“No,” Sig said, shaking his head. “You yield too little, and that is your real problem. You are stubborn, and she is stubborn, and together you are two foolish asses with one yoke, pulling each other in opposite directions.”

I began to protest when he called me a foolish ass, but at the first burble of noise from my mouth Sig shot me a warning glance that said more than any words could. Silence would be my best course of action here.

“You cannot expect me to treat her as an equal.”

“I do. And if you cannot, then you are the problem here, not her.” Sig placed a hand on Juan Carlos’s shoulder, but the darker man jerked away, flashing his fangs.

“I said it to her, and I will not say anything different to you. It is only your interest in her that keeps her alive. The moment she no longer captivates your attention, old friend, she will cease to be my problem or anyone else’s.”

Sig’s next words were laden with sadness. “I’m sorry to hear you say it. But know this. The girl will always be my concern. She will never stop being important to me. Let go of your rage.”

“I will let go of my rage when she no longer has a pulse.” With that, Juan Carlos forced his way past Sig and disappeared down the hall, the echo of his shoes following him the whole way.

Chapter Nine

“You have quite the knack for attracting trouble, my dear.” Sig turned his head towards me and leaned against the wall again. “You bring out an anger in him that has been dormant for centuries.”

“Thanks. I guess.” I rubbed my bare arms self-consciously. “I don’t mean to make him so mad, you know. It’s not like I run around poking bears.”

“Of course not.” His lips quirked up in a good-humored smirk. “You are always innocent. Never tempting fate with an ill-timed remark. Never being the catalyst, the spark that ignites an already dangerous powder keg.”

I frowned and decided to change the subject. I didn’t appreciate his implications. They were too accurate. “Is the session over?” The closed door next to him looked ominous, reminding me of how I used to feel before my meetings with the Tribunal.

“They have some questions for the girl, and then they will deliberate.”

“How does it look for her?” What I feared the most was that my outburst towards Juan Carlos would have a negative impact on Brigit’s chances of becoming a warden. Though she didn’t say it much, I knew the prospect of belonging somewhere appealed to her. I would hate myself if I’d jeopardized her future in any way.

Sig pushed himself off the wall, stepping close and wrapping one arm around my shoulders, tugging me tight against his side. “Who can know what they will decide?” He smiled, rubbing my arm in a friendly, comforting gesture. From Mercedes or Brigit I would have liked it. Coming from Sig, it felt wrong.

“But—”

“She’ll do fine.” There was a finality in the way he said it that made me believe him.

He placed a hand below my shoulder blades and nudged me forward. A man of less substantial height might have grazed my lower back, but somehow Sig’s touch felt just as intimate, his fingers brushing the exposed skin on my back right above where the dress began.

“I want to show you something,” he said, pushing me past the doors. I found myself going without much hesitation. He could soothe anyone simply by being near them, and skin-to-skin contact seemed to enhance his special gift.

“What about Brigit?” A dreamy rasp had snuck into my voice, and I found it faintly embarrassing. It was the voice that should only be heard by a lover in the final moments between passionate lovemaking and the time when sleep sets in. It was not a voice for dark stone hallways.

And it definitely wasn’t a voice I meant for Sig to hear.

I cleared my throat and tried again. “I can’t leave Brigit.”

He smiled, but the gesture did nothing to mask the coolness in his eyes that gave me a chill. “You can and you will.” Then—as quick as it had come—the cold stare was gone, and he was charming, jovial Sig once again. “They’ll be speaking to her for some time. We aren’t going far.”

“Where are we going?”

By way of response, he nudged me forward. I guess we were done talking.

For a long time I’d thought the Tribunal chambers were the lowest level of the headquarters, deeper underground than even the subway stations. When I was elevated to my Tribunal seat, I was given the full tour and discovered the building had an unused sub-level deeper yet.

Where Sig took me was lower still, so deep I expected to run into mole people any minute. Or Gollum from Lord of the Rings. There was no light save for one torch that flickered low. Not enough oxygen down this far to ignite it properly.

“Are we tunneling to Jersey?” I teased.

“Not quite.”

We stopped in front of a door half as tall as I was, further solidifying my opinion that I’d stumbled into something straight out of the recesses of J.R.R. Tolkien’s mind. A heavy silver padlock was affixed to a heavy silver loop, keeping whatever was inside from getting out, and the whole wooden frame gave off a faint shimmering blue glow.

