Secret Unleashed

Chapter Forty

When I’d made Major Logan van Buren promise to leave me alone in a small room with The Doctor, I hadn’t dreamed of what he’d do for me. But a week following my arrival home from California I got a visit from Tyler, letting me know it was time for the government to make good on one of their promises to me.

A black SUV picked me up outside my apartment and took me to an abandoned building in the Meatpacking District.

No one questioned me for bringing a sword.

An armed guard let me into a small gray room, nearly identical to the one I’d spent over a week of my life in, and the door locked behind me. A metal chair sat in the center of the room, over a metal grate, and a black shape was huddled in one corner, just out of the reach of the single bulb lighting the space.

“Good evening, Doctor.”

I crossed the space from the door to the chair and took a seat, facing the wall instead of the stooped figure.

“How’s your chest?” I placed my katana blade down on the floor, holding the hilt between my palms. It was still encased in its glossy black scabbard, so for the time being it was more an object of beauty than an outright threat.

Once I took it out, I wouldn’t be putting it away again until the blade had tasted blood.

A fae once told me I’d tainted the sword by killing vampires with it. I wasn’t sure if that meant the sword was now touched by evil somehow, but at the moment I didn’t care. If my katana wanted to kill, it was only because it stole the desire from me.

Right now I wanted to kill a human worse than I’d ever wanted anything in my whole life.

“I asked you a question.”

The form shifted, and The Doctor pushed a thin wool blanket off his head, allowing me to see his face for the first time. He’d lost some weight since I’d last seen him, but not enough to make him look unhealthy. He’d grown a short gray beard, and his hair was unruly, but apart from that he was the same striking figure he’d once been.

“I lack your speed for healing,” he replied. “A shame, really.”

“Tragic.”

“You’re looking lovely, my dear. No worse for the wear, it seems.”

I choked out a laugh. No worse for the wear? “There are some things even a monster can’t heal.”

He shrugged, pushing the blanket off entirely. “I don’t put much stock in psychology.”

“That’s too bad. You’d be a therapist’s wet dream.” I lifted my sword into my lap, stroking my hands down the smooth case. “In all your time studying my kind, did anyone ever tell you how a vampire is punished for being naughty?”

He shook his head, but I’d clearly piqued his interest. Even in here, two feet away from a woman with a sword, he was obsessed with his quest to understand. If his single-minded focus had belonged to anyone other than a sociopath, the things he could have learned would have been remarkable.

“How?” he asked.

“A vampire is chained up in a tiny room. You must know by now silver works best for that sort of thing.”

He nodded.

“Then they are starved. They’re starved for decades. Sometimes for centuries. They are left in the dark, chained to the wall, until they are little more than skeletons, but all the while the brain still works. They can still think. Reason often vanishes, but thought remains.”

I slipped the blade free from its enclosure and let the scabbard clatter to the floor. The dim light from the overhead bulb glinted off the sharp edge, making the gold dragon inlay glow like firelight.

“Not much different from human prison in some ways. Left alone with your thoughts for an eternity.” I got out of my chair and dragged the blade behind me, the metal kicking up sparks against the concrete floor, a high-pitched wail echoing off the walls. His attention was on the weapon now, losing interest in my story.

“I’m guessing you talked to a lot of people over the last week. I’m even willing to bet some of those people made you promises, didn’t they? Did they promise you a cushy minimum-security prison? Maybe Witness Protection?”

His gaze flicked from the sword to my face, and I knew he’d been promised the world.

“They were lying to you. They were your judge and jury. Do you know what that makes me?”

“Executioner,” he whispered, attention shifting back to the sword.

“Executioner,” I replied, placing the blade in front of his face so he could get a good eyeful. “There’s one thing I wanted to tell you first, though.”

“Yes?” He licked his lips and looked up at me.

“Twenty-one hours.”

“What?”

I raised the sword so the blade was against his throat, the sharp edge nicking his skin and making blood dribble down the metal. “You wanted to know how long it would take someone like me to heal a broken arm. Twenty-one hours.”

He smiled. “Good girl.”

My apartment smelled like pasta sauce when I got home.

I kicked my boots off at the door and put the katana back up over the fireplace before I followed the smell into my tiny kitchen. In spite of Peyton still being at large—the Feds insisted The Doctor hadn’t known where he was—I wasn’t willing to hide anymore. He’d been able to find me halfway across the country, so if he wanted me, he could come get me. Now I was ready for him.

Rio, my dumb-as-nails cat, had been living with Desmond’s sister, Penny, during my absence. Now that she was back in her old stomping ground, she had spent a full day wandering around rubbing her face on anything that would hold still. Judging by her loud purrs she was just as happy to be home as I was.

She bumped her head against my legs and greeted me with a plaintive, “Breow.”

Desmond stood in front of the stove, measuring dried oregano into his palm.

“You know I don’t eat, right?” I rubbed Rio’s back with my foot, and she flipped over, clawing at my toes.

“I tried to tell him that, but he insisted.” Holden emerged from the bedroom and leaned beside me in the kitchen entrance. Neither of them touched me, no one having the possessive upper hand here, but I could sense Holden’s gaze on the back of my neck, and Desmond was staring right at me.

“How’d it go?” Desmond asked.

“It’s done.”

“And how do you feel?”

I shrugged and let out a sigh. “I thought it would be a release. Thought I’d be done once it was over. But…”

“It’s still there,” Holden said.

“It’s still there. But maybe now the nightmares will let up.” I tried for a smile and succeeded a little because Desmond looked back to the sauce he was making and stirred in the oregano.

“Why are you cooking?” I asked.

“It helps me destress. And besides, unlike the two of you I actually do have to eat.” He replaced the lid on the pot before wiping his hands on a dishtowel and shooing Holden and me out of the kitchen. He was welcome to claim it as his domain. I had no use for it.

Holden sat on the loveseat, and I plopped down beside him, leaving some extra space since I wasn’t sure how to behave with both of them in the same room being so…nice.

Desmond answered the question for me when he sat on my opposite side, forcing me to smoosh against Holden, sandwiched between them. The two men exchanged a glance, and I expected them to go for each other’s throats at any moment.

Finally when a good five minutes passed without Holden calling Desmond a dog or Desmond reminding me Holden was a walking corpse, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Either you guys drank the Kool-Aid, or I really am dead, because you two have never been this nice to each other.”

Holden brushed my hair back, and Desmond squeezed one of my hands. “Look,” Desmond started. “This isn’t…perfect. I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, but we both love you. And considering everything that happened, and how we both almost lost you for good…”

If they proposed a happily ever after ménage a trois, my poor little brain was going to explode then and there. It wouldn’t work, of course, but I couldn’t help think that’s where this insane discussion was going.

“We’re calling a truce,” Holden finished for Desmond.

“A truce?” Not as sexy as ménage a trois.

“For right now, at least, we won’t fight for your affection. We’ll respect that you have feelings for us both, and leave it there. For now,” Desmond explained.

As far as arrangements went, it might be as good as I’d ever get from them. And I didn’t have it in me to choose between them, not now. Not after everything.

“Okay.” I nodded, but nudged each of them on the shoulder, drawing their attention to how tightly packed we were on the loveseat. “But is it okay with you guys if I move to the chair? You’re kind of squishing me.”