Are blind dates supposed to be this bloody?
A Secret McQueen Story They say it's impossible to find a man in New York City. Secret McQueen needs to find two in one night. Of course, it’ll mean pulling off the impossible—find and kill a displaced rogue vampire without disrupting the first promising date she’s had in ages. As a werewolf hybrid used to walking a fine line of survival in the vampire world, though, Secret eats impossible for breakfast. Somewhere between hello and the first round of drinks, Secret makes her move. Her target, Hollywood’s biggest star, shouldn’t be hard to spot. Just look for swarms of fans. Except every time her vampire liaison, Holden, helps keep her mission on track, her date runs further off the rails. Either Holden has a hidden agenda, or he knows more than he’s letting on about her quarry. One way or another, Secret is determined to get her man, and meet Mr. Right. Or die trying.
Warning: This book contains a sword-wielding assassin whose barbs are sharper than her blade, a vampire with serious brooding issues but a skilled tongue, and an A-lister with a bad habit of eating his fans. This novella takes place approximately one year prior to the events of Something Secret This Way Comes.
eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520 Macon GA 31201 The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters Copyright © 2011 by Sierra Dean ISBN: 978-1-60928-480-0 Edited by Sasha Knight Cover by Kanaxa All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2011 www.samhainpublishing.com
The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters Sierra Dean
Dedication
To Shawn McCarthy—giver of insightful feedback, builder of websites, jump starter of stalled cars, husband to my BFF, and incredible friend. Thanks for everything.
Chapter One
As a general rule, people don’t like to date monsters. I don’t mean in a my ex-boyfriend was such an asshole, he was a total monster to my friends or that girl was a monster bitch kind of way. What I mean is, ask your average New Yorker if they’d like to have a girlfriend whose primary source of food was human blood, and most of them will say no. At less than five and a half feet tall with bouncy blonde, curly hair and big doe-brown eyes, I didn’t really look like an evil creature. But don’t they say it’s what’s inside that counts? Inside I was a mixedblood nightmare—half werewolf on my mother’s side and half vampire thanks to my father. Which isn’t to say I inherited the latter part naturally. My mother had been seven months pregnant when my human father was turned. He attacked her, then fed her his blood to keep her alive afterwards. Talk about a guilty conscience. As a result, my human cells were attacked and infected with the vampire disease. The trauma activated the werewolf genes already dormant within me, and voila—cute, perky and totally bloodthirsty. I’d been raised by my grandmere, my mother’s mother, and she named me Secret, which is probably what my mother hoped I would stay. Instead I ended up in New York City as the employee of the vampire council, where my job title is bounty hunter but my real job is more assassin than retriever. Not really something you can use as an opening line when introducing yourself to guys. Unless of course they have a weird Buffy the Vampire Slayer fetish, but I try to avoid that comparison whenever possible. Then there was always the pesky problem of how none of it—vampires, werewolves or vampire slayers—was supposed to exist. Humans don’t like to think their bedtime stories are based in reality. Yet those tales, be they scary or fairy, from vampires to the grimmer of the Grimm, are rooted in truth. But no one before me has been afflicted with two kinds of monster curse in the same body. Aren’t I lucky? Due to my habit of sleeping like the dead throughout the daylight hours, and my own misgivings about what I am, I don’t get out much. The only men I saw on a regular basis were my business partner, Keaty, and my liaison with the council, Holden Chancery. Keaty, pushing forty and every inch the cold-blooded killer, was not a dream match romantically. He was the best partner I could ask for, and handsome in an ex-CIA sort of way, but I would never be able to
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picture him as anything other than a fucked-up father figure. And that’s saying something considering how fucked-up my real father was. Holden, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes, being a tall, lean, handsome brunet with beautiful dark eyes and a killer sense of style. No, I didn’t mind looking at him. The problem with Holden was he was a vampire, and not only that, he was sort of my caseworker. I don’t know how the council felt about dating among the ranks, and I had never asked. It wasn’t the kind of question you brought up when meeting with a thousand-plus-year-old Finnish master vampire named Sig who was asking you to kill people while looking at you like he wanted to taste you. So I was left with few options and no real desire to seek out alternatives. I may have been a twentyone-year-old woman, single in the city, but I couldn’t wrap my head around getting into the dating scene. It wasn’t like I was worried about eating my boyfriend or anything. Well, most of the time. Every girl has her days. During my time in New York I’d had two semi-serious relationships, and one of the men had lived with me until my peculiar sleeping habits got too weird for him. For over a year there had been no one in my life, and I’d gotten pretty content being unattached. And that’s when my best and only human girlfriend decided to put her nose into my business. Mercedes Castilla was a detective with the NYPD and in her third go-round of being twenty-nine. Also perennially single, she seemed to have given up on her own love life and had taken over mine instead. That was how, on a Saturday night in August, I found myself scrutinizing my rear end in a mirror and was less than thrilled with the results. Maybe vampire hunting didn’t give me an excuse to avoid the gym after all. “Explain to me again why I have to do this?” I asked into the phone crammed between my shoulder and ear. “You want me to tell you why you’re going out to dinner with a handsome, unmarried, well-educated detective?” Mercedes was sarcastic at the best of times, but tonight it was honed razor sharp. I gathered she was getting annoyed with my hesitations. “Yes?” I replied, not entirely sure I wanted her to respond. I pulled on my favorite jeans and rechecked my butt. A slight improvement. Sighing with a little too much drama, I put my hands on my hips, arching my shoulders back to see if my cleavage had grown since the last time I looked. Was it wrong to cancel a date because of too much ass and too little boob? “Secret.” Now her voice did nothing to hide her irritation. “You have cancelled on two different guys I’ve tried to set you up with. One of them was my cousin.” “He could only meet me at five,” I grumbled. “So?” “You know my schedule.” Yeah, my not-burning-into-a-cloud-of-ash schedule. It was pretty strict.
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“And you couldn’t have moved things around for an early dinner? I don’t think Keats is that much of a hardass.” I gave up on my reflection—yes, half-vampires and all vampires for that matter have reflections—and flopped backwards onto my bed. Staring up at my water-stained ceiling, I prayed it might collapse on me before nine o’clock. “Okay, tell me one more time what’s so great about this guy?” I wound my loose curls around my fingers and then let them unfurl on their own. “I mentioned handsome and unmarried, didn’t I?” “I suppose, given your apparent opinion of me, I should be happy your criteria was aimed somewhere higher than breathing, shouldn’t I?” “Not breathing is a deal breaker.” The humor was gone, and her tone was dead serious. Mercedes hated vampires. That she was human and believed they existed was impressive enough, so I had opted not to tell her about my undead half. “Plus, he likes dogs.” A short, loud gasp of shocked laughter escaped my mouth. She might not know about the vampire half, but she certainly knew about the werewolf one. “You’re hi-lar-ious.” It was at about that moment I realized I was no longer alone in my itty-bitty apartment. It began with a shift of atmosphere, which gave me the sense someone else was taking up space belonging to me. There was no noise to confirm my suspicions, but there didn’t need to be. Vampires don’t tend to announce themselves politely. “Cedes, I need to go.” Sitting up on the bed, I looked into the evening gloom of my living room. I may be able to see in the pitch black, but you need to have a target willing to be seen in order for that to work. Even darkness has its shadows. “You better not be pretending to be sick.” “I don’t get sick,” I replied. I wanted her off the phone, but I didn’t need her to worry. She was a detective after all, and she would know if I sounded uneasy, so I kept my tone playful and even. My eyes, however, were in full-on predator mode. “Nine o’clock, Secret. I’ve told Tyler to call me at nine-oh-five if you haven’t shown up, and so help me God, girl, if you aren’t there, you will have some serious explaining to do.” “Okay.” I hung up on her without further argument, which would probably worry her more than if I’d started screaming, oh my God, there’s a vampire in my apartment! The vampire in question now stood in the doorway, looking far too pleased with himself. He leaned against the doorframe, all five feet ten inches of lithe, catlike grace and two centuries of practice at acting casual. Holden Chancery wasn’t the kind of man most girls would refuse entry into their bedroom. I wasn’t most girls. “I gave you a key so you would stop breaking in, not so you could come and go as you please.”
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Holden’s hair was cut a shade too long but was perfectly groomed. He tossed it out of his eyes and fixed me with a miffed stare only a vampire could manage. His eyes were a rich chocolate brown tonight, so I knew he’d fed. All the same, his gaze traveled from mine down to my throat. I may have been half vampire, but I still had a pulse, and it made me incredibly interesting to the full-bloods I worked with. “You said I could use the key if there was business,” he said, only half listening. “Business?” My interest perked up. Perhaps there would be a valid excuse to get out of my date with Detective Tyler after all. I clapped my hands together twice to get his attention off my neck and back to my face. Girls who think boobs are their most distracting assets haven’t been watched by a vampire. Holden shook out of his trance and refocused on me. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked with a smirk, which was unusual for him. He often appeared quietly content, like a fat cat after a visit from the milkman, but never looked outright happy. Vamps have a bad habit of only showing in-between emotions—pensive, annoyed, thoughtful, wistful and, of course, brooding. You’d be more likely to provoke the undead to anger than make them bust a gut laughing. Of course this vampire had heard the entire latter half of my conversation with Mercedes. “Tell me about the business.” I grabbed a plain black V-neck T-shirt off the floor and pulled it on over my head. It was rumpled but still smelled clean. I didn’t wear perfume because my nose was sensitive at the best of times, so the shirt held only the faint scent of laundry detergent. I liked it. “Are you going to wear that on your date?” He sounded offended. I looked down at the shirt. It fit, it didn’t stink and the wrinkling was minimal. What was his problem? “Well, better this than no shirt at all, right?” He made a noise of disgust, and before I’d seen him move, he was in my closet. “Hey.” I was up and off the bed, following him to my disorganized mess of clothes. There was a stream of grumbles and sighs from inside the closet as he shoved back hanger after hanger, shaking his head each time. “What exactly do you do with the money we give you?” “Rent and shoes?” Holden took a blue, flowing, peasant-style top off the rack, held it up to me and grimaced, then released it into my arms. “This?” I inspected it, questioning his judgment. “That is getting thrown out.” He snatched up another hanger, this one holding a slinky black cocktail dress I’d used once to bait a vampire at the Russian Tea Room. He handed the garment to me, his eyes alight with a triumphant glow. “This is what you’re going to wear.” “My Russian prostitute dress?” I was incredulous. He couldn’t be serious. It was skin-tight satin cut three inches above the knee and tried its hardest to make it seem like I had boobs. But wasn’t it more suitable for a first date where the guy was paying for something other than the meal?
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“You can’t wear jeans on a first date, Secret. Not if you want there to be a second.” I would have liked to dispute what he was saying, but for the better part of the eighties Holden had been an editor-at-large for GQ. How do you argue with someone who made a living knowing what defined style, even if it had been in the eighties? Begrudgingly, I admitted defeat. “I’ll wear this…as long as you tell me about the business once I’m in it.” “Deal.”
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Chapter Two
By the time I found my favorite pair of gold Jimmy Choo’s—paid for by killing a nasty mess of a rogue who’d reminded me of Jabba the Hutt—I was already running late for my date. Holden, for some sadistic reason, was unwilling to let me cancel. He walked with me so we could discuss the council’s business and still make it to Midtown East in time for Tyler’s nine o’clock reservation at a new steakhouse called Red. I think I was supposed to be impressed a mere detective managed to get us a table at such a popular place, but I didn’t care as long as they knew how to make a good blue-rare steak. I might be able to eat human food, but it didn’t do anything for me nutritionally. I needed blood, and the closest I could get in polite company was eating meat, the less cooked the better. It did one of two things to the guys I met—either impressed the hell out of them, or they got grossed out. If Tyler wasn’t among the former, it wouldn’t matter what I’d worn. Guys rarely ask for a second date when you’ve physically repulsed them. I was still trying to feel comfortable in the outfit Holden had chosen and continued to be a bit torn about wearing the heels. When I know I might be working, I like to be as comfortable as possible, especially if there’s a chance running could be involved. Thanks to the combined agility of both my werewolf and vampire halves, I was capable of running in heels. But if you’ve ever tried to chase a vampire across Battery Park in four-inch stilettos, you’d know agility is the least of your worries. But right now, Battery Park was miles away from being an issue, and running didn’t seem too likely as we walked south on 6th. The constant noise of the city washed away any concern of us being overheard. The sky was a pretty shade of night-time blue, and every block or so I’d catch a glimpse of the Chrysler Building on the skyline, grinning at me with its art deco teeth like an upside-down Cheshire cat. I’d stopped tugging at the hem of the dress before we were out of Hell’s Kitchen and only received one catcall since. Wearing a short skirt on a Saturday night hardly qualified you as interesting or unique enough to warrant sideways glances, especially on 6th Avenue. “Sig left me a message asking me to come to the main hall after sundown,” Holden explained. The vampires had their headquarters West of SoHo, on Green, which even the keenest human observer wouldn’t know was there. It was so cloaked by magic the only thing humans would see was an ugly, unwelcoming hole in the wall. What was actually there was a sight to behold. It was a sister building
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to Grand Central Terminal, and the windows had been replaced by artificial light sources many decades before, giving the interior the ambient glow of a time long past. It was there members of the council ran the day-to-day—or night-to-night—business of all vampires. It was like a government, only less bloodthirsty. The hub also housed, in the dungeon-like depths of its basement, the most powerful members of vampire society—the Tribunal. They were the three who kept control and balance in the vampire world. Sig, the undisputed leader among the three, and the most powerful vampire on the East Coast if not all of North America, was the one who issued all the warrants. And it was the Tribunal who told me who to kill. Of course, since I was something of a black sheep among the vampire community and therefore persona non grata at headquarters, it fell to Holden to pass the warrants along to me. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d had to visit the hub, and on each of those occasions I’d been in trouble. The current arrangement suited me fine since Sig and the other Tribunal leaders scared the bejesus out of me. I was waiting for Holden to elaborate on whatever Sig had told him in their nightfall meeting. It didn’t escape my attention, though, that in order for Sig’s message to have arrived before nightfall, he would have been awake during daylight hours. Most vampires sleep like the dead whether they want to or not. It was only the very old or the very powerful who could escape the daylight death. I was sometimes able to rouse myself in the morning thanks to my mixed blood, but I couldn’t go outside, so there wasn’t much of a point. For Sig, a full vampire, to be awake during the day meant he was either much older or stronger than I’d once assumed him to be. We crossed the street on a Do Not Walk, narrowly avoiding an overzealous cab, and Holden guided me onto East 33rd by placing his hand on the small of my back and motioning me in the appropriate direction. We must have looked for all the world like one of those beautiful couples people love to hate. He made us pretty, I just helped make us a pair. It didn’t hurt that the dress gave me the illusion of being more stunning than I actually was. When we were angled the right way, his hand lingered below my shoulders in a protective gesture. His fingers were level with my hair, and from time to time he would catch and hold one of the curls for a second, then release it. “You realize we’re almost there, don’t you?” I asked, running out of patience. It wasn’t his touch that bothered me. It was the delay in his narrative. Vampires have no sense of urgency, which drives me mental. They’ll forget what they’re saying and muse silently to themselves for hours if you don’t remind them to resume their story. I guess living for centuries must make time feel different. He dropped his hand, as though touching me was part of his distraction, then licked his lips as he prepared to speak.
