Grave Secret (29 page)

“Yeah,” Desmond whispered, unable to hide how uneasy he was.

For the first time in my adult life, I was going to be a liability to someone’s safety just by being with them.

“Lucas, I gotta go.” I hung up the phone before he could reply.

Even if I wasn’t going to be much use in the strength department, I had something that
could
do damage against wolves. After dropping my cell back into my purse, I withdrew my SIG, pulled my hand back out and clicked off the safety. These guys weren’t here for Desmond, they were here for me. I could already see Hank and the ponytailed scumbag among the group.

My mom’s pack.

“Don’t suppose you think they’ll go easy on us if I tell them about my predicament?” I gave Desmond a fake-hopeful smile. He grimaced in return. “So much for putting my past behind us, eh?” That didn’t seem to make him laugh either. Honestly, I wasn’t in a laughing mood at the moment, but being human didn’t mean I had to be deathly serious all the time.

Maybe
deathly
was the wrong way to think of things right now.

I’d been human less than twenty-four hours, and I was already looking down certain death. This had to be a record for the shortest lifespan of a newborn twenty-three-year-old ever.

But then I reminded myself how often my death had seemed like a sure thing in the past, and I was still kicking, so maybe this wasn’t hopeless. I
did
have Desmond with me, and my gun. And a fucked-up adulthood that had trained me how to think and behave in situations like this one. Not to mention my training had all come from one man…a human man.

Fuck the discouraging thoughts. I might be human, but I was still Secret McQueen.

I chambered a round and dropped my purse to the ground. If I couldn’t use it to kill someone, it wasn’t any good to me, and as big as my purse was I don’t think it qualified as a deadly weapon quite yet.

“I’m not sure how much use I’m going to be against the big ones,” I admitted.

“Stay behind me.”

“I
can
take out the scrawny one. And the leader.” My voice didn’t belie my uncertainty, for which I was grateful. Sounding self-assured went a long way towards making me feel it.

“Secret,
stay behind me
.”

The pack was only a block away, close enough to hear what we were saying, so I chose my next works carefully. “I know you’re prone to being protective, but I’m
not
useless here.” I waved my gun in his peripheral vision. “I can handle myself. If I can’t,
then
I’ll stay behind you.”

Desmond, who had been rigid and standing with a fighter’s determination, shifted his position to look at me. In one brutally masculine gesture he grabbed me by the waist and yanked me against him, his mouth crushing mine with a rough, hot kiss that made my whole body explode with tingles. When he released me, I was dizzy and my feet had gone missing.

“I won’t lose you, understand? Not now.”

The pack was crossing the street, and we didn’t have time for romantic proclamations, just barely enough time for me to whisper, “Not ever.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

In some ways being human was not so different from being a vampire.

While in the throes of a vampiric rage—or while my body was healing itself—all the world around me would dim into a white noise. When Pony-boy and his goon squad came to a stop a few feet away from Desmond and me, the throb of my pulse in my ears was so loud it was all I could hear. All other noise vanished, and the constant reminder of my humanity thrummed inside my head.

“Be calm,” Desmond said quietly, even though the other men would hear him.

“This
is
me being calm.”

“Maybe be calmer.”

My fingers spasmed around the grip on my gun, and I was thankful I knew better than to keep one on the trigger.

“We meet again,” Pony-boy said, his voice a silky growl.

“I thought I made it clear last time, I was done meeting with you.”

“In a city like this, it was inevitable our paths would cross a second time.”

Yeah, because in a city with over eight million people there was no way to avoid one pain-in-the-butt rogue and his posse of would-be badass wolves. “Be honest, you just missed me,” I said.

“We never took a shot. Hard to miss when you haven’t tried yet.” This came from Hank, who was a half step behind Pony-boy. I knew what hiding looked like.

“Sorry, Hank, I couldn’t hear you from behind Mom’s apron strings.”

Hank growled, and my body responded with a surge of pure adrenaline. My heart was screaming for me to run and my limbs wanted to listen to the order for flight. Too bad my brain was still running things, and my brain still thought like a bounty hunter.

“We heard a rumor you were gone,” Pony-boy added, ignoring my banter and Hank’s reaction. “The true queen wanted us to see if the rumors were true.”

I shrugged with my hands out in front of me, giving an innocent face but also flashing my weapon at them. “You’ve seen me. Now you can go tell Mommy Dearest to get bent.”

The men Pony-boy had with him muttered amongst themselves. I wasn’t sure what they’d expected from this interaction, but this back-and-forth chattering mustn’t have been it. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility it was something along the lines of, “I thought we were going to beat up a girl.”

“Actually, the true queen—”

“Stop calling her that,” I demanded. “Unless she’s the true queen of being a pain in my ass, you are sorely mistaken about her title.”

“We know who our queen is.”

“Oh, right, I forgot… You guys are just as crazy and fucked in the head as she is.”

There was more muttering within the posse. It also hadn’t escaped my notice that Desmond got stiffer and breathed more heavily each time I spoke. If I kept it up like this, I’d be hearing—

“Secret…” He only said my name, but we’d done this song and dance before, so I knew exactly what meaning was loaded in that one word. I’d once asked an apocalyptic demon if he would give me three wishes. I was no stranger to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

In this case, though, I was trying to
buy
time. I didn’t know if kicking the hornet’s nest was the best way to go about it, but it probably wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever had. The longer I kept them talking, the longer I avoided finding out how much a punch in the face really hurt.

That was one human experience I could do without.

“You are bold, girl,” Pony-boy said.

“Thanks.”

“Boldness often leads to misadventure.”

