Scent of Valor (Chronicles of Eorthe #2) (28 page)

No one is safe.

A Secret to Die For

© 2014 Sierra Dean

Secret McQueen, Book 8

Secret McQueen thought she’d seen it all, but that was before she, Desmond and Holden came home to find New York City burning and the streets overwhelmed with the walking dead. Now, in a race against time, she must find out who is responsible for unleashing hell on Earth.

For that, she’s going to need a whole new team of vampire wardens to help round up the perpetrators, who turn out to be a gang that makes Sons of Anarchy look like toddlers on tricycles.

Her quest across the city brings old friends and enemies out of the woodwork and reminds Secret once and for all why mercy and forgiveness are not always prudent. Lives will be lost, sacrifices will be made, and when the dust settles, nothing will ever be the same again.

With no time to mourn her losses, the only question remaining is if Secret can survive long enough to stop the apocalypse…or if this is the one challenge that will finally drown her in rivers of undead blood.

Warning:
The final book in the Secret McQueen series has it all: hot kisses, unexpected guests, and enough tear-jerking moments to require a whole box of tissues. You’ve been warned.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
A Secret to Die For:

“Hey. Hey, hey. What we got here?” A big dude with bulky arms hopped down from a nearby car, holding a huge hunting knife with the unnerving comfort of someone who got to use the weapon a lot.

“Secret…” Genie whispered.

“It’s okay.”

I don’t know what it was about our current situation, but I felt a sense of focus and control I’d been sorely missing for months. Ever since my return from California and my horrific torture at the hands of The Doctor, I’d been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. Everything from flashbacks, to nightmares, to panic attacks. You name it, I’d been dealing with it.

But the moment I’d stepped out of the car, I felt…whole. I knew a point would come when my ghosts came back, and I would need to deal with my problems again. For the time being, though, I was grateful my brain was running on instinct rather than emotion. When I told Genie things would be okay, I meant it.

I wasn’t going to let a gang of street toughs touch my sister.

I would break every bone in each of their bodies before they did anything to me or my friends.

And I wouldn’t think twice about killing them if I had to.

I’d spilled a lot of blood in the last week. A little more wasn’t going to bother me.

“Gots us some pretty girls.” The man licked his teeth lasciviously, showing off a mouthful of silver grills.

“We’re going to walk by. And you’re going to let us.” Up until now I hadn’t reached for my guns or touched my sword. I didn’t want to draw a weapon too soon and set off an explosive chain reaction.

“Hey? You think so, girlie? Then by all means.” He did a mock bow and pointed his knife in the direction of the street opposite us.

Littered on the pavement around the cars were a dozen purses, suitcases opened and their contents strewn across the pavement. No wonder we’d seen so few people headed towards the Lincoln Tunnel on foot. It looked like these guys had set up a highway robbery operation to cut them off at the pass.

What worried me was how few signs of violence or struggle I was seeing. Were they just taking people’s goods and letting them go back the way they came? Or was it possible the empty cars were holding the bodies for them?

Either way I didn’t trust this guy to let us go by without a fight.

“I want you to listen to me very carefully.” I made sure he was looking at me. “And I’ll say it loud enough so I don’t need to repeat myself for your buddies.” At least a dozen other men were placed in various positions around the street, some perched up on cars, others pacing the road and watching for any other newcomers.

“You gots something to say, you go ahead and say it, yeah?”

“How many people have you killed? Big tough gangbanger like you? You must keep track, right? Get a new tat every time you ice someone?” Still I didn’t reach for a weapon. I stayed perfectly still and watched him. “How many?”

He gave a half shrug, then smirked. “Twenty-one. Why, you wanna make it twenty-two? You keep asking me these personal-type questions, I might get real tired of you real fast.”

“Twenty-one. Good number. It’s almost impressive.”

He snorted and pointed the knife back at me. Instinct told me to grab my gun, but I held off. “Fuck, bitch, what do you know about impressive, huh?” He gave his crotch a showy tug with his spare hand and sneered. “How many people have you killed, princess?”

It was my turn to smile. “Three hundred and forty-seven.”

“Say what?”

“Three hundred and—”

“Damn, girl, I heard you the first time. Crazy bitch. You think I’m gonna believe you killed three hundred people?”

