Something Secret This Way Comes: Secret McQueen, Book 1 Read Free Page B

outweighed me by about a hundred pounds. I used a considerable amount more strength than he probably anticipated I had to bring the arm he was holding across my chest to block his attack on my neck. He was so certain of himself he bit his own arm by accident while gnashing for my skin.
    He howled in sudden shock.
    “Hurts doesn’t it? Being bitten by a vampire when you’re not in the thrall.”
    “You will know soon, girl,” he snarled, spit flying from his mouth, his eyes deep black with rage.
    He dove in to bite me again, but I dodged faster than he was prepared for. As he lunged to bite, I jammed my gun into his open mouth, a bullet loaded in the chamber and my finger trembling on the trigger.
    “I already know what it feels like, asshole. Now tell me the name or I pull this trigger.” I knew I was going to do it whether he told me or not.
    His lips moved around the barrel. I pulled out the gun and pressed it in one swift motion under his chin. Henry licked around his mouth, tasting where my gun had been. He touched his fangs with the tip of his tongue, as if savoring the memory of something delicious, and choked out a laugh.
    “My master will be thrilled to know that one of his own was responsible for the death of the great Secret McQueen. And he will be even more impressed to know that you died without ever knowing who he was. Because I will never tell you, not even when I eat your still-beating heart right out of your chest.”
    And then he spit in my face.

Chapter Four
    The one benefit to having someone else’s saliva on your face, if it’s possible to find one, is that it makes it a lot harder for the blood to stick.
    When the back of Henry’s head came off and rained its contents over us, I was able to wipe the worst of it out of my eyes. I shoved his now literally dead weight off me and knelt next to the corpse.
    If his sire was who I thought it was, there would be another way to tell. I only knew of one master sire who would be exceptionally thrilled to see me dead. I tugged down the neck of Henry’s shirt, and sure enough, though scabbed over from healing, there was my proof.
    A set of bite marks, ragged and painful looking, but with an unmistakable gap where one of the fang punctures should be. A gap which would match to a missing tooth. One that I had knocked out six years earlier while fighting for my life against the first master vampire I’d ever tried to kill.
    “Son of a bitch.” I sucked in a breath of cold air and cast a look behind me, a paranoid but somehow necessary gesture to confirm he wasn’t there.
    It all made sense now. The attitude and the smug certainty. The cocksure way he had gone right after that girl. He truly was his father’s son.
    “Fuck me. Shit.” I was hissing now, forcing words through gritted teeth. If I could have been more intelligible, I’m sure something a bit more eloquent might be said, but right then all I could think of were curses, and I strung them together with blasphemous intensity. From inside my jacket I pulled out my cell phone and a small flashlight. I hit number two on the speed dial and flicked on the flashlight with my teeth.
    “This is a late check in, McQueen.”
    “I need a pick up outside Columbus Circle. As soon as you can be there. Don’t bring the nice upholstery. I’m messy.”
    A pause. “Who?”
    “It wasn’t sanctioned. I’m going to call Holden, have him alert the fucking Tribunal. But it doesn’t matter, Keaty. You have no idea whose seed this guy was.”
    A longer pause. Francis Keats would not guess, but I suspected from the tone in my voice that he knew all too well who I was talking about.
    I was looking through the grass with my flashlight, waiting for it to… There it was, a glint of metal. I picked up the bullet and put it in my pocket with the casing I’d already collected. There was no time for me to hide the body, so I had to hope the girl was too shaken to be specific about our location. Even if they did find