“I went to see him again last night.”
Holden’s fingers gripped my chin so hard it hurt. “Why would you go back alone if you thought he was guilty of something?”
“I thought he was human.”
“He isn’t?”
“Not unless a human can strike me immobile without any force. No human can do what he did.”
The vampire released my face and took my hand up again, holding it between his two lukewarm palms. “Did he…hurt you?”
Deep black pools overwhelmed the chocolate brown of Holden’s eyes until all that was left were bottomless pits of darkness. He was beyond mad.
“He stole my memories. Years of my life vanished. But, no, I don’t think he did anything to me physically. Except kiss me.”
Holden growled, and suddenly he was back across the room, facing the window.
“You can’t put yourself at risk like that.”
Anger bubbled inside me, but I bit my tongue against the tide of curses that wanted to spew out of my mouth. I was being indignant. He was right, after all. My life wasn’t my own anymore. I had responsibilities to Lucas’s pack, and more importantly I was at the head of one of the biggest vampire organizations in the world.
This was why Sig didn’t want me running around in the streets with Shane, putting myself in harm’s way.
Only now was I fully aware of how selfish I had been. I might have pretended I was doing it to save Lucy or find out the truth about who killed Trish and the others, but the honest fact was I wanted to be on the hunt again. Just like I’d wanted to be out for the kill last night when I’d chased the vampire with Shane. It wasn’t the hunter I wanted to help. I’d wanted the hunt itself.
I let out my breath in a huff. “That’s why I need you now.”
With his arms braced against the wooden frame of the window I was afraid he might crack the glass. He was rigid with tension, his whole body vibrating with unspent energy.
“You need to swear to me you won’t do this ever again.”
“I don’t owe you any promises, Holden.”
He turned, and his expression was all it took to knock me back a few steps. For all the bravado and posturing, the mood swings and the flirting, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him look the way he did right now. His features were drawn and tight as though he were racked with pain. The man had seen me nearly beaten to death, but he’d never once looked at me with such concern.
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“Why, will you try duping me into sleeping with you if I don’t agree?” I was trying to lighten the mood, but he didn’t so much as crack a smile.
After a tense pause, he shook his head. “I already did that.”
I gave him a weak grin. “So, quit your bitching. You going to help me or not?”
“What do you need?”
“I need someone to carry my gun. Someone to back me up when I go snooping around Mayhew’s office tonight.”
“You’re awfully dressed up for a break-and-enter.”
“That’s the other thing.”
He arched a brow.
“I need you to not say a single goddamn word to Lucas tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
We arrived at Columbia a half hour later after Holden had traded his casual duds for a designer suit. He had my gun tucked into the back of his pants, but he’d insisted on checking the safety forty or fifty times before he’d acquiesced to hiding it there.
Guess he was worried about accidentally taking a silver bullet in the ass.
The newly constructed Rain School of Business had replaced an old dormitory that had burned down the previous summer. Nestled between another dorm hall and an aging Chemistry building, the new building looked far too shiny and ostentatious.
“Someone’s overcompensating,” Holden scoffed.
“You’re a regular comedian, Chancery. Get it out of your system now.”
He shrugged, but I could still see the glimmer of mirth in his eyes. This night was destined to be nothing but trouble. What had I been thinking, bringing Holden to a party where I was supposed to be showing the Southern packs what a good little mate I was to Lucas?
“I’m serious,” I warned. “There are people here tonight who could spell a lot of trouble for Lucas’s pack.” When those words didn’t seem to get through to him, I stopped walking and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Trouble for Lucas is trouble for me.”
Holden raised both palms in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. Play nice with the dogs.”
“And whatever you do, don’t say that. There are visiting emissaries from my uncle’s pack here, and I don’t think they’ll laugh off your slurs quite the same way. Lucas can’t have a vampire belittling him on his own turf. It would—”
“Secret. I get it. You don’t need to explain to me the finer points of pack politics. I’m a vampire. I know how ridiculous supernatural society can be. I’ll behave.”
“Sorry.” I blushed faintly. “And thank you.”
Ahead of us a small group of people entered the brightly lit building. They were dressed in tuxedos and evening dresses, and a few of the women were sporting fur coats. I’d forgotten I was supposed to dress for the cold and had worn only my velvet blazer. Holden, similarly, wore only his suit jacket. We earned a few sideways glances when we merged with the crowd going in.