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“It would seem, according to the West Coast Tribunal, one of their rogues has crossed into our jurisdiction.” His hands were now stuffed in the pockets of his gray dress pants. Summer or not, Holden Chancery would never be caught dead in shorts. Climate control isn’t really an issue for vampires. Plus he was already dead. “Oh?” I didn’t want to say too much, just wanted him to continue speaking. Holden reached into his blazer and withdrew a familiar white envelope. The paper was a heavy linen finish and smelled sweet but faintly peppery. It was closed with an honest-to-God wax seal, stamped with Sig’s personal insignia. My heart always caught with butterflies when Holden brought me one of these deliveries, and tonight was no different. With the slightest tremor of excitement, I took the envelope and held it close for a moment. Here it was, the promise of the hunt. The reward of the chase. The killer inside both my monsters lived for this. I got down to brass tacks. “How much?” “Ten.” Thousand. Wow, this guy must have been pretty naughty. The average rogue was worth five hundred if they were part of a sect, a thousand if they ran solo. Yup. I’ve killed vampires for a mere five hundred dollars. But considering rogues would always be an issue, and I had a menacing reputation to uphold, five hundred bucks for a night’s work wasn’t too shabby. The most I’d ever earned on a single job was ten thousand, so this was a pretty nice number to hear again. The warrant in my hands would cover almost seven months of rent. Or five months and some new clothes to replace what Holden had insisted I throw out. I popped the seal with a satisfying crack and was unfolding the paper when Holden’s attention shifted. A second later I knew why. “Secret?” The voice was low, comforting and masculine without being overwhelming. It did happy things to parts of me I rarely acknowledged. He also didn’t stumble over my name, so he scored points early in the game for that. With a name like Secret McQueen, it was easy for people to make a mess out of it. I turned away from Holden, the envelope still in my hand, and was pleasantly surprised by what greeted me. Detective Tyler Nowakowski lived up to Mercedes’s designation of handsome. He was tall, at least six foot two, and lean without bending towards lanky. His eyes were a little too large, but it gave him a look of attentive curiosity. In contrast, his mouth was small, giving his face the appearance of an inverted triangle. His nose and jaw were strong, alluding to the Slavic heritage hinted at by his name. His hair, short and black, was styled with a minimal amount of gel.
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He wore dark jeans, about half a size too big, based on how low they had fallen on his narrow hips, and he’d topped it with a white dress shirt fresh from the dry cleaner. I could smell the chemicals under the scent of his nice, but inexpensive, cologne. Tyler looked at Holden apprehensively, and his thick black brows drew closer together. When he looked back to me, they went the opposite direction, and I accepted I’d made the right choice in agreeing to wear the dress. “Yes. Secret. That’s me,” I managed to reply, struggling to shove the envelope into my purse. Why are clutches so small? What’s the point of carrying a bag if all you can fit into it is your cell phone and a lip gloss? I could have found room for those in my bra. Feeling foolish, I stuck my hand out to him and flashed him my brightest smile. “You must be Tyler. Cedes has told me all about you,” I fibbed. “Likewise.” He shook my hand, and while I could tell the firmness of my grip surprised him, I was pleased he matched it in return. More points for Detective Tyler. “Sorry, am I interrupting something?” “What?” Holden cleared his throat dramatically behind me. “Oh, him?” I gave a dismissive wave at the vampire, who proceeded to stand next to me, far too close, and offered his own hand to Tyler. “Holden Chancery,” he said, and Tyler winced when Holden shook his hand. “Secret and I are—” “Work colleagues.” I wasn’t sure what Holden was up to, but I wasn’t about to let him ruin my night. Not now that I saw what I had to look forward to. The bewildered look on Tyler’s face softened, but he didn’t totally relax. A good detective never takes anything at face value, and Holden had placed his other hand on my back again, which wasn’t very businessy of him. “Holden was just leaving.” I stared at the vampire with pointed ferocity. “I don’t know.” He eyed the fetching brunette hostess standing inside the door. “This place looks pretty tasty.” He released Tyler’s hand, and the detective flexed it next to his side, making me wonder how hard Holden had squeezed. I would have expected this kind of a territorial pissing contest if Holden had been a werewolf. Not that I knew any werewolves personally, but the theatrical masculinity seemed to be more their style. Vampires were a little more cut and dry about claiming their property. All one had to do was announce that someone belonged to them and boundaries were respected. But I sure as hell didn’t belong to Holden, or to anyone else for that matter. I also doubted Holden declaring mine right before Tyler’s and my date would have gone over well.
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I gritted my teeth into what could have passed for a frustrated smile, but below the register of human hearing I growled at my liaison. I may not have been a huge fan of my furry brethren, but sometimes my lupine DNA really pays off. Vampires can snarl, but no one growls like a werewolf. “Sadly, I have a date elsewhere.” He stopped touching me and tipped an imaginary hat towards us. The whole encounter had been entirely unlike Holden. He had been almost…playful. He was usually so serious. His unusual behavior tonight made me wonder about the envelope in my purse. My new target had to be good. “Good night,” Tyler said with more politeness than I would have managed. I stepped away from Holden and was about to speak to Tyler when the vampire got in his last word. “Don’t forget to have a look at the contract, Secret. Wouldn’t want that one to get away.” I turned to say something that promised to be painfully clever, but Holden was already gone.
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Chapter Three
I liked Tyler Nowakowski. I liked that he laughed easily, his smile was genuine and he never smelled like he was lying. He talked with his hands during his stories, and his eyebrows were enthusiastic exclamation points when he told a good punch line. He wanted very much for me to like him, and his efforts proved to make me like him that much more. It was nice to be thought worthy of the effort. He mentioned that they called him Novak at the station because his Polish last name proved cumbersome for a few officers, and the name had stuck. I gathered he was giving me permission to do the same, but the faint blush on his cheeks made it obvious he didn’t love the nickname. “I think I’ll keep calling you Detective Tyler.” His smile deepened, and he reached across the table to take my hand. I didn’t pull back, so he launched into a story about a drug dealer he’d busted as a rookie, who had tried to hide out at a kid’s birthday party by stealing a clown costume. His delivery was so motivated, and the story so fluid, I could tell he’d told it a dozen times before, probably on other dates. In spite of that, I found myself giggling when the crook tripped over his own floppy shoes and got hauled in. A pleasant sort of silence settled between us, and I grinned at him like a love-struck teenager. He began to say something when his phone rang, and he was forced to let go of my hand to answer it. “Nowakowski.” He listened and frowned, then smiled at me, both embarrassed and apologetic. He mouthed the word sorry, then got up and left the room. I should have been proud of him for not being one of those dicks—no pun intended—who had cell conversations at the dinner table. But I couldn’t overhear the discussion if he wasn’t here, and I wanted to know if he’d arranged for a safety call from a friend. When it became apparent Tyler wasn’t coming straight back, I picked up my purse and pulled out the envelope Holden had given me. With the seal already broken, it was easy to open the rest of the way. Inside was the usual stiff card, handwritten by Sig in his elegant, slanted script. It took me a second to absorb the name, and when I did, I laughed out loud at the absurdity. Charlie Conaway.
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Certainly it was just a coincidence that the West Coast rogue I’d been asked to kill had the exact same name as the biggest movie star in Hollywood. I looked inside the envelope, and my heart sank when I saw something else wedged within. I slipped out the thin piece of paper, a clipping from a tabloid magazine, and placed it next to the card on the table. There he was, pearly white teeth grinning wolfishly, his eyes hidden behind très chic Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Hollywood vamps love Wayfarers. It was their demented nod to the vampires in Bret Easton Ellis’s The Informers. The man in the photo looked like he hadn’t bathed in a week and wore a loose knit cap over his brown hair. He was flirting with some girls outside The Ivy at night. Charlie Conaway. This guy, according to any entertainment magazine or show out there, was only supposed to be in his twenties, but had a net worth of over forty million dollars and was the beloved star of a pair of moony vampire dramas, ironically enough. I was almost insulted that he was a real vampire. Maybe the council wanted him dead for giving them a bad public image. I wouldn’t put it past them. I did wonder what he’d done to incite their wrath, but the creed of a council assassin was simple— ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do or die. It’s a bit more dramatic when they take the die part as seriously as they do. But Conaway was a high-profile target, which explained the high payoff. Perhaps his popularity really was their concern. Fame was power, and if there was anything vampires craved as much as blood, it was power. So, periodically, a vampire would step into the spotlight, claim a little fame, then vanish. For Holden it had been his job at GQ. For Charlie Conaway, it was becoming the biggest movie star in the world. Most mysterious Hollywood deaths have a supernatural explanation. Marilyn Monroe, for example? Not a vampire, but I knew where you could find her most Friday nights, alive and well, and she hasn’t aged a day. Conaway wouldn’t be the first high-profile rogue to come from the West Coast. There had been a rogue in the Hollywood Hills during the sixties who gained a lot of notoriety among the vampire community and had to be taken out because he was a wee bit too enthusiastic about his collection of actresses. The vampire got away with his escapades for over a decade because he was systematic and almost totally untraceable. He would find an actress who was past her prime and in the twilight of her career. These women were usually unstable to start with, so when he used the thrall to further corrupt their weak minds, the results were disastrous. The vampire’s long-term hold on his chosen victims manifested itself as erratic behavior and was often blamed on alcohol or drug addiction. When he got tired of feeding from, or playing with, the current object of his desire, he would dispose of her. The West Coast Tribunal had to cover up almost a dozen such messes. Some, like Diana Barrymore
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and Marie McDonald, actually committed suicide after being abandoned by their supposed master. Others, like Dorothy Kilgalen, Barbara Bates and most famously Dorothy Dandridge, were already dead, and their passings were covered up as suicide so as to not implicate the vampire community. Poor Linda Darnell had it the worst of any of them. She was so badly broken by the vampire, her house was set on fire to rid the council of the problem. Too bad she’d still been alive at the time. The result was always the same, though—someone famous died in an incredibly suspect way. The vampire was put down before the Manson family started their reign of terror, otherwise I would have had my suspicions about his part in that. Some in the vampire community liked to invent rumors, too, speculations about stars they believed to be among the undead. I didn’t know how many times I’d heard stories about a vampire Elvis, but I’d believe that one when I saw it. But Charlie freaking Conaway? How was I supposed to kill my generation’s Harrison Ford? “Whatcha got there?” Tyler asked, rejoining the table. “Just something Holden gave me.” I didn’t see the need to lie if I could avoid it. “Charlie Conaway?” He looked over at the card and photo. “I liked him in that movie about the con artist.” “Con Long Gone,” I recalled. “Yeah, it was definitely better than those vampire movies.” Tyler snorted. “Vampires are so cliché. Hollywood needs a new horse to beat to death.” Well, Conaway was going to see his curtain call pretty soon, so in that sense, Tyler would get his wish. “I always preferred movies from the fifties and sixties myself. Or the old Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn ones.” I folded up the card and put it back in my purse. Cary Grant the vampire would have been awesome, I mused. Tyler wasn’t so easily sidetracked. “What are you doing for Charlie Conaway?” “He’s in town for something. We’re on retainer to make sure none of his more…enthusiastic fans cross the line.” “I thought you worked for a pest-control company.” His voice did nothing to hide that he knew it was total bullshit. Keats and McQueen Private Pest Control was what Keaty and I had printed above the door of our office to detract from unwanted business. “If you think that, Mercedes wasn’t very forthcoming with you.” “She might have said something different.” “And what did she say?” “I’d like to hear about your job from you.”
