they’ve sent you to me, it means they don’t know what they want to know.”
“I don’t understand. Aren’t you like, the live-in polygraph?”
“Have you lied about anything?”
Had anyone ever specifically said, Hey, Secret, you don’t happen to be half-werewolf do you? No. “Not…directly.”
“By omission perhaps?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Monica changed the thread on her needle and began to work on the scalelike feather pattern of a tiny hummingbird. “Tell me something, Secret. Do you believe you have rights different from those of the rest of the council?”
“I don’t think I used to have any rights at all, let alone different ones.” She was easy to talk to. Distressingly so. I’d been told she read the truth from blood, but maybe she didn’t even need blood to get honesty from people.
“Do you think you deserve your seat next to Sig?”
I looked around the room, not sure what I was trying to find, then I sat on the floor in front of her, cross-legged. “No,” I admitted.
“But you earned it.”
“I didn’t kill Daria because I wanted the seat.”
“Reasons are inconsequential, sweet. It is actions and their consequences that matter to me.”
Actions and consequences. That was why I was here after all. Everything I did, no matter how big or small, had an outcome. And I’d done so much lately I was losing track. Now the fallout of what I’d done was starting to catch up with me. I’d been a fool to believe I could go on forever and not have to face this day eventually.
“I killed Daria so I could live.”
“Your life is important to you.”
“Of course,” I said, not questioning it for a second.
“And yet you put yourself in situations of mortal peril on a regular basis.”
“I…well… Trouble sort of has a way—”
“You invite risk because it reminds you that you’re alive. Whenever you stand on the precipice of death and spit into the void, you feel more human because you walk away from death with your heart still beating.” Her gaze was focused on the wall behind me, her hands working to create a rose with three-dimensional texture. The pulse she claimed I was so fond of was hammering.
When I didn’t speak, she continued. “Why did you come to the council to hunt vampires?”
“I don’t know.”
Monica stopped stitching and turned her sightless gaze on me, tutting with three clicks of her tongue. “Let’s not play games, you and I. I’ll know it all soon enough, so why don’t you try honesty on. I think you’ll like it.”
I wasn’t so sure. “My family was split apart because of vampires. I am what I am because of a vampire.”
“Ah, and now we have it. The million-dollar question. What. Are. You?”
“I’m unusual.”
She smiled, and I wished she hadn’t. The fangs in her child’s mouth scared the living shit out of me. More than Sig and his chilly unspoken threats. I never thought a vampire would scare me more than him, or more than Alexandre Peyton, the one who’d come closest to killing me.
They had nothing on Monica.
“You certainly are. The first Tribunal leader in the history of the council to not be a full-blooded vampire, did you know that?”
“I sort of assumed.”
“You haven’t been the most popular.”
“I’m used to that.”
Monica set down her project and held her hands out, palms up. Not wanting to be rude, I put my own in hers. If she was going to tell me I had mismatched lifelines and two different destinies, I was so out of here. There was only so much your future is yours to make I could handle. Instead, Monica raised my hands to her face and rubbed her cheeks against my palms, taking a good sniff at each of my wrists.
“You smell strongly of werewolf.”
“I…uh…”
“And sex.”
Okay, hearing an eight-year-old say I smelled like sex took this whole scenario from creepy and strange to straight fucked up.
“Yes.”
“So you make it a habit of bedding werewolves?”
Geez, lady,
“I don’t understand. Aren’t you like, the live-in polygraph?”
“Have you lied about anything?”
Had anyone ever specifically said, Hey, Secret, you don’t happen to be half-werewolf do you? No. “Not…directly.”
“By omission perhaps?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Monica changed the thread on her needle and began to work on the scalelike feather pattern of a tiny hummingbird. “Tell me something, Secret. Do you believe you have rights different from those of the rest of the council?”
“I don’t think I used to have any rights at all, let alone different ones.” She was easy to talk to. Distressingly so. I’d been told she read the truth from blood, but maybe she didn’t even need blood to get honesty from people.
“Do you think you deserve your seat next to Sig?”
I looked around the room, not sure what I was trying to find, then I sat on the floor in front of her, cross-legged. “No,” I admitted.
“But you earned it.”
“I didn’t kill Daria because I wanted the seat.”
“Reasons are inconsequential, sweet. It is actions and their consequences that matter to me.”
Actions and consequences. That was why I was here after all. Everything I did, no matter how big or small, had an outcome. And I’d done so much lately I was losing track. Now the fallout of what I’d done was starting to catch up with me. I’d been a fool to believe I could go on forever and not have to face this day eventually.
“I killed Daria so I could live.”
“Your life is important to you.”
“Of course,” I said, not questioning it for a second.
“And yet you put yourself in situations of mortal peril on a regular basis.”
“I…well… Trouble sort of has a way—”
“You invite risk because it reminds you that you’re alive. Whenever you stand on the precipice of death and spit into the void, you feel more human because you walk away from death with your heart still beating.” Her gaze was focused on the wall behind me, her hands working to create a rose with three-dimensional texture. The pulse she claimed I was so fond of was hammering.
When I didn’t speak, she continued. “Why did you come to the council to hunt vampires?”
“I don’t know.”
Monica stopped stitching and turned her sightless gaze on me, tutting with three clicks of her tongue. “Let’s not play games, you and I. I’ll know it all soon enough, so why don’t you try honesty on. I think you’ll like it.”
I wasn’t so sure. “My family was split apart because of vampires. I am what I am because of a vampire.”
“Ah, and now we have it. The million-dollar question. What. Are. You?”
“I’m unusual.”
She smiled, and I wished she hadn’t. The fangs in her child’s mouth scared the living shit out of me. More than Sig and his chilly unspoken threats. I never thought a vampire would scare me more than him, or more than Alexandre Peyton, the one who’d come closest to killing me.
They had nothing on Monica.
“You certainly are. The first Tribunal leader in the history of the council to not be a full-blooded vampire, did you know that?”
“I sort of assumed.”
“You haven’t been the most popular.”
“I’m used to that.”
Monica set down her project and held her hands out, palms up. Not wanting to be rude, I put my own in hers. If she was going to tell me I had mismatched lifelines and two different destinies, I was so out of here. There was only so much your future is yours to make I could handle. Instead, Monica raised my hands to her face and rubbed her cheeks against my palms, taking a good sniff at each of my wrists.
“You smell strongly of werewolf.”
“I…uh…”
“And sex.”
Okay, hearing an eight-year-old say I smelled like sex took this whole scenario from creepy and strange to straight fucked up.
“Yes.”
“So you make it a habit of bedding werewolves?”
Geez, lady,
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