“So glad we found a parking spot so close,” I commented, laughing.
Holden shook his head like it wouldn’t have occurred to him to make an effort to explain our lack of outerwear. “Yes. How lucky.”
Inside the door there was a coat check set up, and we split away from the rest of the group as they debated the safety of leaving their expensive furs with a twenty-something coat-check girl who was snapping her chewing gum.
At the top of the stairs was a huge atrium that served as the hub of the school. From where we stood, all the different annexes, stairwells and main lecture theaters were within easy access. In the center of the atrium was a bronze bust depicting Jeremiah Rain, and the plaque underneath read, A man’s worth is not measured in money, but in the ability to earn what is his.—J. Rain.
Then, further proving the creepy qualities of our new mate bond, I felt Lucas’s presence from across the room. It was still strange to me to be without the cinnamon flavor in my mouth, but being able to sense another person without seeing them was entirely new. It was as though he was a light bulb and I was a moth. The lingering warmth of him pulled me through the growing crowd until I was on the opposite side of the atrium. Holden had waited at the stairs.
Lucas turned as the people closest to him moved aside, and we both stood stock-still about fifteen feet away from each other. He drank in my appearance, and I held my breath. I hadn’t known until right then how much I cared about what he thought of my outfit. When his cheeks flushed and his lips parted in a soundless sigh, the message was clear.
He said it anyway. “You look fucking amazing.”
An old lady nearby heard his curse and shot him a withering glare. He didn’t notice her. Instead he looped me in his arms and pulled me close. I’d expected a peck on the cheek, but instead he greeted me with an openmouthed, hungry kiss that turned my spine to a limp noodle and forced me to hold his forearms for balance when my ankles wobbled. He came up for air and noticed for the first time we’d attracted a bit of an audience.
He kissed my cheek for good measure before letting me go, then switched effortlessly into his public persona. A young man and a middle-aged woman stood closest to us, and Lucas angled me in their direction. The man was twenty if he was a day. He looked more likely to still be in his late teens. It was obvious his hair tended towards the curly side, but it had been cropped close to his head, giving him a messy bedhead look that defied control. The suit he wore was expensive, but he seemed uncomfortable in it.
The woman, on the other hand, appeared as if she’d been born with a broomstick surgically inserted up her rectum. Her posture was so perfect and her expression so sour, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or apologize.
“Amelia, it’s my absolute pleasure to introduce you to my mate, Miss Secret McQueen.”
So these were Callum’s people. It was brave of Lucas to use a phrase like mate within earshot of a hundred humans, no matter how low his tone could get.
Amelia offered me her version of a smile, which was a less-frigid version of her frown. “Amelia Laurent,” she said, shaking my hand. “And this is Ben McQueen.”
The young man nodded brusquely, then shook my hand a little too hard. “Hi,” he barked.
So Callum had sent family up for this meeting? I couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or not. Ben must have been Callum’s son, or my aunt Savannah’s. I was taken aback, wondering how many relations I had down south who I didn’t even know existed. Ben looked equally mystified by me. Although he’d stopped staring at me once our handshake ended, I saw the less-than-subtle glances he kept sneaking in my direction.
“A pleasure to meet you both,” I said. “Lucas and I do so appreciate you making the long trip up here so we could…chat.”
Lucas rested his hand on my lower back, and I could feel the tension spark when I spoke. He was definitely worried about me saying the wrong thing. I couldn’t blame him. There was no filter between my mouth and my brain, and one wrong word to Amelia could inadvertently start a war.
I scanned the crowd as Lucas relieved me of conversational duties. Holden had moved to the bar and was chatting with a pretty Asian girl in a bright red dress. She thought he was hilarious, because she kept giggling and tossing her shiny black hair back, exposing her throat. I knew Holden, he wasn’t that funny.
Near the makeshift stage, Dominick was talking to another familiar-looking werewolf whose name I couldn’t recall off-hand, which meant he was from an outlying pack. Dom saw me looking and jerked his chin up in greeting. I smiled. The smile died shortly thereafter when my wandering gaze met a steely glare across the foyer. Morgan, wearing a green floor-length dress slit almost all the way up to her crotch, was scowling at me.