by Sierra Dean
“You’re related?” I stated the obvious as if it was a question.
“A brother and sister for a brother and sister,” Camille replied with a soft smile.
I gave a quizzical look to Ingrid, who added, “Two of the West Coast Tribunal Leaders are siblings. Galen was first to the Tribunal, followed by his sister Eyelee.”
“Eye-lee?” I repeated the name back slowly. “Does that have some batty Gaelic spelling?” Judging by the glower I got from Barton, he was Eyelee’s servant. It also confirmed my suspicion about her name.
“E-i-l-i-d-h,” he said with a huff.
“Christ. I thought Siobhan was bad.” I wouldn’t have been so sassy to the Tribunal Leaders themselves, but I could get away with murder when it came to their human minions. I had gotten into the habit of being cheeky with Ingrid, and that apparently transferred over to these new arrivals by some sort of snark osmosis.
Barton wrinkled his nose, but Camille’s smile was patient. They struck me as being two sides of the same coin, one calm the other short-fused. If I stuck around long enough, I wondered how else they might be different or alike.
To break the tension I said, “Only two?” I pointed a finger to Barton and Camille in turn, then held up a third finger in the air, aiming it at no one.
“Much like Juan Carlos, Tribunal Leader Arturo is protective of his privacy and opts not to keep a daytime aid.”
Translation: Arturo was going to be a poncy douche who thought humans were beneath him. He was going to love me. I might not be human, but human-hating vampires tended to dislike me more than most.
From the limited information I’d been given I now knew the West Coast Tribunal had a similar setup to ours. Two males and a female, and one of the males was probably a bit of a jackass.
Maybe it was bitter of me to make assumptions without having ever met them. I was becoming more like them with each passing day because I was learning to judge those I’d never met and to hold their failings against them.
Over time, I was turning into a vampire, even if my heartbeat said otherwise. And that scared the living hell out of me.
“Are we going to meet them now?” I crooked my fingers, beckoning Holden closer. When he took my hand in his, Ingrid’s expression was unchanged. She must have known what Sig wanted Holden to do.
His palm was cool and dry, an anchor keeping me grounded. As long as I was holding on to him, I was still me. I didn’t think Holden would like me nearly as much if I was the kind of vampire I worried I might become.
Right now he still liked me fine.
Barton and Camille whispered to each other, and for the first time since the three of them had arrived, Ingrid showed her annoyance at something.
“Would you two stop chittering like birds? If you have something to say, just come out and say it. You’re in the presence of a Tribunal leader and her consort. Your behavior is appalling.” She nodded to me, bowing with only her head. “Apologies. They’re young, still. Barely older than him.”
She’d indicated Holden, meaning these young servants were over two hundred years old. Yup, veritable babies at ten times my age.
“It’s just…” Camille turned away bashfully, unable to meet my eyes. “You look so much like—”
Ingrid—who’d just been insisting they speak up—stomped down hard on Camille’s foot, making the redhead cry out in surprise. “You’re speaking out of line. Enough.”
“I look like what?” I asked. “She was about to say something.” I focused my gaze on Camille. “What were you about to say?”
“Something it wasn’t her place to comment on,” Ingrid interrupted. “Come along now, please. Time for the introductions.”
Ingrid, who was the definition of unflappable, seemed downright flustered, her cheeks flushed from her apparent anger with Camille. It made me even more curious about what hadn’t been said, and I made a mental note to ask about it again at a more appropriate time.
Stupidly I was hoping Camille was talking about Brigit, and the mystery would end with my friend popping out of a closet somewhere shouting surprise, which would be something Brigit might find amusing. Brigit and I did look remarkably alike at a quick glance—long blonde hair, petite figures, similar facial features—and it was because of those similarities she had been killed.
My own mother hadn’t been able to tell us apart in the heat of the moment, and Brigit had paid the ultimate cost for Mercy’s mistake.