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Sneaky. I sipped the water we’d been provided, the outside of my glass dewed with condensation from being ignored for so long. “I’m a private investigator. I do a little retrieval work on the side.” It’s amazing how honest you can be if you tweak your language a certain way. “Retrieval?” Tyler wore a grin he was trying unsuccessfully to hide. “I guess you could call me a part-time bounty hunter.” I set my water back down and pushed a bit of gristle through a pool of au jus on my otherwise empty plate while I judged his reaction. He didn’t laugh, so kudos to him for that. “You don’t, um, look…” He struggled to find a polite way to phrase it. “Don’t see a lot of little blondes running around snatching up fugitives?” He tapped his nose, then pointed to me. I’d hit it right on the head. “Well, Detective Tyler, there’s more to me than meets the eye.” “Now that I believe.” It was my turn for a phone to interrupt things. I heard it buzzing incessantly in my bag, but I didn’t need to check the screen to know who was calling. Excusing myself from the table, I headed to the ladies’ room, feeling a little high on the success of the date thus far. I owed Mercedes a giant present. And probably an apology. The ladies’ room was empty, so I didn’t bother going into a stall before pulling my cell phone out of my purse. Dialing Holden’s number by heart, I checked under the stalls as it rang a second time, just to be sure I was alone. The fourth ring sounded louder, and the fifth sounded downright stereophonic. Shifting my gaze to the mirror because I didn’t want to turn around even though I knew what to expect, I still let out a sharp yelp of surprise to see Holden standing behind me in the reflection in the mirror. On the far wall of the washroom a tiny window was ajar, and I was pretty sure it had been closed when I came in. “Son of a—” He silenced his phone and walked to the bathroom door, locking us in. “Enjoying your evening?” “As a matter of fact I—” “Have you looked at the envelope?” “Yes.” “And?” I turned around and stared at him, slack-jawed. And what? I shrugged with my hands open, palms up, and looked at him like he was crazy. He’d given me a job; I would do it. That’s what I did, and it’s why the council kept me around even though they considered me a lesser citizen for being only half-vampire. With the exception of Holden, none of them knew about my werewolf blood, and it was better for everyone involved that it stayed that way.
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“He’s in Times Square,” Holden told me. “He’s where?” He didn’t repeat himself. I faced away from him and glanced at the mirror instead, checking to see if my hair and makeup were still passable. I had to admit I was looking pretty foxy. Holden tired of waiting for me and leaned against the counter to my right, fixing me with one of those stares meant to enthrall a human into doing his bidding. He and I both knew vampire mind tricks didn’t work on me, so the expression was just his way of scolding me for my insolence. “What?” I snapped, once I got sick of him glowering at me. “I just told you where to find your target, and you’re touching up your gloss.” “You can’t seriously expect me to go kill the biggest star in America in the middle of Times Square in August. You’re handicapped if you think that’s going to work.” “Charles isn’t a fool, Secret. He’s an old vampire, and he knows how the council works. He’s not going to let you get him alone. You have to take your opportunities when and where they arise.” “You’re nuts.” “If he gets away, the Tribunal will not be pleased.” The translation of this was, you’ll be punished. I sighed and rinsed my hands in the sink, out of habit rather than necessity. When I shook the water off, it beaded on the pink granite counter. Someone tried the door, then knocked with a plaintive, “Hello?” “One second!” I replied. Holden scowled at the interruption. At least he was back to being himself, because happy-go-lucky Holden kind of freaked me out. “I’ll go. But I will find a way to get him away from the crowds,” I offered. The vampire made a pft sound, which I resented. “Now get out.” I pointed to the window, and without seeing him move, he was gone. All I heard was the click of the pane closing behind him.
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Chapter Four
Getting out of the remainder of the date wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped. If I hadn’t liked Tyler, I would have feigned a headache or just pretended to be tired so I could call it a night. The major difficulty for me was I hadn’t liked somebody this much in a long time, and I wasn’t ready to end our encounter quite yet. “Want to go for a walk?” I asked. “Sure.” He paid for the check in spite of my attempt to go Dutch. He wouldn’t let me touch the bill, slapping my hand playfully away when I reached for it. “Where do you want to go?” he asked, after the waitress returned his credit card. “There’s a great pub just off Times Square.” I saw him flinch, and it wasn’t hard to imagine what he was thinking. Times Square in the summer is a tourist trap of epic proportions. “I promise it’s worth it.” It would also have a substantial line. If I timed everything right, I would leave him holding our place while I looked for a bathroom, or some other invented distraction. Then I could run off, kill Charlie and be back before Tyler made it to the front of the line. If I didn’t get too much blood on me, there might even be a good-night kiss in my future. I was a genius.
I was an idiot. Tyler had agreed, with little argument, to hold our place in line at McCarthy’s Pub. He’d tried to insist he come with me while I looked for a public bathroom, but I told him not to be ridiculous. I was a big girl, and I’d lived in the city for five years. If I couldn’t go to the bathroom alone by now, I was probably in trouble. Getting Tyler distracted had been easy. Finding Charlie, as it turned out, was easier. Too bad Holden had been dead on the money when he’d warned me the rogue wouldn’t be alone. Charlie Conaway was standing dead center on the red steps above the TKTS, the discount outlet for Broadway shows, with a crowd of shrill, love-addled girls and a few excited middle-aged men surrounding him on all sides. He was signing autographs and posing for photos, like the good little A-lister he was. “Motherfucker.” I seethed as I watched throngs of onlookers surge towards the median to get closer to the excitement. You’d think no one in New York had ever seen a celebrity before. Bloody tourists.
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I didn’t have all night to wait for the crowd to die down. I had a date to get back to, and I needed Charlie out of the way if I was going to be able to consider the night a complete success. I didn’t think the Tribunal would accept date night as a viable excuse for not executing the rogue, so I’d have to get close to him and convince him to leave with me. Doing my best to amplify my cleavage with the aid of the dress, and giving my hair a quick flip for extra body, I abandoned my typical expression of detached annoyance and replaced it with one of vapid sluttiness. It was a look I’d honed well after years of acting as vampire bait in bars. I hoped an easy target was universally appealing to vampires. I also hoped he wouldn’t be able to smell death on me like some could. The werewolf in me confused most noses, so even the strongest vampires didn’t always know I was one of them. They usually wrote me off as human, which I was counting on Charlie doing. Non-vampire paranormals, like the fae or others, sometimes caught a whiff of the vamp in me. They said I smelled like death. The vampires sometimes said I smelled like a dog. I just counted on neither group figuring out why. And I was counting on Charlie Conaway being too wrapped up in his own fame to notice me for what I really was. I worked my way through the crowd without much difficulty. I might not be able to move with the same stealthy speed as a full vampire, but I’m fast, light on my feet, and I see openings no human would consider going through. By the time someone has realized I’ve brushed past them or bumped into them, I’m already gone. Up the steps, there were three teenaged girls between my target and me. He was politely listening while one of them, between gasping sobs, explained she thought they were destined to get married. “I love you!” she said, her voice reaching octaves I’ve never heard in the human register. Her friends all squealed in unison behind her, and I wondered if they were protesting or being supportive. If there is any pack mentality that frightens me more than werewolves, it’s teenaged girls. Charlie smiled, told her he appreciated the offer but couldn’t marry her, then let her get tears and Lip Smackers all over him while he posed for a picture. Part of me found myself liking him, even if the niceness was an act. When the flash faded from the camera, he surveyed the crowd for the next onslaught and caught my eye instead. I was so surprised he’d seen me I almost forgot my act. I brushed my hair back over my shoulder and smiled at him—sly, with just the hint of sex. Human men were suckers for that sort of smile, but it was exposing my neck that I expected would get the most reaction.
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The one-two punch did the trick. Charlie stopped attending to his tween-horde and crossed the bleacher-style riser towards me. It earned me one hell of a dirty look from the girl with a picture of his face on her shirt who he’d been about to speak to. “Hi.” His voice was a low purr that somehow managed to carry over the din of the crowd. “Hey.” I added a little extra breathiness to my greeting and batted my eyelashes for good measure. He fixed me with a probing stare. His eyes were wide and hazel with a lovely bedroom sleepiness to them. I knew instantly what he was doing. “You want to meet me somewhere quieter,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He was telling me. Cocky bastard assumed he’d enthralled me with one look. I didn’t like Charlie anymore. “Yes.” Let him think I was a dumb human sheep. It would make my job that much easier. No one expects their food to fight back. He’d never see me coming. “Anywhere.” He placed his hand on my arm and pulled me close, his mouth brushing against my ear. His lips were cold, as was his hand. Even in the humid balm of August, his touch made me shiver. “You’ll let me do whatever I want.” Oh, so that was the game he was playing. The warrant was starting to make more sense now. Charlie was getting a little overconfident in himself. I was betting there was a trail of bodies the West Coast council had been cleaning up back in California. Pretty dead girls who never got the chance to say no, because he’d had taken away their free will. It wasn’t unusual for vampires to feed off unwitting humans. That was the purpose of the thrall, after all. But council regulation dictated the thrall was only for feeding purposes, and not for anything more nefarious. True, the rule wasn’t as well enforced as it could be, but if the thrall were used for a vampire to rape and murder someone? Well, the council couldn’t stand for that kind of behavior. “I’ll let you do anything you want to me, baby,” I promised with coquettish willingness. It was all I could do to fight back my fangs and refrain from ripping his throat out in front of all his adoring fans then and there. Too bad that wouldn’t have killed him. No, I was going to need to decapitate him, burn him or destroy his heart. Don’t let the stake-throughthe-chest myth fool you. Vampires aren’t that easy to kill. Sure, it would help slow one down, but if you miss a direct hit to the heart, all it’s going to do is piss the rogue off. My weapon of choice was a 9mm handgun loaded with silver bullets I had specially ordered. Silver, while expensive, is a solid investment in my line of work. It’s as effective as poison on a vampire and has the added perk of being lethal to werewolves too. I had to have my clips preloaded for me because I was so allergic to the stuff I couldn’t touch it.
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Silver bullets alone won’t kill a vampire, but if you use them to take out the head or heart, it’s a pretty effective method. Decapitation is messy and unpleasantly intimate. I prefer to blow their heads off from a clean distance and save myself the hassle. The bonus is, so long as you can keep anyone from finding the body until sunup, the corpse will turn to ash in the morning light. No body, no crime. Charlie ran his hand up and down my arm and bit my earlobe with a playful drag of his teeth. I shuddered, but since he couldn’t see the disgust on my face, he must have thought it was from pleasure. “The Columbia Hotel,” he told me. “Meet me in an hour.” “Of course.”
Back at McCarthy’s, I saw Tyler’s head peering over the line, his gaze sweeping the street. He spotted me and waved to get my attention. My timing was impeccable; he was second from the entrance. I made my way up to meet him, but with every step closer I felt my blood grow cold. “Son of a…” I cursed under my breath. No wonder he’d been looking for me so diligently. “Look who I found,” Tyler began, but I didn’t need him to continue. He hadn’t found anybody. Somebody had found us. “Holden.” I spat out his name, and it had never sounded more like a dirty word than it did in that moment. His faux cheeriness had returned, and he was brimming over with barely suppressed delight. He appeared to be taking great pleasure in the mess he was making out of my night. “What are the chances?” Holden asked in his best it’s a small world voice. “I was wondering that myself,” Tyler replied, his tone tight and the polite smile looking forced. I wasn’t doing a very good job of censoring myself either, because neither of them seemed too impressed by the expression on my face. “Did you guys need to talk or something?” “Yes.” “No.” Tyler turned from Holden’s affirmative to my emphatic negative and deduced there was something he was missing. He was smart, otherwise he wouldn’t be a detective and Mercedes wouldn’t have set us up. Unfortunately, he jumped straight to the obvious assumption, not that I could blame him. “So, clearly there’s something going on with you two, and I don’t want to get into the middle of some domestic entanglement.” He moved to step out of the line, and Holden did nothing to stop or correct him. “Tyler, wait,” I insisted. He obeyed, and I wondered, not for the first time, if I might have a little of the vampire thrall magic in me. “It’s not what you think.” He waited. Holden waited. My brain waited, which pretty much left me hanging in the wind. “I need Secret for a business meeting,” Holden offered at last, and in spite of how pissed off I was, I could have hugged him.
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“At eleven o’clock at night?” “She probably told you about our new client,” Holden replied by way of explanation. “Charlie Conaway?” “You know those Hollywood types,” I chimed in. “Odd hours.” Holden shrugged a halfhearted apology. “What can you do?” “You need her now?” Tyler asked, obviously miffed about waiting in line for forty minutes only to have me vanish again. Holden was already leaving the line, angling me back towards Times Square, when I turned back to Tyler and said, “It won’t be long. We’re just going to the Columbia Hotel.” Holden squeezed my elbow in warning, but I kept right on talking. “Meet me at the Billie Holiday Bar? One o’clock?” I could tell he was going to protest, but I took advantage of his hesitation and went for broke. I shot him a variation of the look that landed Charlie’s attention earlier, only poutier. “Okay,” Tyler replied, and then I could no longer see him as he was swallowed up by the crowd surrounding the bar.
