“I knew you were alive,” he said after a long pause. “I knew…knew I hadn’t killed you.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“I wanted to meet you, but…I didn’t know where you were.”
“I know. Vivienne hid me.”
He nodded, seeming to accept this fact without question. He probably assumed she’d been hiding me from him, when in fact she’d been keeping me away from her own children, fearful of what Mercy or my Uncle Callum would do to me.
“You look like her. Like Mercy.” He smiled, obviously thinking he was paying me a compliment.
“I think I look more like you.”
When his smile broadened, I knew I’d said the right thing. “It’s nice to meet you. Secret.”
“It’s nice to meet you too.” I wanted to say Dad. Wanted so badly to call him by that title since I’d been missing out on using it for over two decades. But when I was presented with a chance to finally say it to his face, the word froze in my throat and I couldn’t. Instead I said, “I need to ask you about the pendant.”
Ingrid was the first person Holden, Sutherland and I saw when we entered the Council headquarters in L.A. later that same night. Once I’d found out what my father knew about the pendant he’d been carrying, I secured us safe passage back to Los Angeles.
Desmond understood why he couldn’t join us for this leg of the journey and had volunteered to get our belongings from the hotel in San Francisco. I’d never been so grateful to accidentally stay at a Lucas Rain Hotel before. Under normal circumstances our things would probably be long gone, but since my ex-fiancé owned the hotel, Desmond told me our room had been left untouched, the expenses ignored at Lucas’s request.
He’d even arranged to get our towed car out of impound, hopefully with my katana still in the trunk.
As much as I hated Lucas sometimes, he could occasionally do something to remind me why I’d fallen in love with him in the first place. Love wasn’t what I felt now, but perhaps loathing might yield to grudging respect someday.
Sig had called Ingrid on our behalf to make arrangements for a conditional surrender. As long as we were back on council turf before sunrise, we wouldn’t be attacked. In spite of the assurances, I still felt like I was being watched the entire trip from the airfield back to the council headquarters.
Ingrid met us at the front entrance, and I could tell by her expression she was disappointed in me. Whether she was disappointed I had screwed up, or because I didn’t die, I couldn’t be sure.
“It’s a long story.” I still refused to go into detail with anyone.
“It had better be a good one.”
“Actually it’s pretty awful.”
That made her frown, and some of the bluster went out of her sails. “I see you found Sig’s missing kin.”
“I did.”
“And did you find the object Tribunal Leader Eilidh was so…impassioned about?”
The pendant felt heavy in my pocket. If it did what Sutherland claimed it could, there was no small wonder Eilidh wanted it so badly, or why she was willing to sacrifice our lives if it meant no one else would have it. In the wrong hands it would be a powerful weapon.
I just wasn’t sure Eilidh’s hands were the right ones.
If I’d been given a choice, I would have brought the pendant to Sig. Unfortunately I didn’t have that option. Part of me wanted to keep it for myself, but even with the power it provided I would have been a fool to believe I’d get away with running.
“I have it,” I confirmed. “Are they ready for us?”
“Yes. They’ve been patiently awaiting your return.” Sarcasm sounded funny coming from a seven-hundred-year-old. Yet somehow it managed to endear her to me. Obviously Ingrid hadn’t enjoyed her stay with Galen’s council in my absence.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “We’ll be going home soon enough.”
“About damn time.” The elevator arrived, and she selected one of the lower floors but didn’t join us in the lift. “Secret?”
I held the door before it could close. “Yeah?”
“For what it’s worth…I knew you hadn’t run.”
I was too stunned to reply, so I let the door shut instead. Holden and Sutherland were silent the whole trip down, but my father had a goofy smile stuck on his face, the same one he’d had since we got on the plane back to L.A. I’d have asked what he was happy about, but I wasn’t sure he’d know the answer.
Outside the Tribunal chamber two wardens tried to insist I enter alone, but I pulled rank and forced them to let me bring the men along. There was no way in hell I was letting either of them out of my sight, not until this whole mess was resolved. As of right now I had to consider the council enemy territory. When I had assurances we were all safe and the warrants were called off, then I’d take alone time into consideration.
