by Sierra Dean
“So?” Arturo parroted, without any malicious tone to his voice. “Does the name mean nothing to you?”
“Sutherland Halliston is my biological father.”
“Yes, and your vampire sire.”
“He’s my father two different ways. What of it?” I had to give myself props for sounding disinterested in the topic while inside everything I thought I knew about the world was unraveling.
“You know a sire can compel their offspring, don’t you?” Arturo asked.
“I think that rule is more for…traditional sire-offspring relationships. My father didn’t turn me. His blood was fed to me in utero. I was born like this.”
“A born vampire?” Eilidh sat upright, suddenly far more interested in what I was saying. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not a perfect science, as you guys can tell.” I was referring to my apparent heartbeat. “I don’t owe him my un-life, and he has never had my blood. The rules don’t apply. You can’t control a vampire whose blood you’ve never had.”
As far as any of us knew, anyway. Like Eilidh said, there was no precedent for my situation. There weren’t a lot of half-vampires running around, certainly not those born with the affliction. I couldn’t be so bold as to say no other halflings existed, since the word dhampir existed solely to describe them, but I’d never met one and no one else I knew had either.
There was a word for unicorn and chupacabra too, but it didn’t make them real. Cryptozoology existed to name things that weren’t real, and a dhampir might be real or it might be a cryptid. I was inclined to be skeptical, except for the fact I was half-vampire.
“Very interesting,” Eilidh said.
“How can you be certain?” Galen asked.
“Because Sig thinks I’m the perfect person to find him. And if Sig believes it, so should you.”
That much I could convince myself of.
“And what do you think?” Arturo shifted forward in his seat, hands clasped together and wearing an intrigued expression.
“First tell me why you want him. Then we can discuss whether or not I’m the one to help you find him. Am I correct in assuming you haven’t declared him a rogue?” Keeping focused on being formal helped ground me.
Holden, Ingrid and the others had left after I’d introduced myself, meaning I didn’t have the sentry with me for additional support. This was all up to me, and the more officially I behaved the easier it was to stay calm.
I guess that meant it was natural for me to want to lose my cool.
“Sutherland was looking for something in San Jose, something important to the council. He was meant to report back a week ago, and we haven’t heard from him.”
“And you think…what exactly?”
“We’d like to believe something has happened to him,” Eilidh said.
“You’d like to?” That sounded ominous.
“When the other option is that he’s found this item and taken it for himself or another group…” Galen’s voice drifted off. “We’d prefer not to think ill of him, but he’s had trouble adjusting to life here. Trusting him after this will be difficult.”
“So it’s easier to believe something terrible has happened to him?”
“It’s that or sign a warrant for his death,” Galen said. “Which do you prefer?”
I frowned, unable to stop the downward curve of my mouth. “No, no warrants. Not yet. Does Maxime know the details of Sutherland’s mission?”
“Maxime?” Eilidh sneered. Maybe she didn’t like anyone. I wasn’t special after all. “Why would he know anything?”
“The sooner he knows the better. Because he’s coming with me to San Jose.” I didn’t trust any of them, but Holden said he trusted Maxime, so that gave me one ally within the council.
“We have others. Sentries…” Arturo started to suggest.
“Thanks, but I have my own sentry. I’d like Maxime, please. If we’re keeping things all in the family, that is.”
Galen and Eilidh exchanged glances, but Arturo continued to stare at me with his fierce, catlike eyes. “May I ask you something, Secret?”
“You may.”
“What happens if you find Sutherland and discover he has gone rogue? That our worst fears are realized and he has abandoned the council?”
Did he think I could be tricked into saying the wrong thing with such an obvious question? They clearly didn’t think much of me, in spite of my position. “If my fath…if Sutherland is a rogue, he will meet a rogue’s fate. That’s justice I’m well-versed in delivering. Probably more than any of you are.”
Eilidh reclined in her throne and glared at me, but Galen seemed more interested, pivoting his attention from his sister back to me with a look of intrigue. “You speak boldly for one so young.”
“I speak as I would to any equal.”
His mouth formed a thin line, but for some reason—perhaps the amused twinkle in his eyes—I thought he was masking a grin rather than a frown. What was it about me that fascinated true Tribunal leaders so much?
I thought about Sutherland, and Sig, and I was starting to realize Sig’s interest in me had very, very little to do with how precocious I could be and was rooted in something deeper.
Sig’s interest ran to the blood.
Chapter Thirteen
As soon as I was back in the hall and the ginger twins had left to service their masters, I gave Ingrid a withering glare equal to all the disdainful looks she’d ever shown me during our association. We were still within earshot of the Tribunal chamber, so as we walked I simply said, “Call your master.”
“Excuse me?”
The three of us climbed into the elevator, and Holden remained silent while Ingrid and I spoke.
“You heard me.”
“You aren’t in a position to give me orders. I don’t belong to you.” When I growled, she arched one flaxen brow and appeared as if she was debating being impressed. “And might I remind you threats of violence are pointless, unless you want to make them against Sig.”
