Secret Santa: Secret McQueen, Book 2.5

by Sierra Dean

  “I waited until Ingrid took Brigit away before I came in. I’ve been watching.”

  Rio had entered the room, but something about Holden upset her, because she was puffed up to twice her usual size and was making a weird howling noise low in her throat. Coming from a kitten, it sounded like the air being let out of a balloon. Holden ignored her.

  “What are you doing here?” I put a hand in between us when he loosened his grip so I could keep my towel together.

  “Did you come back to kill me?”

  Now that he was here with me, I had the perfect opportunity to get the answers to the questions that had been nagging me for months. “What did you do, Holden? Why do they want me to kill you? Did you really go rogue?”

  He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Secret.” But in spite of the cavalier tone, he didn’t relax, and he was wound tighter than a spring. The whole room filled with tension.

  “Holden.”

  “Do you think so little of me?”

  “Don’t answer a question with a question.”

  He moved back and took the few short steps to my bed, where he sat down and put his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his thick, dark hair.

  “I didn’t go rogue,” he said finally.

  “Then why are they saying you did? Why did they contract me to kill you?”

  “I knew I was in trouble when someone told me you’d gotten the contract. The Tribunal only contracts you when they mean business. But then you left. I didn’t know if I should be waiting for you to help me, or if you were letting me put my defenses down before you came after me. I reached out the only way I knew how. I needed to know what you planned to do.”

  I froze. “You mean by coming here tonight, right?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I pulled the towel tighter and started looking for something else to cover myself with.

  “There’s no point, I’ve seen it all already,” he reminded me.

  I glared at him and grabbed a robe off the arm of the chair by my door. It smelled like Brigit, but I didn’t care right then. I put it on and let the towel drop.

  “You invaded my dreams?”

  “It’s only an invasion if the receiving party fights it. You…” he looked right at me, “…didn’t fight at all. You were so open, in fact, I got back in while we were both still awake.”

  So my awkward moment earlier tonight hadn’t been my imagination. I shuddered from the deep feeling of violation. Worse still, according to him, I’d let him in.

  “How?” I should have asked why, but it wasn’t what came out.

  He shrugged. “I was your warden. Wardens have a pretty unique connection with their wards. Before shit hit the fan, my power increased. I think I was about to advance to sentry. The extra power meant I could take better advantage of our connection. It didn’t hurt when they advanced you to warden. The more power both parties have, the better the connection is. Or so I’m told. Getting into your dream earlier this week was my first attempt. And tonight, well—”

  “Never again,” I shouted. “You violated the most private experience. I should kill you for that.”

  “You could try. But you’re unarmed right now. I’d kill you.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. I crossed the room without thinking and punched him as hard as I could right in the face. It made a satisfying crack, and his head snapped back. Then he sat up straight, tentatively touching his nose, and a pinpoint of pain in my hand exploded to a full-blown searing agony. The crack I’d heard had been from one of my knucklebones breaking. I’d never broken my hand punching a vampire before. I was out of practice.

  Broken hand or not, I hauled back to punch him again, but this time he saw it coming. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me easily onto the bed. I kept trying to lash out at him, until he climbed on top of me and held both of my hands above my head, sitting on my legs to keep me from attacking him with any well-placed kicks.

  “Calm down,” he snarled. “Jesus, Secret, I’m sorry. I opened up the connection with the dream, but I didn’t know it would stay open. It wasn’t intentional.”

  “You bit me.” I still struggled against his hold, the desire to claw off his face now all I seemed focused on. “You fucking bit me.” If we were going to argue semantics, he actually bit me while we were fucking. But neither of us brought up that point.

  “It was a dream,” he reminded me.

  “So? If you bit me in a dream, you probably want to do it in real life.”

  “You let me do it in the dream. Does that mean you want to do everything we did in the dream in real life?”

