Deep Dark Secret (21 page)

“He wouldn’t do that.” I wasn’t so sure, though.

Instead of shooting my faux hope down, he kissed the tip of my nose and pulled me against him, the warmth of his body lulling me into a false sense of security. “Let’s not give him a reason.”

“Is that your way of telling me I have to go to this little party of his tonight and smile pretty for the visiting pack?”

“Yes.”

“Are you coming?”

He kissed me. It might have been a distraction, but it was a welcome one. I slid my leg over his thigh and angled my pelvis towards his as the kiss deepened. He rolled me on top of him and arched his hips up to rub against me. I’d just found the button of his pants when he grabbed my wrist and broke away from the kiss with a moan.

“We can’t.”

“Sure we can.” I popped the button and unzipped his fly. At least one part of him was
very
interested in us continuing on this path. He shifted, his hardness pressing against the thin material of my underwear, then he gently pushed me off him. “Tease.”

“You have a party to get ready for, and I don’t think it would look too good if you showed up smelling like sex.”

He had a point. Unfortunately it wasn’t one I could put inside me.

“You aren’t coming, are you?”

He chuckled. “Sadly, no. Maybe after you go.”

I hit him with the pillow as I got out of bed.

My outfit might have been overkill.

I wore a slinky silver sheath, as low-cut as it was short. Everywhere I looked in the mirror there was more skin. My legs and arms were bare, and the dress had a deep scoop in the back. I made it somewhat respectable by putting a black velvet blazer on over top, but when I put on the black suede ankle boots with four-inch heels, respectability went back out the window.

I was playing with a platinum cuff bracelet when I walked into the living room. “Does this outfit make me look like a hooker?”

When Desmond didn’t reply I raised my head and got the full benefit of his slack-jawed stare. The man had seen me fully naked and done things to me that would make a Penthouse Letters editor blush, but he was looking at me now like I was some new, enticing toy.

“Wow.”

“Good wow, or hooker wow?” I twirled, showing him the back.

“I changed my mind. You’re not allowed to go.”

“Pff. I put on makeup. I’m going out.”

“Then we’re totally having sex.” He lunged for me, grabbing my waist and dipping me backwards for a dramatic, spine-bending kiss. I’d left my hair down, and it grazed the floor. When he came up for air, I disentangled myself from him.

“You can defile me all you want when I get home.
Duty
calls.” What I didn’t tell him was that I had other plans for tonight. Being at Columbia would give me an opportunity to snoop around in Mayhew’s office, see if I could get some evidence of his connection to the dead girls so I could steer Cedes and Tyler in the right direction. I was also going to need to call Cedes and give her some excuse to use with Tyler to explain my insane behavior the night before.

Again it crossed my mind I might be better off telling Tyler the truth. I believed he could handle it, and it would make my life easier to not need to lie to him. But when I tried to imagine all of the questions he would have and how I’d never be able to answer them all honestly, I didn’t think I could go through with it.

Tonight I was going to need help, but not the human variety. And unfortunately for Desmond and Lucas, I needed a vampire. One neither of them was terribly fond of.

The gala at Columbia started at eight sharp, meaning I still had an hour before I needed to meet Lucas there. When he’d called earlier to find out if I was myself again, he’d sounded more than a little relieved to find out I still planned to join him. If I was being totally honest with myself, he’d sounded more relieved about that than he’d been to discover I’d recovered my memory.

Nice.

He’d invited me to meet him at the hotel so we could arrive together, but I put the kibosh on that idea pretty quickly. I had a stop to make first, and there was no way in hell I was bringing him along with me for it.

In all the years Holden had acted as my liaison for the council, I’d never had a reason to call on him at home. I knew where he lived, of course, but going to his apartment had always seemed like a line I shouldn’t cross.

Things had changed, though. He was no longer in charge of me, and as his superior I didn’t think the same rules of propriety applied anymore.

Our relationship hadn’t been
proper
for quite some time now.