I swallowed the knot building in my throat and tried to shake off any thoughts of Brigit. I sought comfort from Holden by squeezing his hand a little harder, and he squeezed back in two short pulses before running his thumb over my skin.
“Lead the way,” I instructed Ingrid, trying to keep an authoritative tone in my voice.
We all wedged into an elevator, and in spite of the generous space I still felt like I was back in the coffin. My heart thumped, and I don’t think I’d ever been more grateful to be stuck in a small space with mostly humans. Holden would hear it, but he was accustomed to my pulse by now. The humans, as far as I was aware, couldn’t sense my heartbeat in spite of their vampire connections.
I needed to get myself in check before I met with the Tribunal to discuss Sig’s grand-spawn or whatever it was called when you go further down the lineage. If I concentrated hard enough and breathed deeply enough, I could slow my heartbeat right down. Not to a complete stop, of course, but the vampire blood meant I was able to get close. It wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking I was a vampire, but it would make my pounding pulse less of an issue.
The Tribunal here would already be aware of the fact I wasn’t a full-blooded vampire, but they also knew I’d been accepted by the East Coast Tribunal—voted in by the elders no less—and my position on the throne wasn’t in question. It wasn’t up to these vampires to decide if I belonged. I’d killed Daria, and by the rules of succession that made me the rightful leader in her place.
It wasn’t their approval I was seeking as much as a limited acceptance among them. If I was going to stay here, I wanted to keep things as cordial as possible, and I found it was sometimes difficult for vampires to play nice when they think of you as a human instead of one of them.
Since I couldn’t explain I wasn’t at all human and they were misunderstanding my werewolf pulse, the next easiest thing to do was to keep calm and focus on slowing my heartbeat down.
I snuggled myself into Holden’s side and rested my face against the cool curve of his neck, breathing his scent. It lacked the punchy thrill of lime I’d have gotten from Desmond, but there was still something soothing about it. It also pained me to admit that selling the story of him as my consort had been a clever decision. Otherwise it might have looked strange for me to stick my face in his personal bubble and start sniffing him.
Instead, I just appeared to be possessive of my man, and maybe inappropriately horny. Which currently wasn’t an issue at all, but I didn’t feel the need to explain that to strangers.
“You good?” he whispered, so quietly I might have missed it entirely in a larger space.
“Mmhmm.” I took another deep breath, letting my mind drift to thoughts of his hands running over my body and the way his cool skin could make mine so hot. When I opened my eyes and lifted my gaze to the bow of his mouth, I thought about the intoxicating taste of his kisses and the perfect agony of his bite.
I licked my lips. Maybe this wasn’t the best mental trail to wander down since it didn’t seem to be slowing my heartbeat in the least. He must have had an idea of what I was thinking because he released my hand and snaked an arm around my waist, pulling me hard against his side.
“Plenty of time to think about that later.” His eyes were darkening, losing their warm brown color in favor of a much deeper hue, working its way towards black.
Oops, he was getting hungry, and I was pretty convinced it wasn’t blood he wanted. He must have been able to smell my building arousal.
That was a douse of cold water on me if ther
e’d ever been one. I wrenched myself out of his grasp without making a show of it, and instead of focusing on him I did the same mental exercise I used to calm down my wolf. Green forests, night sky, the thrill of a run, those thoughts would mellow me out faster than imagining a tumble in the sheets with a sexy vampire.
The elevator doors opened a moment later, revealing a dank, poorly lit corridor that reeked of moldy water. Some things didn’t change no matter what side of the country you were on, but at least they’d had the decency to add an elevator instead of relying on slippery stone steps.
Some of the tunnel walls had been patched with fresh concrete or stucco, and a few sections were supported with metal rebar. “What’s with the construction work?” I tried to sound disinterested, as I assumed most Tribunal leaders wouldn’t spend much time focusing on the chamber walls.