  I stopped struggling. Goddamn vampires, how could they be so logical all the time, no matter the situation? The problem was I didn’t know what the dream had said about me or what I wanted. I really didn’t need him to know that. Sensing the fight had started to seep out of me, he released my arms.

  I slapped him with my unbroken hand, but it was more of a statement than an actual attack. “You’re an asshole.”

  He finds love on the eve of a war he doesn’t plan on surviving.

  Gridlock

  © 2011 Nathalie Gray

  A Cybershock Story

  Dante knows the price of rebellion. The Grid created him in its likeness, turning him into a killing machine—tested, modified and enhanced to be a “better citizen”. Years may have passed since he escaped that freak show, but the scars are still fresh.

  Without the mandatory implant, Steel scrapes by, living free of the Grid’s control. When a job goes bad, everyone around her dies, their minds crushed by the notorious Cardinal. But he doesn’t kill her. He takes her to a secret lair filled with fascinating, forbidden pre-Grid knowledge. Who is this man—ruthless murderer or eccentric loner?

  Bad-mannered as she is, Dante can’t bring himself to silence the abrasive, cigarette-addicted Steel. Something about her calls to him, though trusting her could be a mistake. Should she betray him, it would wipe out years of patient waiting. Waiting while the Grid hunts him for the priceless information he carries within his living data vault. Waiting while his dish of revenge turns ice cold.

  For Dante intends to go back. And this time, he intends to be the only one left standing.

  Warning: Contains violence, offensive language, a tattooed woman, a man who’s ready to light a few fuses, several variants of the F-word, machines behaving badly, thugs and PVC fashion. But no ninjas. That’s for the next book.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Gridlock:

  Forcing her gaze on his face was hard when he turned and displayed a fine network of lean muscles that knotted and played under the pale skin. She wasn’t fast enough to stop the gasp in time when she got a good look at his front. What the fuck?

  “Science,” he whispered, “can be a sharp instrument in the hand of the unsympathetic.”

  “Scientists did that?” Steel indicated with her chin the collection of scars crisscrossing Dante’s chest, snaking up his biceps, pock-marking his throat and slashing his belly in neat ten-centimeter partitions. As though someone had sliced him open, sewed him back up then did it again lower. She’d seen scars and what people could do to one another, but never something like this. Never this. “Up there, in the bunker? They did that?”

  “Scientific objectives, unfettered by humanity, yes.” He pointed to one thick scar that ran diagonally along his left pectoral. “How long does a man have without a functioning heart? Or how fast can a synthetic replica beat before the rest of the body begins to shut down? My heart will outlast the rest of me by a millennium.”

  Steel hid the shiver with a shrug, unable to take her gaze from the awful mark. “That’s just demented. Who gives a shit?” She cursed, shook her head.

  “It needs to know everything about us. Information is the new gold.”

  “Who’s it?”

  “The new golden ratio, the alpha and omega, the all and the void. Gods used to fill this space. Even they were supplanted. The Grid took it
all. And its thirst for knowledge is insatiable. It needs to know us to better control us. Everything, even the most sordid or inconsequential detail. We created it, and it has since then recreated us in its image. Men born of data.”

  “The Grid and its data can kiss my ass,” Steel blurted. She froze out of habit. No one in their right mind would talk that way. But he wasn’t anyone regular, was he. He’d already shared how he wanted to blow the thing up.

  Ordinarily, should a passerby or roving bot pick up such dangerous words, they’d be standing at the closest relay and alert security. She half-expected to have a squad of security responders descend on the room and take her in for evaluation. She’d tasted that sauce before and didn’t like it one bit. Pigs. But then again, there weren’t comms relays anywhere near, not visible ones anyway. They were completely off the waves in this place. No one would hear them.

  No one would hear her.

  Dante’s mouth quivered at one corner, as if he were unused to smiling. “A dangerous position to share with anyone. I could turn you in and reap a handsome reward.”

  “Says the guy who’s planning to drop a train on top of the bunker. Yeah, well…” She shoved her hands in her pockets.

