Cold Hard Secret (Secret McQueen) (24 page)

The clouds broke, sending a spear of cold white moonlight to the ground, briefly illuminating the whole tableau.

In another time, the farm might have been almost pretty with its big red barn and rambling two-story house. But with the porch in shambles and the paint peeling from every surface, it looked like what it truly was.

A scene out of a horror movie.

No ghosts,
I pleaded to myself.
Please, no ghosts.

I was haunted enough without having to deal with any angry spirits. I didn’t see ghosts often, certainly not every ghost out there, but I’d seen a handful, and it never got easier.

Given our location and knowing why the restless dead were here, I had zero interest in interacting with them. I couldn’t offer them peace or release. I couldn’t even find peace for myself.

Neither of the boys kicked up a fuss over my plan. Desmond slipped to all fours naturally and crawled forward with such ease I had to stop to marvel at the fluid grace of his motions as he disappeared into the grass. Looked like he’d retained a few tricks from his wolf form.

Holden, who typically moved like a dancer when on two feet—or in the bedroom—didn’t do as well on the ground. He gave his trousers a forlorn look before getting in the dirt. It was a good thing I hadn’t suggested he crawl on his belly, he might have murdered me.

The distance from the woods to the barn took longer to cover this way, but it was smarter than leaping into the fray with guns blazing. I had to know what we were up against, and it was always smarter to maintain the element of surprise as long as possible.

By now they would probably know we’d arrived in Elmwood. Even a basic drive-by of the farm would turn up our car. So Mercy would know I was coming for her. I had to be the endgame target of her assault. If she’d only wanted to kill her mother, this would already be over. But for her to run off with
Grandmere
and hole up in some haunted shithole, she was drawing me out. Taunting me.

Mercy liked to hit me where it hurt; she’d already proven that by killing Brigit. I wouldn’t put it past her to wait until I showed up to bump off
Grandmere
in front of me.

I had to be careful.

The handle of my sword bit into my hand as I crawled, making me wish I’d thought to bring along its sling. It took me about twenty minutes to clear the field quietly, and by then my palms were cut up and I’d worn a hole in the knee of my jeans.

At this rate I would need to buy stock in Levi’s if I was going to keep burning through denim this way.

Desmond emerged from the grass a few feet to my left and Holden about ten feet to my right. We were facing the broad side of the barn farthest from the house. If we moved right, we’d be at the front side where I’d seen the lamp burning in the window. Better to go the back way.

I wasn’t well versed in official SWAT hand signals, but I
did
work for the FBI now, so perhaps I’d inherited some skills along with my new nonexistent title. I waved my hand at Holden to get his attention then pointed emphatically to him and to the front of the barn. Then I waved my hand between Desmond and myself and pointed to the backside.

Perhaps not the most elegant way to coordinate the troops, but given the way Holden rolled his eyes, I suspected my point had been made. He stayed within the cover of the grass and edged towards the front of the barn. At least I assumed he was moving because I couldn’t see him anymore, and he was so quiet he might as well have been sitting still.

I waited a few moments, holding my breath in anticipation of him being spotted, or perhaps expecting him to acknowledge he was safely in position. All I got was quiet.

Turning toward Desmond, I jerked my chin towards the back of the barn, and he set off crawling ahead of me. Since it was less distance to travel, we got there a lot faster than our initial trek across the field, and by now my hands were numb to both the cold and the pointy shards of hard grass that kept stabbing me.

The windows at the rear of the barn were dark, and the big sliding barn door was wrapped up with a length of chain and padlocked shut.

My fingers tightened reflexively around the sword. A bit of chain would be nothing for the blade to slice through, but metal on metal was sure to make one hell of a racket. Yet, if the door was bolted, it suggested there was something inside worth protecting. I couldn’t get closer to listen at the door without making myself seen.

I waved for Desmond’s attention then cupped my hand to my ear and raised my eyebrows. God, it was really a good thing I didn’t play charades regularly. I was
not
skilled at miming.

Des shook his head. I hadn’t expected him to hear much, since I wasn’t hearing anything either. I didn’t like this. We already knew we were being set up, so the silence was clearly a trap. But if Mercy and her wolves were lying in wait, shouldn’t we have smelled them by now? Or at least gotten some hint of their presence?

Yet there was nothing.

Magic.

Was Mercy forcing
Grandmere
to cloak the area? I wasn’t sure if that was a spell
Grandmere
was capable of, but I doubted she would cast it without a lot of…persuasion.

Motherfucker.

I wanted to swear out loud but managed to keep my teeth gritted and my opinions to myself. Desmond was next to me suddenly, his hand braced on my shoulder. My angry face must have given away how I was feeling. I was as bad at hiding my emotions as I was at miming.

As quickly as he’d appeared, his comforting grip shifted to a clutch that bordered on painful, and I swallowed a small
meep
of surprise, trying to swat his hand away.

Then the smell hit me.

Wolves.

Not the musk of a werewolf in his human form, but the full furry scent of a wolf on the prowl. And it was practically right on top of us.

Desmond grabbed me and hauled us both to our feet a moment before the big gray wolf lunged forward. It landed where I’d been crouched, its teeth bared and saliva dripping down like it was rabid. The creature’s eyes were practically black from how wide the pupils were blown.

I lifted my sword and backed Desmond and myself against the barn so we wouldn’t get any more nasty sneak-attack surprises. Desmond, smooth as hell, unfastened one of my holster snaps and withdrew a gun before I’d even noticed his touch.

“Do you know how to use that thing?” I asked.

He leveled me with a condescending glare that would have made Holden proud. “Please.” He tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and armed the shotgun with a satisfying
shunk
sound. It was a smart move on his part to grab the pistol. He only had so many rounds with the shotgun, and once he was out of ammo, he’d need a backup. Clever.

