I was nearly home, which was only a three-block walk from the Starbucks, when my phone rang. It had been awhile since I’d been on the receiving end of a call, and the sound of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” coming from my jacket pocket startled me. I fumbled for my phone, precariously balancing the cooler on my hip as I flipped the cell open to talk.

“Hello?”

“Can we talk?” It was Lucas.

Now that I was in front of my building, I paused and said nothing.

“Secret?” I could tell by his tone he was trying to be patient, but I knew I sometimes made this difficult. I wedged the phone between my shoulder and ear, listening to him breathe while I tried to find my keys. I wished he were breathing next to me.

“What is there to say?” I asked, unlocking my entrance door and stepping into the small landing. I leaned against the wall, not ready to be alone in my apartment with his voice in my ear.

“I don’t regret what I did to bring you home, and I won’t apologize for doing it.”

Well, we were off to a good start. My sharp intake of breath must have let him know I wasn’t pleased with his statement.

“Goodbye, Lucas.” I wasn’t actually prepared to hang up yet; I just wanted him to know I wasn’t impressed. He took advantage of the pause that followed my false farewell.

“Listen to me.” His tone was even, but it was an order. I didn’t want to yield to his power as king, but I was half wolf, and that part of me found it impossible not to listen. “I am sorry you were hurt, and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what the vampire had planned, but that’s because I didn’t know. And I couldn’t tell you anything, because you didn’t tell me a damn thing about where you’d gone.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I should have told you where I was going.”

“You never should have left in the first place.”

I sighed angrily and kicked my front door. Not enough to damage it, because I was sure I didn’t have enough in my bank account to pay for a new one. “You don’t get to decide that, Lucas.”

“You didn’t give me an opportunity to talk you out of it.”

“You couldn’t have.”

“Could Desmond have done it?”

And there it was. The two of them could pretend all they wanted that they were okay with sharing me, but I’d known it bothered Lucas more than he had let on, and now he had all but admitted I was right. It must have cut deep that even though he was the king, it was his second-in-command who had gotten me into bed first. And second. And third.

“No,” I answered truthfully.

Another long pause.

“I left because of what happened. I left because I was worried you and Desmond would never be able to look at me the same after you found out what I was. I mean, I drank your blood, Lucas. Isn’t that sort of a relationship deal breaker?”

“Goddammit, Secret. This isn’t time to be glib.”

I wanted to ask if there was ever an appropriate time for me to be glib, because it seemed like all the times I did it weren’t the right ones. I unlocked my front door after a long struggle with the key and let myself in to the dark apartment. We both breathed at each other over the phone and said nothing.

“I thought you would hate me,” I admitted, putting the container of donor blood bags in the fridge. “And I wanted to avoid knowing that as long as I could.”

“I don’t hate you,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper.

“Dominick says you needed me back so you could assert your authority better. He says I’m the pack protector now.”

“Yes, but that’s not why I needed you back.”

I made a mental note to ask him more about my new position within the pack later, because this didn’t seem like the appropriate time to change the subject. “Why, then?”

He sucked in a breath, and I could hear him pacing back and forth over a hardwood floor. It sounded like he was in his bedroom suite at the hotel. He’d come in from the country, and being so close to the full moon, with an unsteady pack on his hands, meant he’d come for only one reason. Me.

I sat on one of the two small stools in my puny little kitchen and let my head rest against the wall behind me. Neither of us spoke for a long time. “Tell me why, Lucas.”

“I needed you back because…” He searched for the right words, which I already knew, but had to hear him say.

“Say it,” I whispered.

“Because I love you.”

After what felt like an eternity, I said, “I forgive you.” Then I hung up.

Chapter Sixteen

Try as I might, I couldn’t relax after my conversation with Lucas. I attempted to watch TV, but I couldn’t focus on what people were saying in the cheery 1960s romantic comedy I had on. I tried to fall asleep early, but I was too amped up from the blood. When I willingly picked up Rio and scratched her behind the ears, I knew I had to leave the apartment.

The purring kitten protested with little mewls as I tied up my running shoes, but I ignored her. I dug my iPod out of the bedside dresser and was thrilled to see it had maintained a little battery life since I’d been gone. Enough for a run, anyway.

