I looked to Holden for some backup confirmation the three of us couldn’t possibly travel together, but instead of agreeing with my nonverbal opinion, he shrugged. “Not the worst idea ever.”
“No. It is the worst idea ever.”
“Why? Me and the dog are getting along decently since we called the truce. I didn’t complain when you went to Paris without me, did I?”
“No.” He’d actually been pretty happy to get rid of me, I thought.
Holden went on, “And didn’t Desmond get incapacitated there? Putting you both at risk.”
My gaze darted from Holden to Sig. I didn’t like the way they were ganging up on me here. This felt rehearsed and unfair. “Did you two plan this?”
“Plan what?” Sig asked. “His arrival here with coffee? My foreknowledge of your intention to run off to Canada again?” He rolled his eyes. “Do not try to make conspiracies where there are only coincidences. You’ll make yourself crazy.”
“Well, isn’t that par for the course with your spawn?” I snapped.
I’d been avoiding this discussion long enough I almost thought I was over it. Having dealt with so many terrible things since discovering my connection to Sig, it had been the least of my worries. But apparently it was one more thing I’d been repressing, because now that I’d spit out the words, my anger at him was kicked into high gear.
Since Holden knew all about my situation with Sig, he didn’t seem shocked by the outburst. He sat beside me on the couch and quietly observed as I glared at the Tribunal leader.
“Now is not the time to talk about this,” Sig said.
“You lied to me. About my whole goddamn life.”
“I kept details of your lineage from you. Information you didn’t need to know.” The way he spoke was almost convincing. We hadn’t talked about our situation in person, only once over the phone. Being in the same room with him while we talked about him being my…
“What are you to me, can you tell me that much? Are you my grandfather? What?”
Sig laughed, and it spooked me. I jerked backwards in my seat, bumping against Holden. I hadn’t expected Sig to react like that, and the sudden joviality was too much for my nerves to handle.
“You want to discuss this now, Secret? In front of him?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” He shucked off his jacket and reclined in his chair. “But remember, you asked for it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I am not your grandfather,” Sig began, still chuckling at the notion. “Your mother’s father and your father’s father, those are your grandfathers. Nor am I your great-grandfather, which would actually be more accurate, since you’re basing your nomenclature on bloodlines.”
“Well my vampire great-grandfather, then. You sired my, uh, sire’s sire?”
“That word has now lost all meaning to me,” Holden muttered.
“Shush.”
“You are thinking of this in terms of human connections, Secret, and you mustn’t. You are not human. I am not human. Nothing about this can be contained within the confines of the romantic notion of family. That is how you’re trying to understand it, is it not?”
He was making me sound childish. “I need to know what you are to me, and what I am to you.”
“But our connection has remained unchanged this whole time. I was once the leader who commanded you. Now you are my… Now you sit at my side.” Even he couldn’t quite bring himself to call me his equal.
“Things aren’t the same, though. You’ve known this whole time we shared blood, yet you never told me.”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”