“Fine. But watch the shell casings. They’re silver, and they come out hot. If they touch you, you’ll get double burned.” I’d learned this lesson the hard way a few times out in the field and didn’t want him recoiling with shock when the metal hurt him.

Last thing I needed right now was a distracted wingman.

The wolf’s ruff stood on end, and he growled ferociously at the pair of us. I could smell a second one but hadn’t spotted it yet. If
I
could smell it, Desmond wouldn’t need a heads-up.

“Over there.” He angled the gun towards the other side of the barn, and a cinnamon-colored wolf burst out of the grass, skidding to a stop a few feet from us, matching its partner’s menacing snarl. What the hell was going on? It wasn’t a full moon, yet I had two werewolves in all their furry glory snapping at me. Were they, like Mercy and myself, able to change forms at will? Or was it something more sinister?

Desmond kept his gun trained on the new arrival, and I returned my attention to the gray wolf. A voice at the back of my head was nagging for me to listen, but I was otherwise occupied with the task of keeping Desmond and me alive.

Again.

Dry grass crunched to my left, and I swung towards it with my sword raised like an axe, ready to split a new attacker in half. Holden recoiled, almost backing into the wolf, before correcting his course and stepping away from both me and the animal.

“Whoa, there.” He raised his hands in surrender while his gaze darted between my sword and the wolf.

I lowered the blade and took a steadying breath. “Goddammit, Holden, I could have cut you in two.”

“I doubt that.”

“I hate to interrupt, but could you two perhaps focus on the issue at hand?” Desmond sounded both peeved and uneasy at the same time.

“Do you want a weapon now?” I asked the vampire.

He sneered.

The wolves, and not just Desmond, had grown weary of our chatter, because the gray one leapt at Holden, teeth flashing in the moonlight. The vampire was prepared for the assault, grabbing the wolf by the loose fur around his neck and hurling him into the field like a big, scary discus. The wolf let out a yelp when it crashed to the ground.

Holden, Desmond and I turned our attention to the remaining wolf. The voice I’d tried to silence earlier was raging at me louder than ever now, and as Desmond aimed the shotgun at the wolf and his finger moved towards the trigger, my inner nag broke through.

Don’t,
it screamed.
Don’t kill them.

The scene froze before me like a pause button had been hit on the world. The wolf was snarling and raging unlike any werewolf I’d previously encountered, and I’d met one or two in my time. Even when they were preparing for battle, a wolf would be a rational, logical creature. Sure, their logic might not make sense to a human, but it was still present.

Then I realized what was wrong with them.

My gaze darted to Desmond, his finger hovering over the trigger. My heart leapt into my throat as the connection suddenly made sense.

“
STOP
,” I screamed, afraid to grab him in case he fired by accident.

His finger twitched away from the trigger in an instant, and I braced my hand against Holden’s chest to keep him from leaping for the animal.

“What the hell, Secret?” Desmond asked. “I had a perfect shot.”

“These aren’t Mercy’s wolves.”

“What?” Holden and Desmond asked this question in almost perfect unison.

The gray wolf had recovered from the flight Holden had sent him on and limped back into the clearing, still raring to go for the kill. But my brain wouldn’t accept that these wolves were the enemy.

I looked between the two advancing animals and said, “Ben?”

The gray wolf went rigid, his snarl fading momentarily and his near-black eyes focused on me in a new way.

“Oh, goddammit. That’s my fucking brother.”

“How?” Desmond demanded.

“You should know better than anyone else,” I replied.

“But how could Mercy have the same stuff Peyton gave me?”

We hadn’t had a chance to talk much about his experience with Peyton while we’d been separated.

“Mercy and Peyton go way back. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been willing to share with her if they thought they could screw me over twice as many times.”

Desmond lowered the shotgun, and I kept my sword ready but in a less threatening position. I wasn’t ready to let my guard down yet. Knowing who the wolves were didn’t make them any less likely to attack us, and I could already tell my inner wolf wasn’t feeling motivated to help us in this situation.

I didn’t think it mattered too much, since these wolves wouldn’t respond to her the way Desmond did. She was a queen, but not
their
queen. And she didn’t have the mate trump card to play.

Maybe I could try a little familial love to get through.

“Ben?” I spoke directly to the gray wolf, nodding towards Desmond so he would keep an eye on the cinnamon-colored one. “Hey, Ben, it’s Secret.” I let the blade touch the ground and stooped into a crouch. By lowering myself to his level I wouldn’t seem as threatening. I also made myself more of a target, but I’d take this one step at a time. I couldn’t ignore my own instincts, either. Though I dropped my stance, I made sure to stay above him, and I never dropped my gaze from his.

I might be trying to keep the peace, but I was also royalty. Ben might be a prince, but I was a goddamn queen. I outranked him, and I didn’t care what kind of drugs he’d been doused with, any wolf would respond to authority. So what if my inner wolf didn’t want to come out to play? I still had a hand to play here.

“Ben, I know you’re in there. Listen to me. It’s your sister. I know you’ve been given something, and—”

He growled.

“
That’s enough,
” I snapped. “Listen.”

The growl cut short, and he glanced at the other two men as if he might prefer to take his chances with them.

Fairfax, in his wolf form, was noticing the change in Ben’s behavior as well because he’d stopped baring his teeth at Desmond and was now whining nervously. Wolves, pack animals that they were, reacted to the actions of those around them. I just needed to get one of them to stand down and the other would follow suit.

“Okay.”
What now?
I gnawed on my lip and started to lift out of my crouch.

Big mistake.