Eilidh, Galen and Arturo were seated in the same arrangement they had been the last time I saw them. Tonight Eilidh and Galen were dressed in matching emerald green, while Arturo had opted for a black suit.
“How kind of you to grace us with your presence, Secret.” Eilidh tried to sound bored, but her voice maintained an edge of malice.
“I wasn’t aware there were time restrictions on my mission.” I’d practiced what I would say to them in my mind, going over it a thousand times on the flight south. Now that I was actually standing in front of them, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to remember any of it.
“No, but we weren’t aware you would disappear without a trace.”
“My methods, unconventional though they may be, yield results. You wouldn’t have asked my council for help unless you wanted results, yet now you want to question how they were obtained?”
“Results?” Eilidh sneered. “The window still sits in San Jose. I see no results.”
“I’ve returned your warden.” I indicated Sutherland, who stood in front of Arturo.
“Hello,” he greeted.
“Wonderful. You’ve brought us a mad vampire. What a delightful treat.”
“Eilidh…” Galen didn’t threaten her, but his tone implied she should rein herself in. She was behaving like she was in charge here, but she wasn’t. This was his dog-and-pony show, and she obviously got away with speaking out of turn because she was Galen’s sister.
“Don’t Eilidh me,” she snapped.
Galen grabbed her wrist and squeezed. Though the expression on his face remained calm and pleasant, he had to be hurting her because she squeaked.
“I believe my sister was trying to ask why it has taken you two weeks to do what another could have accomplished in two days?”
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the crystal pendant, letting it catch the low light of the room, reflecting prisms onto the floor in a wide arc of rainbows.
“Your council was not entirely honest with me. I’d like you to start by admitting as much.” I closed my hand into a fist and returned the pendant to my pocket. “You claimed the window was what interested you, but that wasn’t true, was it?”
“We did want the window,” Galen said. “But I suppose you have uncovered our reasons for wanting it.”
“Maxime thought Eilidh wanted the window because she believed she’d be able to stand in the light it cast. But that wasn’t its power at all. The real power was in one of those thirteen crystals.” I patted my pocket. “The one I now have.”
“Are you trying to…barter with me?” Galen asked, sounding equal parts impressed and offended.
“I’d like to think of it more in terms of Let’s Make a Deal.”
Arturo must have been the only one who watched game shows in the seventies because he chuckled while the siblings remained stony.
“Please, tell me what you want that would make you behave so recklessly,” Galen demanded.
“I want Sutherland Halliston remanded to my custody. Permanently.”
“You are asking us to give you ownership of your sire?” This time Galen did laugh. “Unheard of.”
“No,” I said, cutting his laughter off abruptly. “You forget I’m here in Sig’s stead. I’m requesting you give his blood kin freedom to move to the East Coast council. I will make sure he arrives safely.”
“Why?” Eilidh asked. I could understand her disbelief. To her, Sutherland was a crazy, useless baby vampire. Certainly not worth trading for what I had in my pocket.
“Because he figured out what you were after from the start, and instead of taking it for himself he spent God knows how long recreating that stupid window so he could bring it back to you without being discovered. But more importantly, I want him with me because you have a traitor here, and I won’t leave any of my people behind.”
Eilidh’s mouth went slack while Galen and Arturo both shifted forward in their seats. “I beg your pardon, Secret, but do you know what kind of an accusation you’re making?”
“Yes.” The truth was I believed we had a traitor in the council at home as well, but they didn’t need to know that. “Moreover I’m not making wild assumptions. I know you have a traitor. My people and I were followed while we were in San Francisco, and we were attacked. The same person who attacked us had already seized Sutherland, which was why he’d gone off the grid. Now I know who was responsible for attacking me, and I know Alexandre Peyton was involved somehow. But for Peyton to know we’d gone from Los Angeles to San Francisco, someone here had to alert him. That same someone would have known Sutherland was my father, otherwise there would have been no sense in him being taken ahead of time.”
The Tribunal stared at me.
“Of course, I’m not suggesting any of you are responsible. But I am saying your Council Elders need to be looked at very seriously.”
“And what of Maxime?” Eilidh asked. “I notice he is not with you now. He knew you were moving. He knew who Sutherland was to you.”