A Secret to Die For (Secret McQueen) (13 page)

“What?”

“This situation is unorthodox to say the least. The elders need to know if the rumors are true, because you’ve done nothing as of yet to deny them.” A few of the other vampires around her murmured their agreement with her request.

“I do not deny it.”

This brought the whispering up a few octaves. The tone in the room became more excited and not necessarily in a good way.

“Then you willfully hid facts about yourself from the council,” Rebecca said.

Now Juan Carlos was the one beaming like the cat that caught the canary.

“No. I never hid it. I just chose to limit the number of people I entrusted with the truth. And for good reason if
his
reaction is any indication.”

“Then you claim there are those among us who knew, prior to the rumors from Europe?”

“It’s not a claim, it’s a fact.”

“I knew,” Holden announced, coming to stand next to me. He met his maker’s stern gaze and didn’t blink. “And if you doubt it, compel me to tell the truth.”

She sighed. “One sentry does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Especially not one who was sharing her bed.”

“What about me?” a small, female voice cut in.

Juan Carlos dropped back into his chair, the red in his cheeks suddenly gone ashy white. The rest of the elders, too, looked as though they were staring into the face of death itself.

The little girl who came into the center of the room, with her warm brown skin and curly hair still done up in pigtails, was not what one would think a room of vampires would fear. Yet they cowered before her, and her wide, pearl-white eyes seemed to see everything and nothing all at once.

I don’t think Monica had ever left her room before. As far as I knew, she waited until people were brought to her and otherwise stayed away from the rest of the vampires. Yet now here she was, standing on the edge of the circle and waiting for someone to answer her question.

“What about
me
?” she asked again, and this time her voice was cold with annoyance. “Does my approval stand for nothing anymore? If that’s the case, why do you insist on bringing your sniveling, disgraceful wretches before me, hmm? Why am I made to taste the blood of the dishonorable and wicked? If you trust me when I call your brothers and sisters liars, why do you not trust me when I tell you she has earned her place on that seat?”

“We don’t question
you
,” a male vampire said, his head bowed in a simpering display of obedience. “But she lied to us.”

“She did not lie to me,” Monica snapped. “I cannot be lied to. The truth is always in the blood, and she did nothing to hide herself from me. How
dare
you question what I have already ruled on? Who are you to decide one man’s bitterness and jealousy bears more weight than my objective declaration?” Her head pivoted towards Juan Carlos, and he flinched. “You
should
shudder from me, Spaniard. I can smell your sins from here, and they will not make you any friends in this room.
All of you
should fear what I know. There is not a single innocent soul among you.” She pointed at each of them in turn, and no one dared to speak out against her now.

For such a small creature, she was formidable, and her childlike voice echoed with authority.

I looked at Clementine briefly, and she appeared awed by Monica more than afraid of her. It was the kind of wide-eyed adoration I imagined seeing from a true believer in a church, not from someone who was fearful of her sins being revealed.

“Secret McQueen,” Monica said, crooking her fingers to call me forward.

I glanced to Sig for help, but he shook his head and gave me a slight push in her direction. Apparently I was on my own here.

I moved across the circle and crouched beside her so we were at an equal height.

“Are you still true to this council?” She was staring right into my eyes, and though she had no pupils, I no longer believed she was blind.

“I am.”

“Give me your hand.”

I wanted to refuse, not because I had anything to hide, but because like the others I was afraid of her down to my very core. So much had happened to me since the last time she’d tasted my blood. The kind of things that left dark, incurable stains on the soul. But if I wanted her to tell the council Arturo was the true villain here, I would need to offer my own obedience first. I held my hand out for her.

She took one finger and pierced the skin with a tiny, delicate fang so my blood beaded to the surface, then she licked the wound clean and closed her eyes.

The room was silent as the grave while everyone stared at her, waiting.

“There is a traitor among us,” she declared, and my heart stopped beating.

Chapter Nineteen

What the hell?

