I’d spent my whole life fighting against the monsters inside me, struggling to exist as something that shouldn’t exist. And now that I fit the norm, I found I didn’t want to belong. The world I’d yearned to be accepted into wasn’t all I’d dreamed it would be.

Boo-hoo, right? Go figure the grass wasn’t any greener on the other side.

Just a lot brighter.

I was the first out of the car when we got to my place, but Brigit was right on my heels, taking her job as my bodyguard seriously. It didn’t surprise me in the least to find my door unlocked, but for the sake of safety I let her go first. After a moment she popped her head out into the hall.

“It’s relatively safe.”

“Relatively?”

“Like, no one is actually going to kill you, but you might want to stay out here all the same.”

“Brigit, let her in,” came Holden’s voice from within the apartment. “She needs to get this over with.”

Yeah, that made me want to rush inside.

“I gather I don’t have much choice.” Besides which, Desmond had joined me in the foyer, and there wasn’t a lot of room to spare with two adults in the closet-sized landing.

Brigit stepped aside, letting me and Desmond through. Holden had taken his familiar place on the loveseat, but Sig remained standing. He was in front of the fireplace, staring intently at my sword collection.

“I’m not a man of faith,” Sig said. “I’m sure you can understand why.”

“You’re older than Jesus?”

He snorted a humorless laugh. “Religion existed long before me, long before him, and it has always been a fool’s narrative. Those who do not know how to think for themselves look to gods for their answers. When the gods do not speak, they look to liars who claim to know the answers. Religion is a farce of liars and those with no minds of their own.”

This didn’t seem like a discussion, so I stayed quiet and let him talk.

“I may not be religious, but I find men of religion can often say truly remarkable things in spite of their own inherent stupidity.” He picked up the silver katana, careful not to touch the metal, and turned to face me, the weapon in his hand. “Have you ever heard of Henry Ward Beecher?”

“No.”

“No, of course not. You’re too young. Much, much too young.” He was playing with the weight of the sword, adjusting it so it was perfectly balanced. “Ward once said, ‘You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave.’”

“Sounds like Henry was a cheerful guy.”

Sig gave me a look that plainly said now was still not the time for me to talk. “It made me laugh when I first read it, because what is a vampire if not one step from the grave? And is our life easy? No, there is nothing easy in the life of a vampire. It is a hard world whether you are living or undead. So what does that mean for you?”

I didn’t like the implication of his buildup. “I didn’t do this intentionally.”

“As Mr. Chancery explained it to me, the choice was entirely yours.”

“And did Mr. Chancery tell you my other option was to leave one of them behind?” I pointed at Holden, then back to Desmond. “I don’t leave people behind.”

“You are not a Marine, Secret.”

“No, I’m just not as cold as you people apparently. I can’t sacrifice someone else’s life for the sake of getting what I want.”

“You can’t sacrifice someone else, so you have sacrificed yourself instead.” Sig spun the blade in his palm, and instinctively I took a step backwards. He might have the ability to make people calm, but I was as far from relaxed as I could possibly be.

“What are you saying?”

“If the only easy place is the grave, you have made certain you’re in for an easy future.”

“But you can’t kill her,” Brigit said meekly. “It’s in the handbook.”

At those words Desmond moved from his place by the front door and stood between me and Sig. If the Tribunal leader wanted me dead, Desmond wasn’t going to be able to stop him. No one in this room could keep Sig from killing me if he wanted to.

But upon hearing Brigit’s words and watching Desmond move, Sig gave us an amused smirk and lowered the sword. “Are you all stupid? I have no intention of killing her.”

Holden hadn’t moved once through the entire conversation, giving me the impression Sig was being honest. Holden was devoted to the council, but he was more devoted to me. I’d been the one to save him when they wanted him dead. If there were allegiances owed anywhere, they were owed to me and not the council. So if he wasn’t moving to protect me, there was nothing I needed protection from.

That more than anything was what calmed me down.

