Free Secret Unleashed: Secret McQueen, Book 6 by Sierra Dean Page B

stay in Los Angeles, and I do hope if you have any needs or requests, you won’t hesitate to approach me with them. I sincerely apologize, as well, for treating you in such a common manner earlier. I beg your forgiveness.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    Evidently he was worried because he continued to gnaw at his lip. He didn’t feel old to me, ignoring the youthful mask of his appearance. “Are you quite certain I cannot make amends in some way?”
    “Really, Maxime, it’s fine. I’m used to much stranger responses than that. No apologies necessary.”
    If he’d been breathing, he might have let out a sigh of relief, but his shift in demeanor was obvious nonetheless. His expression softened, and a smile curved his cupid’s-bow lips upwards.
    “How old are you?” I asked him.
    “One hundred and seventy-three.”
    He would have been turned sometime in the mid-1800s, not long after Holden had been. And he was French, and beautiful, and assigned to me. My own tentative smile faltered.
    “Who is your maker?” I’d been told once by Sig it was common practice for Tribunal Leaders and Council Elders to send their progeny far away to avoid conflicts of interest. I had a feeling I knew exactly whose spawn was my new man-in-waiting.
    “Rebecca Archambault.”
    My jaw clenched, and I gritted my teeth, biting back a growl. “Well then, Maxime, you can do me a favor.”
    “Yes, of course. Anything.”
    “Tell me where your brother is.”
     
     
    Maxime guided me to a set of oak doors not unlike those leading to the subterranean Tribunal chamber in New York. He bowed again—something he had a lot of practice with it seemed—and scurried away before I had a chance to go in.
    The uneasy feeling I had still lingered, making me wary to waltz into any unfamiliar rooms, but since I was in a city I’d never been to, all the rooms would be unfamiliar. I didn’t bother knocking because I figured anyone inside would have heard me coming, and why give them any extra heads up if they meant me harm?
    From what I’d gathered during my short chat with Maxime, I was likely at the West Coast council headquarters, but he hadn’t said anything during our walk to confirm my suspicions a hundred percent, and I hadn’t outright asked. If we were where I suspected we were, I was going to sound like an idiot for asking, and idiocy wasn’t the impression Sig wanted me to make.
    I opened the doors and stepped backwards rather than straight into the room. When nothing fired at me and no one lunged to attack, I decided it was safe to continue and went in with my head held high, projecting an air of authority I didn’t necessarily feel.
    “You look well rested.” It was Holden’s voice, but I couldn’t find the man to match it.
    I scanned the room and took in my surroundings as I searched for him. The space wasn’t at all what I expected from a vampire stronghold. For one thing, the floor-to-ceiling windows were out of step with protecting vampire safety.
    The massive space reminded me a great deal of the top floor in Lucas’s penthouse, where one half of the entire area was dedicated to a big lounge-style living room with an unbeatable view of New York. Only here the view wasn’t of my beloved hometown, it was the glittery oasis of Los Angeles.
    We must have been outside of the L.A. city limits because I could see most of the city sprawled out before us like a carpet of stars. What New York had in height, L.A. had in distance, spreading wider than I could see without shifting my position.
    I hadn’t expected to like L.A.—that was the snobby New Yorker in me—but there was something beautiful about it, lit up orange in the early night sky. What I didn’t enjoy was discovering we weren’t in the city proper. Judging from the vantage point, I gathered we had to be up in the Hollywood Hills somewhere, and my extensive research with Us magazine told me that would put our neighbors at a distance.
    Far enough away it would be