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“Or I just never lied to you. ”
The ding of the elevator opening kept me from having to come up with a response. Kellen had one of three apartments on the twenty-first floor. She might not have had the fanciest digs in the Rain clan, but she had the poshest address by far. Lucas must have paid a premium to set Kellen up with the Central Park West address.
I doubt he’d batted an eyelash since it meant there were dozens of city blocks between his SoHo penthouse and his sister’s behavior. Funny how he was only interested in what Kellen was doing when he didn’t have it constantly bombarding him in the press.
Come to think of it, if Kellen was in Ibiza or Cozumel or wherever she chose to sun herself these days, wouldn’t we have seen something on Page Six? The New York gossip column worshipped at the altar of Kellen’s antics, featuring at least a story a week on one of her breakups, makeups or hookups. So why hadn’t I seen a photo of her tongue-tied with a Greek oil baron or a Middle Eastern prince?
Desmond was using a credit card to pick Kellen’s lock when I came up behind him. Gently I pushed him to the side and pulled a bobby pin out of my hair. I’d started to wear them more frequently in recent months, having discovered how handy they could be. The folks at Goody could make a killing if they did a new campaign: Keeps bangs out of your eyes. Creates fancy updos. Picks locks in seconds. Maybe that last one was only a selling feature for a niche market, but I was putting it to good use.
One of the many questionable skills I’d learned from my human mentor.
It took a half-minute longer than it normally would have because Desmond kept questioning where I’d learned to do the various and sundry illegal activities I demonstrated a gift for.
“Some teenage girls learn to put on slutty makeup and read sex tips in Cosmo. I learned to pick locks and kill vampires. ” The lock clicked open as if to illustrate my point, and I turned the knob while repinning my bangs. I’d have to get a haircut soon, but there were a lot of other things on my to-do list above trim bangs. Simple stuff. 1. Find missing ex-sister-in-law-to-be. 2. Win back ex-boyfriend. 3. Find out if immortal beneficiary is homicidal maniac. 4. Tribunal session.
“Oh fuck. ” I thumped my fist against the doorframe.
“What?”
“We need to hurry. I may or may not be two hours late to a Tribunal meeting. ”
Chapter Fourteen
Kellen’s apartment told us practically nothing except that she was more of a slob than I was.
She’d recently gotten a phone call from a club called Eleven-B. There was no message, but it was the only unfamiliar message on her home phone and it came on Sunday. Something to look at once I got the noose of a Tribunal session off my neck.
I had no time to change, and I knew I’d catch hell for it, but it was either show up casual or not show up at all.
When I burst through the double doors leading into the Tribunal chambers, the look Juan Carlos gave me implied I might have been better off choosing the not at all option.
“Honestly, Secret. ” Sig, the leader of the Tribunal, looked ten times more casual than I did, considering he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Or shoes. I didn’t think he was chiding my wardrobe, however.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. ”
“You will be,” Juan Carlos muttered. I ignored him. Muted threats were all he had, since it was completely forbidden for him to lay a hand on me. Unfortunately the same was true in reverse, because I had a silver katana at home I’d love to introduce him to the business end of.
“Might it be possible,” Sig continued, “for you to take this position seriously? Maybe even for a week straight?”
“It’s been a busy week. ”
“A busy week in a busy month,” he said. “We’re well aware. ”
“Oh. ” So the busy excuse wasn’t going to fly. Not that I’d thought it would.
“That’s why you’re here. ” When Juan Carlos spoke to me, he tended to look right through me, but this time he was meeting my gaze directly, and it gave me the willies. His cleft upper lip sneered more than usual, and he looked…pleased.
Shit.
The Spanish third of our Tribunal was never happy, and I didn’t like that his satisfaction was being aimed in my direction. It freaked me out. I moved to take my seat next to Sig, but the Finnish master vampire raised a hand to stop me.
“We’re going for a walk. ”
The last time Sig had taken me for a walk in the council headquarters I hadn’t enjoyed it much. Unfortunately then, as I suspected would be true now, the walk wasn’t optional. Nothing was really optional with Sig.
Sig rose, all six and a half feet of pale blondness and lean muscle. He was imposing as hell, but I’d learned not to fear him. Or, more accurately, I’d learned fearing him was a pointless endeavor. If he was going to kill me, it was inevitable, so why fear it?
