Sierra Dean - Secret Unleashed

Desmond had believed he was never going to see me alive again.

I touched his face, letting my fingers memorize every line and groove, savoring the rough tug of his short beard on my palms. When I’d left he’d had a bit of stubble, but it had evidently been quite some time since he had bothered with a razor.

“I like your beard,” I mumbled, scratching it with my fingernails.

He laughed lightly and pressed his forehead against my sternum, where his laughter vanished into tears. When he righted himself and put me on the floor, his cheeks were stained from crying, but I didn’t think I could recall ever seeing him so damned happy.

“They wouldn’t tell me anything. I wasn’t allowed to see you, and no one would explain what had happened to you. What happened? ”

The idea of telling my story again so soon after the major’s rigorous debriefing was more than I could bear. I shook my head and placed a hand on his chest over his heart. “Not now.”

“Tell me something .”

“How much do you know?”

“The last time I spoke to you was two weeks ago when you were flying to San Francisco.” He guided me to the chair Logan had previously been sitting in, then took Tyler’s former seat for himself. “I waited about two days since I knew you were on council business and I didn’t want to interrupt anything at the wrong time, but when you hadn’t called me in over forty-eight hours, I started to worry. I tried calling you, and I tried calling Holden since I knew he was with you, but neither of you were answering. So I called Lucas.”

I’d almost forgotten seeing Lucas at the hotel. It felt like a different lifetime now, him kissing me in the hall while his famous girlfriend waited inside the restaurant. I longed for a time when dealing with my messy love life was the worst of my problems.

Desmond continued, “He told me a bit of what happened, but I gather he was leaving some details out. He did say you were upset when you left him.”

“Me? Upset with Lucas Rain? Never .” I smiled and pulled my legs up under me. I’d been sitting in these uncomfortable metal chairs for hours, but it sounded like Desmond was just getting started on his story.

“I thought you’d bolted.”

Ah, yes. It wasn’t the most absurd thought he’d ever had because I had run from my problems in the past. “I told you I’d never leave without telling you. I promised you,” I reminded him. In the supernatural community a promise meant a lot more than your word. It usually represented a solemn oath. I was a bit offended he believed I’d go back on mine so easily.

“I know, and I’m sorry for thinking it. But after he told me what he’d done, and you weren’t answering…”

“You thought I ran off with Holden, didn’t you?”

He nodded, not pretending otherwise. “You’re a PI, Secret, tell me what you would have assumed given the evidence?”

He was right. Even a rookie detective would have jumped to the same conclusion. But the fact Desmond was here and I’d been rescued from hell made me believe he hadn’t planned on letting me go without a fight.

“I wanted to be sure. You had promised me, and I believed you intended to keep your promise. It didn’t make sense to me that you’d up and leave. So I called Vivienne.”

“You called Grandmere ?”

“I did. I assumed if there was anyone on Earth you would feel you had to tell where you were going, it would be her. She hadn’t heard from you either, which is when I started to really worry. I called everyone. Everyone . I spoke to Callum and Eugenia and half the Southern pack, hoping you might have made contact. I knew you’d gotten close to your sister, and I thought she might have spoken with you, but she hadn’t. She was able to tell me you hadn’t been active on Skype for over a day, which she explained was a sure sign your phone was either turned off or the battery was dead.”

Smart girl. I had no idea how to change my status on the video chat program, so it was always on. And anyone who knew me also knew I wasn’t in the habit of turning off my phone.

“Since your bloody phone is always on, that meant it had to be dead. Your voicemail was full, which meant you weren’t retrieving your messages, and I have my texts set to tell me when the recipient reads them. You hadn’t seen a single one I’d sent. I knew something was wrong.”

“I’m so sorry.” I hated that he’d been worried, but at the same time I wanted to hug him for not giving up. “What happened next?”

“I went to Mercedes.”

Clever. When he exhausted his supernatural resources, he’d gone for a more conventional one. The last time I’d run off, I told Mercedes where I was. Since Lucas had approached her then, I was betting he’d told Desmond about his failed attempt to coerce information from her. I felt a sudden pang of guilt. Oh God, Cedes needs to know I’m alive.

Seeing my flustered expression, he grabbed one of my hands. “Tyler had someone call her. He couldn’t do it himself because she doesn’t know about him. From what I’ve been told, and the thirteen nondisclosure agreements I’ve been forced to sign, none of us are supposed to know about Tyler.”

“How do you know then?” Would Tyler have been stupid enough to let Desmond see him? That seemed like an awfully big risk unless there was more to it than I’d heard so far.

“Tyler was with Mercedes when I went to speak with her. I’ve got to say, he’s got the innocent vibe down pat because he toed the company line the entire time I was there. I even filed a missing persons report to make it official. But Mercedes told me she hadn’t heard from you either. She said she’d make some calls to the SFPD, but I’m betting there won’t be much of a record. Not if Tyler got to it first.”

I couldn’t handle the chair anymore, so I got to my feet and started pacing again, this time in small circles near Desmond.

He went on. “Tyler came to see me that night. He asked me if there were any details I’d left out, then told me he knew what you were. He said you’d claimed him?”

“I’ve marked him as being mine. It’s a vampire thing. It means he’s under my protection.” As his brows knit together I added, “Before you start thinking it means anything, I’d like to point out I’ve also claimed you. And Cedes. Aaand Nolan, Shane, Keaty and a few others.” I smiled at him and shrugged. “I’m a property whore, what can I say? Point is, it keeps you guys safe from other vampires when I’m not around. At least vampires who obey council laws.”

“I told Tyler about Peyton,” Desmond said when I finished. “And about your mother. He said he had the resources to help. I didn’t know what he meant, but I was willing to do anything. So I told him.”

I stopped pacing. “Did he find them?” If Alexandre Peyton and Mercy McQueen were somewhere in this complex and no one had told me, I was going to lose my shit in short order.

Desmond shook his head, letting some of the steam out of my rage teakettle. I wouldn’t put it past the government to lie to me. Or lie by omission, anyway. After all, they were keeping a huge secret buried from the general public, so what was one little secret kept from me?

“As far as I know the search never involved them. It was focused on you and Holden. I mean, it’s possible other things happened, but to the best of my knowledge you were the main target of the investigation.”

Because Tyler wanted to keep using me. Because I was his asset . It made sense, in a twisted way, that he’d be dedicated to finding me. You don’t put that much time and effort into something just to let it vanish without a trace. I was his pet project, so he’d fought for me.