“The ground is often compromised by earthquakes,” Barton said. “We’ve moved as much of the night-to-night operations upstairs as we can, but tradition dictates certain things must take place underground.”
“You should have seen the mess we had to deal with in ’94 after the Northridge quake,” Camille added. “The cells were…well, it took us awhile to do the recovery.”
“Why not go somewhere with less activity?” I asked.
“We started in San Francisco during the Gold Rush,” Barton told me. “But after the big quake there in 1906 it seemed like a good time to move on. We reestablished the council here, and that’s where we’ve been ever since.” He sounded like a bored tour guide telling the story, but I found the whole thing fascinating. I started imagining Gold Rush vampires, saloon girls and miners, and by the time we reached the Tribunal chamber I was so involved in the fantasy all my nerves were gone.
Ingrid opened the door and went in ahead of me, bowing deeply in front of the three raised wooden thrones that were identical to those we used at home. “Good evening Tribunal Leader Eilidh, Tribunal Leader Arturo and Tribunal Leader Galen.” She bowed to each of them in turn. Given the order she addressed them in, Galen was the leader in their midst, so I’d have to watch my sass around him. He was the Sig here.
Ingrid continued, “It is my pleasure to introduce Tribunal Leader Secret McQueen, acting in the stead of my master, Tribunal Leader Sigvard the Bold.”
I caught the snort of derision before it managed to escape me.
“My master has requested I impress upon you all that Tribunal Leader Secret is to be treated with the same respect Sigvard himself would warrant.”
Was it just my imagination or did Ingrid give them all a warning glare? Impressive. Sig must have been feared here as much as he was back home, otherwise I doubted Ingrid would get away with that kind of display. Part of me wondered if she might be older than some of the vampires in front of us. They reeked of power, but that was part and parcel of joining the Tribunal. I was only twenty-three and I radiated authority to the vampires as well.
But Ingrid was over seven hundred years old, and Arturo felt six hundred at best. Sig was the oldest vampire I’d ever met at over two thousand years of age, and I’d bet money these three combined might equal him.
For some reason that put me more at ease.
Seeing how the three leaders were dressed, however, brought my self-awareness right back around. Why hadn’t I taken a minute or two to change after getting out of the coffin? At least I’d put on new clothes before leaving New York and wasn’t still in Mercedes’s ill-fitting jeans. But my favorite black leather pants and a red silk tank top under my jacket hardly screamed authority figure. My hair hung around my shoulders in wild curls.
Compared to Eilidh I looked like a harpy fresh off the kill. The other female Tribunal Leader had her black hair pulled up in a complicated, twisting updo and wore an elegant navy-blue gown. Her small hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes—the same color as the gown—regarded me with thinly veiled contempt. Very thinly veiled.
Galen had similar coloring to his sister, dark hair and blue eyes, but his expression was more relaxed, almost bemused. He was startlingly handsome. I had thought I might be used to beautiful men, but he caught me off-guard. Eilidh was lovely, all tiny, delicate features like a living doll. Galen resembled a warrior coming off the battlefield with his big body and strong, square jaw. He was different from most modern men. He seemed to have tumbled out of the pages of a history book, and I doubted he’d ever be able to blend fully in the current world.
At least he, unlike Sig, believed in wearing a shirt and shoes. He was dressed in a navy shirt—the same color as Eilidh’s dress—and black trousers. The clothes were struggling to keep his broad figure contained, as if the merest flexing of his muscles might cause them to disintegrate.
Arturo sat on Galen’s left, and he wasn’t quite what I expected. Upon hearing an Italian name, I’d pictured an olive complexion and dark features, much like Juan Carlos. Arturo was a surprise because his hair was the color of sunlit straw and his eyes were a shade of green I’d only seen on a cat shifter. He, too, was attractive, and showed no signs of the disgust I’d been expecting. If anything, the vampire here who liked me the least was Eilidh.
Well, I’d been prepared for one of them to dislike me on sight, so I was breaking even.
