Cold Hard Secret (Secret McQueen)

by Sierra Dean

  “He didn’t have to do all the things he did. He threatened you. He hurt me. He’s manipulative, and the only person he cares about is himself.”

  Desmond shook his head. “No. He loves the pack more than he loves himself. That’s what makes him seem cold. I think if we can appeal to that part of him and make him see this is what’s better for everyone, there’s a chance he’ll see it too. This isn’t hopeless.”

  Who was this man I was marrying?

  I was totally awed by him.

  “Only you could still see the good in him after everything he’s done.”

  “I love him because I understand him. Once you know Lucas, it’s hard to hate him. He doesn’t do things selfishly. Most of the time he’s being quite selfless and sacrificing his own happiness as a result. It just never looks that way from the outside.”

  “Never,” I agreed.

  Desmond smiled and closed the gap between us, pressing a delicate kiss on my lips. I let myself enjoy it for a moment before the familiar uneasy feeling came over me, and when I tried to imagine letting it go any further, I got overwhelmed.

  “I can’t,” I whispered. “Not yet.”

  “Saving yourself for marriage?” he teased. Withdrawing, he gave me some distance, but he left his knees pressed to either side of mine.

  “It might be a while,” I admitted.

  “I’ve signed on for life. I’m not in a hurry.”

  He said that now, but what if it was months before I could share a bed with him? Years even? Our road to marriage was paved with cobblestones, and we were in for a hell of a bumpy ride.

  Chapter Forty-One

  By the time night fell the next day, I knew it was time for us to leave Louisiana. One night was already a night too many, and if I was going to work on solving the rest of the problems in my life, I couldn’t do it while hiding behind my uncle.

  I invited Grandmere to come back with me to New York, but she declined the offer. “I’ve missed so much, and I can’t make up for the time I’ve been gone, but I can try to catch up now. It’s the least I can do.”

  Eugenia, on the other hand, was bereft. She’d been gone the night we arrived. Callum, knowing I’d be arriving with Mercy’s head, had sent my sister to New Orleans for the night on the pretense he needed something from a shop there. She’d been gone the whole night and only arrived back during the afternoon. When I awoke at sunset, she was furious she had potentially missed my entire stay.

  “I’m coming with you,” she announced.

  “No. No way. It’s not safe,” I protested. I’d been talking to Callum about organizing a ride to the airport when Genie had shown up. Now I looked to my uncle for backup to shoot down her ridiculous plan.

  “I live with a pack of wolves,” Genie reminded me. “New York isn’t nearly that dangerous by comparison.”

  The city itself might not be, sure. There was a police officer on every corner, and the worst thing that might happen to her in Times Square would be having her purse stolen. But it wasn’t the city I was worried about. It was all the otherworldly things within the city that might find use for my little sister.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Callum,” I implored. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Actually…”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. The tone of his voice said very clearly he was considering her suggestion, in spite of my arguments to the contrary. Why didn’t anyone trust I knew what I was talking about?

  “No,” I repeated.

  “I’m going to be working closely with Ben and Fairfax once you go, undoing the damage of this drug. Because Eugenia still hasn’t completely figured out how to reconcile her magic and her werewolf shifts, I worry the forces I’ll have to use to shift her twin back might impact her. Who’s to say how those kinds of connections can impact someone as sensitive to the supernatural as she is?”

  I wanted to keep saying no until someone listened.

  Eventually, though, it was Holden who convinced me. He had joined us in our preparation to leave, but he’d hung back, avoiding any interaction with us. I think if we hadn’t been so far away from anything else, he would have found his own way home and not told us he was leaving. As it was, he did everything in his power to blend into the background until he finally spoke up.

  “Let the girl come, Secret. She’s tough. She’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “She’ll be fine,” he insisted.

  I let out a shaky breath and looked at my sister. Yes, she was young, but so was I when I’d first come to the city. And there were threats, absolutely, but I had managed until now to keep almost everyone in my life safe from the things threatening me.

  I hesitated.

  “She’s going to come anyway,” Holden added. “If you let her come with you, at least you’ll know where she is.”

  Would Genie honestly sneak off and come after me on her own? I glanced at her, and the defiant lift in her chin told me Holden had read her spot-on. Cheeky little monster would have followed.

  I yielded. “Fine.”

  Her tough veneer faded, and she looked relieved and delighted. Then she seemed to reconsider for a moment, her gleeful bouncing cut short. “Ben’s going to be okay, right?”

  Though the two were twins, Eugenia and Ben had spent a great number of their formative years apart. Genie had gone off to learn magic from our great-grandmother—La Sorcière—one of the most terrifying and powerful people I’d ever met. Ben had stayed behind to learn pack politics from Amelia and Callum.

