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“You look awfully silly walking around with your eyes closed, you know?”
I smiled at him, somehow unsurprised he’d found me.
“How long have you been following me?”
“I like to stay close,” he replied vaguely.
“Were you at Havana?”
He smiled but shook his head. “I want to keep an eye on you, Secret, but not to my own downfall. If I went anywhere near Havana, they’d have found me. ”
I nodded, and we kept walking. I wondered about this ability he had to appear and disappear at a moment’s notice from my side, and how Sig seemed capable of the exact same thing. If the two of them had the same vampiric homing device on me, how was it they hadn’t accidentally crossed paths with each other this whole time?
My theory that Sig had no desire whatsoever to catch Holden gained a little momentum with that thought. Surely if a two-thousand-year-old vampire could find me in Central Park without a problem and my two-hundred-year-old warden could find me south of Hell’s Kitchen, one must be able to find the other.
“If Sig wanted to, he could find you, couldn’t he?” I asked out loud.
“Possibly. ”
“But he can find me as easily as you can. ”
Holden stopped walking, and I was forced to do the same if we were to continue our conversation. He asked, “How many times has Sig come to you?”
“This week?”
“He’s come to you enough you need to ask that question?”
“Twice, I guess. Why?”
“And he always knows where you are?”
“Well, to be fair, one time he hired someone to have me where he wanted me. But yesterday he found me in the park. ”
“Secret, I need you to be honest. Have you given him your blood?”
I recalled how close Sig had been to biting my neck the night before, and how willingly I would have given in if he had. My cheeks flushed. “No. ”
“Honestly. ” His tone was accusatory.
“I said no,” I replied hotly. “And what does that have to do with it anyway? I’ve never let you feed off me, either, but you have no trouble finding me. ”
“That’s because of our bond,” he said, referring to the warden-ward bond he’d recently revealed to me. “You shouldn’t have the same bond with Sig. Not unless he’s marked you somehow. ”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean marked?”
His shoulders sagged slightly. Between Holden and Lucas, I was getting tired of the men in my life pointing out how ignorant I was about things. Lucas had a valid reason to be irritated, because I’d spent my first twenty-odd years ignoring the werewolf part of my life. Holden, however, had only himself and his council to blame. The vampires kept me in the dark about a great deal of the inner workings of their world, so my ignorance was entirely their fault. So for him to be giving me the shoulder sag of disappointment pushed my buttons, and not for the better.
I scowled. “Either tell me, or bugger off. I’ve had my fill of vampire crap for the night, thanks. And I’d like to point out you’re to blame for most of it. ” I felt the unfairness of my statement, considering how much of his situation I was responsible for.
“What happened at Havana?” he asked.
“Don’t think I don’t see how you’re ignoring me. ”
“Secret. ”
We were walking down a quiet residential street somewhere between the good and bad of the city’s areas. It was the kind of place where you could still get mugged at night, but people would pretend to be surprised by it. Two boys in oversize sweatshirts and low caps swaggered past us, but Holden and I both ignored them. Had I been walking alone dressed as I was, I’d probably have had to deal with them in some fashion, but with Holden beside me they seemed content to walk past.
I didn’t know what it was about Holden that made thugs stay away from him. He was good looking, well dressed, and almost always on his own. Yet somehow they recognized the predator in him and avoided crossing his path. Maybe vampires gave off a pheromone that told others to fuck off, unless eating was involved. I wish I had a screw-off pheromone. It would have saved me a lot of hassle some nights in the city.