I greeted them each with their full title but did not bow. I wasn’t subservient to them, and I had to be mindful I didn’t make them think they could overpower me. Like Ingrid said, I was here to be Sig’s eyes and ears, and they had to treat me the same way they would have treated him. While I wasn’t foolish enough to believe my treatment would be identical, I did expect to get some respect out of the deal. And it also meant I wouldn’t bow to those who were meant to be my equal.
I couldn’t do much about standing lower, though. They could hardly be expected to bring in another throne just for me.
Standing in front of the three of them brought a flood of memories crashing back to me. I was reminded of my days with the council before I gained my Tribunal seat, and I would wait in front of Sig, Daria and Juan Carlos for my orders.
Back then it had been my job to find and kill rogues.
Now I was here because a rogue wanted to do the same thing to me.
“Sig mentioned you’d been having some difficulty with one of your younger wardens, and he felt I might be able to help.” I wanted to hurry the conversation along so I could get out of there as soon as possible.
“Yes. At first I couldn’t understand why he felt you’d be better suited for the task, but now…well, now it’s quite clear.” Galen nodded sagely, like I had any idea what he was talking about.
Eilidh rested her chin on her hand and stared at me. She hadn’t spoken a word up until that point, and now her eyes narrowed. When she condescended to speak to me, her voice was soft and airy but carried unmistakable malice.
“Don’t you think, dear brother, her emotions might confuse the situation?” Her words were for Galen, but she stared straight at me, practically through me. If I hadn’t seen her glower at Ingrid in a similar way, I’d have assumed the two must have compared notes about me.
And what did she mean about my emotions confusing the situation?
“I’m sorry, am I missing something?”
“Evidently,” she replied coolly, putting both hands back in her lap, and pursed her lips in a cross between a sneer and a pout.
I wondered if she had ever met Juan Carlos. I felt like they’d get along swimmingly.
Instead of asking her what she meant, I focused my attention on Galen. Eilidh could be as bitchy as she wanted and it wasn’t going to intimidate me or scare me off. She might be old, but I had power too, and I had no intention of slinking off with my proverbial or literal tail between my legs.
“What’s the deal? Your daytime servant started talking about how I look like something, or someone. And now your sister seems to think I’m going to screw things up on an emotional level? Believe me, I can find a missing vampire without being emotional. I was a bounty hunter for the council before
I became a Tribunal Leader.”
“Yes, we’ve heard a great deal about you, Secret. May I call you Secret?”
I wanted to shout hallelujah to the rafters that we could dispense with the stupid titles, but remembering my company I replied, “By all means.”
“And you may call me Galen.”
“Thank you.”
“Secret, the reason Eilidh is concerned about your involvement in this search is because you and the vampire in question have something…unique in common.”
“Oh? Who is it?”
“The vampire we’re looking for is named Sutherland Halliston.”
He didn’t need to say anything else. No elaborate explanations or fun flip charts would be necessary for me to figure out why they were worried.
I’d never met Sutherland Halliston, but I knew exactly who he was.
The AWOL vampire they wanted me to find was my father.
Chapter Twelve
Keep your cool, keep your cool.
I wanted nothing more than to freak the fuck out, but this was neither the time nor the place. The fact Sutherland was the vampire they wanted me to look for, and Sig had obviously known that before sending me here, brought up so many issues I didn’t have time to deal with.
Namely…Sig’s vampire blood was running through my veins.
Sig was my…I didn’t even know. He wasn’t my grandfather, but he was my vampire grandsire—my great-grandpire—or something. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Biologically we weren’t related, but physiologically I couldn’t exist without his blood.
So we were something.
I stared at Galen and tried to keep my breathing deep and even as I attempted to bury the dark and twisty web of thoughts brewing in my head. I couldn’t think about it now, lest I fall apart completely.
“So?” I chose the shortest question I could think of in order to keep my voice from breaking.
