Something Secret This Way Comes: Secret McQueen, Book 1 (27 page)

“And that starts with me babysitting Miss Vampire USA?”

“She is a vampire because of you.”

“I didn’t make her.”

“Did you not? Really.” Sig arched a loaded eyebrow at me. “If you hadn’t taken Peyton’s fang, or killed his rogue spawn
without
permission, would Miss Stewart be a vampire today? It may be ripples in a pond, Secret, but your actions have their consequences.”

I looked at the stars so I didn’t have to admit he was right. “Brigit isn’t why you’re here. And I doubt you came to check on my health.”

“This is true.”

“So, what? Why come across dimensions just to get me out of bed?”

“Would you rather I came across dimensions to get you
into
bed?”

I frowned at him.

“No, then?” He chuckled, then rose from the seat so I was staring up the full six-and-a-half-foot length of him. It was a daunting view. “I came to give you your next job.”

His announcement reminded me of the last job he’d assigned me, and phantom pains stabbed through me at various key places.

“Peyton. What happened to him?”

“We are taking care of that.”

“He’s alive?”

“As alive as a vampire can be. Though I’m certain he wishes he were not. He will say nothing about what he learned of you from Mercy, I’ve seen to that. You did excellent work. Ingrid was very complimentary, which is rare for her.”

Apart from telling him how well I was able to bleed out, I couldn’t imagine what kind of compliments Ingrid had paid me.

“And my mother?”

Sig’s calm veneer flickered. “She escaped. Your wolf king sent someone back so she could be dealt with under the covenants of the pack, but she was gone. I’m sorry.”

I took a moment to think about that. Mercy McQueen, the mother who hated me enough to sell me out to her mate and his vampire associate, was still out there somewhere.

“What do you want?” I was exhausted, weak and so sore the slightest shift made me feel like I was being compressed by the Death Star trash compactor. What I wanted more than anything was to be in a bed with Lucas or Desmond beside me, and to feel whole again. I did not want a vampire protégée or more responsibility from the council. I certainly didn’t want whatever job Sig had felt the need to hand-deliver to me before I’d been given a chance to heal.

He withdrew a small black envelope from his pocket and placed it on the seat next to me. It looked different from the white linen envelopes I usually got from him. “I am so very sorry.” He bowed down and placed a hand on my cheek, staring at me for a long time with such intensity I was unable to turn away.

“She was never really my mother.”

“That’s not why I’m sorry.”

He dropped his hand and walked away. Before I could think of a proper response he had disappeared into the shadows and was gone.

I picked up the black envelope and flipped it over in my hands several times, tracing the outline of the wax seal with my fingertips. The seal was an engraving of a peacock feather.

Never in the six years I’d worked for the council had Sig met with me alone to give me the name of a target. I almost always received them from Holden. It felt too intimate to receive my orders straight from the hands of the Tribunal’s leader, and I was instantly suspicious of the envelope.

My heart was pounding inside my rib cage like a frightened bird trying to use its body to invent freedom where there was none. I took a deep, rattling breath and broke the seal on the envelope, but paused before opening it.

This was big. It was important. Sig wouldn’t have brought it to me this way if it weren’t. Something in me understood that when I opened the envelope the whole game changed. When I opened it nothing would ever be the same.

I released the breath and slid out the stiff white card inside. On it, in Sig’s sharp, looping scrawl, a name was written in mottled black ink.

That name was Holden Chancery.

About the Author

Sierra Dean is a reformed historian. She was born and raised in the Canadian prairies and is allowed annual exit visas in order to continue her quest of steadily conquering the world one city at a time. Making the best of the cold Canadian winters, Sierra indulges in her less global interests: drinking too much tea and writing urban fantasy.

Ever since she was a young girl she has loved the idea of the supernatural coexisting with the mundane. As an adult, however, the idea evolved from the notion of fairies in flowerbeds, to imagining that the rugged-looking guy at the garage might secretly be a werewolf. She has used her overactive imagination to create her own version of the world, where vampire, werewolves, fairies, gods and monsters all walk among us, and she’ll continue to travel as much as possible until she finds it for real.