Holden lived in a rent-controlled SoHo loft not too far from Rain Hotel. If New Yorkers ever wondered why rent-controlled apartments were almost impossible to find, the reality was they were greedily protected by the cheap undead.

I circled the block three times before I found a parking space.

Holden’s loft was one of two on the sixth floor of an old brick beast of an apartment block. The building’s elevator was in a sorry state of disrepair, leaving me to hike up the cruddy, cracked tile stairs in my Stella McCartney boots. The clomping sounds were really stealthy. No way a two-century-old vampire would hear me coming.

The vampire in question had graciously left his front door open.

“Oh, just you?” He was leaning against the frame of the floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of the back wall. “I figured you’d have a pack of elephants with you.”

I closed the door behind me and surveyed his domain. The room was massive, no surprise since his suite took up half of the sixth floor. The floor had been refinished in a blond hardwood, and the walls were painted green-gray. On the far side of the room was a wall of Japanese-style paper-screen sliding doors. I was willing to bet he had a sun-safe sleep chamber back there somewhere.

“Looking for the bedroom?” he asked, giving me a sly smirk.

“Yeah. Where
do
you keep your coffin? Or are you strictly a black-satin-sheets-on-a-four-poster-bed kind of cliche?”

“Are you asking for an invitation?” His grin faded and he gave me the once-over, his gaze trailing and lingering the way some men might use their hands.

I shivered. “I came to talk business.”

He pushed away from the windows and crossed the room in quick, easy strides until he was standing in front of me. Instinct told me to step back, but I fought against it. We might be in his house, but according to hierarchy, I was the biggest, baddest vampire here. Tribunal leaders don’t let sentries intimidate them.

Bastard was testing me.

“Does the business have anything to do with our little bargain, by any chance?”

Ever since I’d agreed to spend the night with him, I’d known my relationship with him sat on a ticking time bomb.

My breath hitched in my throat, and he definitely noticed.

“No. And don’t hold your damned breath on that either.”

“As you’ve mentioned on several occasions, I have no need to hold my breath.” His smile was thin and predatory. It gave me a chill that had nothing to do with fear.

“I’m not here for that,” I whispered.

“Then perhaps you should get to the point.” He dipped his head so his lips were against my ear and the tip of one sharp fang grazed the lobe. Under normal circumstances I might have found it erotic, but it slammed me back into the memory of being under Mayhew’s spell the previous night.

I pressed a palm flat against Holden’s sternum and pushed him back. My hand was trembling.

“I need you to come with me tonight.”

He caught my wrist in his hand and pressed his thumb against my throbbing pulse. His nostrils flared, and inky blackness made his pupils double in size. Anyone who didn’t know the signs would think he was exhibiting telltale hunger pangs. They’d be wrong. He was smelling my fear.

I tried to pull away, but he held fast.

“What are you scared of?”

“I think I know who might have taken Lucy.”

“Who?”

“Her Medieval Literature professor. Oliver Mayhew.”

“I thought you talked to him already.”

Looking past Holden into the wide space of his living room, I focused on the giant black-and-white photo canvases hanging on the back wall. Anything so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. The evocative prints were lurid enough to make a Bosch painting blush.

It took me a moment to realize one of the nude men—with several female arms of varying skin tones wrapped around his most private parts—was Holden himself.

“Is that a Mapplethorpe?” I asked, pointing to the huge print.

“Secret, Robert Mapplethorpe didn’t kidnap Lucy. He died in 1989.” He forcefully turned my face back to him. “Why do you think Mayhew has her?”

“I went to see him again last night.”

Holden’s fingers gripped my chin so hard it hurt. “Why would you go back alone if you thought he was guilty of something?”

“I thought he was human.”

“He isn’t?”

“Not unless a human can strike me immobile without any force. No human can do what he did.”

The vampire released my face and took my hand up again, holding it between his two lukewarm palms. “Did he…hurt you?”

Deep black pools overwhelmed the chocolate brown of Holden’s eyes until all that was left were bottomless pits of darkness. He was beyond mad.

“He stole my memories. Years of my life vanished. But, no, I don’t think he did anything to me physically. Except kiss me.”

