Secret Unleashed

My only victory in the whole thing was this time we were allowed to fly inside the passenger compartment rather than the cargo hold. Maxime and Holden showed little interest in the view from the small cabin windows, but I practically had my face glued to them.

Los Angeles from above was stunning, a far-reaching grid of lights spreading farther than the eye could see. New York was so small in comparison, one glowing island as opposed to this huge, illuminated blanket.

I called Desmond since our pilot didn’t seem to mind if we used our phones on board.

“I was just thinking about you,” he told me, sounding close in spite of the thousand miles between us.

“Good things, I hope.”

“Is anyone in earshot?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll stick with good things then, yes.”

“I miss you.” I watched the lights of L.A. get farther away. “Things here have been so strange. I’ll have some unbelievable stories for you when I get home.”

There wasn’t time to get into the whole Sutherland issue over the phone, and I wasn’t in the mood to rehash it right then, anyway.

“You’ve only been gone a day.”

“I know. Doesn’t take long to stir up drama with the vampires.”

“Something they have in common with us.”

“I’ll call you in a day or two, okay? Love you.”

“Love you too.”

After I hung up, the remainder of the flight was uneventful. My impression of San Francisco from the air was marred by cloud cover, but I did get a good view of the Bay Bridge lit up at night, and it reminded me of home. The sweeping wires and towers were more modern than the Brooklyn Bridge, but living on an island made me compare every bridge to the ones I saw at home.

We landed at a small private airport where a town car was waiting to take us to our residence for the next two nights. Although the West Coast council no longer made their home in San Francisco, they still had a number of local connections to make it easy for them to spend a night or two in their old haunting grounds should they choose to.

Which worked out well for us.

We’d be staying in the same hotel suite Sutherland had last been seen in, which I hoped might give me some clues as to what my father had discovered, and perhaps where he’d run off to. Galen informed me the room had been thoroughly inspected by his wardens, and they’d come up with nothing, but maybe my father and I had something other than just DNA in common. Perhaps I’d be able to see something the wardens had missed.

It was probably wishful thinking, but all the same I was hopeful.

Holden’s tension had eased some since we’d left Los Angeles, but he’d kept his distance from me on the plane and opted to sit up front in the car rather than next to me in the back. It wasn’t the most ideal way to sell himself as my full-time lover, but now the only person we had to convince was Maxime, and Holden didn’t seem too interested in keeping up the ruse around his brother.

Maxime didn’t appear to care one way or the other. He was so excited to be out of the Los Angeles keep he kept nattering on about the history of San Francisco and all the places that had been former vampire playgrounds. Under normal circumstances this would be exactly the kind of history lesson I would love to listen to. Right now, though, I was more interested in Holden and the sulky state he’d fallen into.

I’d tried to tell him I wasn’t upset about what had happened in my bedroom, but he was carrying the burden of guilt with him all the same. He was angry with himself, and nothing I was saying helped ease his mind. Shouldn’t I be the one to decide if he should feel guilty about his actions? And if I said there was nothing to feel bad about, why couldn’t he shrug it off?

Our driver took us to an old brick warehouse where a car with our belongings was waiting. Maxime hadn’t stopped talking since we’d landed, and continued to chat about the storied past of the building and the work that had gone into restoring it after the 1906 quake. From what I gathered—I wasn’t listening to everything—it sounded like the council made a handsome income by renting the space to several pornographic film companies as a soundstage.

Maxime assured me several times we wouldn’t be disturbed during our stay, and all upcoming bookings had been rescheduled. I think he was worried I’d be offended by the double life of the warehouse, but quite to the contrary, I thought it was the most interesting piece of information he’d provided since we arrived.

We wouldn’t be sleeping at the warehouse, but it would be our nightly base of operations since the hotel we’d be using was a busy tourist stop, and we couldn’t come and go without drawing unwanted attention. And we certainly couldn’t bring in three coffins without questions being asked.

The hotel was outfitted with light-safe privacy suites thanks to all the demanding nocturnal guests who had stayed there over the last hundred years. We had nothing to worry about in the sunlight department. I didn’t know whether or not the hotel was aware their sensitive guests were vampires, but they had definitely grown accustomed to catering to some seriously strange demands.

Maxime assured me the two-bedroom penthouse he’d secured for us was designed to suit any needs we might have, and we’d be left alone during the day. He also made it clear Holden and I would be very comfortable in our room, and his own bedchamber—his word—was at a nice distance across the suite.

He wanted me to know he wouldn’t be listening in if Holden and I wanted to do the nasty.

It was both thoughtful and a little creepy of him to go to such lengths. I didn’t ask why he hadn’t just booked his own room. He appeared to be thirteen, so there was no way he could have a suite to himself without it seeming suspicious.

In a lot of ways Maxime retained much of the childish innocence he must have had when he’d been human. Though he was only a couple decades shy of his bicentennial, he still had a wide-eyed appreciation for the world around him and delighted in sharing his experiences with others. I was genuinely touched by the way he attempted to draw my attention to the sights of the city, like a little boy might share a captured butterfly with friends. He saw so much beauty in it, and wanted others to see it too, to understand it the way he did.

It dawned on me the reason I liked Max so much was because he reminded me of Brigit. They had the same sweetness, in spite of being vampires, and there was a certain guileless quality to Maxime that made him loveable. At first I’d thought it was a trick because of his youthful face, a perfect ploy to lure unsuspecting victims in. But the longer I spent time with him, the more I realized that was just his way.

Now I understood why Holden had insisted I trust the younger vampire. I wasn’t sure I did yet—not absolutely—but I didn’t need to trust someone in order to like them.

After our quick moonlit tour of the warehouse, we made our way to the hotel.

Inside the lobby I hung back while Holden and Maxime checked in, and while perusing the various pamphlets on historical San Francisco tours, a familiar voice said, “Secret?”

I stopped dead, pamphlet still in my hand, and tried to tell myself it was all in my imagination. I was not hearing that low, rumbly baritone. It did not make the wolf inside me stir from her slumber and perk both ears up like she’d been whistled at.

“Secret, is that you?”

I glanced over my shoulder, and my eyes confirmed what my brain still refused to believe.

Lucas Rain was standing five feet away from me.

Chapter Seventeen

“What are you doing here?” I snarled, unable to mask my displeasure in seeing him. There’d been a time when I might have feigned politeness towards my ex-boyfriend, but I didn’t think Lucas warranted the effort anymore.

They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That goes quadruple for a woman stood up on her wedding day.

Especially when the groom-to-be refuses to admit he’s done anything wrong.