Sierra can be reached all over the place, as she’s a little addicted to social networking. Find her on:

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/sierradeanbooks

Website:
www.sierradean.com

E-mail:
[email protected]

Twitter:
@sierradean

Look for these titles by Sierra Dean

Coming Soon:

Secret McQueen

The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters

A Bloody Good Secret

The first bullet is always free. After that, you gotta pay.

The Zero Dog War

© 2011 Keith Melton

Zero Dog Missions, Book 1

After accidentally blowing up both a client facility and a cushy city contract in the same day, pyromancer and mercenary captain Andrea Walker is scrambling to save her Zero Dogs. A team including (but not limited to) a sexually repressed succubus, a werewolf with a thing for health food, a sarcastic tank driver/aspiring romance novelist, a three-hundred-pound calico cat, and a massive demon who really loves to blow stuff up.

With the bankruptcy vultures circling, Homeland Security throws her a high-paying, short-term contract even the Zero Dogs can’t screw up: destroy a capitalist necromancer bent on dominating the gelatin industry with an all-zombie workforce. The catch? She has to take on Special Forces Captain Jake Sanders, a man who threatens both the existence of the team and Andrea’s deliberate avoidance of romantic entanglements.

As Andrea strains to hold her dysfunctional team together long enough to derail the corporate zombie apocalypse, the prospect of getting her heart run over by a tank tread is the least of her worries. The government never does anything without an ulterior motive. Jake could be the key to success…or just another bad day at the office for the Zeroes.

Warning: Contains explicit language, intense action and violence, rampaging zombie hordes, a heroine with an attitude and flamethrower, Special Forces commandos, ninjas, apocalyptic necromancer capitalist machinations, absurd parody and mayhem, self-deluded humor, irreverence, geek humor, mutant cats, low-brow comedy, and banana-kiwi-flavored gelatin.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Zero Dog War:

I double-timed it up the stairs off the foyer, thumping my way toward Gavin’s rooms. I wanted nothing more than to get this over with ASAP, and I’d just raced up to the second-floor landing when I rounded the banister and crashed right into Captain Sanders. For one moment all I could think about was muscles and the smell of gun oil…until I realized he held me steady, his large hands on my upper arms. I shoved back from him, and he let me go. I could feel my skin grow blazing hot.

“Excuse me.” I stepped farther away. He’d come early. I hadn’t expected him until tonight. Something else to deal with, and my list already floweth over.

He smiled, but he had a way of looking at me that made me feel as if I were the focal point of the universe, as if he waited for every word I might chose to speak. I didn’t like it. The word
disconcerting
sprang to mind.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve been more careful. I was looking for you.”

“I’ll let you know when I find me.”

He cocked an eyebrow, but his smile didn’t falter. I took a deep breath and willed my heart to airbrake back to a normal speed. A muscle in my cheek might’ve twitched with my effort to suppress my stupid schoolgirl-crush reactions. I clamped down even tighter. I had a job to do and a team to run. I sure as hell wouldn’t allow this distraction to endanger either.

“I wondered if we could sit down together and go over a few tactical scenarios before the briefing,” he said. “Make sure we’re on the same page.”

“I’m still tracking down my people.” I glanced at my watch. “And I’m scheduled out until about…eight twenty-five. And hey, that’s when your briefing starts. How unfortunate.”

His smile slipped a notch. “Maybe afterwards—”

“Look, Captain Sanders—”

“Call me Jake. Save syllables.”

“Fine.
Jake
. I’m busy running a team,
Jake
. Not a lot of time to attend your little
tête-à-tête
.” Hail, and all witness Captain Andrea Walker behaving like an ass—yet, I couldn’t stop now. Inertia was a horrible thing.

He didn’t seem daunted as the wattage on his smile dialed back up to blazing. “May I call you Andrea? In private, of course.”

God. Damn. It. Men, you let them pick up the ball and they ran off the field with it, yelling how they’d won. “I’m more comfortable with Captain Walker,
Jake
, thank you.”