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Chapter Five
We had an hour before I was supposed to offer myself up to Charlie at the Columbia Hotel. Holden seemed inclined towards spending this time scolding me for not bailing out of my date with Tyler sooner. I reminded him he’d been the one who told me I shouldn’t cancel in the first place. That silenced him for the short term. My thoughts were otherwise occupied. I hadn’t brought any weapons with me, with the exception of a small silver switchblade I had hidden in a garter holster beneath my dress. The weapon was designed so it was safe for me to hold, with a spiffy mother-of-pearl handle. Unfortunately it was meant for protection, not as an offensive weapon. And since Charlie was being careful to stay in well-populated, human-heavy areas, there was no way for me to get away with using a gun. We were going to need to stop so I could get something different. Since both my apartment and Keaty’s office were west, and the Columbia was comfortably nestled in Midtown East next to Bryant Park, I was going to need to do a little shopping. I wouldn’t have enough time to get home and back before the rendezvous. Ignoring Holden’s sulky silence, I steered us towards Koreatown and looked for the most brightly lit, kitschy tourist trap I could find. Unlike Canal Street, where every other store was designed for the sole purpose of taking your money, Koreatown was smaller, more insular and less inviting to Ma and Pa Missouri. Blessedly, a few stores bucked the trend, and even after eleven at night one enterprising shopkeeper was still open. And judging by the stuffed Hello Kitty in the window, he was just what I was looking for. A smart Korean novelty shop in New York knows exactly how to rip off tourists who assume all Asian cultures are the same. By carrying a little of everything, they could cater to every whim and reap the financial gains of other people’s ignorance. Inside, the shop smelled like incense and spice. One wall was crammed full of children’s toys, from plush animals to Chinese kites. Racks of Oriental fans and paper-thin bamboo umbrellas overwhelmed the aisles, and on the facing wall was every conceivable color of kimono. Towards the back of the store, behind a beaded curtain, a shriveled Asian man peered out at me with inky black eyes. In that moment it became clear why the shop was so cloying with spicy smells. This man
The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters
wasn’t human, and the smell of decay coming off him would be noticeable to even the most mundane nose. Humans would pass it off as body odor, but I knew better. He was a lesser fae of some kind. I was betting on ogre, based on the smell, but from what I knew of the fae, most ogres preferred to destroy things rather than keep nice, tidy stores. I shrugged off the question. It didn’t matter what kind of fae he was, because he had what I needed inside the glass cabinets at the back of the store. I moved with determined focus towards the man, Holden trailing behind, and when he saw what I was after in the cases, his reaction said it all. “Ohhhh.” His eyebrows went up in surprise before he caught himself and returned to his typical aloofness. The fae-Korean shopkeeper had been kind enough to stock a limited but functional selection of Japanese katana swords. “That one.” I tapped the glass above a black-sheathed katana, inlaid at the hilt with the pattern of a phoenix. It wasn’t the design that made me choose it—the cherry blossom one was prettier—but rather it had the longest blade of the bunch. Reach counts for a lot when you’re five-foot-four and fighting a six-foot-tall vampire. The old man eyed me but wisely said nothing. He must have known I was on to him. He pulled it out, and where the blade met the hilt, it was engraved with gold dragons. I took back my earlier assessment; it was the prettiest after all. “Five hundred,” he announced, his words clipped and his voice rumbling with something that wasn’t an accent. If I could see through the shroud of magic hiding his true form, I was betting he was huge. Only something with a big lung capacity could growl their words the way he did. Now I was more certain than ever he was an ogre. I unsheathed the blade, all twenty-eight inches of hand-folded steel, and the sword sang to me of age and violence. I plopped my credit card on the counter and thanked all the half-gods I knew it wasn’t declined, because I already had the weapon slung over my back. “Let’s go kill a vampire, shall we?” If the old man understood me, he didn’t seem to care.
The Columbia was one of several upscale hotels that popped up around New York from time to time. This one was owned by the Rain family and had been designed around the concept of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The walls were lined with redwood tree trunks, and light was filtered through dappled green sconces to give the impression of sunlight through tree leaves. The lobby floor was Plexiglas over river rock, with fresh water flowing under guests’ feet. Instead of music there was the ambient noise of babbling water and birds.
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It made the wolf in me very, very happy. My vampire half, on the other hand, was suspicious of even fake sunlight. I’d managed to convince an off-duty bike messenger to sell me his empty travel tube, which hid the katana perfectly. It’s amazing what you can get when you show a little cleavage. Or offer to pay twice the value of what something is worth. Now I was carrying a concealed weapon and brimming with murderous intent. I’d missed a call from Tyler while negotiating with the bike messenger, and since we’d already reached the hotel, I couldn’t call him back. What could I say if I did? Sorry, Detective, I need to kill someone quickly, but once that’s done, can we get to the smooching? I doubt he’d appreciate that. Holden hung back, lurking in the fringes and doing what vampires do best by being completely unseen in a room filled with people. The lobby was a mix of real guests and tourists who wanted to photograph the now-famous lobby. I couldn’t do Charlie in down here, so it looked like I’d need to go to his room after all. I was probably the only woman alive who was pouting about going to Charlie Conaway’s hotel room. Striding up to the front desk, which was made of driftwood set between two totem poles that rose up to the ceiling, I threw my shoulders back and gave the clerk a wide smile brimming over with ditzy charm. “Hi!” I inched closer and fixed him with a meaningful look. I might not have been able to enthrall humans, but if I focused hard enough, I could be more persuasive than usual. “I’m here for Charlie Conaway.” The clerk smiled in a knowing way and winked for good measure. It was then I realized my phrasing made me sound a bit more professional than I’d meant. If blushing was more than a fleeting rarity for me because of how much blood it required, I would have felt my face heat up then. As it was, I accepted this was what it took to get me past the gatekeeper. Not to mention, if Charlie’s victims were under the thrall, they would have used similar possessive language. I probably wasn’t the first, but I would be the last. “Penthouse Three.” He nodded towards the elevator bay, whose doors were rescued barn wood instead of typical gold. “Just take it to the top.” Holden met me at the elevator doors but stayed silent until they shushed closed behind us. “Who is Charlie to you?” I asked, breaking the quiet lull. He stiffened. Getting a physical reaction out of him was a sure sign I was on the right track. I’d suspected his attitude tonight had to be the result of something more than professional interest in my contract. The almost giddy behavior, juxtaposed with bouts of surliness, made me wonder what the two vampires meant to each other. “It doesn’t matter.”
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“It does matter. I’ve never seen you so moody before. I’ve never seen you happy before.” He smiled. “You’ve seen me happy before.” I stared at him, not needing words to make my point. “I’ll confess, most of my amusement was from throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of your night.” His smile was more honest this time. The way he said monkey wrench was a dead giveaway of how old he was, because even the passé slang sounded forced. “Jackass,” I countered. Holden always seemed miffed to hear a lady swear, so I tried to do it as often as possible around him. “He’s not for you, Secret.” He was referring to Detective Tyler. “He could be.” I was offended. Who was he to decide who I could or couldn’t be with? “Remember Gabriel?” After I recuperated from feeling like he’d sucker punched me in the gut, I said, “Gabriel isn’t a marker for every human ever.” I played with the strap over my shoulder so I didn’t have to look at him. It was a low blow, and he had to know he’d struck a nerve. Gabriel Holbrook had been my live-in boyfriend once upon a time. He’d moved out over a year ago, after living with me for only three months. We dated for almost a year overall, and I had loved him. But how can you love someone when you have to repress everything about yourself that comes naturally? He’d known I was hiding something, and it got to be too much for us both. He left, and I hadn’t seen him since. “You can’t have a relationship with a human. It puts us all at risk.” My sadness filtered away, replaced with hot rage. “The council doesn’t get to tell me who I can and can’t date! I am not one of you, and they’ve made that perfectly clear.” “If Tyler finds out what you are, we’d need to wipe his memory. And you would be punished.” He wasn’t angry, not rising to meet my tone. He was just telling me the cold, hard truth. “If his memory couldn’t be altered…” “I know.” It didn’t need to be said. If Tyler’s mind was too strong to be fooled, he’d be killed. And I would be to blame. The elevator gave a cheerful ding, announcing our arrival at the penthouse floor. It opened on a secondary lobby, which consisted of a long hallway, dimly lit, with carpet that looked like grass. On each side of the hall were two doors, marked PH1, PH2, PH3 and PH4. If memory served from what I’d read in the Times article about the hotel, behind each door was a foyer and small sitting room, and an elevator which would take guests to their appropriate penthouse level. I was reaching for the bell on PH3 when we heard something move behind the door. It wasn’t Charlie—this person was too heavy and the footfalls louder and less deliberate than I knew his to be. There was the noise of scuffling heels on marble floor, a muffled scream, and then the unmistakable sound of
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vertebrae snapping. I was frozen to the spot, realizing with cold horror I’d just heard a girl die less than two feet away and hadn’t been able to stop it. An instant before the door swung open Holden grabbed me and backed me up against the entrance to PH2. My eyes widened with surprise, and I tried to ignore the sudden discomfort of the travel tube digging into my back where it was sandwiched between the wall and me. I hadn’t felt or seen Holden move. In one breath I was one place, in the next I was on the opposite side of the hall with a vampire pressed against me. I had opened my mouth to speak but was silenced when I saw a huge, bald vampire, who looked like every bodyguard cliché, exit the door for PH3 with a limp, lifeless girl propped against him. I wanted to get a better look at her, but Holden had a different plan in mind that I was not made privy to until it was in action. His hand cupped my chin and forced me to turn away from the vampire before the hulking mass realized he’d been seen. Holden didn’t express anything with words, because the other vampire would hear what was said in such a narrow hallway. Instead, my vampire looked me in the eyes with a pleading expression that tried to help me understand what he was up to. I didn’t know what he was planning, but I got the subtext—don’t fight it. Then his mouth was on mine. For a moment, from sheer surprise, I tried to pull back. But Holden was a vampire and much stronger. He held me still with one hand. After that, I accepted there was more to his plan than kissing me and let myself yield to it. He kissed me with the deliberate precision of someone who had learned to kiss over the course of two hundred years. When someone kisses you so brilliantly, you can easily forget who and where you are, and what brought you there. It wasn’t long before I surrendered to his efforts and melted against the movement of his mouth. It began as a decoy kiss, just lips on lips. But when he sensed I was no longer fighting him, his mouth forced mine open, and he growled as my tongue tentatively brushed against his. He buried his hand in my hair, dipping my head to the side and exposing the smooth line of my neck. This was second nature for a vampire, where sex and blood went hand in hand. But if we were doing this to pretend we were just a frisky couple, unable to wait until we were through the door, we couldn’t behave like vampires. We needed to be human about this. I bit his lip. He retaliated by shoving me hard into the door, using the full line of his body to keep me pinned. My mouth opened, a shocked groan attempting to escape, but he kissed me harder and more enthusiastically than before. I put my hands on his shoulders, my fingernails raking upwards from his shoulder blades, dragging him closer to me.
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In response, his hands skimmed the edge of my hips and down to my thighs. His knee moved between mine, nudging them apart and inching the hem of my dress higher. He grasped hold of me, and I gave a little hop so he could lift me the rest of the way. With my body still pinned against him, I snaked my legs around his waist. His kisses began trailing down my neck, and in spite of our efforts to be normal, his fangs were exposed and grazing over my skin. Ding. The elevator swished closed, and the bald vampire and his corpse were gone. Holden’s exploring kisses stopped at the sound, and I froze, wide-eyed and painfully aware of my precarious position. I stared at him, and his pupils were dilated and glossy black, overwhelming the usual chocolate brown of his eyes. He put me down and was on the opposite side of the hall before I’d had a chance to smooth out my dress. “Sorry,” he said, his voice raspy and his fangs still out. “I needed to mask my smell, or he’d have known what I was. If I was with you, it wouldn’t be so obvious.” I was too dizzy to speak. I just nodded mutely and kept playing with the hem of my dress so I didn’t have to look at him. “I wouldn’t have bitten you,” he added. Forcing a weak smile, I felt my face flush with warmth. Worry over him biting me wasn’t the problem. The problem was I’d wanted him to. “You can’t come in with me,” I told him. “I need to do the rest alone.” We both regarded the now-quiet elevator, remembering the dead girl who had just been taken away. Had she seen the real face of Charlie Conaway? Did she make it within an inch of escape only to have her neck snapped? My grip tightened on the strap of the travel tube. If she had only made it through the door, we could have saved her. I shook myself and stood tall. Holden was waiting by the elevator now, watching me guardedly. Whatever he was thinking, it didn’t show on his face. “Be careful, Secret.” Under my thumb, the bell for PH3 chimed. “I’m always careful.” It smelled like a lie, even to me, but it was too late to turn back now. The penthouse door opened at the same time the elevator door shut. Holden was gone, and Charlie was standing in front of me without a shirt on, a big smile on his face. “You’re just in time.” He stepped out of the doorway, giving me a small entrance, but I still had to brush against him to get inside. “We’re going to have some fun, you and I.” “Yeah,” I said, my eyes adjusting to the gloom of the darkened foyer. He shut the door, and I was alone in the dark with him. “It’ll be to die for.”
