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Someone was in my home and it wasn t someone I d invited.
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Chapter Twenty-Six
Holden. I leaned back towards the car, but my eyes remained focused on my window, which rested
on the same level as the sidewalk. My living room was the only one in the apartment that allowed natural
light in, and as such also the only one that let light out.
I see it.
Are we expecting anyone?
Keats?
Keaty would have called first. He knows better.
The wolves?
I raised my eyes, looking away from the window when it didn t yield the answers I needed. I hadn t
considered Lucas or Desmond, but now that Holden suggested it, it seemed like the most obvious answer.
My face flushed, and it didn t escape Holden s notice.
That would make sense.
Do you want me to come in with you?
If it was either of my wolves, then having Holden with me would only serve to make things all the
more complicated. The uneasiness of earlier this evening was still fresh in my mind, and I doubted the boys
would have forgotten it either. I was also more than a little annoyed that they would invite themselves into
my home, and I didn t want Holden with me when I made that clear to whoever was inside.
No. It s got to be one of them, that makes the most sense. You can go.
You re sure?
Go and see Sig. We need to know what he thinks we should do and how we should act on it. I need
to know if he still wants Peyton alive, given this new information.
Holden scoffed, and I knew he doubted the Tribunal s opinion would change regardless of any new
details, but being allowed to kill Peyton would go miles to help ease my mind.
Tell me as soon as you know anything. Please.
He nodded and I closed the car door at last. In my lit apartment there was a whole other world of
problems for me to deal with. I was starting to think I d never find an end to my troubles.
It wasn t until I was standing alone on the sidewalk, watching Holden s car drive away, that I felt the
full force of a body slam into me from behind and realized how right I was.
Something Secret This Way Comes
The blow was accompanied by snarling and snapping next to my ear that made my whole body go
cold. I remembered being in the club yesterday with a man s throat in my mouth, only then the animal
noises had been coming from my throat instead of next to my head. It was a feral, distinctive sound, that of
a hunter with prey only a bite away.
I was being immobilized by someone s full weight, and they were trying to eat me.
I let out a howl that was less a horror-movie victim s scream and more the noise of a wounded animal,
but was the most natural utterance I could manage in the heat of panic. How could I have been stupid
enough to let down my guard for a fraction of a second, knowing Peyton was in the city waiting for a
chance to conclude our unfinished business?
I thought you were so strong, the mouth near my ear said.
The fact human words were coming out when the previous sounds had been so guttural was enough to
snap me out of my internal chastising. As the voice and words sunk in, I put together that the speaker was
young and female. Had one of Peyton s new lackeys found me?
Using her new calmness as an opportunity to rear back, I smacked the back of my skull hard into the
front of her face and knocked her off me with the suddenness of the gesture. It never ceased to amaze me
how people s cockiness could lead to their undoing. Getting to my feet as quickly as possible, I spun and
crouched in a fighting stance, preparing for her next attack. I was wishing, not for the first time that week, I
hadn t been forced to go without a weapon. As much as I d have liked to be armed, there wasn t any place
to hide a gun when you were wearing an ensemble that barely hid your lady bits.
Recognition slammed into me with the force of a hammer when I saw the face of the young woman
who had attacked me.
She looked almost exactly as she had when I d sent her running from me in Central Park with her
broken heel trailing behind her, only now a stream of blood was coming from her nose where I had broken
it, and she no longer seemed afraid of me. The girl Mercedes said was named Brigit knelt close to the
sidewalk, primed like a lethal predator waiting for her moment.
She was as pale as she d been that night, but it wasn t fear making her that way. Her new pallor was
visible beneath the fake bronze of her skin. She was wearing a gauzy white summer dress that looked all
wrong in the chill of spring.
Brigit was dead.
I knew from what Mercedes had told me I had saved her that night. She d left Central Park alive and
made it home in one piece.
So how was it she was now a baby vampire, staring at me with the clear objective of killing me when
only a couple nights ago I had saved her from the monster she had now become?
It couldn t be a coincidence.
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Sierra Dean
All of these thoughts flooded my head in a matter of milliseconds. Before I had time to voice any of
my questions out loud, Brigit sprung out of her crouch and hurled herself at me a second time.
She no longer had the element of surprise, though. Now she was not a clever stalker but an
inexperienced killer launching an attack against a trained and lethal opponent. She would not best me
again.
I grabbed a fistful of her hair when she got close enough and used it to yank her body to the ground,
where it landed with a hard, fleshy crash. I knelt on her chest, using one hand to hold her head back. With
the other I held her chin so she couldn t try to bite me.
Who was it, Brigit?
Some of the fight went out of her, but the voice was still bitter. You know who it was. He told me.
He told me it was your fault. He would have let me live, but he needed to show you.
Show me what?
A shimmer of blood-red tears built in her eyes. Her desperation to see me dead had begun to drain
away, but beneath the killing urge was a blind rage I couldn t ignore. He said he needed you to know you
wouldn t be able to save us. She swallowed her rage. I could feel her throat contract under my palm.
Them, she corrected, removing herself from among their ranks. Every human you try to save he will
turn personally. So you would know.
I fought back my own tears and violently turned her head to the side in my haste to check the skin.
There it was, as sure as I knew it would be. The uneven, broken-toothed bite of a psychopath.
Oh, Brigit. There was only sadness in my voice now.
Secret?
Brigit and I were not alone on the sidewalk anymore. Without budging from my place on top of her, I
looked to find Desmond standing a few feet from us. The scene must have been quite alarming to an
outsider. I was still wearing my gold hot pants, hooker shirt and four-inch heels. My eyes were done with a
heavy dose of black makeup to complete the effect. I was kneeling on the chest of a cute blonde girl whose
face was covered in blood from her tears and busted nose.
I would have liked to tell him it wasn t what it looked like, but I really didn t know what he was
thinking.
Please help me, I pleaded.
Of course. Without hesitation or questions he was beside me, waiting for me to tell him what I
wanted next. I wondered, had it been Lucas in my apartment rather than Desmond, if he would have been
so compliant.
Is that your car? I nodded in the direction of the Challenger.
Yes.
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Something Secret This Way Comes
Are you going to kill me? Brigit choked out sobs, making a pretty pathetic new vampire now that
the urge for revenge had gone out of her.
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