“And forty-seven.” I had been an officially sanctioned council assassin since I was sixteen years old. I’d killed a lot of vampires and other unpleasant supernatural beasties in my time. Not people, per se. But I had made hundreds of kills in my life. He didn’t need to know the nitty-gritty species details.

For the first time since he’d stopped us, the thug’s bravado faded. He glanced at Holden, probably assuming the fancy suit made him some kind of authority figure. “She’s crazy.”

“She is.” Holden sounded bored, bless him. It was a rare situation indeed that would make him stressed out or even angry. He obviously didn’t think our human friends here were any more of a threat than I did.

“Three hundred?” the guy muttered.

I could hear Holden’s shrug in the tone of his voice when he spoke again. “I don’t know. I lost count around a hundred. She’s hard to keep up with.”

I felt a pang of guilt at his words. Not from the implication that I’d killed enough people he got bored of counting, but rather because I felt his last words were a backhanded commentary on our relationship.

“Come on, Mick, quit fucking around and get their shit,” one of the other guys called. He was holding a freaking machine gun, but he looked uncomfortable with it. His stance told me he was using a cache of video game and movie knowledge to hold the gun like a commando, rather than someone who actually knew how to use one. I was betting the first time he fired a round the kickback would knock him flat on his ass.

As funny as that would be to stick around for, I wanted to get to Keaty’s.

“What do you say, Mick? You want to add to my numbers, or are you going to let us go?”

The guy with the machine gun, seeing that Mick was still gawking at us, strode over with all the swagger of a rap star. He got within three feet of me and lifted the gun, pointing it at my face.

“Bitch, give us your shit.”

Genie made a small noise of alarm, but the boys both remained where they were standing, suggesting they didn’t think this was something I needed any help with.

They were right.

“Your safety is on,” I lied smoothly, never looking away.

“What?” He shifted his attention from me to the gun. I grabbed the muzzle and thrust backwards hard, smashing the butt of the weapon into his face. Blood spurted from his nose, and I shoved the barrel up in case he started shooting. Instead he released the weapon, both hands going to his broken nose. I was fairly certain he was swearing at me, but all I could hear was wet gurgling noises as his blood flooded down his throat.

With the weapon now free, I spun it around, holding it like the trained professional I was, and aimed it at Mick, the guy with the knife.

“Still want to tussle?”

He dropped the knife and took two big steps backwards. “You crazy.”

“Told you,” Holden muttered.

“Doesn’t matter if you warn them,” Desmond added, a surprisingly cheerful tone in his voice. “They never see her coming.”

I angled the gun between the two men in front of me and looked to the others who’d begun gathering around the cluster of cars. I’d have loved to get rid of them entirely so they’d stop harassing people trying to escape. But the only way I could stop them would be by killing them all. Spooking them wouldn’t help; they’d just set up shop on another block.

Unless they attacked us, I wasn’t prepared to kill a bunch of humans. Even if they were the shitty sort.

“We’re going to go now.” I lowered the gun but didn’t shoulder it, prepared to use it if need be. I didn’t like firing heavy artillery. I might be strong but I was also small, and big guns packed a lot of kick. I liked lightweight weapons I could control. “And when I come back, I don’t want to see any of you, understood? Get your asses out of the city.” They most likely wouldn’t listen, but I had to try.

The guy on the pavement was still muttering aquatic profanities, but Mick nodded, and none of the other guys appeared to be interested in intervening.

“Let’s go.” I stepped around the fallen gang member, and the rest of my group followed suit. Desmond and Genie stayed behind me, but Holden edged up to my side as we skirted the clearing. If anyone were to make a sudden move, he was by far the strongest and fastest among us.

I didn’t relax until we were on the opposite side of the street and the cars were out of view. There was still a chance they’d regroup and come after us, but I didn’t think they were interested in further confrontation. Getting beaten up by a girl tended to have one of two outcomes. The first was retaliation. They’d fight to regain their macho status by beating me down. The second was pretending it had never happened. The latter was usually the more popular option, because in spite of a desire for revenge, no man wanted his ass kicked by a chick twice in one day.

I was hoping these dudes would go with option B.

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Scent of Valor

Copyright © 2014 by Annie Nicholas

ISBN: 978-1-61922-431-5

Edited by Holly Atkinson

Cover by Kanaxa

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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: November 2014

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