Her body made a soft thump when I threw her back against the wall of the elevator, my fingers wrapped around her throat.
Now I had her attention.
Getting my face within an inch of hers, close enough I could smell the fear coming off her, I said, “Maybe I do want that. Maybe you’re the next best thing I have right now.” When I released her, she scuttled out of my reach, touching her neck.
“You’re insane. No one has ever—”
“I don’t care what anyone else has or hasn’t done, Ingrid. I care what Sig has done. Now, I’ll ask you one more time. Get. Him. On. The. Phone.”
The elevator door slid open on our floor, and Maxime was waiting. “Tribunal Lea—”
“No. None of that right now, please. If I hear the words Tribunal Leader one more time tonight, I’m going to snap. Call me Secret or call me nothing, but those are your only two options.”
Maxime gave Holden a helpless glance, to which my vampire consort shrugged. “I once called her Queen of the Bitches, but I think she’d frown upon that becoming commonplace.”
The valet looked appalled. “I… Secret?”
“Yes?”
“Can I get you anything?”
“A glass of blood, my sword and some privacy.” I was deadpan when I said it, but for some reason Holden snorted.
“Here.” Ingrid’s voice was downright frosty as she handed me her cellphone.
“Did you tell him what I did?” I asked.
“I don’t need to tell him things like that. When something happens to me, he knows.”
I snatched the phone from her hand, and knowing Sig was on the other end, I dispensed with any niceties. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“If you believe it is necessary for me to explain myself to you, you are sorely misunderstanding the dynamics of our relationship.”
I walked ahead of the others and into my suite. Holden and Maxime were close behind, but I went into my bedroom and shut
the doors, wanting the illusion of privacy for this conversation.
“I can’t believe you sent me in here without any forewarning. I think you’re the perfect person for the job,” I said, repeating what he’d told me before I left. “Well, fuck you. You might have mentioned you thought that because the missing vampire was my goddamn father.” The plastic casing around the phone cracked, and I had to calm myself before the whole damned thing shattered in my hand.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked after a period of silence.
“No.”
“Will you allow me to say something?”
“Could I stop you if I wanted to?”
“No.”
“Then go ahead.” I sat on the end of my luxurious bed, the satin bedspread rustling under me. The faint aroma of night-blooming jasmine filled the room, but since I couldn’t see any flowers around me I assumed it must be coming from the foyer.
“What, precisely, is it that bothers you most about this? Is it that you were unprepared to meet your father, or is it discovering—through Sutherland—you and I have a deeper connection than you previously believed?”
His question had me stumped. I still didn’t fully grasp what Sig was to me through this new development, and that set my internal compass spinning.
“What are we?”
“Is that it, then? That’s what has you so upset?”
“Everything about this has me upset, Sig. You surprise attacked me with my father, knowing he was the one you were sending me to deal with. Some warning would have been great, but it’s more than that. I don’t know what this makes you and me.”
“What did you think we were before today?” He sounded so calm I wanted to strangle him through the phone. But none of this was news to him. He’d known everything.
“I don’t know.” Friends and colleagues didn’t seem right. We weren’t lovers, though sometimes he treated me in a way that suggested he’d considered it. But now I wondered if his affection towards me had been for another reason entirely.
That I hadn’t known the difference between attraction and a familial bond skeeved me out.
“If you don’t know what we were, why does it matter so much to you what we now are?”
“Don’t play games with me. You’ve known about this the entire time we’ve known each other.”
“Of course.”
“Is that why you allowed me to hunt for the council? Why you didn’t just kill me on sight when I showed up at your door?”
“Yes.” Blunt. I’d been expecting him to soften his honesty to make things easier on me, but that had been a foolish hope. I had threatened his servant mere minutes earlier, so perhaps he didn’t want to play nice either.
“Holden asked me once if I’d let you drink from me because he couldn’t understand why you were always able to find me. It’s because I carry your bloodline, isn’t it?”
“I think you answered your own question.”
I gnawed on my lip in an apparent attempt to take my frustration out on myself. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” I snapped.
“Very well, if it’s so important to you, ask your questions.”
“What am I to you?”
“In what sense?” I didn’t think he was being intentionally evasive, but the question rankled me all the same.
“In every sense.”
“According to vampire genealogy, you are of my line but not directly mine. So while it is my blood that ignites the vampire spark within you, we are not…related. Not in the way humans consider it, anyway.”
That made any past innuendo slightly less sketchy than it had felt a moment before. If I’d had to think of him as my great-grandfather, it made all those times he suggested getting me out of my clothes to be really creepy. Knowing his blood was in me, though, made it difficult for me to think of him as anything other than a parental figure now. As handsome as he was, I didn’t think I could ever get past that notion.
“So we’re connected but not related.”
“Yes.”
“If you don’t think of me as a relative, why the extra attention? Why were you so interested in me? You protect me from Juan Carlos and go out of your way to make things easy for me. You wouldn’t do that for just anyone.”
