by Sierra Dean
In another lifetime, Calliope had been Marilyn Monroe, but it was hard to think of them as the same person. She still had the wide-eyed youthful innocence in her appearance, but her hair was ink black and she radiated power and intelligence instead of charming naïveté. Today she seemed tired, and there was a weary strain around her eyes. Once she was seated on the arm of the chair, she started stroking my hair, and I realized she hadn’t spoken since I’d gotten here except for when she made me sit. Not that I’d given her a chance to get a word in edgewise.
“Do you know what she was?” Calliope asked, like she’d read my mind.
“Creepy.”
“Aside from that.”
“No, I was hoping you might have some insight.”
“Do you have anything to go on other than average looking and glowing eyes?”
“I think I said dowdy.”
Calliope arched a brow at me and tugged one of my curls. It reminded me of something Sig might do to bring me back to the topic at hand. She wouldn’t appreciate being compared to her ex-lover, so I buried the thought.
I touched the cut on my forehead which had already scabbed over. The tissue was tender, but it would be completely healed in an hour or so.
“No,” I replied at last. “I don’t have anything.”
“Could be a fire fae. Or a spirit-possessed human. Half-demon perhaps. There are any number of things. She could have been a witch, even. Some spells have physical manifestations.”
Making a mental note to ask Grandmere if she knew any spells that would give the caster ember eyes, I shifted the subject radically.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Mmm?”
“How much do you know about the Tribunal?”
Her whole body went still, and her tone was cold when she asked, “Why?”
“It’s not about… It’s just… I think I’m changing.”
“Changing?”
“Lately I’ve found it’s getting harder and harder to calm the urge to feed on humans.” I watched her closely, trying to see if her demeanor would change after the confession.
“Are you worried you wouldn’t be able to control yourself?”
“No.”
“Then feed on humans. What’s the issue?”
I suppose it was foolish to think Calliope would understand my hesitation. After all, she fed on virgin blood and aura energy. Taking sustenance from humans made sense to her because it was how she survived. It was a way of life for the vampires as well. I think only the wolves could relate to my squeamishness, and that was because they still associated themselves with humanity.
“I can’t.”
“It’s natural enough.”
I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “No.”
When I looked back over, she was staring at me intently. “You’re afraid.” Her gaze bore into me, making me shiver in spite of the roaring fire across the room. “The power of the Tribunal frightens you because you aren’t sure you want to give yourself over to their world.”
Well, there was no sense in arguing with an Oracle, especially since she was always right.
“Yes.”
“Is that why you won’t feed from a live human? Because to do so means you will become what Sig and the Tribunal want you to be?”
I swallowed hard. “Probably.”
“Oh, Secret.” She touched the crown of my head delicately. “I should have been honest with you long before now, but Sig said it would only confuse you. But I think you’re stronger now than you were all those years ago.”
“What’s wrong?” I couldn’t hide the quiver of worry from sneaking into my voice. Her buildup made it seem like she was about to tell me I had a terminal illness and was living on borrowed time. Although in my line of work all time was borrowed anyway.
“Do you know how I do what I do?” she asked.
“How you…oracle?”
Her hand dropped from my hair, and she leaned her head back. “Fore—” She sighed, and I was familiar with the sound. I made the same exasperated exhalation whenever I was with my vampire protégée Brigit. Not a good sign. “Close enough,” she concluded.
“I assumed you had visions or something.”
“Not exactly.” Calliope grabbed my hand and turned it palm up. “All mortal beings have a path. And most of them will follow it precisely as it is laid out for them.” She trailed a manicured fingernail over the long line down the middle of my palm. “For most people I can tell what will happen to them because I can see their path.”
“Ohhh-kay.”
She ignored me and grabbed my other hand, putting the palms side by side. “You aren’t like most people.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“All right.” She traced the line on my left hand. “Yours is a destiny divided.”
I looked at my palms, hoping they could explain what her cryptic words meant. Her nail followed one line, then moved to the right hand and trailed along the middle line there, which was significantly longer, bisecting the entire palm where the one on my left hand was only about two inches long.
“What do you mean by divided?”
“You have two potential destinies.”
“That’s impossible. You just said everyone has a path, we follow that path, live our lives and die. A person can’t have two destinies.”
Calliope pressed my hands together and put them in my lap. They began to tremble.
“No. I said most people, not everyone.”
“So what are my paths?”
“You are part of two worlds, Secret. Each one of them represents a path. Whichever world you choose to align yourself with is the path you will be on. I cannot see all the way, and you haven’t chosen your path yet.”
I unclasped my hands and stared down at them. “What is the line in the middle?”
“Your lifeline.” She held up her own palm, and it was utterly smooth, not a line in sight. As a true immortal, I gathered trivial things like lifelines didn’t come up very often for her.
“One of mine is shorter than the other.”
“Yes.”
I didn’t say anything. Part of me wanted to ask her which path was which, and what it meant that one line was so much longer, but I had a pretty good idea. The long line must be my vampire life, and the short one if I choose to stay with the wolves. I pressed my palms back together.
