Cold Hard Secret (Secret McQueen) Read online

  Dedication

  To Jessica Branscombe, who will surely send me a million texts while reading this. Thank you for years of the most enthusiastic support.

  And while I’m at it, another thank you to my two other Jessicas: Jessica Cote and Jessica McCarthy, you’re wonderful, and I love you both so much.

  Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

  —Confucius

  Chapter One

  I was sick of the nightmares.

  I’d spent most of my life experiencing dreamless sleeps, with an occasional foray into the realm of vision-quest-type prophecy dreams. But nightmares were new for me.

  For the first two months I didn’t know what to do about them. I was convinced it was a sure-fire sign I had been taken back into my own living version of hell. But I’d killed the man responsible for my suffering. His head had been severed with one fell swoop, a faster and easier death than he deserved.

  I’d tasted his blood when it sprayed across my face.

  He was dead and could never hurt me or those I loved again.

  But that didn’t keep the dreams at bay.

  In the dark of night, the gentle caress of hands would traverse my body with the familiarity of a lover, playing across my skin with the barest touch. The fingers would stop over my heart, one palm resting between my breasts, tickling the sensitive area above my sternum.

  In my dreams I can’t move.

  The fingers thrum, but the nails grow and grow until little half-moon-shaped puddles of blood begin to pool, and suddenly my pale skin is stained pink.

  In my dreams I can’t scream.

  Those nails get longer until the fingers are buried two knuckles deep in my chest and my heart shudders.

  The Doctor leans in close, his sinister grin looming tight and charmingly evil in the dark. He licks his lips and says, “Heal this, bitch.”

  Before he rips my heart out.

  I woke up in a cold sweat, panting for breath.

  My sheets had long since been kicked off and lay in a tangle at the end of the bed. At some point during the nightmare I’d found the gun under my pillow, and it was still clutched in my hand when I came around.

  I’d disengaged the safety again.

  It was no wonder Desmond didn’t sleep next to me anymore.

  Lying still, I counted my breaths until they returned to a normal rhythm. My eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly, giving me plenty of time to stare at the tin ceiling tiles before I climbed out of bed. I didn’t need to peek through the curtains to know night had fallen. If it were still daylight, I wouldn’t be up.

  Leaving the gun on the dresser, I grabbed my robe from the back of the door and padded barefoot into the big, open-concept living area of the hotel suite. Whereas the bedroom was a cocoon of inky blackness, the living room was lit by a dozen different lamps, and everything seemed brighter because of all the white-and-cream tones of the space.

  Desmond was sitting on the big linen-covered sofa, his loafer-clad feet propped up on the low coffee table and his laptop balanced across his thighs. He glanced up, and his fingers went still on the keys.

  “Hey.” His soft voice was the most comforting thing I could think of.

  “Hey.” I moved across the room, but instead of sitting beside him on the couch I sat cross-legged on the coffee table, pulling his feet onto my lap and hugging them to my stomach. He wriggled his toes to tickle my belly.

  “How bad was it?” He closed the laptop and set it aside, showing me I had his full attention. It was sweet but unnecessary. He’d been living with my nightmares for months; he didn’t need a play-by-play anymore.

  “Same as usual.”

  I think if I’d been a normal woman, he would have suggested some kind of a sleep aid or sedative. God knows I would have loved something to conk me out and keep the nightmares away. But being a whackadoodle supernatural hybrid had just as many drawbacks as it did benefits. One of the biggest was a heightened metabolism for narcotic substances. I used to think it was great, because it meant I never got hangovers when I drank. Now, though, I’d have willingly traded it in if it meant a good night’s sleep with the help of some Ambien.

  Besides, if there had been anything I could take, I’d have figured it out by now. Between having a witch for a grandmother and a slew of otherworldly creatures lurking on the sidelines of my life, we’d tried every spell, potion and charm out there. All to no avail.

  The nightmares were a part of me now.

  “Did you—?”

  I cut him off. “Yeah, it’s on the dresser.”

  The gun routine got old for Desmond a lot faster than the restless sleeping did. He managed to ignore it for a while, but then came the day he couldn’t wake me when I held the armed weapon on him…

  He had good reason to sleep on a different schedule, and it was hard for me to begrudge him for respecting his personal safety. I’d love to say I wouldn’t hurt him, but there were nights I woke up with my chest scratched bloody by my own hands. If I couldn’t keep from injuring myself, I didn’t know what I’d do to someone else.

  I might pull the trigger.

  I wouldn’t want to, I wouldn’t mean to, but in the depths of those dreams the only thing I wanted was a way out.

  But it was either I sleep with the gun, or never sleep again.

  “Do you want to sleep?” I asked.

  “Nah, I had a nap when I got back from the office. You think you’re up for it tonight?”

  God, if only he were talking about sex.

  Putting on my best smile, I mustered up some enthusiasm. I did want to go out—I was getting a little stir-crazy in the suite, and some fresh night air would do me a world of good. “Yeah. Let me get changed.” I got to my feet, but before I could leave he grabbed my wrist.

  I flinched.

  “Secret…”

  Instead of recoiling—which was my typical response these days—I let him hold me, twining his fingers through mine.