“I
knew
it,” Juan Carlos shouted triumphantly, forgetting his fear for the moment.

“Sit
down
,” she snapped at him. “I said there is a traitor among us, but it is not her.”

My heart started beating again, and I let out a trembling sigh. Though I’d known full well I had done nothing to betray the council, hearing her words still felt like the stamp on a death sentence. Once she corrected them, I was able to breathe.

“This girl’s heart has been touched by great evil.”

Literally,
I thought, forcing the memory of Dr. Kesteral’s hands in my chest out of my mind. Now was not an ideal time to slip into a PTSD-related panic attack, though I could feel one creeping in at the edges of my psyche. It was like a swarm of small, biting insects, nipping away at my calm.

I wanted to reach out for Sig, to use his abilities to soothe myself, but I couldn’t move. If I appeared desperate or helpless now, the others would assume the worst of me. I lifted my head high and kept my gaze trained on Monica and no one else. I would stay sane through this if it killed me.

Be cool, Soda Pop.

“Many of us have been touched by evil.” Juan Carlos sneered. “It doesn’t make her special.”

“Some have been touched, others do the touching.” Monica stepped away from me and surveyed the room. Those who were closest to her looked away, as though it were her blind eyes that saw through them and not her ability to read their blood.

All of them had something to fear.

Arturo alone appeared unconcerned. He languished in his seat, one leg propped up on the opposite knee, and he took in the scene as if it were a play being performed for his amusement. His demeanor was that of a man who thought himself invincible.

The fool honestly believed he was above this situation, or that Monica would not single him out.

She would drink his traitorous blood if I had to rip his throat open myself for her to get at it. Rules be damned.

“There are those here who stink of lies and malice. It’s why I choose to keep myself apart from you.
You
who are chosen to be our voice. The council of elders indeed.” Her lip curled. “Babes, the lot of you. What have you learned in your hundreds of years, hmm? What do you know of the world that you should consider yourself worthy to make the laws and choose who lives and dies? You are not nature.
You are not gods.
” She stomped her tiny foot, and though her small stature might otherwise make the gesture seem ridiculous, she managed to instill it with a menacing forcefulness.

“We never claimed to be gods,” Rebecca said, her voice meek. I had to give her credit, because not many around us would have had the balls to speak up.

“Not in words, perhaps, but your actions speak volumes. And not one of you before me deserves the authority you’ve given yourselves. None but him.” Monica pointed to Sig.

No one here would deny Sig had earned the claim to his title. Even a mortal would recognize his power and yield to it, though they might not understand why. Two thousand years of life had made him the man he was, and that was a formidable thing indeed.

He inclined his head towards Monica in an appreciative bow, but said nothing.

“And he has determined she is worthy to have a seat next to him,” Monica continued. “What makes you—any of you—think you know better than him?”

“You
knew
?” Juan Carlos’s attention was all for Sig now, his anger coming back to a boil. “I thought you protected her out of some infatuation. I thought surely once you fucked her, you’d be done with her, and we could regain some semblance of normalcy.”

Once
he fucked me?

“I’ve never had sex with Sig,” I declared, to anyone bothering to pay any attention to me. I was hardly innocent of sharing beds, but I didn’t like being accused of getting it on with someone I hadn’t. There was only one man in this room who’d been inside me, and it wasn’t Sig.

“Maybe if you
had
, this madness would have ended sooner.”

“Secret is of my line,” Sig said. “Her blood is my blood, and any favoritism I have shown her is based on that, not, as you say, my desire to
fuck
her. Though one might argue the way you express such desires indicates
you
are the one who’d like to bed her.”

Oh, ew. Gross.

I kept my shudder to myself, but Juan Carlos was less capable of controlling his reactions.

“What did you say to me?”

“Tell me, Juan Carlos, what is it that has made you loathe the girl from the moment you laid eyes on her?” Sig asked.

“I knew from that very first day she didn’t belong. What kind of vampire—half-blood or otherwise—willingly asks to kill her own kind? She was
eager
to become our assassin. She reveled in the deaths of our brothers and sisters.”

