Grave Secret (35 page)

That more than anything was what calmed me down.

I touched Desmond’s arm and gently pushed, angling him out of my way. Crossing the small distance to my living room, I stood about two feet shy of Sig. Never letting my gaze leave his, I drove my knee up, bumping his hand and sending the sword into the air. It went straight upwards and fell back, coming straight for me.

I clapped my hands together, locking the silver blade between my palms. It was something I wouldn’t have been able to do if I wasn’t human. Something Sig himself could not do without being burned. Letting the sword slip the rest of the way to the floor, I held it by the handle and gave the two-thousand-year-old vampire an assessing stare.

“I’m not easy to kill.”

Sig leaned closer and cupped my chin, the smile on his lips taking on a serpentine quality. “You haven’t been listening, have you? Living is what’s hard. It’s dying that is easy.”

I frowned, my hand tightening on the handle of the sword.

“I’m here to make you an offer,” Sig continued, ignoring my defensive stance. “A choice, even, which is more than most people get.”

“A choice in what?”

“You are a Tribunal leader, Secret. One of the highest positions of power there is in vampire society. If you show up to the council and reek of humanity as you do now, it will be anarchy. Every vampire down to the lowest on the totem…” his gaze shifted briefly to Brigit, “…will be clambering over one another to seize your power. And they will do it by killing you.”

“And I gather this choice you have for me will solve that problem?”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Desmond said, trying to step back in front of me. I stopped him with a gentle touch, indicating I appreciated his efforts to protect me, but I still wanted to hear what Sig was proposing.

“What are my choices?”

“To remain Tribunal, you must be a vampire.”

Now I was with Desmond. I didn’t like where this was going either. “
What are my choices
?” I repeated, this time unable to hide the annoyance that slipped out.

“Very simple. Your choices are me…” he pointed to himself, and then turned and pointed a finger at Holden, “…or him.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

I didn’t know a face could become purple in real life until I saw it happen to Desmond. He started out pink then quickly progressed to a deep, ugly bruise color. I thought I’d have the most impassioned response to Sig’s suggestion, but I was wrong.

“Desmond, breathe,” I suggested quietly.

“I can’t,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“I’ve got this.”

Slowly his color returned to normal, but I waited until I was sure he wasn’t going to pass out before I spoke to Sig. “After what Holden told you about my experience with the fairy king, and the number of years you’ve known me…can you honestly expect me to be able to flip a coin and decide which one of you gets to take my life? This isn’t a one-or-the-other question. This isn’t something you can expect me to agree to on the spot. If you think I’m going to say, ‘oh yes, Sig, please bite me
right now
’ you have got another thing coming.”

“So you pick me, then,” Sig replied.

“You have honed some incredibly selective hearing over two thousand years, do you know that?”

“I do.”

“No one is biting me.”

“You too have chosen to hear me as you see fit, if you understood this as being optional.”

“You’re asking me to give up my life.”

“Certainly you haven’t gotten terribly attached to it in less than twenty-four hours. Let’s be realistic here.”

“It’s my
life
.”

“No. It is a romantic view of an idealized outcome. You think by being human you will be able to have a
normal
life. You don’t have the luxury of a normal life. Not now, not ever. You sacrificed that right when you wed a werewolf king and sat on a vampire throne.”

“The Tribunal spot wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“If our lives were only about what we wanted, everyone would have perfect love, millions of dollars and no complaints. You cannot be so foolish to believe you can have things the way you like them all the time. You have responsibilities.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“I think you let passion lead you when it suits, and pragmatism takes charge only when absolutely necessary.”

I slapped him.

It
hurt
. Way more than an open-palm slap should. But I’d put real force into it, and slapping a vampire when you’re a mere mortal is a terrible idea under any circumstances. “Don’t you dare pretend like you know what I’ve had to think about today. You can’t possibly know.”

My slap did nothing to impact Sig’s mood. He remained serious, but there was no rage in him. “I am not trying to be cruel to you. I know this isn’t what you hoped for, but your life is not yours alone. If you do not do what I am suggesting, then your death will come at the hands of someone else, and there will be no coming back from that death. I’m doing this to save your life, not to punish you for having it.”

With my hands shaking and the threat of tears brewing, I stepped aside to create a clear path between Sig and the door. “Get out.”

“Secret—”

“
Out.
”

Holden got to his feet and stood next to Sig. He had a familiar look on his face, one that made me certain I was about to get a lecture about protecting my life and blah, blah, blah. “We can make this quick. Painless. You know the bite can even be pleasurable—”

My cheeks flamed red, and I pointed to the door with my pulse throbbing in my ears. “You too. Get out.”

Holden frowned and reached out to touch my arm.

I jerked away and raised the sword. “I’m not playing around. I may be human, but I have no damn problem remembering how to use this.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Sig said.

“Don’t
push
me.”

The two vampires stared at me. Holden added, “We need you to do this.”

“You need to give me more than two and a half seconds to accept that.”

“We don’t have time for insight and soul-searching,” Sig said. “The longer you remain human, the greater the risk. We have avoided the secret getting out, but the longer you are away from the council, the more questionable your absence becomes.”

“I know.”

“And your mother is back, I understand? Do you think she won’t take advantage of this?”

“She will.”

“So you see why this must happen.”

“I see a door. What I don’t see is you two going through it.”

“Now is
not
the time for your stubbornness.”

