathing I’d been expecting. This was the Peyton I’d visited when he was chained in the darkness.
This
was the Peyton who had promised he’d see me dead someday.