Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,11
you have to be more—”
“More what?” I sat upright and met his soft blue eyes. His expression was etched with anger and worry, and I knew he only wanted to keep me safe, but sometimes he treated me more like a possession than a partner. “There was no way for me to see this guy coming, and I can’t spend my whole life living like a paranoid recluse. I can’t. It’s bad enough the Tribunal won’t let me hunt anymore, but I can’t live in fear that every shadow is hiding a potential killer.”
“Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
He smiled weakly and brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear, pushing the whole curtain of blonde over my wounded shoulder. I flinched.
“I need you to be more careful. Please.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around myself, wincing as the rough wool grazed the bullet hole.
“I will make a focused effort to be less of a moving target.”
He smiled openly, laughing for the first time since he’d arrived at the messy scene on the highway. “Try not to be a sitting target, either.”
Jackson—a young werewolf in Lucas’s pack—was pacing the width of the road with an arm around Kellen’s shoulders, whispering something to her I couldn’t quite make out. The newest member of the pack was nice enough, but he made me uneasy. I’d first met him when he was acting as a guard for one of Lucas’s enemies, and after that he’d switched teams, so to speak, and ended up being a welcome member of Lucas’s crew.
So welcome, Lucas had once sent him to kidnap me.
I’d broken Jackson’s nose with a tire iron, and ever since then things had been a little, shall we say, tense between us. But he seemed to be taking good care of Kellen, and Lucas trusted him, otherwise he wouldn’t be here with us right now.
Morgan Scott, the third highest-ranking wolf in Lucas’s pack and the highest-ranking bitch I’d ever met, was standing next to Brigit on the shoulder of the road. I gathered Morgan was supposed to be making sure Brigit was okay, but the two women were giving each other hard looks and keeping a good three-foot distance from each other. Just as well.
We’d moved the BMW onto the shoulder in case traffic needed to pass through, but it was twenty minutes after the accident before we saw our first car. The Tacoma pickup rounded the bend and threw on its flashing four-way lights as it rolled to a stop beside us.
The passenger-side window rolled down, and I was about to tell the good Samaritan we didn’t need any help, when the curly halo of Mercedes Castilla’s hair preceded her out the window. Her hair was unruly on a good day, but she seemed to have gone for broke with her curls today and let them fly free in a frizzy brown cloud.
“I should have known better than to let you drive,” she said after a pause and a once-over to see I was still in one piece. She leaned into the cab and said something to the driver. I craned forwards to see better, and saw Owen the Bartender, a cute brunet who worked at a bar near her apartment, staring back at me. He offered me a small wave.
“You doing okay?” he asked as Mercedes opened the passenger door and climbed out.
“Oh, you know, Owen. Never better.” I shrugged, but it hurt too much so I let my arms sag.
Owen pulled the truck over and put it into park in front of the BMW.
Mercedes came to stand in front of me, and Owen got out of the truck but stood next to the door, nervously shifting from foot to foot. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to get mixed up with a situation like this either, if I could help it.
“What happened?” Mercedes was a detective in the NYPD, so of course asking questions would be her first step.
I smiled, resting my head against Lucas’s shoulder. “Well, Cedes, this might come as a shock, but it looks like someone out there wants me dead.”
She crouched down on her low heels and shook her head, smiling gently back at me before pointing to her left temple. “Secret, this is my mind. It’s blown.”
Chapter Seven
Four days after my failed engagement party, I was nursing a slow-healing shoulder and a bad attitude. I was wearing my purple Louboutins for the second time in a week, only now I had paired them