Well…that was a threat worthy of someone much scarier than an ugly dude with a ponytail.

I rubbed my empty hand against my leg, wiping away the sweat on my palm. “Let me ask you something. You seem like a smart guy, I mean, in spite of your vacation from rationality.”

Desmond’s teeth ground together.

“Smart enough to see the right path,” Pony-boy replied.

“That’s just it. You’re smart, but you’re making such a goddamn stupid mistake right now, I wonder if you haven’t been knocked on the head.”

“We are not making a mistake. The only mistake here is you.”

Ouch.
Who needed motherly disapproval when she could send a whole pack to belittle my existence? Talk about taking my mommy issues to a whole new level.

“This is fucking stupid,” one of the minions grumbled. “Why are we still talking to her?”

“Because we can’t hurt her,” said another. I recognized him as the one I’d confronted outside the restaurant—Ian.

“
Shut up
,” Hank snapped, a vein in his neck throbbing an ugly purple color.

Guessing they weren’t supposed to let that tidbit slip.

“Let me guess—‘you can scare her, but no one touches her… I want her for myself,’” I said, mimicking my mother’s bitchy soprano the best I could.

“No one said anything about
him
,” another goon said.

I didn’t care how fragile my new human bones were,
no one
threatened my loved ones. I raised my gun and aimed it at the wolf who’d spoken. He was six feet tall and built like a linebacker. Why couldn’t there be more out-of-shape werewolves out there? Or little scrappy ones like Hank? I’d rather Hank be the rule than the exception. Too bad for me most wolves looked like they could be semi-pro wrestlers in their downtime.

“
I
say something about him,” I told the wolf. “And I say if you come a step closer to us, you lose a head.
Capice
?”

He curled a lip at me but didn’t say anything else and didn’t advance on us.

Desmond probably didn’t love having me jump to defend him when he had gone into this thinking I’d be the one who needed protection, but it was in my nature to be defensive of the people I cared about, and that didn’t change because I wasn’t a monster anymore. If push came to shove—literally—I was going to need him. But I was hoping big talk and posturing could keep us out of that.

“The queen said we couldn’t
kill
her,” Pony-boy said. “I don’t recall hearing anything forbidding us from
hurting
her. And there were no rules against killing the other one.”

Pony-boy was pretending not to hear me. This was a tactic I was used to.

“What did your queen say about returning home with all your limbs?” a voice asked from behind the posse. The six men parted, and on the sidewalk behind them was someone I couldn’t have been happier to see if he was carrying six puppies and a credit card with no limit.

Holden looked bored with our present company.

“Who does this chump think he is?” the stupid linebacker asked.

“Use your nose, you idiot,” Hank grumbled, taking a few steps away from Holden. “He’s a vampire.”

“He’s only
one
vampire.”

“Oh, you’re cute,” Holden said, casually unbuttoning his camel-colored coat. “If you think there needs to be more than one of me to dismantle this…
gathering
…you must have a very inflated sense of self.”

“Or they’ve never met a two-hundred-year-old vampire,” I added.

Holden and I were both talking out our asses. Six-on-one wasn’t the best odds, even in a vampire vs. werewolf scenario. Had I been myself, with Desmond in the mix, this would have been an easy win for us. As it was, we’d probably still come out on top, but it wasn’t going to be the cakewalk it should have been.

Our warning seemed to be doing some good, because the new additions to the pack appeared less than thrilled to be standing between Holden and Desmond and myself. Good. I wanted to get them nice and uneasy. I was hoping one or two would commit mutiny and run for the hills. I lowered my gun, since all the attention was focused on Holden for the time being and my arm was getting sore.

Pony-boy gave a growl that negated any hopes I’d harbored of seeing the minions flee. All scuttlebutt came to an abrupt halt, and the uneasy shifting from foot to foot ceased entirely. It didn’t matter that my mother was a crazy-faced bitch, she definitely had good taste when it came to the help she enlisted.

“
Enough
,” he snapped, as if the growl hadn’t been suitable indication of his displeasure. “We came here to do a job and we’re going to damned well
do
it.”

He received no arguments.

“My mother’s business with me—”

With an expression that spoke to more violence than what he’d already threatened out loud, the wolf stared me down, stopping my words mid-sentence. “I’ve had enough of your mouth too. You’d best listen to your man when he tells you to shut up.”

Beside me, Desmond sighed heavily, aware of the impact Pony-boy’s words would have. Holden, equally familiar with my attitude, snorted and shook his head. “You really are the dumbest son of a bitch on the planet, aren’t you?”

I fought the urge to lift my weapon again. This had the feel of something that was going to take an ugly turn soon, but I didn’t want to be responsible for making it happen any quicker than it would have naturally.

“Did you come here to insult me?” I asked.

“No.”

“And you didn’t come here to kill me, your blockheaded friend made sure I knew that much.”

Pony-boy looked unimpressed. With the threat of my death off the table, the worst they could do was rough me up. Granted, that was going to suck a lot more than usual given the circumstances, but when you stop fearing death, the worst-case scenario usually looks a lot sunnier.

“Death is sometimes a gift.”

“I’m big on re-gifting,” I parried.

“We came to deliver a message,” he said, not batting a lash at what I thought had been a very clever comeback. Ah well, I wasn’t going to dazzle everyone with my humor.

“You needed six guys to bring me a message? Must be a complicated one.”

“No.” Missed my sarcasm again. “It’s quite simple. She wants you to know your time has come to an end.”

He was more right than he could imagine.

“That’s it?”

“Did each one of you need to remember one word?” Holden asked. “Imagine how embarrassing it would have been if you’d mixed up the order.
Time to come
.”