My throat constricted. I’d almost convinced myself of my bravery until he put a hand on my shoulder and guided me back towards the entrance.
“Am I fired?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“You know that’s impossible. ”
“So…what’s up?”
“We’re taking you to Monica. ”
I stopped walking so abruptly Sig bumped against my back. “No. ” Just that. A flat no.
“It’s not a discussion. ”
“In fact, it’s long overdue,” added Juan Carlos. Now the source of his pleasure was evident.
“Sig, no. ” I gave him an imploring look, begging him with my eyes when my words had obviously failed me. I couldn’t say more, not in front of Juan Carlos. But Sig knew what I really was. He had to understand why this was a terrible idea.
“We were willing to look the other way with your wedding to the wolf king,” Juan Carlos said, his tone thick with disgust. “Though God knows why you dirty yourself with their kind. You smell of one even now. ” His lip curled. “But getting your name all over the papers? You’re bringing dangerous attention to us. Monica will know if you can be trusted. ”
“I can be trusted. ” I refused to move forward again, turning my gaze from Juan Carlos to Sig. “Please. Please don’t do this. ”
“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from Monica. ”
Monica wasn’t her real name. Her real name was old Sumerian and so hard to pronounce they’d had to come up with something new vampires could say without offending her. She’d chosen Monica. Said it would be easy to remember. Sig told me she’d thought this was the height of comedy a thousand years earlier. Sig was the only vampire to have known Monica when she went by her original name.
He was the one who’d told me I should never be alone with her.
That was six years ago when I’d been only seventeen.
The vampire was the oldest in memory. So old no one knew her true age, and she wasn’t volunteering it, but I bet she and Calliope could have a good laugh about their memories of the construction of the pyramids.
She and the Oracle had something else in common. They both had very peculiar gifts.
Calliope could look at someone and see their future.
Monica was the vampire version of a lie detector. She could taste someone’s blood and know the whole history of their life. I didn’t want her tasting my blood. Ever.
It was a miracle that to this point the only council vampires who’d figured out what I was were Holden and Sig. Everyone else believed I was a half-vampire who worked with—and sometimes dated—werewolves. That I’d killed a wolf or two in my time worked in my favor to uphold this lie, because a pack wolf almost never kills another of their kind. The inner workings of the werewolf pack would be a total mystery to the vampire council. In the twenty-two years of my life pre-Lucas I had know diddly squat about royal family lines and pack politics.
Vampires thought werewolves were sub-human. Worthless. They couldn’t be bothered to
learn about them, because they didn’t matter. Holden’s disdain of wolves wasn’t a rarity, it was the norm. And that opinion had kept me alive because it kept them from looking too hard at me.
But Monica didn’t care about vampire discrimination against other supernatural species.
One drop of my blood and she’d know why I was so involved with the wolves.
And it was all because of Lucas. If we’d gotten married like two normal people, the event would have been in and out of the papers and people would have stopped caring after a few days. News like that doesn’t register to vampires.
Three weeks of reports on what I was going to do with the gifts, whether or not I’d return the engagement ring, or how much the damage to the Columbia Hotel had cost…well, it was apparently more than they could overlook. That was three weeks of Secret McQueen puns in the paper, and they’d really loved my name in the press. In the days before the ceremony they’d been quips like The Once and Future McQueen. Lucas’s Not-so-Secret Love. Afterwards, my personal favorite had been The Secret’s Out—A Day Without Rain is Bad Luck After All. Clever.
Lucas had screwed me royally, in every way possible.
I just never thought my life would be forfeit for it.
“Sig. ” I was fighting back panicked tears, trying not to fall into abject terror in front of Juan Carlos. Sig touched the bare skin at the back of my neck, and a sense of ease trickled through me. His false brand of personal well-being hadn’t been what I was asking for, but when I felt my worry slipping away, I didn’t complain.
“It will be fine,” he said, his ice-blue gaze locked on mine. “Just a precaution. ”
I dared a glance at Juan Carlos. He looked delighted. Delighted.
Of course he would. He’d finally have the ammunition he needed to not only prove I didn’t deserve to sit on the Tribunal, but he’d somehow figure out a way for me to pay the ultimate price for this, I had no doubt about it.
There were no rules in the council that said a Tribunal leader couldn’t be half-werewolf. But I’d seen how the council treated me when they believed I was merely half-human. That my blood was mingled with something as lowly as a werewolf?