Sierra Dean - Secret Unleashed

She reached out a hand, brushing my face with her fingers. Holden went tense at my side, like he wanted to slap her away but was fighting the urge. Personally I thought it was rude for her to just up and touch me without asking, but she didn’t linger.

“Wow. Smooth.”

I shrugged. “It’s how my skin has always been.”

“You’re lucky. Pale is really in right now. I was at a Monique Lhuillier show a few weeks ago, and all the models were so pale. And look at me.” She pointed to her skin, which might as well have been lit from within with gold, and sighed like it disgusted her. “I’ll never be pale.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I shifted the conversation in Lucas’s direction. “Red Sox are doing well this year.”

Since he owned the team, I was hoping this might spur him into some kind of discussion. A spark of interest lit his eyes, and he stopped glaring at Holden long enough to look at me. “Yeah, the new GM is doing great things with the team. Our pitchers are costing me the salary of a small island nation, but it looks like it’s paying off. I mean, we still have two months, but I like our chances.” Nodding at his own statement, he took a sip from the water in front of him and relaxed for the first time since we’d sat down.

“Holden, what do you do?” Willow asked.

“I was the editor-at-large of GQ for a while, but now I do personnel management and security in the private sector.”

That was one way to put it.

“And you, Secret?”

“What do I do?”

She laughed, a light sound, but obviously well practiced. “Yes, silly.”

Which of my sordid occupations could I spin into something believable? Werewolf queen was out of the question. Tribunal Leader I might be able to make work for me. “I’m the chair of a, uh…community outreach program in Manhattan. I used to be a private investigator.”

“Used to?”

“I still dabble, but the community program eats up a lot more of my time these days.”

“How interesting.” I could tell she wasn’t interested at all, which had been the point of my phrasing things the way I did. “But private investigating must have been pretty cool.”

“It had its moments.”

“Did you deal with a lot of cheating husbands and bail jumpers? That sort of thing?”

“No, my partner and I did more specialized work. Missing persons, finding stolen objects.” I neglected to mention those objects were usually magical in nature and worth a fortune in finder’s fees.

Apparently taking the tawdry stuff off the table meant Willow lost interest in my PI work. I could have sucked her right back in if I told her I’d once been hired to find the kidnapped niece of the wereocelot queen, but I wasn’t going to use Genevieve Renard’s personal history to impress an actress.

“How did you and Lucas meet?” Holden asked, finally warming up and joining us in polite conversation.

“At a charity fundraiser in New York about a month ago.”

“What charity?”

“Oh.” Willow bit her lip as though she couldn’t recall. “My goodness. How embarrassing. I go to so many events, I can’t—”

Lucas provided the missing answer for her. “It was a campaign supporting children’s literacy. It was Kellen’s pet project, but now that she’s…gone, I’ve stepped up to take over for her.”

The official story we were selling on Kellen was that she’d eloped with a well-to-do oil tycoon from a small foreign country—one of the tiny Eastern European ones—and was planning to live out her remaining days being spoiled by him.

The papers were dying for photos of her wedding—I’d been offered a six-figure sum for anything I could provide—but since no such photos existed, it was easy to turn reporters down.

Kellen was actually the new wife of a high-ranking member in the fairy king’s court, and she would age so slowly there we might all be dead before she looked thirty. But she loved Brokk, and who were Lucas and I to deny anyone their true love? Just because our perfect fairytale wedding had gone down in flames didn’t mean Kellen shouldn’t have her literal fairytale wedding.

One none of us got to see.

I was assured by Calliope, who’d heard it through connections she still had in the fairy court, it had been a rollicking affair. Everyone had enjoyed it thoroughly, and Kellen had received a true fae welcome into the kingdom. Whatever that meant.

“How is Kellen?” Willow asked, like she and Kel had been old besties. “Enjoying her life in Whateveristan?”

“Kyrgyzstan,” I corrected, having practiced the name of the country about a billion times before we went public with the story.

“She’s very happy.” Lucas’s expression was stony. He was never going to forgive me for the part I’d played in letting Kellen go back, especially after everything I’d done to retrieve her.

He could go screw himself because I didn’t care what he thought.

“Very, very happy,” I agreed.

“How wonderful. Although I’m sure the gossip columns will miss her.” Willow shared her practiced laugh with us again, but this time no one else laughed with her. “And of course you’ll miss her too.”

“Excuse me.” Lucas pushed his chair back and rose from the table.

He’d barely left the room before I scraped my own seat backwards and followed him with a, “Be right back.”

Lucas was waiting in the hallway near the washrooms like he’d been expecting me to follow him.

“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

“Your girlfriend was the one who invited us. I’m just being polite.”

He glowered at me, his expression clearly saying, Let’s not fucking kid ourselves here . “So you thought what, exactly? The four of us would sit around while you hold hands with your walking corpse, and we’d have a lovely discussion about Kellen? You thought that would be a great goddamn idea ?”

“Your girlfriend invited us,” I reminded him.

“She’s not my fucking girlfriend,” he snapped. “I have a wife , and my wife is standing right in front of me.” When he grabbed my shoulders roughly, I struggled to pull back, but his grip was firm. Without resorting to violence I couldn’t wrest myself free, and I didn’t want to make a scene.

Not yet anyway.

“We’ve had this discussion before, and I’m not sure I feel like having it again. I am not your wife.” Points for me for not reminding him whose fault that was.

“You are, and it’s about time for you to stop ignoring your duty and come back to the pack.”

I wriggled, making it clear I had no desire to be in his arms, but still he held me. “Lucas. Let me go.”

“Not until you’re willing to listen to reason.”

“ Reason? You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re the one who isn’t getting this. You and I aren’t mates anymore. My wolf wants nothing to do with you. If you’d take two seconds to actually feel for her, you’d realize that.”

“What are you talking about? Of course we’re still mated. We completed the ceremony.”

“But that was before. Before the fairy king made me human. When he gave me back my monsters, something changed. It’s like a blank slate. I don’t know how it works, or why, but my wolf doesn’t respond to yours anymore.”

He dropped his arms but loomed closer, sniffing at me the way an animal might. What he was trying to glean from scent alone I wasn’t sure, but maybe his wolf was more finely attuned to that sort of thing.

“What about Desmond?” he asked.

“I can taste him again. The lime. And she wakes up for him,” I told him, hoping to get rid of him. He looked so crushed by that tidbit I almost wanted to touch him, to hold him and comfort him. But I fought against the urge, stepping as far away from him as the narrow hallway would allow. “I’m sorry, Lucas.”