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He pulled away first, and I didn’t fight him. I staggered a little, surprised by the intensity of the incident. Holden and I had always had a weird chemistry. We ignored it in the past, all but once, but now with the dreams and this unexpected kiss, it was hard not to think about it.
“My life is in your hands, you know. ” He touched my cheek, one cool hand against the flushed warmth of my skin. “I need to trust you. ”
“I—”
He was out of the room, and the sound of the front door clicking closed echoed through the darkness. I flopped backwards onto the bed and let out a whoosh of air.
Welcome home, indeed.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re on your own on this one, McQueen. ”
I was sitting in the office of Francis Keats, my business partner, mentor and one badass assassin. We were facing each other across a large oak desk in an unassuming study, neither of us suiting the role we filled. Keaty looked nothing like an assassin, which was one of the most genius things about him. He could have been a doctor or an accountant.
His dark blond hair was cut short and styled with precision. His shirt and pants were tailored, but generic enough to not say anything about his income or status, and his face was as unreadable as always.
I, on the other hand, was dressed as low-key as possible in my tank and shorts. My hair, as predicted, was a mess of curls down past my shoulders with no hope of being brushed smooth. I was biting my fingernail and tapping my shoe against the edge of his desk. He remained composed, but I knew him well enough to know I was driving him crazy.
“You have to help me, Keaty. ” I was repeating Holden’s words from last night.
“I don’t have to do anything, Secret. You know that perfectly well. ” He leaned back in his leather desk chair, lacing his fingers together across his stomach. The expression on his face told me nothing. This was the man who’d saved my life when I first came to the city. The man who had trained me to be the topnotch vampire killer I was today. And here he was, telling me he wouldn’t help me in my hour of need.
“But—”
“No. ”
“I—”
His face broke from its meticulous calm, setting into a deep frown, his brow furrowing and all the fake friendliness seeping from his eyes. For an instant he appeared every ounce the killer he could be, and although he was a hundred percent human, right then I was genuinely afraid of him.
I stopped arguing.
If parents knew how to give that look, teenagers would never act out.
“The only time I’ll help a vampire is if it involves killing another vampire. So if you want to let me kill Chancery for you, then by all means I’ll help you. I will not, however, dedicate time and resources to help you prove he’s innocent of some unknown vampire crime I don’t give a rat’s ass about. ”
Well, he didn’t beat around the bush.
“I can’t kill someone who is innocent, Keaty. It would be immoral. ”
“He’s a vampire,” he said, as if this made it okay.
“So am I. ”
“It’s not the same. ” For all of his bravado and posturing, Keaty had one hell of a soft spot for me. He, who hated monsters in all shapes and forms, had made a huge exception when he allowed me into his life. Not only was I part monster, I was all monster. He—and Mercedes, who knew only of the werewolf half—seemed able to rationalize their way around this fact by focusing on how much they liked me as a person.
I decided not to fight Keaty on this point. He knew all too well what I was, and I found our relationship worked better when we didn’t discuss it. He only brought it up when it benefitted us in some way.
Francis Keats, ever the pragmatist.
“I can’t do this alone. ”
“Then kill him and be done with it. ”
I sighed loudly and picked up a large rock with no discernable purpose off his desk. I tossed it back and forth between my hands until he held his hand out, palm up, and waited. I dropped the rock into it, and he put it on the table behind him.
“The displaced soul of a Cheyenne shaman is trapped in that stone. I don’t think he likes to be bounced around like a hacky sack. ”
