Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,5

isn’t any other way.”

“No courthouse steps? A quickie trip to Vegas?” I smiled hopefully.

“It needs to be big. Nothing can be overlooked. News of it has to spread to all the other kingdoms, and they need to see that we are really, truly united. Once that happens, I think we can finally be at peace.”

He was dreaming. For the past several months some of the Alphas of the smaller packs in Lucas’s territory were showing signs of unrest. There were rumors circulating of packs attempting to leave the protection of the East and seek the leadership of the South. My uncle, Callum McQueen, King of the Southern packs, swore he had no part in it, but it was hard to imagine small packs making such a bold move on their own.

And if my uncle was cut from the same cloth as my mother, his sister, then he wouldn’t rest until he had all of Lucas’s territory. We’d made slight headway when Lucas proposed, and I understood why he thought the big wedding would help more, but I didn’t think it would be enough to shut Callum down.

It might be enough to reaffirm our own pack’s opinion of our leadership though. Making a pack protector the queen certainly gave the impression of a powerful team at the helm.

A team that took two players working together to function properly.

“Okay,” I said, kissing his cheek and once again mourning the missing taste. “We’ll go big or go home.”

“Thank you.” Lucas’s smile this time was hesitant.

“What? You’ve got one of those looks you get when you know I’m going to be mad about something.”

“I want you to remember what you just said,” he suggested, then handed me a stiff envelope. For a moment I trembled. When I was still an assassin for the council, I used to receive the names of my targets in envelopes identical to this one.

My hands shook slightly as I opened the unsealed back flap and pulled out the card inside. Just like with my hits, the card had a name on it. Two names actually. One was mine and the other was Lucas’s.

“What is…?” But I was already reading the rest of the text. This slip of paper was cordially inviting me to my own engagement party.

Tomorrow.

My gut reaction was to crumple the invitation and throw it at him. We’d had more discussions than I cared to remember about him springing things on me or doing things that involved me without talking to me about them first. My cheeks felt warm, and I took a few short breaths to steady my temper.

“Surprise?” he offered, a boyish smile creeping over his mouth. “Admit it. If I’d asked ahead, you would have said no outright.”

“I—”

“Admit it.”

He was right. Never in a million years would I have agreed to an engagement party. I slid the invitation back into the envelope and threw them both inside the car beside the binder.

“Well,” I sighed. “I guess I had better go buy a new dress.”

Chapter Four

Time is meaningless to vampires, which makes them a pain in the ass to carpool with.

“Brigit,” I bellowed, stomping around her sparsely decorated living room in my five-inch Christian Louboutin heels. The shoes were amethyst purple and looked extra gemlike when paired with my butter-yellow, long-sleeved, scoop-necked party dress. Normally the only fashion sense I have is picking out pretty shoes, but I thought the dress was sophisticated and downright regal.

Not that anyone was going to get to see me in it at the rate my vampire ward was dragging her ass to get ready.

The vampire in question popped her head out from her bedroom door, her blonde hair still pinned up in hot curlers. My eyes bugged when I saw how far removed from good-to-go she was. I swear I could feel an artery swell in my temple, throbbing loudly with the threat of bursting at any minute. Oh please, let me die of an aneurism. Then I wouldn’t have to kill her.

“Seriously?” I croaked.

“No, no, no.” She waved her hand dismissively at me, batting away my irritation like a cat with a toy. Then she stepped out of her bedroom to show me she was fully dressed in a pretty cornflower-blue dress. She looked like every pretty, perky Midwestern girl-next-door cliché I could think of. But more than that, she was fresh-faced and beautiful. As she pulled the rollers out of her hair, I couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “What?” she asked, her gaze drifting down