“You’re correct. I have taken a special interest in you. Imagine my surprise when you came through my door at sixteen, full of spite and angst, and you demanded to be given a job. Picture it from my side, knowing the instant I saw you I’d had a hand in creating you. The spark igniting you had—in part—begun with me. I loved the fire I saw in you, and wanted very badly to know how my line had ended up in this spunky hybrid girl who was more attitude than she was monster.”
His impression of me at sixteen still summarized me in the present, except now I had the power to back my attitude up with something.
“And what did you think when you got to know me?” I lay back on the bed, staring up at the gray ceiling. With the lavender accents in the room I was reminded of Desmond’s eyes, and my heart clenched with longing for him.
“I think you’re an amazing woman, Secret, and I’m proud to have you in my lineage. But you’re as much a pain in my ass today as you were the evening we first met.”
For some reason that made me smile.
“I still don’t understand why you never told me. I shouldn’t have found out this way. It blindsided me, and I was unprepared.”
“I didn’t realize it was that important. Until this week I never expected you and Sutherland would cross paths, so why complicate our relationship with unnecessary details?”
“But when you knew I was coming here, you also knew I’d be looking for my father. Don’t you think a heads up would have been nice?”
I couldn’t expect Sig to admit he was wrong because it wasn’t in his character to acknowledge any mistakes on his part. But throwing me in with an unfamiliar council and having a trio of strangers tell me I was here to hunt my father? Well…it wasn’t cool, and I was hoping Sig could at least understand why I was upset.
“I’m sorry you don’t approve of the way I handled things. Perhaps the knowledge might have been useful to you, and perhaps I was remiss in not sharing it. But what’s done is done.”
That was as close to an apology as I was going to get.
At my side the bed dipped under new weight. I turned my head to look at Holden, impressed he’d managed to open the door without me noticing. Absently he picked up a piece of my hair and twisted it around his finger. He often seemed fascinated by my curls, constantly playing with them and running his hands through them. To me they were an annoyance when I was in a hurry, and often better left in a ponytail.
I swatted his hand away, but he went right back to it when I started speaking to Sig again. “Before I left you said he’d been…problematic. What kind of man am I expecting to find?”
“I’ve never met him.”
“But you know he’s been difficult for the council.”
“Yes. From my understanding he didn’t adjust properly to the change. I gather his creator—a vampire named Theo—didn’t have Sutherland’s permission in the exchange. We later discovered Theo had gone on something of a campaign through the Southern states and made a great number of unsanctioned vampires. Most of them were integrated into various councils, and Theo was…handled. I believe Sutherland carries some guilt from events following his rebirth.”
Yeah, like how he almost killed his pregnant girlfriend and unborn child?
Something occurred to me I hadn’t thought to ask anyone in all my twenty-three years. “Does he know about me?”
I’d never been able to ask Mercy, and Grandmere didn’t like to discuss matters relating to my heritage. As far as I know she hadn’t told anyone outside the pack about my existence. So it was possible Sutherland didn’t even know I’d survived or that he had a daughter.
“How would I know the answer to that?”
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Holden’s hand had gone still in my hair, and I couldn’t have felt his gaze more heavily if it were a physical thing. The more I let Sig’s words sink in, the less angry I became. He was two thousand years old. Maybe he didn’t understand how upsetting it would be for me to be confronted by my biological father. He probably didn’t even remember what his own parents looked like.
And who was Sutherland Halliston to him? The result of an ugly scandal. He didn’t care about my father, so why would it have crossed Sig’s mind I might be bothered if he wasn’t?
Vampires—ever coldhearted—sometimes forgot how to think like the people they once were.
Sighing, I rubbed the bridge of my nose, and Holden must have clued in to the tension radiating off me because he pressed his fingers against my temples and massaged them in slow, gentle circles. I wanted to shoo him off again, but it felt so damned good I let him do it.
“I just thought you might know.”
“What Sutherland does or does not know about you, I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Awesome. Thanks.” Obviously the Tribunal had known, likely because Sig had told them of our connection, but that could have been so they’d treat me better. Was it actually possible my father had no idea who I was? Maybe he thought I’d been born a normal human, or that I’d been raised by Mercy within the pack. Maybe he thought I’d died.
There were dozens of possibilities racing through my mind, and each new one made my headache get worse.
“Did you need anything else, or do you feel prepared to get back to your job now?”
Ah, that arrogant vampire attitude. And he had the gall to call me sassy? I sniffed, and Holden’s hands tensed. “Yeah. Are you having any luck finding Peyton? I mean…if we’re going to talk about doing our jobs, how’s the council coming along with hunting him down?”
A pause. That he didn’t have a reply on hand made me feel equal parts victorious and nervous. “We’re working on it,” he said finally. “You worry about your father. I’ll worry about Peyton.” Always choosing to have the final word, he hung up on me.
“What was that all about?” Holden moved his hands lower to rub my shoulders.