I turned from the door to look at Sig. “What’s this about?”

“This door can be opened by three people. One of them is dead. Given Juan Carlos’s behavior tonight, I thought it best we make it three again.” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing as he waited for me to understand what he was saying.

I understood it all too well. “Who is it?”

“I think you know.”

Fear swelled in my chest. The only reason someone would be held this far below ground, behind such security forces, was if they were bound. I’d wondered once what it meant for a vampire to be bound, why it was considered a punishment worse than death. But now that I was standing outside the door, I didn’t feel so curious anymore. “Say it.”

“I can do better than that.” He pressed his palm flat against the wood, and the door unleashed a hissing noise not unlike the sound of wet wood in a fire. The blue shimmer faded away, making the door look remarkably plain once it was gone.

The moment the light faded my stomach sank. I didn’t want to see behind the door. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I’m sure it didn’t do anything spectacular for vampires either. Being here, I no longer needed an answer to the questions that had once plagued my mind.

I put my hand on Sig’s arm to stop him, but it was too late. Once the glow abated, the silver lock vanished and the door opened on its own with a soft pop. I stepped back and stared at it, my fingers falling away from Sig.

“Just like that?”

“It would not open so easily for any but us. Before we are done here, it will do the same for you.”

“I don’t want to be able to open it.”

“Oh, no?”

I shook my head and stepped back again, far enough I hit the wall opposite the door and was pushed to my physical limit for the second time that night. “I don’t want anyone to be able to open it.”

A renewed ache in my shoulder bloomed like a toxic flower from my clavicle up to my jaw. This wasn’t from the silver bullet, though. It wasn’t even on the same side. This pain was old and healed, but a vampire had once ripped out my throat, and a muscle memory of that sort of torture remains forever.

“Go in, Secret. He won’t bite.” Sig smiled his vicious smile, seeming to read my mind. It didn’t take telepathy to know what had me on edge though.

“I—”

He grabbed my wrist, not in a gentle way but not as tightly as he could, and stared me hard in the eyes. “I am not in a mood to argue about fears. I won’t debate with you about this. You will go, and that is final. Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly.” I wrenched my arm free but didn’t look away, steeling my own gaze to match his. “But understand this…I won’t be tricked by you anymore. You could have told me before now what you meant to show me.”

“And would you have come?”

“You’ve made it clear my choices within these walls are not my own, Sig. Don’t pretend like what I do or don’t want was ever a deciding factor. You wanted me to come. I would have come.”

Sig nodded towards the door. “Then show me the truth of your words.”

This was a test, and I saw that all too clearly. I just didn’t know if it was a test I cared to pass. Regardless of my misgivings, I put my hand against the door and stepped inside. The room was small and so cramped I had to stoop to get under the doorframe. The same blue glow that had covered the door was all over the room, giving the space an eerie nighttime ambiance. A few feet from me, wrapped in silver chains, was a creature so gaunt and repulsive it looked dead.

Until he opened his eyes. The hate burning inside those eyes was so alive it felt like ants crawling all over my skin. I wanted to wipe the feeling away, but I crouched low and stared back, letting my own hatred fuel my limited bravery.

“You,” he growled.

“Hello, Alexandre,” I said to the vampire who had once been the thing I feared most in the world. “Miss me?”

Chapter Ten

Alexandre Peyton was nothing at all like I remembered him.

The vampire I’d been so deathly afraid of—the one responsible for almost ending my life not once but twice—was now a mere shell of his former self. The last time I saw him had been a year earlier, and then he’d looked young, no more than seventeen or eighteen. He’d had copper-red hair and a wicked, teasing grin. There had once been a handsomeness to him, one that became easy to overlook when I’d found out what a sadist he was.

Now he was a ghost. Not in the literal sense, of course, because ghosts couldn’t speak since they had no lungs. He was a kind of living ghost, a husk of a man. His skin was dry and brittle like Japanese paper and had an unhealthy gray tone to it, making him seem closer to dead than any vampire I’d ever seen.

His lips were chapped and cracked, and dry blood—his own—had turned his chin into a gross canvas of gray and blackened red. His once penny-bright hair was crusty and looked crisp enough to crumble if I were to touch it. I had no desire to touch it. I didn’t plan on stepping any closer.