“All right, Captain Walker.”

We stood so close, with no one else around. My skin felt afire, flushed, and sweat dampened my armpits. The urge to drop my gaze from his eyes pulled at me like an iron chain, but I refused to look away. Dominance games? I could play them all week, and he’d soon find out if he didn’t stand down. I stepped back from him again, putting even more distance between us. Any farther and I’d fall down the stairs—but I still didn’t blink, so point to me.

He didn’t pursue. “I’m confident we can map out some strategies to maximize our team assets.”

“
Our
team assets? Look,
Jake
, those are my people. Mine. I’m responsible for them, for keeping them safe and getting them back here every night after we go out and bust our asses, blowing shit up. I call the shots. I’m the only Captain Ahab around here. You can dispense advice when I damn well decide I need the input of a magical Green Beret.”

Something flared in his eyes—either anger or respect—before the professional detachment slammed back down. Anger I could understand, but respect would only vex me more. I didn’t need his damn respect.

“I didn’t mean to violate protocols,” he said in a smooth, calm voice. “I just want to make certain we mesh together well. That our leadership styles are fully integrated to avoid any splintering of command.”

Mesh together well. That conjured up some distracting images. Oh, he did vex me something awful, the bastard. “We can fully integrate if you listen to my orders. When we’re hot, I’m calling the shots.”

“Understood. I’m here to support and advise. My only goal is to achieve our mission objectives.”

“Then I suggest you stay out of my way. I’m driving this truck.” I walked around him, careful not to touch him again, and continued up the next set of stairs, willing my fists to remain unclenched and my jaw muscles to cease and desist from grinding my teeth to powder.

He called after me. “One last thing, Captain Walker.”

I glanced down. He had his game face on—a hard-as-steel, raptor-eyed, chew-dynamite-and-spit-out-nitroglycerin look which appeared pretty damn impressive. “What?”

“I meant what I said about achieving mission objectives. I’ll do whatever I have to. There are lives to save.”

I swallowed my cheeky comment and gave him the benefit of a nod, despite my smoldering irritation. As if I didn’t know there were civvy lives at stake. Who’d he think he was dealing with? Backwater hicks?

I spun on my heel and took the stairs two at a time, eager to be away from him. God help me, this might just be the hardest damn job I’d ever done.

What happens in Atlantic City…changes everything.

The Naked Detective

© 2010 Vivi Andrews

Karmic Consultants, Book 4

The “gift” that makes Ciara Liung the FBI’s prized secret weapon makes her existence more like a curse. Unable to bear human contact, she lives as a hermit, immersing herself in the water that gives her peace and amplifies her power.

Her new FBI handler, though, only believes what he can see. The problem? Her gift—the ability to psychically locate stolen jewels—only works in the nude.

Special Agent Nathan Smith can’t believe he’s expected to babysit some psychic finder. Psychic…right. An undercover op gone wrong may have left him a desk jockey—and Ciara’s charms are more distracting than he cares to admit—but he’s a field agent at heart. She’s working some kind of angle. It’s just a matter of time before he unravels it.

Sent to Atlantic City to recover a ruby necklace for Monaco’s royal family, both finder and Fed are pushed outside their comfort zones, and discover more than they ever believed possible. And when a trap is sprung, they realize they stand to lose much more than a sparkly stone…

Warning: This book contains gambling, go-go dancers, public indecency, and every brand of trouble a troubled psychic can get into in America’s Playground.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Naked Detective:

Ciara was standing in the stall, pulling her dress over her head, when she realized Nate had actually let her out of his sight. He hadn’t swept the bathroom to make sure there weren’t other exits or frisked her for a hidden cell phone. He’d just let her walk in here without so much as a second glance.

In the four days she’d known him, that was unprecedented.

Could Nate Smith actually believe her?

Ciara came out of the bathroom to find Nate leaning against a slot machine as he waited. He looked utterly relaxed, as if there hadn’t been even a flicker of doubt in his mind that she would return to him. Trust. It seemed to have burst open between them impossibly fast.