“What if I keep going as I am now? Living in both worlds.”
“Is that what you’re doing, Secret? Living? Or are you being torn apart?”
My eyelid twitched, and I got to my feet abruptly, hurt by her words. “I didn’t ask for this, you know. I was born this way, and I’m doing the best I know how with it.”
Calliope nodded and watched me, but there was sadness in her eyes I couldn’t ignore.
“Tell me which one to choose,” I asked, holding my hands out to her.
She rose and came to stand in front of me, taking my hands in hers and squeezing. “When the time comes, you’ll know.”
I pulled my hands away. “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know which path is the right one.”
“I won’t until you do.”
“Awesome. Cal, I love you, I really do, but have you ever heard the phrase no news is good news? If you can’t tell me my destiny, and you don’t know the right path for me, why did you tell me any of this at all?”
“You need to know that a time will come when there will no longer be one option or the other, and it will have been decided for you. If I tell you there are two paths, it is in your power to guide your destiny and not have it guide you.”
I heaved a sigh. She meant well, but the last thing I wanted to hear was that my life was going to get even more complicated.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more,” she added.
“So am I.”
“But you can’t escape this. You will have to choose.”
Turning away, I moved towards the exit. “I guess I’ll burn
that bridge when I get there.”
“I’ll see you soon, Secret.”
Looking over my shoulder, I gave her a weak smile. “You would know.”
Chapter Eight
Dinner was turning into an unmitigated disaster.
Unlike Desmond, who was gifted with otherworldly cooking skills, Lucas was not a natural in the kitchen. I was sitting on a high barstool, elbows perched on the central island, watching as he dug himself deeper and deeper into the grave of embarrassment. I could have offered to help, but I wasn’t exactly the most skilled chef myself. I didn’t need to be. There are only so many ways one can serve blood. Hot, cold or fresh from the tap. And it took thirty-eight seconds to make a steak to my satisfaction.
Lucas and I had been in his kitchen for almost an hour, and by now I felt like we were filming an outtake reel for a home-cooking show.
“Lucas, it’s really sweet—”
“I’ve almost got it,” he said, rushed panic edging his voice.
Perhaps it was better to avoid soothing his bruised ego.
He opened the oven door and smoke billowed outwards. The only time I’d ever seen someone burn something so badly it smoked was the last time Nolan used Keaty’s kitchen and managed to ruin French fries. Cupping my chin in my hand, I let out a huffed sigh, which masked the laugh I was having a hard time keeping in.
With no oven mitt, he reached in to pull out the tray containing our dinner. At first I assumed he couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to grab a blistering-hot metal rack with his bare hands, so I didn’t say anything. But as he got closer, I realized he was just flustered enough to have forgotten Kitchen Basics 101.
“No,” I shrieked, vaulting myself over the island and kicking the oven door shut. The metal door skimmed Lucas’s hand, and he jerked it back, giving me a hard look. My hip was pressed against the oven, ensuring he didn’t make another grab for the door until he understood what an idiot he’d almost proven himself to be.
He looked from me to my empty stool, which was still wobbling from my sudden exit, and his eyes widened. Over the island, a hanging rack of copper pots was swaying, creating a jangling symphony of metal against metal.
“How did you…?”
“I’m pretty fast when I need to be.”
“But…”
The oven mitts were on the marble countertop next to the stove, and I shoved them into his hands. “You might want to remember those next time.”
A squeak from the kitchen door made us both look up. Dominick Alvarez stood in the open door, arms crossed over his chest, his blond hair flattened on one side and sticking up at the back like he’d just rolled out of bed. He was glowering at us with a serious, disapproving expression that was belied by the mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes.
He couldn’t have appeared more different from his brother. In fact, he could have easily been mistaken for Lucas’s brother instead of Desmond’s.
“I can’t leave you two alone for a night?” he scolded.
“Lucas can’t cook.”
“I could have told you that.”
The wolf king glowered at us, but with the haze of gray smoke clouding the room, the evidence was stacked against him. He didn’t argue.
Dominick came into the kitchen and, with one hand on either side of my waist, moved me away from the oven. He relieved Lucas of the oven mitts, then placed the charred remains of our dinner on the counter. It had once been a lovely roast, but now it was a blackened hunk of beef that didn’t resemble anything more than a funeral pyre.
“Sit,” the royal bodyguard insisted, and both Lucas and I did as we were told, perching side by side at the island.
For the next half hour, Dominick proved Grace Alvarez didn’t raise any slackers when it came to kitchen prowess. The short werewolf navigated the room with ease and confidence, mixing sauce and braising meat like he could do it in his sleep. A smirk of approval painted my lips when I watched him barely touch our steaks to the pan before declaring them perfect.
He set two plates in front of us, each with a large steak in red wine sauce and a side of whiskey-glazed baby potatoes. The kitchen no longer smelled of smoke and frustration, and even Lucas was smiling and laughing as Dominick told us a story about how badly his little sister Penny had once burned a batch of chocolate-chip cookies.