  He drew near, which forced her to fight the urge to take a step back. As if she had proximity alerts built in, every nerve ending fired flight-or-fight responses. Maybe if she hit him hard enough, fast enough, she’d stand a chance. But then again, where the fuck could she go? She didn’t even know where the door was. Any door. By the time she stumbled onto one, he’d have caught her. Timing was, indeed, everything, and now wasn’t the time for silly heroics. She willed her body to relax. Almost succeeded. This Dante guy had killed people without touching them. She should keep that in mind instead of fantasizing about the fireworks his stunt would cause should it work.

  “Do you fear me?” he whispered.

  “Yes. I saw what you did.”

  His blond eyebrows shot straight up, as though he hadn’t expected the response. Or the honesty. “Have I not treated you with respect and the utmost civility?”

  “Is that before or after you shot me with my own gun then dragged me out of my home to keep me a prisoner in yours?”

  This time, Dante smiled wide. “You are right, and I apologize for resorting to such drastic measures. I am usually more circumspect. And expedient.”

  “What do you mean?” She couldn’t focus much. He smelled of soap. She hadn’t had a soap-smelling man near her in…ever.

  He leaned closer. She stopped breathing. “I usually just kill people outright,” he whispered right into her ear. His words triggered another slew of instinctive reactions. Kick. Punch. Bite. Breathe in his clean scent.

  “Then why didn’t you, huh? Want to play with me first?”

  Rule number one: Run from the Shadows. Unless one knows the secret that will save you.

  Ghost in the Machine

  © 2011 Barbara J. Hancock

  A Cybershock Story

  I live in a world of waifs and shadows. Live might be an overstatement. I scrounge and scramble and survive in an atmosphere made thick and gray by the ashes of the Fallen. And sometimes I dream of sunlight. My parents were taken, even though they followed all the rules. Never scavenge at night. Never talk to Shadows. Don’t fight the Sweepers. Run. Run. Run.

  Now that they’ve taken my little brother, Douglas, I’ve realized I’ve only been surviving for him. I have two choices: Follow him or lie down and die. I can’t just quit after years of struggle. I wouldn’t know how if I tried. Determination is all I have left.

  And then I meet him.

  He claims to be a rogue who can help me find my brother. It’s got to be a lie. But I don’t run. I stop. I listen. And I make a deal with a Shadow even though I know it will mean the death of me.

  Never talk to Shadows.

  But no one ever told me what would happen if I kissed one.

  Warning: May cause fantasies of forbidden kisses from dark heroes who balance on the edge of evil. Where shadows wait and ashes fall…

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Ghost in the Machine:

  He looks so heroic treading with purpose through the ash, every bit as graceful as I am not. I remind myself the lean muscle that glides beneath his skin was turned to dust years ago, but the reminder doesn’t help. He has held me with those strong hands. He’s saved me with that lithe body. I no longer tingle where the spider’s venom dripped, but everywhere Gabriel touched me seems permanently sensitized.

  Heat rises in me as I acknowledge a different kind of tingle than I’ve known before. If talking to a Shadow is dangerous, surely desiring one will be deadly.

  We walk forever. Past crumbled buildings and long-dead alleys. I try not to stare at him, but it’s a lot like trying not to breathe when a Shadow is passing—you can stop for awhile, but soon enough your lungs start to burn with the need for oxygen.

  My eyes need to soak up his mystery. For the first time, I see how ash doesn’t settle on him. Not on his hair or his clothes or his skin. He has a physical form. I’ve felt it. I blush with the urge to feel it again. But the ash doesn’t touch him. I’ve lived with Shadows always, but I’ve never noticed this about them.

  But his gleaming dark curls and shining armor, I notice.

  In comparison, I’m filthy, covered in soot from head to toe.

  I try not to think about it. I’m doggedly following Douglas into the jaws of death. But as the dark night turns to gray day, the ash that coats me bothers me more and more. Just as when I fought the spider and after when I thought about an ashen grave, it seems a claiming and a giving up.