  They were close, but not inseparable. Yet I knew she wouldn’t want to go if there was a chance Ben might not pull through.

  Desmond spoke up before Callum could. “I got dosed with the stuff. Turning back hurts like hell, but your brother is going to be fine.”

  Everyone was working against me here.

  Genie visibly weighed her options and then said, “Give me ten minutes to pack.” She dashed off again before I had a chance to come up with any other arguments to the contrary.

  Having Genie with us proved to be a godsend in one truly unexpected way. Because of how long she’d spent with only La Sorcière as company, she liked to talk to anyone willing to listen. She’d missed being able to chat conversationally. So during our flight home, she told Holden endless stories and got him talking about his past in England. She kept him from sitting around brooding, and kept me from feeling painfully guilty about what had happened between us.

  I suspected it would be quite some time before I was able to talk to Holden or be near him without feeling an agonizing sense of loss.

  I might never fully recover from my decision to let him go, and maybe I deserved that. I’d let myself love two men and had refused to think of the consequences for a long, long time. Now I was being forced to deal with the harsh reality of my choice, and it seemed only fair it should hurt me.

  We were about a half hour from our destination when I fished my cell out of my purse and turned it back on. Since service had been dicey out on Callum’s estate, I’d shut it off to preserve battery life.

  It started buzzing immediately, saving me from the too-dark cloud of worry that had started to press down on me. First one text alert, then another and another. Before I knew it, the texts were coming in faster than my phone could buzz.

  How many people had texted me in a single day?

  The first text was from Sig, sent the previous evening. I have invited Arturo to visit with us. If you have any hope of redeeming yourself before the council, I urge you to come back now.

  I was about to reply, but thought I ought to check the other texts first.

  One was from Nolan a few hours ago. Are zombies legit?

  Well…that was a strange and random inquiry.

  The next from Keaty. Come back. Now.

  My pulse had started to pick up, since Keaty very, very rarely commanded me to do anything, and the tone of his text suggested he needed me. That wasn’t good.r />
  Tyler had written, Stay out of the city. Don’t return. Find a safe place and await further instruction.

  Well…that didn’t bode well.

  I flipped through a half-dozen more messages. Tyler had sent three. Avoid New York City. Another said, Please acknowledge.

  I texted him first since he seemed hell-bent on keeping me out of town. Did he know about Arturo coming in? Was there some news of a plan brewing from the West Coast?

  Been out of range. Landing in Jersey in 20.

  I considered answering the others, but I decided to hold off until we landed so I could figure out which mess to sort out first. Reopening Keaty’s message, I stared at it awhile.

  Come back. Now.

  Something wasn’t right.

  The overhead speaker crackled, and our pilot’s voice filled the cabin. “Folks, uh, I’m getting news from the tower that our approach is being denied. They’re rerouting all nonessential landings. Seems, uh, they’re diverting all flights intended to land in the city proper.”

  What?

  “Why?” I asked, before realizing it wasn’t a two-way system.

  “We’re going to land in a private airfield. Sorry about the delay, folks, we’ll be about an extra fifteen minutes.”

  I might have been imagining it, but there was an edge of panic to his voice.

  “Something isn’t right,” Desmond said, giving voice to the concerns I already had. “Why would they be diverting major airline flights to a small field in Jersey?”

  Holden, who had been quiet since the announcement, spoke up. “It means it’s not safe to land in the city.”

  An unspoken fear loomed over all of us. I hadn’t lived in New York in 2001, but I’d seen the events unfold on the news like everyone else. Holden would have been dead-to-the-world asleep, just like me, but Desmond…he would probably remember the day the Towers fell. He’d grown up in Long Island City. If he’d been at home, the view across the river would have let him see everything.

  We sat in silence for the remainder of the flight, all fearing a new worst-case scenario we’d never imagined before. I had been so busy worrying about my own problems, I sometimes forgot the world at large had troubles that put mine to shame. I looked out the window, but we were too far inland for me to see the city.

  The pilot must have called ahead and sent instructions to the other airport, because when we landed, a car was parked on the tarmac waiting. It was almost as tight a fit as my BMW, but all four of us managed to get in.

  No one spoke.

  We were about fifty miles from New York, and the whole drive in I didn’t see a single car going the same direction as us. There were literally hundreds going the opposite way.

  It was like the opening scene of a zombie movie.

  Are zombies legit?

  Hadn’t that been Nolan’s question?

  But zombies weren’t real. Keaty and I, in all our years of research and hunting, had never come across a case of an honest-to-God zombie. He’d apparently encountered a man in Peru once who was a necromancer, but the ability to raise the dead and control it was not the same as a naturally occurring zombie plague. If a necromancer made the undead bite you, it would hurt, but you wouldn’t become a zombie.