When all was said and done, Dominick placed a fraternal kiss on the top of my head and slipped out of the kitchen like a culinary ghost.
“Why, Lucas,” I declared dramatically. “I didn’t know you were so skilled in the kitchen.”
“I don’t like to brag.” He was cutting into his steak, fighting a grin. “But I’m skilled in a lot of other ways too.”
Those words, and the heated glance that followed, made me shiver.
I looked back at my meal, suddenly engrossed in the food. “Let’s eat.”
One of the perks of dating a billionaire was access to the most unprecedented views of the city.
I love New York more than any place in the world. Everything from the dirty sidewalks of Chinatown to the clean white lines of the Museum of Modern Art warmed my heart and made me smile. It was a city I normally saw from the ground floor looking up, so when I got to look at it from eighty floors overhead, it was like being in heaven and gazing down at the earth.
Having never seen the city in daylight, I wondered if it could match the magic of a Manhattan night. With all the lights and the sinewy lines of white and red traffic, could it possibly look as beautiful in the sun?
Lucas’s reflection in the window gave away his approach, but I acted surprised when he came up behind me and handed me a glass of red wine.
“I love this room.” Since Lucas and I had begun dating last year, I’d had a chance to see every room in his three-story penthouse in Rain Hotel. The massive lounge on the third floor was by far my favorite. The couches were black microsuede, and there was a stocked bar on the back wall. But it was the view I liked best. A full wall of floor-to-ceiling windows provided a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the city.
When the lights in the room were turned off, it was like nothing stood between us and the city.
Wait, when did he turn the lights off?
Warm breath puffed against my neck, reigniting the shivers I’d felt at dinner. His nose traced the line of my jaw, his mouth skimming against my throat making goose bumps explode all over my body. When Lucas looped his arms around my waist, pulling me close to him, the heat of his body was surprising. Since I was always an average temperature, the presence of a werewolf was like standing next to an open flame. I was used to Desmond, but Lucas felt different somehow.
He nipped my earlobe, and I took a big swallow of the wine he’d given me.
“This is great. Cabernet?” The moment I said it I knew I was babbling like an idiot. Of course it wasn’t a cabernet; I could have figured that out on my own just from the taste.
“Pinot noir,” he whispered against my skin. The name of a wine had never sounded so sensual.
Damn my fickle libido. A familiar hot tingle was stealing through me, turning to molten heat under the surface of my skin. Everywhere he touched me—and his hands were roaming now—felt like I was being burned. Only it wasn’t unpleasant. It was never unpleasant when Lucas touched me.
Which was why I tried to avoid it.
I understood perfectly well that my soul-bond with him made me respond to him as a mate. But I was living with Desmond, I loved Desmond, and where I came from it meant something to be in love. The problem with the bond was that my metaphysical connection to Lucas was actually stronger than my connection to Desmond. So although my emotional attachment to the wolf lieutenant was deeper, my bond to Lucas was almost overpowering. It had overshadowed the secondary bond altogether the first time I met the two of them.
When I was in close quarters with Lucas—with his hands all over me and his voice so intoxicating in my ear—the bond fought to squash reason. Sure, you love Desmond, it said, but this is right too
.
According to Lucas it was right for me to love them both. But I think he still wanted me to love him more. And I think it was driving him crazy knowing I was having sex with Desmond but still hadn’t shared that part of myself with him. Most men would be pretty frustrated waiting almost a year to bed their girlfriend. I can’t imagine it made it easier to know I was getting satisfaction somewhere else, while Lucas got none.
At least I hoped he wasn’t finding his satisfaction somewhere else.
The thread of possessive jealousy in that thought fed the building desire, and when Lucas kissed my shoulder blade, I shuddered.
“Lucas…”
He found the hem of my shirt, his smooth palms ducking under the loose cotton. Skin-to-skin contact was too much. I let out a gasp, startled by the burst of liquid heat rippling outwards from his fingers.
“We can—”
“Shhh,” he urged, inching closer, pushing us nearer to the window. I put a palm up, still holding the wineglass in my other hand, and the coolness of the window made the fiery presence of his body that much hotter.
He was taller than me by a head, so he was forced to stoop as he kissed me. I think the extra distance between our upper bodies was the only thing keeping me sane. Then my shirt was up as high as my bra, and sanity was a fleeting memory.
I turned towards him and met his wandering mouth with a scorching kiss. Pressed against him like this I couldn’t ignore his growing hardness, and my mind swam with the possibilities. I growled into his mouth, biting his lower lip, and he responded by edging his knee in between my legs. Knowing Lucas’s make-out style as well as I did, he was on the verge of picking me up. I guess tall guys don’t love getting a crick in their neck when they have short girlfriends.
I saved him the trouble and shoved him backwards. He fell off the raised platform by the windows and onto one of the large couches, but a firm grip on my shirt meant he took me with him. Lucas landed on his back, and I was straddling him, still holding a half-full glass of wine, which I’d miraculously saved on our way down.
