Read Online A Bloody Good Secret: Secret McQueen, Book 2 by Sierra Dean - Free Book Online Page A

nice-looking towns and small cities. These were the places people went to escape the bustle of the city. I don’t know why, but I’d assumed Lucas’s family mansion would be somewhere in the Hamptons. The more I considered it, though, the more ridiculous that option showed itself to be. If the mansion was where pack business was worked out, and where the pack went to meet on full moons, then having it on a tiny, overpopulated peninsula in Suffolk County was just about the stupidest idea ever.
    The mansion we pulled up to was as secluded as one could be within driving distance of New York City. It was a good fifteen minutes beyond the last house we’d seen, and twenty-five minutes or more since the last settlement anyone could call a town. Yet it still wasn’t at all what I’d expected.
    The house rested on top of a hill, and around it were acres of plain, sprawling lawn, interrupted only by meticulously landscaped English-style gardens. I guess I’d thought the getaway spot for a pack of werewolves would have more trees. Not that there was any shortage of woods surrounding the estate. It seemed like the entire lot across the highway from the mansion was nothing but forest. Yet the lawns of the giant mansion seemed to go on forever and offered nothing in the way of hiding spots.
    As if he’d read my mind, the driver said, “Wait until you see the back. He has a legitimate hedge maze back there.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Straight out of The Shining . It’s the craziest thing.”
    He pressed a button on the visor over his head and the huge wrought-iron gates swung open. Above each red brick pillar on either side of the driveway, a large stone gargoyle was perched, guarding the entrance to Lucas Rain’s kingdom. The town car followed the winding gravel driveway up the hill at a slow enough speed for me to marvel at Lucas’s home.
    The Rain mansion was incredible. It had the look and feel of an English Georgian-era manor home, with gray stone walls and dozens upon dozens of windows. There were none of the peaks and turrets I would have imagined a werewolf home to have. I guess, in my head, I’d pictured something a little more Gothic for the wolf king. It was still a grand home and big enough to suit a billionaire’s lifestyle.
    The car stopped outside the front doors, and the dutiful driver got out to open my door. With a tip of his cap—yes, he was actually wearing a driver’s cap and gloves—he got back in the car and drove off, leaving me standing at the foot of the entrance stairs wondering what to do next.
    I knocked on the front door, but after a long pause there was no reply so I let myself in, somewhat shocked to find the door unlocked. Inside, the house was dark and eerily quiet. I could see a few lights shining down each upstairs hallway but nothing else to indicate anyone was up there. The house’s interior was wide and spacious, and even in the dark I could tell it was decorated to feel inviting rather than stuffy.
    Somewhere in the rear of the house I heard a masculine voice and a loud, familiar laugh. My heart jumped at the sound of it. I passed through the kitchen and out onto a well-lit stone patio behind the house. There was a full kitchen set up outside as well, built from the same patinated stone as the rest of the patio. Sitting on one long section of counter, next to a built-in barbeque, was a large wooden serving slab that contained the evidence of a massive steak dinner. Wineglasses were scattered all over the patio, some still partially filled with a beautiful, deep red vintage. I was willing to bet this mansion had one hell of a wine cellar.
    Aside from the dinner layout and all the wineglasses, there was little else to indicate some sort of party had recently occurred. I followed a trail of lights down a stone path and past the hedge maze the driver had told me about. The walls loomed twelve feet high, and in the dark the maze was sinister looking. I heard the laugh again and was thankful