  Vampires were the only ones who could create the walking dead in that way.

  “This looks bad,” Eugenia observed.

  We watched the standstill traffic as we sped by in the opposite direction.

  It wasn’t until we approached the Lincoln Tunnel entrance that I realized what seemed so strange. The sky was brightly lit, but every single light was out. Going through the tunnel was an eerie and downright frightening experience with no lights to guide us except the headlights on the car.

  When we emerged into the city proper, I slammed on the brakes, sending us all lurching forward.

  An abandoned police barricade blocked the road.

  The city streets were completely dark. It reminded me of the blackout from several years before.

  Sirens wailed, and more headlights moved towards the exit, but none of the buildings or streetlamps were lit.

  I opened my car door.

  “Secret, no,” Eugenia pleaded.

  The familiar smell of smoke tickled my nose, and I looked up. If the lights were out, why was the sky so bright?

  Desmond got out of the passenger door, his nostrils flaring as he got a whiff of the smell.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered.

  I saw the flicker of orange glimmering off the side of a skyscraper, waving like the arms of a madman.

  New York City was burning.

  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 flower beds, 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: sierra@sierradean.com

  Twitter: www.twitter.com/sierradean

  Look for these titles by Sierra Dean

  Now Available:

  Chasing Kings

  Secret McQueen

  Something Secret This Way Comes

  The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters

  A Bloody Good Secret

  Secret Santa

  Deep Dark Secret

  Keeping Secret

  Grave Secret

  Secret Unleashed

  Boys of Summer

  Pitch Perfect

  Perfect Catch

  Coming Soon:

  Secret McQueen

  A Secret to Die For

  Is their love a home run, or merely a pop fly?

  Perfect Catch

  © 2014 Sierra Dean

  Boys of Summer, Book 2

  Minor league umpire Alice Darling loves everything about baseball. That means hunky ball players are strictly off limits—dating one would be professional suicide. With a young daughter and a brother to care for, she can’t afford to slip up.

  Truth is, as a young, stupid, nineteen-year-old townie, she did once date a player. That’s how she wound up with her precious, nine-year-old daughter…and a determination to never make that mistake again. Alex Ross’s arrival in Florida for spring training, though, shakes her resolve in a big way.

  Alex, a catcher for the Major League’s San Francisco Felons, has never let much get in the way of his game. One look at Alice changes everything, and he finds himself pursuing her with a single-minded purpose that plays hell with his concentration.

  Booted back to the minors, he returns to Florida with his tail between his legs to work on his swing…and heat things up with Alice. But when rumors of their affair hit the sports blogosphere, Alice’s career is put in jeopardy, and their love starts to look more like a strikeout than a home run.

  Warning: When a catcher struggling with his swing meets a stubborn single-mom umpire, his bat won’t be the only thing that heats up. Contains car sex, bed sex, sex sex, and a little angst for good measure.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Perfect Catch:

  She was like a guardian angel.

  A guardian angel who had been poured into some dangerously tight Levi’s and was now bent over his trunk, rummaging around to get the spare out. When she emerg
ed triumphant, her cheeks were rosy from the dig and the cool night air. Her breath puffed out in a white cloud when she laughed.

  “For a new car, you’ve sure managed to fit a lot of crap in the trunk already.”

  “I like to be prepared. Six weeks is a long time to go without something.” He took the jack from her as she fought with the tire. When he realized she intended to wrestle it out herself, he put the jack on the ground and came to her aid, placing one hand on her back so she wouldn’t be surprised by his sudden arrival.

  The heat of her skin was sensational. He hadn’t realized how cold his fingers were until he touched her. She, too, was taken aback by the chill of his hand, because the moment he grazed the exposed section of flesh above the waistband of her jeans, she jumped.

  “Sorry. Colder than I thought, I guess.”

  In her brief alarm she had dropped the tire and stood back from him, looking ruffled. “It’s okay.”

  He pulled out the tire for her, kicking himself for letting her try it on her own. It wasn’t that he thought she was incapable—the woman clearly knew her way around a car—but it wasn’t too chivalrous of him to make her carry a fucking tire all by herself.

  He could hear Jane, his eldest sister, saying, “What kind of gentleman does something like that, Alex?” His sisters often functioned as the angels on his shoulder, reminding him of how a woman ought to be treated.

  His notions might be on the old-fashioned side, but he liked to believe even the most forward-thinking woman would want to be treated like a lady.

  Alex leaned the tire against the car and recovered the jack he’d set down earlier. Alice shucked off her lightweight jacket and draped it over the edge of the trunk before locating the tire iron. She set to work loosening the nuts that held on the hubcap. When she let out a small grunt of exertion, he piped in, “Can I help?”