“You know, considering how vampires usually have all the patience in the world, you two seem completely unable to give me time to digest how I want to handle this. Being a vampire is
not
my only option.”

“No?” Sig asked, obviously not believing me.

“No. I could let
him
bite me.” I indicated Desmond, who had done a good job of keeping his cool after his initial outburst.

Sig laughed. “What on earth would that solve?”

“I’d stop being an easy target. I’d be damned hard to kill. And I’d be living up to the other heap of responsibilities you seem totally willing to overlook. The werewolf ones.”

Holden shook his head. “We know about that part of you, but this is more important.”

“Yeah, you would think so, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s not hubris. Whether or not you are a werewolf doesn’t decide your life. You can give up your place with the wolves and still go on. You don’t love the wolf king anymore.”

“He’s not the only wolf who mattered to me, you idiot.”

“Well, if
that
one cares about you, he’s still going to care about you if you’re a vampire instead of a werewolf.”

“And if
you
care about me, you won’t mind if I want to be werewolf instead of a vampire,” I countered.

“Do you think that’s what this is about?” Holden pushed in front of Sig, and I had to lower my sword, or I’d risk stabbing him by accident. “This isn’t about whether or not I can love you as a wolf, or a human, or a vampire, Secret. I’ll love you no matter what you are or what you become. That’s
not
what this is. If you aren’t a vampire, you are going to die. There’s no other way around it. And whatever else you might be, I can’t love you if you’re dead.”

I was thunderstruck.

It wasn’t often in my life I’d been left at a total loss for words, but Holden’s speech had knocked the wind right out of me.

“I need tonight,” I said finally. “Just tonight.”

Holden looked like he might argue, but Sig raised one hand to silence him. “You can have it.”

“Thank you. Now get out. Both of you.”

This time neither of them argued. Once they were gone, my apartment felt small, like they’d taken all the air with them. Ironic, since neither of them breathed. Desmond was flushed, and I could tell he wasn’t happy about what had happened. I couldn’t blame him, but I couldn’t apologize either. Holden professing his love was just one point of insanity on an already batshit-crazy day. What was worse was that his words had a huge impact on me. Holden loved me, and I loved him, and I wasn’t ready to throw that all away. Maybe I shouldn’t turn up my nose at the idea of being a vampire.

Specifically I shouldn’t turn up my nose at the idea of being bound to Holden for the rest of my life. In the most intimate way possible.

These were not the kind of decisions normal human girls had to make. Even as a mortal I was still dealing with the crap from a supernatural life.

I slumped into the loveseat, still holding the sword. “Desmond, I need you to do something for me. You’re not going to like it, but I need you to do it.”

“What is it?”

“Get Lucas. Bring him here.”

If he’d had fur, it would have bristled. “
Why
?”

“Because if I’m going to die tomorrow, I need him to do me one last favor.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

As far as nights went, this was shaping up to be one of the longest of my life.

It took ten minutes for me to convince Desmond it was safe to leave me alone with Brigit, and I spent the next fifteen on the phone with Jackson listening to him bitch about Kellen. So much for my bright idea to hand-deliver rebound sex to her front door.

“She will
not
shut up about this dude, Brokk, and I swear to God she must have cases of booze hidden everywhere in this apartment. She’s like a goddamn Prohibition smuggler. Every time I take something away from her, she disappears and comes back with more.”

“Maybe her fairy boyfriend created a magical rift between her fridge and a liquor store,” I suggested. Did all humans suffer from headaches as often and severely as I was? Or perhaps it had something to do with spending an entire afternoon in the sunshine when I’d never been able to look at it before.

“I don’t think this is funny,” Jackson said.

“Neither do I.”

“I’m done with this.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean I’m done. I’m out of here. This isn’t my job.”

I sat upright in my chair. “Jackson, don’t do anything stupid.”

“More stupid than sitting here and letting this drunk bit…jackass treat me like dirt under her
very expensive
heels—as she is constantly reminding me? Fuck it.”

Looked like I wasn’t the only one Kellen was treating like crap today. I wish I could have said it felt good not to be the lone member of the club, but I couldn’t. My partner in crime was about to bail on me. “Jackson, you can’t leave her. If there’s no one there to watch her, she’s going to bolt.”

“Do you know what she’s doing right now?”

“Drinking?”

“No. She’s angling all of her mirrors so they face each other, because she read on the internet it was a surefire way to open gateways to parallel realities and
invite
fairies in. Does that sound to you like someone who wants to be protected from the fae?”

“She’s under a spell. I don’t think she has any idea what she’s doing.” But I didn’t sound sure of it myself.

“I don’t give a fuck.”

Where had the mild-mannered, sweet, shy wolf gone? Jackson had never been this cold before. Kellen must have been acting like a real cow if she’d pushed him over the edge this quickly.

“Do you think you can hold out for the rest of the night?”

“Look, Secret…I know you’re my Queen and I’m supposed to respect your word as law and all that stuff. And I know I probably owe you this.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“But if I last another
hour
without murdering her, it will be a miracle.”

“Oh.”
Fuck
.

“Either you come here for a changing of the guard, or I’m letting this dizzy bitch run off to her fairy lala land.” He had to be
really
mad if he’d dropped the
b
word, which was a big no-no for werewolves. “Why are you stopping her anyway? She obviously wants to go. Let her.”