  “I’m sorry.” I thought I’d been getting better about that, but apparently the involuntary reaction to shut down was still as bad as before.

  “Just come here.” He tugged me, and I yielded, straddling his legs and bracing my free hand against his chest. Desmond held our mingled fingers to his lips and kissed them. “We don’t have to go.”

  “I want to.”

  “I don’t know if it’s good for you.”

  I rested my forehead against his and closed my eyes, breathing in his scent and briefly basking in his warmth. “I’m fine, I promise. It was just a dream.”

  He released my hand but moved to cup my face instead. The kiss he laid on my lips was so gentle I almost didn’t feel it until he was already pulling back. There had been a time after my captivity I couldn’t handle even a kiss like that, but I was getting better. I wasn’t fixed by any means, but I was making slow inroads. He let his hands fall to my thighs, giving them a light, comforting squeeze. I returned his peck with one of my own.

  “Go get ready. Don’t forget the gun.” His tone had a sarcastic edge, and I knew he was teasing me, trying to keep the mood light.

  I never forgot the gun anymore.

  Chapter Two

  City of Love.

  The tourist industry for Paris slapped that phrase on everything. City of Love, City of Light. It was the kind of place I should have wanted to share with my tall, gorgeous, werewolf boyfriend. We should have been taking walks hand in hand by the Seine River with like…baguettes and berets or something.

  Instead we were chasing ghosts.

  Not literal ghosts, though Paris had its fair share of those. We were trailing a specter from my past, and in this case all roads led to Pari
s, not Rome. Alexandre Peyton was somewhere in the French capital, and it had become my single-minded purpose to find him and kill him once and for all.

  I tracked Desmond while he moved through the Paris streets with the fluid grace of someone who was not altogether human. I definitely didn’t have the appearance of a run-of-the-mill tourist from where I was situated, either. Strolling light-footed along the sloped roofs of the city with a sword strapped to my back and a gun holstered under my jacket, I looked anything but normal.

  It was for the best no one could see me.

  Paris was prone to childish fits of weather, and it had rained sometime during my sleep. Either that or Mother Nature had started syncing her bad moods with mine. The cobblestone street below glistened in the yellow streetlights like it had been covered in gold foil.

  I slid down the slick face of the roof and onto a small balcony where a cluster of potted herbs were gathered. The basil and rosemary smelled sweet, and the dirt had a woody, wet aroma that reminded me of being in the forest.

  I missed home. True home, where I’d grown up in rural Manitoba. New York City might be home now, and I loved it, but Central Park couldn’t compare to the Canadian Shield for proper woodland living.

  Desmond ducked into an alley.

  Goddammit, he’d forgotten to give me the signal ahead of time.

  I balanced on the edge of the wrought-iron balcony railing and judged the distance from one side of the street to the building across from me. It was doable, but tourists and locals alike were thick in the street below. It was risky to make the leap with so many potential witnesses.

  Fuck it.

  I checked my weight, then propelled across the gap, landing on the identical railing opposite me and slipping easily onto the balcony. There were no fragrant herbs here, just an empty pet-food dish. After hoisting myself up, I took careful steps in the direction of the alley Desmond had chosen, and perched like a gargoyle at the apex of the roof, staring down into the murky dark of the lane below.

  Desmond waited alone at a black gate.

  The problem with me hunting a fugitive vampire was finding a reliable source. Within the vampire community, I was too well-known. As a former assassin, getting information would be difficult enough. But now I was one-third of the New York Vampire Tribunal, making me one of the most powerful vampires in all of America.

  And I wasn’t even a full-blooded vampire.

  Quibbling over semantics didn’t matter, because no one was going to tell me squat about Peyton. Non-vampires wouldn’t trust me, and vampires would be wary of crossing a Tribunal leader. One bad bit of advice and I might be signing a warrant with their name on it.

  Add to that the bigger problem—someone on the Los Angeles council was feeding information to Peyton, and I didn’t know who—and I was cut off at both legs.

  Holden Chancery, my vampire companion, friend, and sometimes lover, was useless in this quest too because everyone knew him as my consort.

  Which was where Desmond came in.

  He could move around in daylight, making him more trustworthy to the non-vamps with information. And his affiliation with the East Coast werewolf king, Lucas Rain, led any vamps with information to believe he wouldn’t be mixed up with the vampire council.

  Our romance wasn’t exactly below radar, but it also wasn’t as well broadcast to the vampire world as my connection with Holden. Most supernaturals in Europe wouldn’t have the faintest clue in hell who Desmond was, and that’s how I liked it.

  It meant he could get to places and people I couldn’t.

  And brought us closer to Peyton with each day.

  Desmond, for his part, saw it as fair trade for all the times I’d gone off with Holden and left him waiting at home. Too bad I wasn’t the most romantic date these days.

  In spite of Holden and Desmond coming to a tense understanding with each other to let me put off making any choices between the two of them, it was still Desmond I lived with. And in the months that passed after I’d left California, understanding or no understanding, no one had been sleeping with me. Neither the wolf nor the vampire were getting any hot Secret action.

  Secret was temporarily out of sexual service.

  And who knew how temporary it was.