  Irrational. A fancy brought on by fear, exhaustion and hunger. Every third step is a stumble now. Each blink threatens to become a long sleep. And still I trudge on. It isn’t until my forward momentum stops that I realize I’ve collapsed. My head is so light it seems as if it might float to the gray-choked sky.

  I can see Shadows.

  They move behind windows of nearby buildings, up and down crumbling sidewalks, across a crosswalk and back again. They’re uninterested, stuck in mindless repetition. I see them almost as a whole entity. Like a shifting darkness that fills the outer edges of my world. But when might one or more unglitch and come for me?

  I try to rise, but my exhausted state betrays me. A bottle rolls away from my clumsy foot as I try to place it. The clinking of it sounds like the toll of a bell against the curb.

  Gabriel comes to stand by my side. Sidekick or sentry? I peruse the lean length of his leg as I freeze. The tactical uniform worn by soldiers of the First Wave had been custom fitted and molded to their skin. A leather-like body armor, it had been useless against an enemy that didn’t use projectile weapons. The SoulEater had taken them down and taken them in. It had created Shadows and Sweepers and who knew what other abominations.

  We wait. What will the other Shadows do?

  The one beside me had been a fine specimen of soldier when he’d been alive. It soothes me even though it hadn’t saved him.

  But then, not so much.

  They are coming.

  The sound of hundreds of heads turning our way is like a wave of whispers washing over me. I rise to my feet, swaying. My hand goes to the weapon at my belt. There isn’t enough charge. No way is there enough. The shifting darkness around us begins to coalesce into forms and shapes with deadly substance. Coming closer. Ten. Twenty. A hundred. More.

  Just as I raise my disruptor to fire for the hell of it and with no hope of taking out more than a few before we are overwhelmed, Gabriel’s angelic wings embrace me in a feathery cocoon. A staticky charge ripples and reaches to the heart of me. My nerve endings hum with it. In protest or pleasure? Borderline. Being touched by a Shadow from the top of my head to my feet definitely walks the line between pleasure and pain.

  “Shhhhhhhh,” Gabriel says.

  Trapped in those magnificent wings, I’m as frightened of their protection as I am of the approaching horde. Because I want to
hush. I want to accept his cool embrace and the way it makes me feel—saved, seduced, secondary.

  For once, I don’t have to fight. They are out there, eddying around us like leaves in a stream, but I’m hidden. Enclosed in Gabriel’s shadowy substance, I’ve disappeared to the others. I hide within the very thing I fear the most.

  His wings wind tighter. They pull me closer—he pulls me closer. My cheek presses to his solid chest. His scent is ozone-kissed. It envelopes me in an atmosphere not unlike an approaching storm, surprisingly pleasant. And then I feel it. The thud of a heartbeat against my face.

  How can a Shadow have a heartbeat?

  Like the swinging girl, it must be only an echo, a memory, a glitch.

  As I stand there, Shadows all around, the pace of his phantom heartbeat increases.

  I want to pull away.

  This is too close to his mystery.

  Panic rises, making my own heart thump.

  I would push him away. He shields me. He protects me. But I could more easily fight the Shadows around us than the beat of that heart against me. That sort of fight is much more familiar than the fight to resist his scent, his touch—the lie that he is human.

  A wavering whisper stops me when I would have pushed my way free.

  Very close, just outside my Shadow-wing hideaway, a child’s voice speaks in a singsong cadence that is at once horrifying and haunting.

  “Olly olly oxen freeeeeeeeeee…”

  The last syllable ends as if the lungs that force air over dormant vocal cords are too weak for volume. An all-out scream couldn’t have been worse. I start to shake. My imagination gives the voice a face, and it’s the face of the swinging girl, come all this way to find me and searching still.

  Of course, there are other Fallen children. Everywhere. But my shivers won’t be chided. It is her. She’s out there. And this time I can’t slip away.

  “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

  All dressed in black, black, black…”