I touched Desmond’s arm and gently pushed, angling him out of my way. Crossing the small distance to my living room, I stood about two feet shy of Sig. Never letting my gaze leave his, I drove my knee up, bumping his hand and sending the sword into the air. It went straight upwards and fell back, coming straight for me.

I clapped my hands together, locking the silver blade between my palms. It was something I wouldn’t have been able to do if I wasn’t human. Something Sig himself could not do without being burned. Letting the sword slip the rest of the way to the floor, I held it by the handle and gave the two-thousand-year-old vampire an assessing stare.

“I’m not easy to kill.”

Sig leaned closer and cupped my chin, the smile on his lips taking on a serpentine quality. “You haven’t been listening, have you? Living is what’s hard. It’s dying that is easy.”

I frowned, my hand tightening on the handle of the sword.

“I’m here to make you an offer,” Sig continued, ignoring my defensive stance. “A choice, even, which is more than most people get.”

“A choice in what?”

“You are a Tribunal leader, Secret. One of the highest positions of power there is in vampire society. If you show up to the council and reek of humanity as you do now, it will be anarchy. Every vampire down to the lowest on the totem…” his gaze shifted briefly to Brigit, “…will be clambering over one another to seize your power. And they will do it by killing you.”

“And I gather this choice you have for me will solve that problem?”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Desmond said, trying to step back in front of me. I stopped him with a gentle touch, indicating I appreciated his efforts to protect me, but I still wanted to hear what Sig was proposing.

“What are my choices?”

“To remain Tribunal, you must be a vampire.”

Now I was with Desmond. I didn’t like where this was going either. “What are my choices?” I repeated, this time unable to hide the annoyance that slipped out.

“Very simple. Your choices are me…” he pointed to himself, and then turned and pointed a finger at Holden, “…or him.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

I didn’t know a face could become purple in real life until I saw it happen to Desmond. He started out pink then quickly progressed to a deep, ugly bruise color. I thought I’d have the most impassioned response to Sig’s suggestion, but I was wrong.

“Desmond, breathe,” I suggested quietly.

“I can’t,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“I’ve got this.”

Slowly his color returned to normal, but I waited until I was sure he wasn’t going to pass out before I spoke to Sig. “After what Holden told you about my experience with the fairy king, and the number of years you’ve known me…can you honestly expect me to be able to flip a coin and decide which one of you gets to take my life? This isn’t a one-or-the-other question. This isn’t something you can expect me to agree to on the spot. If you think I’m going to say, ‘oh yes, Sig, please bite me right now’ you have got another thing coming.”

“So you pick me, then,” Sig replied.

“You have honed some incredibly selective hearing over two thousand years, do you know that?”

“I do.”

“No one is biting me.”

“You too have chosen to hear me as you see fit, if you understood this as being optional.”

“You’re asking me to give up my life.”

“Certainly you haven’t gotten terribly attached to it in less than twenty-four hours. Let’s be realistic here.”

“It’s my life.”

“No. It is a romantic view of an idealized outcome. You think by being human you will be able to have a normal life. You don’t have the luxury of a normal life. Not now, not ever. You sacrificed that right when you wed a werewolf king and sat on a vampire throne.”

“The Tribunal spot wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“If our lives were only about what we wanted, everyone would have perfect love, millions of dollars and no complaints. You cannot be so foolish to believe you can have things the way you like them all the time. You have responsibilities.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“I think you let passion lead you when it suits, and pragmatism takes charge only when absolutely necessary.”

I slapped him.

It hurt. Way more than an open-palm slap should. But I’d put real force into it, and slapping a vampire when you’re a mere mortal is a terrible idea under any circumstances. “Don’t you dare pretend like you know what I’ve had to think about today. You can’t possibly know.”

My slap did nothing to impact Sig’s mood. He remained serious, but there was no rage in him. “I am not trying to be cruel to you. I know this isn’t what you hoped for, but your life is not yours alone. If you do not do what I am suggesting, then your death will come at the hands of someone else, and there will be no coming back from that death. I’m doing this to save your life, not to punish you for having it.”