Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,21

vu.

Another howl, and another. A chorus of wolves sang into the night, and their song drew ever closer. They didn’t sound like they were coming to say hello, either. They sounded hungry.

I hiked up my dress and ran, further challenged by the spindly stiletto sandals I was wearing. I loved sky-high heels as much as any good New York City girl, but I was cursing the name of Manolo Blahnik as I tried to jump over low-lying branches while wearing them.

By the time I was out of the woods my hair was a tangled mess hanging in my face. I brushed the wayward strands back and felt something on my head I hadn’t noticed before. Wrenching the metallic object free of my curls, I pulled it from my hair and got a look at what it was.

A crown. Not a bridal tiara, but an actual crown made of gold branches that looked so realistic I wondered if someone hadn’t dipped willow in gold leaf to make it. In the knots of the branches were emeralds the size of my thumbnail and so many diamonds the damn thing lit up like the Fourth of July even in the bare light of the moon.

The moon.

The howling began anew, and I remembered what had set me running in the first place. I held my crown tight to my chest and began to sprint. Now that I was in the open I could see I wasn’t alone in the field. A few hundred meters away was a man wearing a beautifully tailored tuxedo. His hands were in his pockets and his smile was apparent even this far away.

Lucas.

You know this. This isn’t new. You know this, my mind told me. But all I could think about was escaping the hungry pack that was hot on my heels. The only thing on my mind was getting to Lucas before they got to me.

I held my dress up the best I could without losing the crown and hauled ass across the field. I ran on the balls of my feet so the heels wouldn’t trip me up, but when I was a few feet from him, something brought me crashing to the ground anyway.

“Fuck,” I cried. The proximity of the howls was much closer now. In my fevered imagination I could hear the click of sharp canine teeth and almost feel the panting mouths of the wolves looming over me.

I tugged my dress free of whatever had brought me down, and the white fabric came away a deep crimson red. The more layers I pulled back of the endless gown, the bloodier they became, glistening wetly in the moonlight. A memory I couldn’t quite grasp made me check my hands, assuming the blood must be my own.

My hands were stained with the blood from my wedding dress, but they were uninjured.

“Lucas…I…” Looking over my bare shoulder to seek out the aid of my fiancé, I found him standing behind me staring at the bloody mess covering my lower body. Revulsion was evident in his expression.

“What have you done?” he asked.

“N-nothing,” I stammered, feeling stupid. “I fell.”

“What have you done?” he repeated.

I continued pulling the infinite dress back, and when it finally jerked free, I wished I had left the mystery alone. The grass was black with the thick smear of blood, and my whole skirt was now ruby red and soaked with the viscous liquid. When I gagged, though, it wasn’t because of the blood.

Desmond lay beneath me, his throat open in a ragged tear, his once-white shirt now as vermillion as my gown. His violet-gray eyes, something I loved most about him, were white and dead. His skin, once dark olive thanks to his father’s Mexican roots, was ashy and looked like wax.

The hole in his neck smiled at me like a second mouth.

I tried to scramble away, but Lucas’s legs kept me pinned in place.

“Oh my God.” Pink tears streaked down my face. I fought the urge to throw myself on Desmond, to find a pulse. The second urge was to open my wrist and give him my own blood. Vampire blood could heal, maybe there was…

No. It could heal, but it couldn’t bring someone back if they were already dead.

I sobbed.

“No.”

“What have you done?” Lucas was staring down at me, asking the same goddamned question over and over.

“I didn’t—”

“What have you—?”

“Shut up,” I screamed, covering my ears to block out the broken record of questioning. What had I done? Nothing. I hadn’t done