Back in Central Park for the second time that night, this time with only an hour or so until sunrise, I turned my iPod on and began to run. My running music of choice was a mix of Nina Simone and Bob Seger, which wouldn’t make sense to most, but the slower pace of the music kept me from running too fast. If I ran at the speed I was capable of, it might draw unnecessary attention.

Not that anyone was outside right then to witness it, but it was always best to keep up my illusions whenever I could. If you got too sloppy, it could spell trouble later on when it really mattered. Bob began to sing “Night Moves”, and I let my feet fall into step with the music as I headed towards the Ramble. Being in the deeper woods reminded me of Elmwood and made my wolf half feel relaxed.

The music took me away from my thoughts, and running on the twisty hills and unpaved paths of the Ramble meant I had to pay attention to something other than the churning worry in my gut. The night was still hot, but it no longer smothered me, and every so often I would round a bend and feel the reward of a slight breeze over my cheeks.

After about ten minutes, and in the middle of Nina Simone’s “Feelin’ Good”, I heard a sound, like the crack of weight on dry wood, that made me stop dead. I ripped the headphones out of my ears and stood, not breathing, in the middle of a low path with rock faces rising above me and the moon reflecting off the surface of the pond to my right.

I was so still I could have heard anything, from a rabbit moving in the brush, to the swishing feet of the swans in the water. A pair of joggers came down the path towards me, their feet slapping pavement in perfect unison. They nodded to me as they passed, and I turned to watch them until they were gone. The sound of their shoes was nothing like the noise that had made me stop, but I was prepared to admit my music might have distorted my perception. I pivoted back to the path.

Where I walked directly into Sig.

I kept from screaming, but just barely, and only because I recognized him. Even so, he’d doubtlessly noticed the change in my heartbeat and could probably smell the fear I was feeling.

“Nice night for a run,” he said.

I could have killed him.

Sig couldn’t have looked more pleased with himself. He was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and well-tailored black slacks. The slacks made me wonder what happened to the brown leather pants he used to favor so much. He had his hands placed in his front pockets and was barefoot as usual.

I often marveled at how Sig moved around the city without bothering to put on shoes and never seemed to be any worse for it. Vampires couldn’t fly, but he must have had some uncanny gift to keep from stepping on glass. It made me wonder if he left the comfort of the Tribunal all that often, or if coming to see me was more unusual than I had previously considered.

He rocked back on his heels and smiled his sly smile at me. The Tribunal leader was up to something.

“If you’re here to kidnap me, I’ve had my quota for this month, thanks.”

“Nonsense, Secret. If I wanted you to come with me, you’d come.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it terrified me. I didn’t want to believe I’d be powerless against him, but if I was the betting sort, I’d put my money on Sig being absolutely right.

My iPod switched over to Seger’s “Turn the Page”, but the sound was coming from farther away since my headphones were draped over my shoulders.

“Walk with me,” he instructed.

The stubborn part of me that wanted to show him how independent I was insisted I stay rooted to the spot. But this wasn’t a time for playing games with an old and very scary master vampire. Sig had never done anything to me to warrant my constant fear of him, but a vampire didn’t live for twenty centuries without being a little cutthroat. Sig’s greatest power was in convincing people he meant them no harm.

In his presence, that gift poured over me, and I relaxed against my better judgment.

Of course he won’t hurt you, the voice in my head told me.

I knew better, but I also believed if he meant to harm me tonight, I wouldn’t have gotten his initial warning sound. He would have just come to me in the darkness and ended it all. That I was certain he could kill me so easily should have been reason alone to not follow him.

Instead I jogged to catch up to where he’d gotten on the path.

“How is your task coming along?” he inquired, as though he was any normal boss and I was working on any old project.

I shrugged. “Working on it.”

“Do you think, perhaps, it might have been wise to do something about it when he was in your apartment last night?”

I stopped walking, and Sig took another step or two before he stopped as well. Flabbergasted, I couldn’t understand how he knew or how he could be so calm about it. He tilted his head to the side, an invitation to continue walking. I looked back up to the rock face and tried to see if there was a trap waiting for me.