Secret Unleashed: Secret McQueen, Book 6 (10 page)

“I’m getting a good idea of her type, though.”

“Is that so?”

“Yup. Deceptively handsome and wily as hell.”

He smirked. “You think I’m handsome?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re missing the point.”

“I never miss the point. You’re letting your experience with a rogue taint your opinion of an entire family line, and that’s not fair. Charlie was Rebecca’s first. I’m not saying I know much about the finer details of turning someone, but maybe something went wrong. Maybe she screwed it up. Or maybe he was just a fucking psycho in life.”

Hadn’t I been thinking the same thing a day earlier? He was right, of course. I couldn’t assume every vampire sired by Rebecca would be the same as Charlie Conaway. Holden was noble, and
good
, even if he could be a giant pain in the ass. It wasn’t fair of me to question Maxime just because Rebecca had sired him.

After all—when push came to shove—I knew Holden would pick me over Rebecca.

But knowing my distrust was illogical wasn’t the same thing as changing my mind. Holden seemed to sense I was still hesitating because he set aside his glass and took both my hands in his. “Before I came to America there was a period of a few decades where it was just Maxime and me. Rebecca had gone off to make her mark in Spain with Charlie, and she’d left us—the weaker ones—behind in Paris. I can assure you with one hundred percent certainty Max will never,
ever
betray you.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I told him what you are to me.”

My hands went still, sweat pooling between my palms.

“And what is that?”

Holden leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss on my lips before speaking. “The love of my life.”

Chapter Ten

Some girls probably got off on hearing they were the love of someone’s life. I was not one of those girls.

Yes, I did feel a flutter at his words, and
yes
I did love him back, but goddamn these men were not making things easy on me. Between Desmond thinking I was his soul-bonded mate, Lucas thinking I was his werewolf queen, and Holden proclaiming me the love of his life? Well, it was too much lovey-dovey stuff for me to handle.

“Why would you loving me make Maxime more trustworthy?” I asked, dodging his sentiment and pulling my hands free.

If he was upset by my retreat, he didn’t show it.

“Because it means you’re mine. And in vampire cultures, we protect that which belongs to us, and to our family.” He got to his feet, putting his crotch level with my face, and my cheeks warmed to recall what lay just beyond the barrier of his zipper.

Bad Secret.

Mustn’t think of blowjobs while having a serious discussion.

He stepped away in the next instant, confirming he
hadn’t
been offering himself up to me.

“When you say
mine
…” I let the question drift. I knew how the claiming policy worked when it came to humans, now that I was unintentionally in possession of a few, but I didn’t know what it meant when applied to another vampire.

“It means exactly what it sounds like. I told him I’m here as your consort.”

At first I thought of the phrase in a literal way, that Holden was here to assist me and be a part of my entourage. But as I let the deeper meaning of the word sink in, my eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Holden.”

“Trust me, it’s for the best. If you were seen as being unattached, the council might attempt to use that. I’ve seen a lot of weird shit go down, and you don’t want an unfamiliar Tribunal trying to shack you up with a Council Elder in order to strengthen the bonds between the two communities. They tried it with Daria, and she was so appalled with who they saddled her with she ended up killing the guy.” Daria had been my predecessor in the Tribunal, and I believed she’d been more than capable of murdering an unsuitable mate.

Holden was right, it would be a disaster if the West Coast council tried to force a vampiric lover on me. For starters, even a midlevel vampire would be stronger than me, and the second they realized that, I’d be dealing with an attempted assassination. My new lover could then claim a seat on the East Coast Tribunal, and that would be a disaster.

If I let Holden act as my consort, it would be out of the question for the other vampires to play matchmaker.

I hated to admit it, but it had been a genius move on his part.

“Did you tell Sig you planned to do this?”

Holden snorted. “Sig told
me
to do this.”

Of course.
Of course.

“Might have been nice to know ahead of time. You were going to come with me regardless. What if someone had asked me and I was like,
‘Oh, Holden? We fooled around once, and he has a habit of kissing me at inappropriate times, but I don’t know if I’d call him my
consort
.’”

“
Fooled around?
” Now he looked offended.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, you know what I mean.”

“Well, blessedly that wasn’t an issue. But I do have a suggestion to make.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“It would help sell the story if you
behaved
as though I was your consort. Meaning it would look good if one of the beds in our suite went unused.”

This time, the meaning of his words didn’t get by me. “You’re using this as an excuse to get in my pants while I’m away from Desmond, aren’t you?”

He tried—and failed—to hide his smirk. “I’m merely making suggestions to help us convince others of our story. Of course, the vocal sounds of lovemaking would be hard to overlook and would make our union appear more legitimate.”

“I’m not going to fuck you so some strange vampires believe we’re an item.”

“I wasn’t saying that would be the
only
reason.”

“You devious prick.” I got to my feet, kicking back the ottoman a few inches and trying to stand tall enough I might appear imposing to him. It was a lost cause since Holden rarely respected my authority over him. Probably because two years earlier he had outranked me. It was hard to blame him when we both knew he could physically dominate me.

“How am I devious? The plan wasn’t mine.”

“I’m sure Sig didn’t tell you to sleep with me.”

“He told me to do whatever it took to keep you safe.”

I snorted. “Way to twist his words around to serve your own purposes. Well done.”

“Secret, I’m going to be frank here.” The smirk vanished, and a new seriousness replaced it. “I won’t ever ask you to do anything you don’t want to do, and you know that. But I am serious when I tell you people need to be convinced. It doesn’t need to be sex, and I haven’t forced that issue with you since we came back from Aubrey’s kingdom, but
please
don’t do anything to make them question us. I know you think this is a ploy, but it’s not. I’m trying to protect you, and this is the only way I can do it. But you need to help.”

All the snippy retorts I’d been building up in anticipation of what he might say vanished. When Holden got serious he got
really
serious, and I took what he said to heart.

I knew he would protect me at all costs, but I also figured he wasn’t above taking advantage. Now I felt guilty for assuming he was creating a lie solely to bed me. He was better than that.

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “But if you get handsy without permission, the only sounds people will hear through the walls will be you begging for mercy.”

“Baby…if you do give me permission, I can say the same thing to you.”

Chapter Eleven

Ingrid arrived with two other daytime servants—a man and woman who both appeared to be in their early twenties—and put an end to any further smirking innuendo from Holden.

“Tribunal Leader Secret.” Ingrid bowed, and the other two followed suit. Upon a longer inspection I started to think the new arrivals must be twins. They were each ginger-haired and fair-skinned, with similar facial features. Their close ages indicated that if they were not twins, they were definitely related. “I’d like to introduce Barton and Camille, the daytime servants of Tribunal Leaders Eyelee and Galen.”

“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.