“Deaths we demanded of her. She may have carried out the executions, but the sentences were ours. You cannot blame her for doing her job.”

“I don’t approve of her enjoyment of it.”

“You hate me because I was good at killing vampires?” I asked. “Or did you hate that I was so good at it I kept coming back?” He’d always wanted me dead, there was no great secret there. I hadn’t been able to figure out the source of his loathing though. Now, it seemed, I was finally going to get my answer.

“You were never meant to be one of us.
Never.
”

“And even after the council said I was going to be on the Tribunal, you couldn’t let it go. Everyone accepted me but you.”

“I won’t accept you. Not now. Not a thousand years from now. And I won’t have to, because you are mortal. You’ll wither and die, and others will come to replace you. Centuries from now I will still have my seat, and you will be erased from even the longest of memories.”

It was hard to argue with him. I
was
mortal, and though I didn’t know if my vampire blood would extend my natural life expectancy, if I did live to old age, I would still succumb to the ravages of time one day. That was the theory, anyway. The likelihood of me getting to test it out was slim to none, especially now.

“So the reason you hate me is because I’m human.”

“I hate you because everyone thinks you’re special and worthy of great praise. I hate you because even
you
think you’re above the laws. But most of all I hate you because
he
can’t see you for what you really are.” He was pointing at Sig, his hand trembling. The whites of his eyes were almost invisible thanks to the inky-black pools of his irises.

Understanding struck then, and I
got
it. All the hatred, all the anger, all the barely repressed violence. Juan Carlos didn’t want to fuck me at all.

“You’re in love with him,” I said, hardly believing the words even as I spoke them.

Everyone’s attention was on me now.

“Wh-what?”

“You don’t want to sleep with me. You want to sleep with
him
. You’re in love with Sig.”

Sig glanced from me to the other man. In spite of Juan Carlos being impeccably dressed in his usual Armani, and not a single one of his black hairs out of place, he appeared to be coming apart. His eyes took on a glassy sheen, and he couldn’t look at me or at Sig.

“This is madness,” Arturo said, coming to his feet. “We’ve come together to determine whether or not the girl is a traitor, not to trade malicious gossip about her fellow Tribunal leaders. I insist this discussion come to an end now.”

Juan Carlos appeared relieved for his reprieve and returned to his seat, still visibly shaken. I wasn’t quite ready to let my discovery go though, because it all made so much sense. In all the years I’d known him, Juan Carlos had never had a lover. He did not take human consorts like some of the other vampires, nor did he have any ongoing relationships with the other vampires around us.

At the time, I’d assumed it was because he was an asshole and no one wanted anything to do with him, but now it all made perfect sense.

Sig had shown a special interest in me from the very start, and that was why Juan Carlos had hated me. He saw all Sig’s extra attention was turned in my direction, and any preference Sig might have had for him had slipped away.

All his anger—years’ worth of resentment—all came down to simple jealousy. I could have laughed at the absurdity if he hadn’t made my life such a living hell because of it.

“Could you be a bigger idiot?” I snapped. “I wasn’t trying to steal him from you. Not ever. And what’s more, he’s not mine to be stolen.”

“Shut up,” Juan Carlos grumbled, turning his face into his open palm. “Just shut up.”

“Enlightening,” Sig added, though he didn’t seem to mind the revelation one way or the other. I suppose after living as long as he had, he’d had his fair share of lovers, probably of both sexes. At the very least, I doubted Juan Carlos was the first man to fall in love with him.

“Sometimes I’m not even needed.” Monica came to stand closer to me. “No wonder he trembled at the thought of me reading him. And over such a boring secret too. As though anyone should care who he loves except for him.”

While most vampires were too old or too experienced to bother themselves with things like homophobia, Juan Carlos had been a military man. A conquistador. I was speculating, but perhaps his hatred had more to do with personal shame because he believed himself to be less masculine for loving another man. What the hell did I know about the inner workings of his mind, though?