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Chapter Six
I had to remind myself that for the time being I was just a fan. And a fan, to Charlie, was a lamb being led to slaughter. He had one behemoth of a guard out disposing of a body, and another was waiting next to the elevator. I needed to know what else I was up against before I could spring into action. “Wow. It’s so dark in here.” “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” All the better for the vampire to see you with, my dear. The guard ignored us as we waited for the interior elevator, and Charlie was already in full-on skeezy superstar mode. He had pressed himself against my side and was trailing his fingers up and down my arm. I couldn’t get over how cold he was. Vampires are not warm creatures by any stretch of the imagination, but they were rarely this icy. Their usual temperature, for lack of a better comparison, was that of a roomtemperature corpse. Slightly cool, but by no means cold. Charlie was so cold goose bumps rose over my skin wherever he touched me. He seemed to take this as growing excitement on my part and leaned in closer to lick my earlobe. “What’s your name?” he enticed, his hands exploring the easily accessible parts of my body. I kept repeating in my head, not yet, not yet, not yet, kill him now, no, not yet, not yet, not yet. I tapped my fingers against my leg, growing progressively more impatient with the elevator. Once I knew how many more men he had, I could take care of business. I eyed the stony bodyguard who was only a few feet away, wondering where Charlie had found such huge men. Until I knew how many others there were like him, I had to be… “Jessica.” I picked the most common girl name I could think of. Something a little less memorable than Secret. “Pretty.” He probably hadn’t even heard me. His voice trailed away from my ear and down my neck. His creepy, cold hands bumped against the tube I was carrying. “What’s this?” The flirty overtones vanished. His voice was both curious and suspicious. “Oh. I brought my poster from Blood Love 2. I was sort of hoping you might sign it. You know. Later.” False modesty hung all over my words. “If that’s okay.” He laughed, and the sound was almost pleasant. “Sure, Jennifer. Anything you want.” “Jessica.” “Mmmhmm.” He was leaning back in for my throat, but the elevator opened. My neck had been saved by the bell twice in one night.
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I needed that luck to hold out a bit longer.
Penthouse Three looked like every other expensive hotel room I’d ever seen. Sure, there were touches that made it fit the theme of the Columbia, like photo wallpaper depicting the shore of the British Columbia coast. All the colors were muted browns and grays, and the bedposts were made of the same driftwood as the lobby desk. But it was still a big, fancy version of an apartment, and the size felt like a mockery of my own living quarters. I sort of resented it. The most impressive thing about the room was the full wall of windows, which had a doorway out to a balcony spanning the whole length of the room. The windows must have had light-safe panels that expanded to cover them during the day. Dangerous for a vampire, sure, but the nighttime view was incredible. “Wow,” I said with genuine bedazzlement. “You like that?” He looked past me and out the window, as if it was the first time he’d noticed the view. “It’s amazing.” My gaze drifted from the window, and I cast a searching glance around the room, trying to see if we were alone. There was a vampire sitting on a couch in the living room, and he was pretending not to notice me, which seemed to be the primary job of Charlie’s men. The guard who’d come up on the elevator with us had vanished from sight, but I could still feel his presence lurking nearby. That made two in the room, and a third off running a gruesome errand. Four vampires. I’d seen worse odds. “Can we go outside?” I asked. Alone on the balcony was where I wanted him. I could deal with the guards once Charlie was dead. If he was like most rogues, the guards would be new vampires, tied to him. Rogues liked to avoid partnering with established vampires because it almost always led to a power struggle at some point. If they created their own sect, they got to maintain control. This worked well for me because newborn vampires were cocky and stupid. They relied too much on their newfound strength, which made them much easier to kill. He was brushing tendrils of hair off my shoulder, sweeping his fingers over my skin. I wanted to kill him, if only so he would stop touching me. “Sure.” He hooked a thumb under the strap of my dress. “Let’s do that.” He pulled me towards the door, using the garment as a leash. This was too taxing for my dress, and as we reached the glass doors, the strap snapped. Reflexively, my hand shot up to keep the dress in place, but it proved unnecessary. It was so tight, the straps were ornamental. The dress wouldn’t go anywhere unless it was unzipped, and even then I was pretty sure it would need to be surgically removed.
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“Oops,” Charlie said, but he didn’t sound sorry. “That’s okay.” I forced an airheaded giggle, while inside I was cursing him and his ham-fisted boorishness. “It doesn’t matter.” Outside, the air was cool in spite of the August heat. This high up, the wind forgot about summertime rules and did whatever it wanted. I was glad for the distraction from Charlie’s cold touch. “Look at the view!” I stepped away from him and up to the glass barrier wall. “I’d rather look at you,” Charlie cooed. Ugh. I swallowed the wave of nausea that rode over me. The balcony was perfect. If I killed him here, then coaxed both guards out, I could leave their bodies for the sunlight. Vampire blood turned to ash in daylight the same as their bodies did. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that well if it had already soaked into walls and carpets. I did most of my killing outside if I had a choice, because the Tribunal wasn’t always happy about sending cleaning crews to take care of the messes I made. Even if it was their mess to begin with. Charlie was behind me, and with expert hands he began removing the tube from my back. I spun around. “Let me,” I directed and took it off myself, half unscrewing the cap when I leaned it against the wall. Now that I was facing him, Charlie took it as an open invitation to move in closer. His hands were at the hem of my dress, and he looked me right in the eyes. “Anything I want.” He repeated the directive from earlier. “Anything you want.” I tried to make my tone as zombified as possible, without sounding too much like a vampire slave. People too transfixed by the thrall became puppets to their master’s whim. Vampires called them Renfields. I called them depressing. His roving hands twined around my back, finding my zipper. This position also placed his mouth precariously close to my exposed neck. The temptation to snack early must have proved to be a bit much for the vampire. His sharp fangs raked against my clavicle, and with the lightning-fast precision of a rattlesnake, he bit down. I screamed. I couldn’t help it. If I’d been under the thrall, I wouldn’t have felt anything. As it was, I was perfectly lucid, and the bastard had just broken my collarbone. My reaction stopped him from feeding before he’d had enough to be in a blood frenzy. He licked his lips as he stared at me, his solid black eyes widening with surprise. “What are you?” His hand tightened on my arm, causing new pain to join in chorus with the searing ache of pierced flesh and broken bone. With his free hand, he collected more blood where it was pooling on my skin and popped his thumb into his mouth. He didn’t seem able to separate the two parts of my blood to distinguish what I was, but it was pretty obvious he’d figured out I wasn’t human. And based on the wicked gleam in his eyes, he liked what he tasted enough for it to not matter.
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He dove to bite me again, but I tugged my arm free and dropped to the ground. I rolled across the slate balcony floor and knocked the top off the travel tube so I was able to pull out the katana as I regained my footing. The blade was unsheathed and gleamed a warning in the moonlight, which gave him pause. He seemed to be wondering if he could get the bite on me before I reached him with the sword. “I fucking dare you,” I snarled. He smirked. Large hands grabbed me from behind and lifted me off the ground. I hadn’t anticipated the damn guards reacting so fast, especially given how well-trained they were in ignoring everything. The mammoth of a man was crushing me, and the pressure on my broken bone brought pink-hued tears to my eyes. Vampires cry blood. Half-vampires cry something a little more diluted. Neither variety cried often, but when someone is squeezing you so hard your broken bones grind together, it’s sort of hard to stop yourself. I gave myself points for not dropping the sword when the guard got a hold of me. He lifted me high and walked us towards the edge of the balcony. It didn’t take a genius to know what he was planning to do with me, and a sword isn’t much of a defense against a forty-story drop. But the guard was in a hurry, and he was a little too sure of his plan. He threw me before I was clear of the railing. My ribs smashed into the glass edge of the wall, and my own weight tipped me over the edge, threatening to drag me down. Thankfully I’d known what was coming, otherwise I would have bounced off the edge and fallen the whole way, meeting a grisly end on the sidewalk below. As soon as I hit the railing I caught the sword, despite my broken arm. I knew I’d still need it when I made it out of this mess. Even holding the lightweight weapon sent fresh shock waves of pain through my shoulder. With my free hand I grabbed the slick wall and used the momentum of my body to swing myself upward and over. I moved in a smooth arc, sweeping across the glass, until I could hook my knees over the edge of the railing and propel myself back onto the balcony, where I landed behind the stunned guard. I rose from my crouched stance, transferring the sword back to my good hand, and didn’t waste time waiting for the guard to turn for a second attack. He spun on his heel to face me as the sword sliced through the air, and it didn’t falter as it bisected his head from his shoulders. My arm was still extended, sword out and glistening with blood where it had gone through the vampire. For the briefest second it didn’t look like I’d done anything to the guard. He blinked and his lip curled in disgust. Charlie watched with detached amusement, and I knew he thought I’d missed until he saw the blood on the sword. We both watched the guard as his eyes widened before they went dull. He fell to his knees, and with the force of his big body hitting the ground, his head lolled to the side, then toppled off his neck where it had been severed with surgical precision. It landed at his knees, his unseeing eyes staring at my feet. “What are you?” Charlie roared.
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“My name is Secret McQueen.” My broken arm was held against my stomach. I rested one of my gold Jimmy Choo heels on the severed head of the vampire guard and pointed my sword at Charlie. “I’m here to kill you.” He hadn’t recognized my face, but he knew my name. Most vampires did because it had become vampire legend. This time I didn’t think he’d forget it so easily. “I didn’t leave L.A. just to get killed by some council lackey.” It never ceased to amaze me that no matter how familiar rogues were with my name, they always believed they’d be the one exception to the rule. No rogue got away from me, but I guess I shouldn’t expect them to roll over and let me kill them. It would be nice if someone died quietly one of these times. Charlie wasn’t going to be that one. He jumped onto the railing, and before I could cross the balcony, he had jumped. Vampires couldn’t fly, nor could they land on their feet from a forty-story drop without some ill consequence. I looked over the railing in time to see him grab hold of another balcony about ten floors down. Sure, they couldn’t fly, but they could annoy the hell out of me with their agility. The second guard had shown up, having heard the commotion from wherever he’d been hiding. He was just reaching the door when I blitzed past him and through the emergency stairwell next to the elevator. I heard the elevator doors sigh open as the stairwell door shut behind me, and by the time I was one floor down, I heard the door bang open again and two sets of feet pounding on the stairs behind me. The guards were gaining on me as I spilled into the penthouse foyer, sliding into the wall and jarring my injured shoulder with an agonizing thump before I ran out the door. I had to catch up with Charlie before he left the hotel, and it pained me to admit the elevator would be the fastest route to the lobby. I wanted to grab my cell phone, which I’d stuffed into the front of my bra after leaving my clutch with Holden, but with one arm broken and the other maintaining a death grip on my sword, I just had to hope Holden would be waiting in the lobby. The elevator doors closed at the same moment the men barreled into the hall. I gave them both the finger with my disabled arm. After what felt like an hour, the doors opened into the lobby, and I stepped out and surveyed the space to see if Charlie had been there yet. Holden sat in an armchair near the entrance and got to his feet when he saw my arm. I was thankful for the late hour, because most of the tourists were gone, and the only guests in the lobby were the ones coming from the bar. I didn’t think drunk businessmen would be the most likely candidates to notice the sword I had against my leg. Holden was halfway across the lobby when the stairwell door burst open and Charlie skidded out across the Plexiglas floor. He saw me and snarled. I curled my lip in return. I wasn’t going to back down because some sorry excuse for a rogue flashed his fangs at me. When the night was over, I knew which one of us would still be standing. He turned to run for the door but stopped cold when he saw Holden.
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“Chancery?” “Charles.” Holden was gritting his teeth, doing nothing to hide his anger. He looked past Charlie, and his gaze fixed on my arm. He was pissed, and I didn’t need to see black pupils or fangs to know it. The low growl in his voice told me everything. “By God,” Charlie said. “The council has you as their whipping boy now?” His surprise led me to wonder about their connection again. My Holden lived and breathed dedication to the vampire council. “I never thought you’d be one of them, brother.” “And I never thought you’d abandon all sense and go rogue. So I guess we don’t know each other as well as we thought. Brother.” The last word sounded like a swear rather than a familial greeting. My gaze flicked between the two, trying to figure out if it was just a turn of phrase or if I had failed to notice a physical similarity between them. No, they looked nothing alike. “Love to stay and chat,” Charlie said. “But I’ve got a pesky death situation following me.” He didn’t wait for Holden to reply before he dashed through the door with me trailing after him only a few seconds behind. “Secret?” Tyler was passing through the door on his way in, while I was heading out. His timing couldn’t have been worse. “I, uh…” I stammered and saw him scrutinize my arm, which seemed to hurt worse whenever someone looked at it. Then he noticed the sword and followed my own wandering gaze to where Charlie was barreling across Bryant Park. “Sorry.” I gave a limp, apologetic shrug, the motion turning my pain from a searing ache into an exploding blossom of misery. I ignored my arm as it throbbed along with the beat of my heart, and was down the steps and across the street before Tyler could say anything. But damned if he wasn’t running down the stairs with Holden, following the vampire who was following me. Behind them, the two guards had made it to the lobby and were joining in the chase. We made quite the sight, had there been anyone in the park to watch us. The small parade was the least of my concerns. I saw where Charlie was going and it threw, as Holden might have said, a huge monkey wrench into the gears of my plan. Charlie Conaway, Hollywood star, rogue vampire and giant pain in my ass, was heading for the stairs leading to the 5th Avenue subway station.
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Chapter Seven
“Get out of the way!” I screamed, hurtling down the stairs behind the vampire, trying to dodge the people he’d just displaced. “Hey, lady.” The twenty-four-hour booth operator was pounding on thick Plexiglas wall that protected him from thugs and thieves. I had taken a running jump, propelling myself over the turnstile Charlie had vaulted without breaking a sweat. I wasn’t as fast or nimble as the vampire, and needed to use my feet to continue my forward motion. My heel slid against the smooth metal of the turnstile, and I staggered, landing none too prettily, and used my sword to help me regain my balance. This was the exact reason I didn’t wear high heels when I might be required to work. Judging by the various shouts and swears coming from the lower platform for the number 7 train, it didn’t take a Mensa scholar to figure out where Charlie had gone. I ignored the booth operator, who turned his attention to shouting at Holden, the two guards and lastly Detective Tyler, who was now at the back of the line behind the vampires. They too ignored the man in the glass box and passed over or under the turnstiles behind me. A few late-night passengers going through the exit gates looked to see what all the fuss was about, but no one stopped. I blessed each of their callous, cynical New York hearts. I slid down the metal handrail that separated the up and down staircases leading to the number 7 platform. On one side, a heavily populated Queens-bound express was about to depart, and on the opposite side an almost empty Times Square-bound regular. If it had been me running for my life, I’d have gone for the Queens train. More people meant a better chance of hiding, and once he got out to Queens he wouldn’t have to contend with threading through crowds. A smart vampire would have taken the express, so I moved towards that train. That was until someone swore a “Fuck you, buddy” towards the end of the other platform. There was a clamor of irritated voices, and a few people exited one of the cars in a hurry. Charlie was going for the regular. On cue, the doors on the express closed with a warning ding-ding-ding. The train left the station, and everyone who was a part of my chase, including the breathless human detective, were sharing the barren platform with me.