  I’d tried, God knew I’d tried. I could handle the kissing and the cuddling, but the second Desmond’s hand moved towards my breasts I’d break down in tears. Nothing killed the mood faster than bloodstained tears and a hyperventilating girlfriend.

  I wanted very badly to be with Desmond and Holden the way I once had been, but every attempt ended with a panic attack. After a while we’d just stopped trying, and I was waiting for the right time to make another attempt.

  When I’d gotten free of The Doctor, I had wanted to be held all the time. I’d clung to Desmond and Holden like they were all I needed to keep myself together. But things got harder after I got home, and didn’t look to get easier anytime soon.

  Holden didn’t know how to deal with it. I think he was grateful when I told him to stay behind during my Paris trip.

  He was getting frustrated with me, and I could understand why. There were moments I was frustrated with myself.

  Desmond didn’t let it show, but I was wearing him down too. He was the kind of person to see the positive side of things—a real bonus for me, given everything I’d put him through—but I knew he was having trouble seeing the light at the end of our tunnel.

  So was I.

  Though the good nights had started to outnumber the bad, my dark moods were still really dark. And the nightmares persisted every day.

  He unlatched the gate and stepped through, where I lost him to the night. I’d need to get down to street level if I wanted to follow him, and that defeated the whole purpose of sending him in alone. He was a big boy, I shouldn’t be worried, but the moment I let anyone I loved out of my sight, a part of me was convinced I was seeing them for the last time.

  A fragment of memory flashed into my mind, Holden crumpled in the corner of a concrete cell, his body wasting away to nothing with gaunt cheeks and pale skin.

  I blinked a few times, hoping to chase it away, but the scene faded out and was replaced with another. Maxime, a young vampire I’d met in Los Angeles who was from Holden’s line, tethered up and split open, his insides spilling out onto the floor.

  Gagging, I braced myself on all fours on the roof and closed my eyes.

  “Ten…nine…eight…seven…” Each word was sounded out fully and slowly, and I concentrated on the count, trying to picture the numbers the way a preschooler might, in terms of shiny red apples or colorful rubber balls. Anything to distract myself from the flashbacks.

  These weren’t nightmares, they were memories, and they’d been haunting me for months. Any time I thought I was free of them, one would sneak back in and grab hold of me, as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.

  In my almost twenty-four years of life I had seen gruesome things. I’d once watched a demon rip out my ex-boyfriend’s spine. But none of that had stuck with me like my experiences with The Doctor had. I used to think I could forget anything and keep moving on with my life.

  Turns out I was wrong.

  A loud metallic clang in the alley brought my attention back to the present. A small man with a ratty nest of brown hair bolted towards the main street, and a moment later Desmond followed him.

  “Anytime now,” he growled, casting a glance upwards. Considering he couldn’t have known where I was, he came close to looking right at me.

  Having my cue, I straightened up and jumped across the alley to the next roof just as Desmond reached the street. The chorus of shocked cries and French expletives from his emergence onto the main road led me in the right direction. The roofs were slick from the evening’s earlier rain, and as I went to clear another gap, I slipped.

  I went down like a sack of bricks, smashing my hip and shoulder onto the hard surface and sliding towards the balcony below. Unfortunately my momentum had been enou
gh that I was also still moving forward, and I hit the end of the building before I had a chance to latch on to the balcony railing.

  Soon there was nothing beneath me except the potential for a long fall.

  For a split second I panicked, not sure what to do.

  Then my brain kicked in, and survival instincts overrode my momentary flailing stupidity. I grabbed the edge of the roof, struggling to find purchase on the slippery material and finally getting a decent hold.

  I got my toes in on the top of a window frame and stayed put for a moment, catching my breath. Given my precarious position, I could either try to get back up on the roof, or dangle down enough so I could fall into the alley at an angle that wouldn’t break my neck.

  I had to get down eventually somehow.

  Dropping straight wasn’t an option. Even if I didn’t break my neck I would probably break my legs, and though it would heal within hours—twenty-one, to be precise—I didn’t relish the idea of dragging myself home with two broken legs while Desmond chased some random informant through the Parisian streets.

  The walls on both sides of the alley were set with boarded windows, but with enough ledge under the frames I could theoretically scale my way down. Big emphasis on the theoretical.

  Bracing my feet against the wall, I eyeballed the alley for my best target. One of the windows on the opposite side had a decent lip. Below me there was another window with a half-broken wooden sill. Easy-peasy.

  I pushed off and twisted in the air—made only slightly more difficult by the sword attached to my back. When I hit the ledge on the opposite wall, I realized I’d overestimated the depth of it and scrambled to get my feet balanced for the split-second I’d need. Then I shoved off again, mirroring the move to get to the window that had previously been below me.

  The wood sill crumbled under my boot.

  I wasn’t having a hell of a lot of luck here.

  Between the two windows, I’d managed to drop at least fifteen feet lower than where I’d started. I’d come far enough I could fall the rest of the way with no magnificent injuries. I propelled myself across one more time, grabbing hold of another ledge by the tips of my fingers. The impact of my body crashing into the wall reminded me of the hard fall I’d taken up on the roof.