“He’s not the traitor.” I brought the focus back around to what mattered. “Juan Carlos hates me, and he wants me dead, but he didn’t conspire to kill me.”

The vampire in question glanced up at me, seemingly surprised I was now coming to his defense. Why should he be? If I let Monica bite him, the truth of his innocence would be apparent enough. I’d once believed he had tried to set me up because I was sure he would do anything to eliminate me. But Juan Carlos was a rules man. He would live and die by the council’s laws, and that meant he wouldn’t act directly to kill me.

I wouldn’t put it past him to enlist someone he trusted to do away with me, but there were very few people Juan Carlos trusted.

No, the blame for treachery fell somewhere else, and just this once I was willing to believe Juan Carlos had nothing to do with it. He wouldn’t have let himself become such a spectacle if he was guilty of something. He’d have sat back and let everything unfold around him naturally. All his bluster and yelling had proven to me he was a pompous ass, but not a traitorous one.

“Of course I’m not a traitor.” His gaze cut to Sig, plainly hoping the other man believed him.

Sig looked bored.

But that was a skill of his too. He never expressed undue interest in anything, because to do so would be showing his hand. Any display of emotion was a display of weakness in a situation such as this.

“Him.” I jerked my chin towards Arturo. “He’s come here to see me burned at the stake like a witch. He thinks you’re all stupid enough to believe I would betray you, but the truth is he’s the guilty one. Arturo worked with Alexandre Peyton, a known rogue and escaped prisoner of our council. He provided aid and supplies to Peyton, as well as a steady flow of information. Specifically information about me.”

Arturo glared at me. “These are the desperate accusations of a madwoman and a liar.”

“Rebecca,” I said, letting my voice rise above the mounting din of the room. “What is the punishment for conspiring to kill a Tribunal leader?”

Sig answered for her. “Death. The punishment is death.”

“And you would take the word of a half-breed piece of filth over someone who has sat in a Tribunal seat for over a century? This is madness, Sigvard. You are smarter than to take the trollop at her word, aren’t you?”

“First, you will not insult any member of my council while you are a guest in my city. You were invited here as a gesture of friendliness between our communities, but you would spit on the good name of one of our Tribunal?”

“I would spit directly on her if she would step a few paces closer,” Arturo answered.

Sig went on as if Arturo hadn’t spoken. “Second, you
dare
to question my judgment?”

“Only when you are obviously blinded by your affection.”

“Are you not blinded by bigotry? Have you honestly sacrificed the laws of your people, laws you have upheld for centuries, because you cannot stand the idea of someone with werewolf blood having the same level of power as you?”

“She is
not
equal to me. She is an abomination.” He was sounding more and more like Juan Carlos by the second, only this time I didn’t think his hatred was because of love. These were the raving words of someone who loathed what he didn’t know and wanted to stamp out anything different. Arturo didn’t hate me, he hated what was inside me. Knowing me as a person wouldn’t change that, nor would any logical discourse about my leadership skills.

“Did you go looking for Peyton, or did he find you?” I kept my distance, not wanting to discover if he would follow through on his promise to spit on me.

“Any question of yours I answer will serve to implicate me. Since I am innocent of any charges, I will not disgrace myself by acknowledging your words.
You
are the one on trial here, not I.”

“On the contrary,” Rebecca interrupted. “No one is on trial at all. This was merely a council meeting to determine how we should proceed with Secret’s position, and to establish if she’d done anything wrong. Monica has now cleared her of any treasonous suspicions, and in my opinion, Tribunal Leader Secret is as fit to maintain her seat as ever she was. Is there anyone present among the elders who disagrees with this assessment?”

No one spoke.

“However,” she continued. “New allegations have now been brought forward, and they cast you, Tribunal Leader Arturo, in a less than attractive light. Naturally, though, if you are innocent, you will not mind submitting yourself to the seer’s test.”

“This is absurd. I am a Tribunal leader.”