The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters
I heard the first warning bell for the regular and knew I had to take the chance. I jumped into the empty car closest to me, followed by the three vampires, but watched as the doors closed before Tyler could get on. He banged against the window, but once the doors had shut, they wouldn’t reopen until the next stop. We pulled out of the station, with Tyler still hammering against the train, and I was ecstatic he had missed it. I doubted I could be effective if I had to worry about a human risking his life in my fight. I didn’t take time to see if Holden had the two guards under control. I had to trust my liaison could take care of himself. I opened the doors that led to the unsheltered passage between subway cars, and the air of the tunnel smelled of dirt and oil as the train barreled forward. I stepped into the next car, and this one had a small collection of passengers—a black man, fast asleep, and a young couple speaking in a foreign language, holding their Bloomingdale’s bags close. They hushed when they saw me enter, and avoided eye contact. Something heavy slammed against the wall of the car I’d just left, and the train trembled for a moment, tossing me sideways into one of the metal poles used to help passengers keep their balance. I was starting to wonder if the universe found it funny to throw me into hard objects when I had a broken arm. I gritted my teeth against the momentarily blinding pain, then moved through the car and on to the next. A once-living heap of middle-aged man in a tweed coat with a copy of Proust next to him on the floor told me I wasn’t far behind Charlie. There was a scream, but I couldn’t tell if it came from the car behind me or the one ahead. The sounds of the tunnels rushing by outside the car made it impossible to tell what direction noise was coming from. I was between one car and the next when the guard caught up with me. In spite of all the additional damage I’d done to it, my broken arm had begun to heal slowly. Enough that I could move my hand with only moderate agony now. I was reaching for the next door when the giant who had killed the girl grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me backwards. My heels caused me to stumble on the shaky platform, and he took advantage of my momentary falter. Of Charlie’s guards, this was the one I least wanted to be fighting because of his colossal size. Yet here we were, stuck together on a two-foot-by-two-foot metal slab, with the bowels of New York swishing past. I couldn’t have swung my sword if I wanted to. He knew it too, because he lifted me off the ground, using only his grip on my hair, and hung me over the side. I was pretty sick of vampires thinking they could drop me off things. He held me out far enough I could feel the whoosh of the subway walls skimming behind me, close enough I worried I would die from being slammed into a pillar rather than falling onto the electrified tracks. Stupid pigheaded stubbornness kept me from releasing the sword, but with my free hand I dug my fingernails into his arm and held on for dear life. I was glad he was focused on dangling me, because he
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didn’t see what I saw—a light at the end of the tunnel. We had almost reached the Grand Central platform. I just needed to hold on a few seconds more. I swung my legs up so the balls of my feet were on the flimsy iron handrail rather than the chains that hung between the cars and offered no useful tension. I bent my knees and prepared for the moment he let go. I didn’t need to wait long. He saw the end of the tunnel and opened his hand to drop me but was too late. The stale air of the subway station washed over me as he let me go, and I kicked off from the handrail rather than letting myself fall straight down where I would have been crushed under the train. My landing was far from graceful. I hit the platform with a thud, rolling onto my broken side as I slid across the floor with the momentum of my dismount. I came to a stop on the edge of the opposite side, a hair away from tumbling over, and remained on the floor, dazed by my luck and the pain shooting through my shoulder. I’d managed to scrape the skin off my elbow and a good length of my leg while skidding over the concrete. A crowd of late-night commuters were stunned to silence by my dramatic exit from the train. There were a lot more people than I’d hoped to see, since the bulky vampire guard had followed me onto the platform. The train doors opened, and he was joined by the second guard, and one door up Charlie stepped out. He saw me on the ground, and instead of taking the opportunity to run, he did what most would-be villains did. He decided he wanted to finish me off himself. When I’d landed, my sword had slipped from my grip and was now teetering precariously on the edge of the abyss between the platform and the electrified rails below. I couldn’t reach it before Charlie got to me. I needed to find a way to get him to focus all his attention on me so I could get within reach of the sword before he noticed where it was. That shouldn’t be too hard. But where the hell was Holden? The crowd parted around Charlie, and a few people whispered to one another in hushed tones of recognition. They all stood back and watched. I was no longer blessing their callous, cynical New York hearts. “So, this is the great Secret McQueen. Death herself.” “The one and only.” I grimaced. “Not so mighty now, are you, little girl?” This was a favorite insult among the vampires. I knew they used it behind my back, but it was only the really stupid ones who called me little girl to my face. In Charlie’s case, stupidity was working hand in hand with overconfidence. He believed he had me beat.
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Who could blame him, considering I was lying on my back on the floor of a subway station? If I didn’t know better, I would have bet against me too. The guards were waiting at the fringes, watching their master for any sign they should swoop into action. But for the time being Charlie seemed content to play with me. He got right up close, then placed a foot over my broken clavicle. At first he let it hover, his eyes daring me to give him a reason to press down. My flat expression mustn’t have been quite what he was hoping for, so he changed his approach. He stepped down hard to see what kind of reaction that would get him. I swallowed my scream this time, but a gurgling moan escaped my lips. Super-strength and superhealing are great, but broken bones don’t heal right away, especially when you keep injuring them. I don’t care how strong you are, if someone steps on your broken shoulder, it hurts. As I looked up at him, my vision blurred and rose-colored tears sprang from my eyes. “It’s too bad I’ll have to kill you. I would have liked to taste you again.” He put more weight on my shoulder, and the smile on his face told me he was enjoying the whimper it forced out of me. “What’s stopping you?” I said in a strained gasp. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” He let up on the pressure on my shoulder, and I was grateful for it. The crowd behind him was getting restless and more than a little worried about what they were witnessing. I guess my pain was too real for them. They calmed down a bit when Charlie and I started talking again, but the whispers were getting louder, and there was a frenzied tone to them. The train we’d arrived on had left the station, and with it all my hopes of a rescue from Holden. Charlie crouched over me, pinning my arms to my sides with his Prada-clad feet. He turned my face towards him with a hard jerk so I was forced to look him in the eyes. “I’m going to enjoy killing you,” he told me. “Not as much as I will.” My meaning was lost on him. He was too focused on my neck and the blood exposed from where I’d been scraped. A vampire with the smell of blood in its nose is like a shark in chum-filled water. Try as they might to ignore it, it was only a matter of time before they would go primitive. A Queens-bound train pulled into the tunnel just as Charlie’s weight collapsed on top of me as he dove for my neck. The surging wave of air brought in along with the subway rocked my sword into a spin, moving it well outside of my reach and carrying it away from me with each rotation. I watched helplessly as my plan fell to pieces, and winced as Charlie’s teeth pierced my skin for the second time. I didn’t waste time cursing my luck. Even with Charlie’s weight pinning my arms down, I still had use of one hand. Fumbling under the hem of my dress, I grabbed hold of the holstered switchblade and gripped it firmly in my sweaty palm. While I contemplated how I might be able to open the knife without accidentally cutting myself, someone stepped on the hilt of the sword, stopping its loud, metallic spin. I hadn’t noticed a second Times
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Square train arrive, but one was here now. Some of the crowd had decided they’d rather move on than watch me die, and boarded the new train. When they were gone, I could see Tyler standing on the concrete platform, my sword under his shoe. I couldn’t read the look on his face, but I could have kissed him when he kicked the sword over to my outstretched arm. I grabbed it with my bad hand, but couldn’t swing at Charlie from my current position. He had begun to lap at the open wound like an eager dog, which meant he wasn’t clamped on to me. I took my chance and lifted my head up hard and fast, smashing my skull into his with a sickening crack. I saw stars but didn’t let myself get slowed down. Charlie sat back, shocked but not permanently damaged. My arms were free, but with him still sitting on my lower half, I needed something more than a headbutt to get him off me. I’d never be able to swing the sword properly from this position. With a satisfying click I snapped open the switchblade, rotating the handle back on itself and avoiding the silver end. I slashed out and caught a still-dazed Charlie across the throat. “Bitch,” he spat. He stumbled backwards off me, one hand latched to the new wound I’d opened. I hadn’t nicked anything serious, because he was still able to form words. Now free from Charlie’s weight, I kicked my legs up, my body following, and landed in a crouch with the sword pointed behind me so I didn’t land on it if I stumbled. The last thing I wanted to do was commit accidental seppuku if I broke a heel. Charlie and I rose to a standing position in a mirrored formation. I rotated my wrist, swinging the katana in front of me, and had it angled to the floor, waiting for him to move. “Secret.” This from Tyler, shouting a warning in the same instant one of the guards leaped at me. I raised the sword, slicing it back and forth in a Z pattern, the steel blade making a faint rushing sound as it parted the air in front of me. It also parted the guard, who fell in three neat slabs at my feet. With the wet, meaty sound of the vampire’s body hitting the platform, the remaining crowd seemed to realize this wasn’t a show. There was an uproar of frightened voices, and someone threw up. If I hadn’t been so impressed by the precision of the blade, I might have been sick too. I wanted to turn my attention back to Charlie, but the final guard still planned to prove his loyalty to his master. And considering it was the vampire who had nearly thrown me under a train, I was pretty sure he was going to try killing me for purely personal reasons too. He bellowed at me, making sure I was focused on the six-foot-seven bulk of him. As if I could miss it. “Bring it on, Baldy,” I said, and made another showy display of windmilling the blade in my hand. It gave him pause. Our eyes locked, and I was sure we both knew how this would end, but where we disagreed was on which of us would be dead.
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He charged at me and gained confidence when he avoided my first swing, sliding to a halt against a closed convenience stand. Next to him, beside Charlie, a Coke machine was glowing a merry red and white and completely unaware of its impending demise. The huge, bald vampire ripped the big metal and plastic box away from the wall as if it weighed nothing, and hurled it at me. I didn’t have a chance to dodge it, but his aim was off due to the bulk of the machine. It glanced off my left side, knocking the wind out of me and bringing me down to one knee. Had he been farther back he could have hit me better, but he was too close and couldn’t get the proper momentum or direction for his toss. As it was, the only thing the hit did was give me a few new bruises. It also made him believe he had the upper hand, now that I was back on the floor. He chuckled and opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance. I rolled forward so I was less than two feet from him, then swung the blade upward from the ground, cleaving him neatly in half, where he and his insides slopped to the floor next to his former colleague. I wasn’t interested in playing games anymore. I’d stopped caring that we had an audience, most of whom were now in a panic-induced state of shock. My arm hurt like a bitch, and if Charlie had let me kill him back at the hotel, this whole mess could have been avoided. There was going to be hell to pay from the Tribunal later, but at the moment there was only one thing on my mind. I turned to Charlie, who was standing still in the way only a vampire could, as if he believed by not moving he might avoid being seen. Fear painted his face, and he didn’t mask it. He had nothing clever to say to me as I stalked towards him with slow, deliberate steps. The front of my dress was splattered with blood the last vampire had sprayed on me as he fell. My sword dragged across the tile floor, emitting a loud, eerie squeal that ate away at the silence that had fallen over the crowd. I stopped about four feet from Charlie, the sword at my side. My vision was clear, my eyes only for him. He was trembling. “Don’t fight it,” I said, and even to my own ears my voice sounded wrong. It was too calm, too empty. “Don’t fight me anymore.” He nodded and his legs gave out under him. He collapsed onto his knees and looked up at me with wide, terrified eyes. The look was so honest it gave me a brief pause because it almost made me want to take pity on him. “Secret?” Tyler’s voice came through like the voice of an often-overlooked angel on my shoulder. “You don’t have to do this.” I don’t know where he’d gotten the gun, but its small size suggested it came from an ankle holster. Out of the corner of my eye I could see he had it trained on me, and in spite of the shake in his voice, his hands were perfectly steady. He must have thought I was only going to use the sword for defense when he’d kicked it to me. “You don’t understand.” I raised the blade so it was even with Charlie’s eyes. “He has to die.”
