Free Her Secret by Tara Fox Hall

Danial you’ll call him back, or lose
your meal.”
    “I’ve got to go eat,” he said into the
receiver. “If anything happens, I’ll report it.” He closed his
phone with a click, then joined me at the table. “Thanks for making
this. You didn’t have to.”
    “It’s no big deal making two instead of
one.”
    “Look, I can scent your irritation. Please
forget what I said earlier. It wasn’t my place.”
    Damn right it wasn’t . “I was just
surprised.”
    He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
    “You don’t like Devlin, do you? The
hostage-taking aside, of course.”
    “Like doesn’t come into my work
relations.”
    “Okay, why work for him in the first
place?”
    Brian sighed. “I should have checked into his
background better before going to work for him. I was in love with
Demi, and I wanted to protect her. He was the biggest name in the
U.S. to work for then, the most feared with the best pay. At first,
it was great.” He ate another bite of sandwich, and then continued.
“Demi was safe at his estate, and I was around most of the time,
when I wasn’t off driving for him. She and I were both happy,
pretty much right up until the time he first asked me to apply for
a job here, and told me the reason he was asking.”
    “Is that what you did for him? You were a
driver?” He’d shown too much compassion for Erin the night Manir
attacked to be a professional bodyguard.
    “Pretty much. I didn’t have enough experience
for anything beyond that.” His smile faded. “Devlin wanted me to
get some, though,” he added grimly.
    “Doesn’t he have enough other people working
for him that are willing to get their hands bloody?” I asked
sarcastically.
    “He has mostly grizzly weres working for him,
because that’s his emblem. But he has others, too, and no, they’re
not afraid to get their hands dirty.”
    The way he said “others” made me think these
weren’t humans or weres. “What others?”
    Brian looked away. “He has a demon working
for him. A full one, not half like Terian. That evil feeling is
present all the time around him. And he has a sorceress, too,” he
continued. “She can be worse than the demon, when she gets her mind
to it.”
    “Worse than a demon how?”
    Brian didn’t answer, just met my eyes for a
moment and dropped them again.
    Oiy . “Which is his second in command?”
I asked, curious.
    “Neither,” Brian said, visibly
uncomfortable.
    “Then who is?”
    “I’m not going to talk about him,” Brian said
flatly. “You can count yourself lucky if you never meet him.”
    Okay, moving on immediately. “So Demi is okay
now?”
    “She’s settling in. Everyone’s been really
friendly, which helps. The sorceress, Leri, was the only woman at
Devlin’s estate, and she wasn’t.”
    “That couldn’t be accident, so what’s the
reason? Does Devlin not trust women as guards?”
    “Devlin likes women, but he prefers them in
his bed, as you know.” I flushed to my toes, and he continued.
“It’s because of the demon and his witch. Leri’s very jealous of
other women. Vince, one of the other werebears, once said that
Titus put up with Leri only because she was the only woman who
would tolerate his evil nature.”
    I cleared the dishes. “So none stay because
they’re either scared of him or her?”
    “Pretty much, Sarelle.”
    “Brian, why don’t you call me Sar?” I said,
loading the dishwasher. “We’ve fought off attacks and you saved my
life. It’s odd to hear you keep saying my full name. ”
    “Devlin said if I ever called you Sar in
front of him, he’d have my pelt,” Brian replied. “It’s habit
now.”
    His tone made the double meaning obvious. “He
thinks what happened with Theo and I could happen with you and me?”
I said neutrally.
    Brian shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to him
that I’m happily married to Demi, or that we’ve always treated each
other professionally. He said I’d better always think of you as
Sarelle, or