Sierra Dean - Secret Unleashed

Arturo sat on Galen’s left, and he wasn’t quite what I expected. Upon hearing an Italian name, I’d pictured an olive complexion and dark features, much like Juan Carlos. Arturo was a surprise because his hair was the color of sunlit straw and his eyes were a shade of green I’d only seen on a cat shifter. He, too, was attractive, and showed no signs of the disgust I’d been expecting. If anything, the vampire here who liked me the least was Eilidh.

Well, I’d been prepared for one of them to dislike me on sight, so I was breaking even.

I greeted them each with their full title but did not bow. I wasn’t subservient to them, and I had to be mindful I didn’t make them think they could overpower me. Like Ingrid said, I was here to be Sig’s eyes and ears, and they had to treat me the same way they would have treated him. While I wasn’t foolish enough to believe my treatment would be identical, I did expect to get some respect out of the deal. And it also meant I wouldn’t bow to those who were meant to be my equal.

I couldn’t do much about standing lower, though. They could hardly be expected to bring in another throne just for me.

Standing in front of the three of them brought a flood of memories crashing back to me. I was reminded of my days with the council before I gained my Tribunal seat, and I would wait in front of Sig, Daria and Juan Carlos for my orders.

Back then it had been my job to find and kill rogues.

Now I was here because a rogue wanted to do the same thing to me.

“Sig mentioned you’d been having some difficulty with one of your younger wardens, and he felt I might be able to help.” I wanted to hurry the conversation along so I could get out of there as soon as possible.

“Yes. At first I couldn’t understand why he felt you’d be better suited for the task, but now…well, now it’s quite clear.” Galen nodded sagely, like I had any idea what he was talking about.

Eilidh rested her chin on her hand and stared at me. She hadn’t spoken a word up until that point, and now her eyes narrowed. When she condescended to speak to me, her voice was soft and airy but carried unmistakable malice.

“Don’t you think, dear brother, her emotions might confuse the situation?” Her words were for Galen, but she stared straight at me, practically through me. If I hadn’t seen her glower at Ingrid in a similar way, I’d have assumed the two must have compared notes about me.

And what did she mean about my emotions confusing the situation?

“I’m sorry, am I missing something?”

“Evidently,” she replied coolly, putting both hands back in her lap, and pursed her lips in a cross between a sneer and a pout.

I wondered if she had ever met Juan Carlos. I felt like they’d get along swimmingly.

Instead of asking her what she meant, I focused my attention on Galen. Eilidh could be as bitchy as she wanted and it wasn’t going to intimidate me or scare me off. She might be old, but I had power too, and I had no intention of slinking off with my proverbial or literal tail between my legs.

“What’s the deal? Your daytime servant started talking about how I look like something, or someone. And now your sister seems to think I’m going to screw things up on an emotional level? Believe me, I can find a missing vampire without being emotional. I was a bounty hunter for the council before I became a Tribunal Leader.”

“Yes, we’ve heard a great deal about you, Secret. May I call you Secret?”

I wanted to shout hallelujah to the rafters that we could dispense with the stupid titles, but remembering my company I replied, “By all means.”

“And you may call me Galen.”

“Thank you.”

“Secret, the reason Eilidh is concerned about your involvement in this search is because you and the vampire in question have something…unique in common.”

“Oh? Who is it?”

“The vampire we’re looking for is named Sutherland Halliston.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. No elaborate explanations or fun flip charts would be necessary for me to figure out why they were worried.

I’d never met Sutherland Halliston, but I knew exactly who he was.

The AWOL vampire they wanted me to find was my father.

Keep your cool, keep your cool.

I wanted nothing more than to freak the fuck out, but this was neither the time nor the place. The fact Sutherland was the vampire they wanted me to look for, and Sig had obviously known that before sending me here, brought up so many issues I didn’t have time to deal with.

Namely…Sig’s vampire blood was running through my veins.

Sig was my…I didn’t even know. He wasn’t my grandfather, but he was my vampire grandsire—my great-grandpire—or something. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Biologically we weren’t related, but physiologically I couldn’t exist without his blood.

So we were something .

I stared at Galen and tried to keep my breathing deep and even as I attempted to bury the dark and twisty web of thoughts brewing in my head. I couldn’t think about it now, lest I fall apart completely.

“So?” I chose the shortest question I could think of in order to keep my voice from breaking.

“So?” Arturo parroted, without any malicious tone to his voice. “Does the name mean nothing to you?”

“Sutherland Halliston is my biological father.”

“Yes, and your vampire sire.”

“He’s my father two different ways. What of it?” I had to give myself props for sounding disinterested in the topic while inside everything I thought I knew about the world was unraveling.

“You know a sire can compel their offspring, don’t you?” Arturo asked.

“I think that rule is more for… traditional sire-offspring relationships. My father didn’t turn me. His blood was fed to me in utero. I was born like this.”

“A born vampire?” Eilidh sat upright, suddenly far more interested in what I was saying. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s not a perfect science, as you guys can tell.” I was referring to my apparent heartbeat. “I don’t owe him my un-life, and he has never had my blood. The rules don’t apply. You can’t control a vampire whose blood you’ve never had.”

As far as any of us knew, anyway. Like Eilidh said, there was no precedent for my situation. There weren’t a lot of half-vampires running around, certainly not those born with the affliction. I couldn’t be so bold as to say no other halflings existed, since the word dhampir existed solely to describe them, but I’d never met one and no one else I knew had either.

There was a word for unicorn and chupacabra too, but it didn’t make them real. Cryptozoology existed to name things that weren’t real, and a dhampir might be real or it might be a cryptid. I was inclined to be skeptical, except for the fact I was half-vampire.

“ Very interesting,” Eilidh said.

“How can you be certain?” Galen asked.

“Because Sig thinks I’m the perfect person to find him. And if Sig believes it, so should you.”

That much I could convince myself of.

“And what do you think?” Arturo shifted forward in his seat, hands clasped together and wearing an intrigued expression.

“First tell me why you want him. Then we can discuss whether or not I’m the one to help you find him. Am I correct in assuming you haven’t declared him a rogue?” Keeping focused on being formal helped ground me.

Holden, Ingrid and the others had left after I’d introduced myself, meaning I didn’t have the sentry with me for additional support. This was all up to me, and the more officially I behaved the easier it was to stay calm.