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Sierra Dean
“No one else has to die.” The cop in him had replaced the man. I was no longer the girl from our date, just a threat that needed to be neutralized. Funny, because that’s exactly what Charlie was to me. Reality broke through shock for someone, and first one scream, then another added pointed hiccoughs of noise to the otherwise weighty silence of the standoff between Tyler, myself and Charlie. Tyler loaded a bullet into the chamber of his gun as I pressed the tip of my sword against Charlie’s forehead. “Don’t be a hero, Tyler.” The voice mirrored what I was thinking, but it was calm and male. Holden had arrived, and with him a whole crew of vampires who were already busy convincing the panic-stricken crowd they were only extras in a movie. The vampires even had clipboards with officiallooking waivers on them. The real power, though, was the thrall they were placing over each and every one of those poor human suckers. My focus was still all for Charlie, but I could see his terror was slipping away. The arrival of the vampires seemed to promise a stay of execution in his eyes. If he thought this meant he was going to walk away, I was about to show him how wrong he was. Holden talked Tyler into handing over his gun, and judging by the detective’s dazed expression, he wasn’t going to remember any of this in the morning. My vampire, whose face was a little bruised, must have taken one monster of a beating, because when he looked at the pile of body parts behind me, all I saw in his countenance was satisfaction. He was proud of me. “Don’t you have a job to do?” He looked past me to Charlie. “Holden?” Charlie’s voice quivered. “You won’t let her?” His pitiful, helpless mien was back, but my empathy vanished when a new wave of pain rocked my body as my bones attempted to force themselves together. My collarbone would need to be re-broken and set again if it had any hope of healing properly. “I’d finish you myself if I could,” Holden replied, then led a very compliant Tyler away from the scene. “I’ll make it painless.” The smile on my face gave away how much I was going to enjoy it. I only wished I could make it last longer. The sword only had to swing once. A vampire couldn’t come back from a beheading.
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Chapter Eight
The next night, I found myself sitting on the steps outside of the council’s headquarters with a newspaper in my hands, thanking my lucky stars I was alive. Surviving Charlie and his goons had been the easy part. Facing the Tribunal afterwards to explain why I’d killed three vampires on a subway platform filled with witnesses, well… I’d rather be neck-deep in hungry rogues than square off against the Tribunal again. To be fair, they’d gone easy on me given how close I’d come to exposing the truth about vampires to the world. I could have been executed for what I’d done, and one of the three leaders, Juan Carlos, seemed more than happy to watch me die. Thankfully, the two others, Sig and Daria, weren’t in such a hurry to do me in. They needed to punish me for something, though, or risk total anarchy among the council. They’d charged me with the unlawful execution of three rogues. It was, as charges go, a misdemeanor and a total walk in the park punishment-wise. I got to keep the ten thousand for killing Charlie but owed the council the head value of each of the guards. They had docked fifteen hundred dollars from my bounty, and I’d been removed from active duty for a month. I tried to be happy about my hefty new bank balance, but I was too mad at Holden to enjoy it. Not only had he missed almost the entire fight, he had done nothing to defend me to the Tribunal tonight. Instead, he’d agreed my actions had been reckless and stupid and that I had put every vampire in New York at risk. It wasn’t that he was wrong, I was just pissed he hadn’t even tried to take my side. My phone vibrated, distracting me from my grumpy musings. The caller ID told me it was Mercedes, and I considered not answering. “Hello?” I said warily, bracing myself for her wrath. “So, Tyler called me,” she began. She sounded calm enough. “Yeah?” I didn’t know what Tyler would have told her, because I only knew the truth. I had no idea what Holden had convinced Tyler of when the detective was under the thrall. “Yes.” Anger laced her tone, and I knew whatever the story was it wasn’t good. “He said you guys were having a great time until you got a business call and just vanished. He said you left him in the restaurant without a word, and even though he tried to call you, you totally blew him off.”
Sierra Dean
“Oh.” Well, so much for a second date. I was livid. Instead of giving him a story that would have let me still be the good guy, like a friend in the hospital or something, now Tyler was always going to remember me as that bitch who ditched him in the middle of dinner. Awesome. “Oh? That’s all you can say?” I was somewhat distracted by that day’s edition of the New York Post, which Holden had been kind enough to provide me a copy of. The front-page headline boldly announced the story of a vigilante blonde with a sword who had been terrorizing the subway during the night. Details were foggy, because the only witnesses were people who had run away before the vampires had arrived, and there were no bodies or evidence of any kind to back up the story. The body of the guard in Charlie’s room had already turned to ash thanks to the big, open windows, and the vampires had subsequently wiped the memories of everyone involved. Sig had seen to it that by tomorrow the Post would be printing a retraction, and hopefully by the end of the week it would all be forgotten. “I’m sorry, Cedes.” I really was. “Something came up.” “I just don’t know about you sometimes.” She hung up. I slipped the phone back in my pocket and stood. Sure, things could have been a lot worse. But that didn’t mean I had to like the way they were.
A month to the day after the Tribunal passed judgment on me, I awoke at nightfall with a dead man in my bedroom. I pulled my duvet over my head and groaned, hoping he would be gone by the time I re-emerged. It was a shame you couldn’t ignore vampires into vanishing, because it would certainly make my job and my life a heck of a lot easier. “Stop behaving like a child, Secret,” Holden insisted, sitting comfortably in the chair at the end of my bed. “Let’s have a talk, shall we?” I threw the covers back down but refused to look at him. It had been a month since I’d seen him, and in that time he hadn’t once tried to talk to me. I was also still a little ticked off about the role he’d played in my meeting with the Tribunal. Not to mention how he’d ruined my love life. “Fine,” I said, inhaling a deep breath. “You want to talk? Where would you like to start? Maybe with why you threw me under the bus with the Tribunal? Or why you haven’t even tried to talk to me in a month? Or, hey, why don’t you start by telling me why Charlie Conaway called you brother?” I’d expected him to balk on answering but I was mistaken. “I told the Tribunal the truth. You did put us all at risk,” he began. I let out a protesting grumble, but he ignored me. “And I haven’t spoken to you in a month because the Tribunal wouldn’t allow it.”
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The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters
There was a long pause as he made a big show of straightening the white cuffs of his dress shirt. I knew he hadn’t forgotten my last question, because Holden never seemed to forget anything. After the silence dragged on for half a minute, he spoke again. “Charlie called me brother because we were made by the same vampire.” He remained calm and poised, and his body language did not change, even when the topic shifted to something so personal. “He was older than me,” Holden continued. “He taught me a lot about what it means to be what we are. But that was a long time ago.” He smiled a little sadly, and I knew that was all he was going to say. He reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew something familiar that filled me with a sense of anticipation and placed it on the end of my bed. “Is that what I think it is?” After going so long without work, I felt a bubbling of unexpected joy to see one of those envelopes again. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d missed my job. “It’s been a month. You’re no longer blacklisted for work. Time to get up.” He patted my foot lightly. “The last time I went hunting I had a Coke machine thrown at me,” I groused, trying not to show my excitement. “Yes, well.” He stood and offered me a hand. “You also diced up four vampires and convinced the world Charlie Conaway became a recluse after his newest action-thriller failed to find backers.” “But a Coke machine.” He pulled me to my feet so I was standing next to him. The one thing we hadn’t addressed was our interlude in the hallway outside Charlie’s hotel room. If he wasn’t going to say anything, I figured we must be pretending it had never happened. It had just been one of those things. One of those super-hot, mindmelting, knee-weakening things. Yup, this was me, pretending it never happened. I picked up the envelope, and we walked out of the bedroom, him a few feet behind me. “You know what they say,” he said. “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger, right?” After breaking the wax seal, I slid the card out and was thankful to not recognize the name. I put it down on my kitchen table and opened the fridge to see what I had in the way of blood on hand. “They’ll keep saying that,” I replied, pulling out a donor bag of A positive, “until it actually does kill me.” Holden picked up the card from the table and chuckled with genuine amusement. “Well, there’s always next time.”
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About the Author
Sierra Dean is a reformed historian. She was born and raised in the Canadian prairies and is allowed annual exit visas in order to continue her quest of steadily conquering the world one city at a time. Making the best of the cold Canadian winters, Sierra indulges in her less global interests: drinking too much tea and writing urban fantasy. Ever since she was a young girl she has loved the idea of the supernatural coexisting with the mundane. As an adult, however, the idea evolved from the notion of fairies in flower beds, to imagining that the rugged-looking guy at the garage might secretly be a werewolf. She has used her overactive imagination to create her own version of the world, where vampire, werewolves, fairies, gods and monsters all walk among us, and she’ll continue to travel as much as possible until she finds it for real. Sierra can be reached all over the place, as she’s a little addicted to social networking. Find her on: Facebook: www.facebook.com/sierradeanbooks Website: www.sierradean.com E-mail:
[email protected] Twitter: @sierradean
Look for these titles by Sierra Dean
Now Available: Secret McQueen Something Secret This Way Comes
Coming Soon: Secret McQueen A Bloody Good Secret
Some secrets are dangerous. This Secret is deadly.
Something Secret This Way Comes © 2011 Sierra Dean Secret McQueen, Book 1 For Secret McQueen, her life feels like the punch line for a terrible joke. Abandoned at birth by her werewolf mother, hired as a teen by the vampire council of New York City to kill rogues, Secret is a part of both worlds, but belongs to neither. At twenty-two, she has carved out as close to a normal life as a bounty hunter can. When an enemy from her past returns with her death on his mind, she is forced to call on every ounce of her mixed heritage to save herself—and everyone else in the city she calls home. As if the fate of the world wasn’t enough to deal with, there’s Lucas Rain, King of the East Coast werewolves, who seems to believe he and Secret are fated to be together. Too bad Secret also feels a connection with Desmond, Lucas’s second-in-command… Warning: This book contains a sarcastic, kick-ass bounty hunter; a metaphysical love triangle with two sexy werewolves; a demanding vampire council; and a spicy seasoning of sex and violence.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Something Secret This Way Comes: I recapped the events of the evening as best I could over the limitations of voicemail. “Hey, Holden, it’s Secret. I killed an unsanctioned rogue in the park tonight. He had it coming. Send the Tribunal my love.” I was in an all-night café near Keaty’s, waiting for my nonfat no-foam latte while I left the message. The barista behind the counter, who appeared to be about fourteen, gave me a concerned look. I flashed him my well-practiced innocent smile and said, “My dungeon master.” A spark of revelation lit upon his zitty face. “I just needed him to know the outcome of a campaign he missed.” I winked and took my drink out of his hand while he muttered something about rolling twenties. It was late spring, and there was still a chill in the air, but the café had seen fit to set up its sidewalk patio a week or so after the snow melted. I pulled my jacket around me, though the cold didn’t really bother me, and sat on one of the wrought-iron chairs. My cell phone was securely in my pocket in case Holden called, but I expected I wouldn’t hear from him right away. I was also in no hurry to go back to the office and talk to Keaty about the state of affairs I now found myself in. I’d told him I was getting a coffee and then calling it a night. Dawn was only an hour or two away, and there was nothing I could do to change what I’d done tonight. I would have to face the consequences when they came.
I tried to enjoy the hot, bitter sweetness of the latte, in sharp contrast to the coolness of the night, but my mind was reeling from what had happened. It took a lot to scare me, mostly because almost anything that went bump in the night I had killed at some point, but my encounter with Henry Davies had really shaken me. The unshakeable, calm and centered Secret McQueen had been knocked on her proverbial ass by the impression of a bite mark. Maybe I had been mistaken. There was a chance part of the bite had healed faster or maybe I had been anticipating it so much I had imagined the missing tooth mark. I prayed that I was wrong. In the six years I had been doing this, the closest anyone had ever come to truly killing me was Alexandre Peyton, and he had promised me that next time we met he wouldn’t fail. If I was right about it being his mark, I was going to need to be on my guard more than usual until things either came to a head or blew over. As I sipped my coffee I was overcome by an unexpected warmth which had nothing to do with the drink. It was like a humid summer breeze was blowing down 81st Street, only it crawled over my body and into my pores. My mouth felt thick with musky, dense flavor. The sensation was invasive and overwhelming, and what scared me the most was how comfortable I felt with it. I licked my lips and tasted cinnamon. My latte was vanilla. It was then, with a ripple of electric pinpricks up my spine, I felt a man pass. He approached from behind me and seemed to be wholly unaware of my presence until he turned towards the café door. He paused before entering, his close-cropped ash-colored hair tousled by the cool night air, and fixed his radiant azure eyes on me. There were two men with him, one on either side—a brunet who was the same height, just over six feet, and another who was my height and blond. The one who was watching me looked as puzzled as I felt, but he snapped out of it after a brief period of stunned silence and took a step in my direction. “Hello?” he said, the way people do when they believe they already know you and simply cannot place the who and how. If I’d been on my game, I’d have a snappy shoot-down or roll my eyes and tell him to get lost. I might have ignored him under any normal circumstances, because as a general rule I try to avoid men who might try to flirt with me. I did not date, although I had tried once or twice in the past. I had no time or patience for it, not to mention there were certain aspects of my life I could never explain to a human boyfriend. But I could not look away, and nothing about this felt normal. Not only could I not tear my eyes from him, something inside me pulled closer, dragging me nearer like a leash being tugged. There was a piece of me that wanted nothing more than to go to him. He was beautiful, I couldn’t deny that, but he was a stranger, and this reaction was strange to say the least. This was more than magnetism; it was practically a law of attraction. The pull knotted inside me, fluttering in my
stomach with the feeling of a thousand desperate moths crowding together to seek the light of a single bare bulb. My body demanded I go to him, and I realized I was now standing. My chair was several inches behind me, and I held my drink in trembling hands. When had I stood? His friends were watching me too, like they knew what was happening between us. They were both interested and unconcerned by my reaction. I bet none of them had to make much of an effort to attract the ladies, considering all three were picture-perfect male specimens. The man in the middle smiled, a flash of white canines, and it dawned on me what I was smelling below the cinnamon and electricity. It stopped me dead in my tracks. “Wolf,” I said. It was almost a hiss, the sound an animal makes when threatened. My stupid werewolf half was being lured by him, and I wasn’t about to have any part of it. I had no intention of letting some animal dupe me with werewolf lust. I’d heard about this, weres using their powers to overwhelm newer or lesser wolves. I’d been dealing with my lycanthrope half since birth, which was a lot longer than most adults with the affliction. Just because I’d never shifted as an adult didn’t mean some twenty-something who’d probably been turned last week was going to get the best of me. I tended to shut out my werewolf half far more than my vampire half. Vampires, for all their flaws, were still primarily human in their behavior. I could accept that and relate to it. Their society had laws, structure and regulation. They were very political in their hierarchical organization. Werewolves left me feeling more unsettled. They were animals. Primal beings. They were willing to abandon the human aspects of themselves to embrace something wild and reckless. I’d never tried to learn about their world because I didn’t want to be a part of something that catered to such careless freedom. I did not have the luxury to let myself lose control in that way. If I did, I risked releasing much more than my inner wolf. I turned away from him, and his face fogged with confusion again. I was not going to play his games. Heading towards the back entrance of the patio, I made a break for it. I was almost at the corner of the block before I hazarded a glance back. They were gone. I stopped walking, still clutching my latte. Maybe he’d been willing to let it go when he saw I clearly wasn’t interested. I breathed a sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about for the night. My plate was already overburdened as it was. The last thing I needed was to fend off some pushy frat boy’s puppy love. Turning back to the corner, I walked smack into the tall brunet who had been with the man. A small sound of surprise escaped my lips. “What the—?” “I’d like you to come with me, miss.” “Like hell.” I dropped my drink and was reaching for the gun at the small of my back, but he grabbed my arm first.