Holden growled, and suddenly he was back across the room, facing the window.

“You can’t put yourself at risk like that.”

Anger bubbled inside me, but I bit my tongue against the tide of curses that wanted to spew out of my mouth. I was being indignant. He was right, after all. My life wasn’t my own anymore. I had responsibilities to Lucas’s pack, and more importantly I was at the head of one of the biggest vampire organizations in the world.

This was why Sig didn’t want me running around in the streets with Shane, putting myself in harm’s way.

Only now was I fully aware of how selfish I had been. I might have pretended I was doing it to save Lucy or find out the truth about who killed Trish and the others, but the honest fact was I wanted to be on the hunt again. Just like I’d wanted to be out for the kill last night when I’d chased the vampire with Shane. It wasn’t the hunter I wanted to help. I’d wanted the hunt itself.

I let out my breath in a huff. “That’s why I need you now.”

With his arms braced against the wooden frame of the window I was afraid he might crack the glass. He was rigid with tension, his whole body vibrating with unspent energy.

“You need to swear to me you won’t do this ever again.”

“I don’t owe you any promises, Holden.”

He turned, and his expression was all it took to knock me back a few steps. For all the bravado and posturing, the mood swings and the flirting, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him look the way he did right now. His features were drawn and tight as though he were racked with pain. The man had seen me nearly beaten to death, but he’d never once looked at me with such concern.

“Don’t be stubborn.”

“Why, will you try duping me into sleeping with you if I don’t agree?” I was trying to lighten the mood, but he didn’t so much as crack a smile.

After a tense pause, he shook his head. “I already did that.”

I gave him a weak grin. “So, quit your bitching. You going to help me or not?”

“What do you need?”

“I need someone to carry my gun. Someone to back me up when I go snooping around Mayhew’s office tonight.”

“You’re awfully dressed up for a break-and-enter.”

“That’s the other thing.”

He arched a brow.

“I need you to not say a single
goddamn
word to Lucas tonight.”

We arrived at Columbia a half hour later after Holden had traded his casual duds for a designer suit. He had my gun tucked into the back of his pants, but he’d insisted on checking the safety forty or fifty times before he’d acquiesced to hiding it there.

Guess he was worried about accidentally taking a silver bullet in the ass.

The newly constructed Rain School of Business had replaced an old dormitory that had burned down the previous summer. Nestled between another dorm hall and an aging Chemistry building, the new building looked far too shiny and ostentatious.

“Someone’s overcompensating,” Holden scoffed.

“You’re a regular comedian, Chancery. Get it out of your system now.”

He shrugged, but I could still see the glimmer of mirth in his eyes. This night was destined to be nothing but trouble. What had I been thinking, bringing Holden to a party where I was supposed to be showing the Southern packs what a good little mate I was to Lucas?

“I’m serious,” I warned. “There are people here tonight who could spell a lot of trouble for Lucas’s pack.” When those words didn’t seem to get through to him, I stopped walking and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Trouble for Lucas is trouble for
me
.”

Holden raised both palms in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. Play nice with the dogs.”

“And whatever you do, don’t
say
that. There are visiting emissaries from my uncle’s pack here, and I don’t think they’ll laugh off your slurs quite the same way. Lucas can’t have a vampire belittling him on his own turf. It would—”

“Secret. I
get
it. You don’t need to explain to me the finer points of pack politics. I’m a vampire. I know how ridiculous supernatural society can be. I’ll behave.”

“Sorry.” I blushed faintly. “And thank you.”

Ahead of us a small group of people entered the brightly lit building. They were dressed in tuxedos and evening dresses, and a few of the women were sporting fur coats. I’d forgotten I was supposed to dress for the cold and had worn only my velvet blazer. Holden, similarly, wore only his suit jacket. We earned a few sideways glances when we merged with the crowd going in.

“So glad we found a parking spot so close,” I commented, laughing.

Holden shook his head like it wouldn’t have occurred to him to make an effort to explain our lack of outerwear. “Yes. How lucky.”