“That won’t be necessary. We only want to have a quick word with you about what just happened at the café.” Before I could find the proper string of profanities to explain I had no intention of going anywhere with him, he was dragging me none too gently towards a waiting car. He pushed me into the backseat as the door opened, pulling the gun from the back of my belt as he did. And I thought my night couldn’t get any worse.
Magic, matchmaking and murder…
The Importance of Being Emily © 2011 Robyn Bachar Lord Willowbrook’s spring ball is supposed to be a magical celebration, but Miss Emily Wright is bored. The only outlet allowed for her magic is matchmaking—for others, not herself. Why bother? The only man she wants, Michael Black, is a man she can never have. Suddenly the guests are abuzz with news of a young sorceress found drained of blood in the parlor. The mystery calls to her, and since she is the only available seer in all England, she jumps at the chance to prove herself. Michael has spent his life preparing for his ritual death, when he will join the Order of St. Jerome as an immortal chronicler. Now that dream hangs in the balance, his mentor accused of the murder. Worse, gentle Emily, the woman he silently loves, is walking into a world of horrors beyond her imagination. Torn between duty to the order and desire to keep her safe, Michael fights his growing need for a love that can never be his. All the while the real killer stalks the shadows of Willowbrook Hall, homing in on the next victim. Warning: This book contains a tough but tortured seer, a hero with an expiration date, scandalous kisses, scheming vampires and bloody corpses.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Importance of Being Emily: The night air held a damp chill that was blessedly soothing after my skin had been seared by the bonfire of embarrassment. Though I knew I would regret not stopping for my wrap within a few minutes, I closed my eyes and enjoyed it. For a moment everything was cool, quiet and peaceful, and then Mr. Black interrupted my calm. “What did you see?” he asked. Sighing, I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “I would rather not discuss it. I assume it was not your mentor, but I cannot say for certain. I did not see his face.” Not eager to continue the discussion, I walked deeper into the garden. Some of the braver plants had begun nosing their way from their beds, but for the most part the barren clutches of winter still gripped everything around us. The potential hummed beneath the surface, waiting impatiently for a few warm days to free it. In summer everything would be lush and green again, but for now bed after bed was empty. Like the cradle. An empty cradle for my empty life. Shivering, I rubbed my arms above the tops of my gloves. Without a word Mr. Black removed his coat and draped it over my shoulders. It was warm, but it also carried a strong impression of him—his thirst for knowledge, his dedication to his studies and his loyalty to his mentor. The corners of my mouth
twitched as I pictured him as a very tall Labrador dog. If only Mr. Farrell shared a few of Mr. Black’s honorable qualities. “Thank you,” I said. He stood close to me, and I hesitated, torn between moving away and staying still to see what he intended. “Simon would never do this,” he assured me. “I believe you. Once I am able to prove that, we can focus on finding the true killer. With your tight schedule I’m sure you are anxious to return to your studies.” I winced, feeling guilty for my unkind words. It wasn’t his fault that his dreams for the future were so very different from mine. What could the higher powers be thinking by connecting us? “I apologize for involving you in this.” “Well it has certainly been revealing, but don’t be silly. I wanted to help you. Your mentor was not…acquainted with Miss Morgan, was he?” “No, I don’t believe they ever met. Why?” “That will be in his favor then. It appeared that she knew her…” I trailed off, searching for the right word, “…companion well.” “Oh.” Mr. Black’s eyes widened at the implication. “I shouldn’t have been so blithe earlier about being unconcerned about the subject matter of visions. But it was necessary to help vindicate your mentor.” I shrugged, and the hem of his coat rustled against the skirts of my gown. If I rejected Mr. Farrell, it was likely that the vision was the closest I would get to experiencing that sort of passion. Unbidden, my mind whispered that when Mr. Black became a chronicler, he could bite me, and I could feel the same lustful pleasure for myself… I shook the thought away and hastily removed his coat. “We should go back inside,” I said as I returned it to him. Michael shrugged the coat back on. “Wait. I want to discuss what you mentioned earlier.” “There is nothing to discuss. In a few months you will be a chronicler, and I will still be a matchmaker. Our paths are star-crossed.” This time I held tight to my control, afraid of falling apart again, and I turned to walk back to the manor. He caught my hand and pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me. I gasped and shook my head. “Please, don’t do this,” I whispered. His lips hovered above mine. “Don’t you want to know?” Yes. Every fiber of my seer’s body wanted to know more. Why were we meant for each other? How could we possibly make this work? What would it be like to share his life? To finally know the happiness that I found so often for others? “But you are spoken for,” I blurted. He frowned. “By whom?” “The Order.”
Michael laughed. “The Order is not a jealous wife. There are no rules prohibiting relationships, or even marriage.” “No? What sort of marriage could we have? Should I offer you a vein instead of bringing you tea, until I fade away while you remain unaging? Immortal?” “But we would be together.” I sighed, thinking of my family’s definition of togetherness—in general it involved them poring over an old, moldering text while I looked on in irritation. It was not what I wanted in a marriage, though I supposed at my age I could not afford to be particular. In December I would be twenty-seven years old, an age my sister Sarah assured me was positively ancient. “But I am spoken for.” Mr. Black frowned. “You’ve accepted Farrell’s proposal?” “No. Not yet, but I should.” Shaking my head once more, I began to pull away, but he stopped me with a kiss. At first it was little more than a stalling tactic, a light brush of the lips meant to distract me from escaping, but then he drew me tight against him. Michael’s hand slid up my back and cradled my head, his thumb caressing the line of my jaw. He kissed me again, and my hands clutched the lapels of his coat for balance. I must confess, I had been kissed before, though that was many years ago. Most of the appeal of that kiss had been in sneaking away from the Yule celebration and doing something forbidden, but this…was amazing. Everything that I expected a kiss should be—warm, soft and completely intoxicating. Closing my eyes, I abandoned myself to the experience, and he seemed happy to lead as I slid my arms around his neck. In the back of my thoughts a voice of reason lectured the need for caution. Being close to him had already triggered a flurry of visions, and I should be wary of more of them. A strong vision could incapacitate me for hours, possibly even days if it was very traumatic. Like a fool, I ignored it, even when I began hearing his thoughts. My senses brushed against his as easily as our lips did. I caught a flash of a memory of the two of us sharing a quiet moment together at a previous gathering, and the impression of how much he enjoyed speaking with me. Mr. Black thought I was beautiful, and he had wanted to kiss me for a very long time.
Reality is a corkscrew and humanity is the wine.
The Facilitator © 2011 Sahara Kelly In one carefully compartmentalized section of her life, Martine TwoSeven likes stylish, sexy clothing and a meal that doesn’t come out of a mech vendor. In the other, she’s a Facilitator. She takes pride in her gift for helping souls pass with no pain, no sorrow, no fear, only pleasure. Whatever that pleasure may be. A week after a particularly difficult case that feels “off” and goes terribly wrong, the dreams begin. Dreams inhabited by a mysterious man whose searing touch seems more real than it should. And who knows more than he should. Things that don’t add up. When a new Facilitator arrives at Eternal Tranquility, Johann Seven steps straight out of her dreams, a solid presence in her bed—and her heart. First, he awakens her long-dormant passions. Then he reveals the unthinkable truth behind her life and her job—and her world shatters. Before she can pick up the pieces, Martine receives her next assignment—to “facilitate” Johann. She has no choice but to obey, but when their neural pathways connect, she knows only one thing. If anyone’s going down today, it won’t be the man she loves. Warning: Contains advanced concepts about human nature, life, death, sex and reality. Sometimes more than one at a time. Read at your own risk and keep one foot on the floor at all times.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Facilitator: Eternal Tranquility eased her back into facilitation, giving her calm and prepared patients with poignant memories, final moment fantasies that required very little ingenuity and departures delicately tinged with emotions. They made it clear she was a valued asset and that they’d treat her as such, giving her plenty of time to regain her equilibrium after the Taber experience. It would have been frighteningly easy to slip into that diva mindset…the one that expected such treatment and behaved accordingly, making demands matching her elevated status, pissing off people around her with her attitude and generally living down to her worst personality traits. But being Martine, she tended to do the opposite. Instead of demanding more perks, she stayed nearly silent. Instead of flashing her credits around, she spent hardly any of them and then only on necessities. And she always had something nice to say to the techs and nurses she interacted with during her work. She laughed with the guys who eyed her legs lasciviously, and gave a couple of nurses her code for the leather tunic they both admired. Life—and death—went on pretty much as usual for facilitators and clients. She told nobody that she’d begun dreaming, or that those dreams featured one person.
John. She’d occasionally wondered how far the level of surveillance went on Eternal Tranquility employees. Of course there was security. And that would go double for facilitators, since there were very few of them. God forbid another company should try and woo her or her peers. It hadn’t happened up to now, so she figured security was solid. At what point security became intrusive-and-invasive monitoring was still an ongoing debate and probably always would be. But she’d been dreaming for several weeks now with no interference or questions. Thus she arrived at the conclusion that her routine well-being was indeed observed, but that the dreams either didn’t register or were no problem to those who watched her. They didn’t seem to be affecting her work nor was she dozing off in the middle of the afternoons. No, John’s increasingly regular nocturnal visits seemed to be something only she fully appreciated. And perhaps he did as well…she wasn’t sure yet. She did know she was finding the dreams…very pleasant. Sometimes they were too brief—a quick conversation, a smile or just some sort of warm awareness of his presence. Other dreams were more leisurely. He seemed to enjoy scenarios that were strange to her, such as a garden with unusual flowers and strangely carved statues. There was a small lake of fine sand, which fascinated her, as did the sharply tined rake she used to create designs. It was quite mesmerizing, and when she woke after that one, she almost reached for her comm system to see if she could order a tabletop version. Over the ensuing month, John became a fixture of her nights. Almost a part of her sleep—a part she eagerly anticipated. She carefully utilized her ability to compartmentalize, shutting the door on John and the dreams as she opened the one to her day and her work. She knew there had to be a connection, of course. As time passed she became more and more convinced that John knew a great deal more than he’d said up to now. But she kept those thoughts firmly tucked away. Her talent for shutting parts of her mind down made her the excellent facilitator she was. And now it helped protect the curious woman she was becoming. In her most private moments she acknowledged the fact she was becoming an enamored woman as well. Had John been real and standing in her bedroom, she’d have had him naked in five seconds and giving her the first of many orgasms in barely five more. He appealed to her on a psychological level, being intriguing, intelligent and humorous. All well and good. But it was what he did to her on a physical level that shocked her at times. It had been quite a while since she’d felt so aroused by a man. So alive and aware of her own sexuality.
He had a way of looking at her, those stunning blue eyes filled with heat and what she hoped was desire. Because she was pretty damn sure that word could describe the way she looked at him. Either that or pass me a spoon because you’re dessert and I’m about to eat you right up. And lick the plate when I’m done. The whole lust thing was heating up, Martine realized. Probably not healthy or productive, having a bad case of screaming sweaty thighs for a dream man. In the nebulous sense of the word. The other annoying feature of her dreams was her total inability to initiate the topic of conversation. She’d tried more than once to ask John about that number he’d told her. About the odd coincidence she’d found in the data-storage division server. But, as was the way with dreams, her words wouldn’t come out right. And John blithely chatted on, ignoring her attempts to articulate questions. Then he’d do something like touch her hand or brush her cheek, or look at her in that way—and she was lost. She couldn’t help but realize the sexual attraction between them was growing. She hadn’t been naked with him since that first time. And she was starting to wonder if that was his doing or hers. Who was nervous about what might happen? She got wet thinking about it. Did dreams get hard-ons? Could they actually get down and dirty? The few brief moments Martine permitted herself to indulge in this train of thought passed rapidly. Then she shut it down. She wasn’t about to take the risk of doing any mental broadcasting of her newly enhanced sexual awareness. Guys tended to pick up on that sort of thing, whether it was pheromones or something else. Give a woman a hot night of sex and the next day men would follow her with their eyes, metaphorically panting. There was probably some scientific rationale for it, and doubtless it had been examined, explained and filed away in the annals of human sexuality. She didn’t know and didn’t care. She just wanted to make sure she kept her private thoughts exactly that. Private.
