A rude snort came from me. “After seeing pictures, then Fabian’s report, Cannelle’s reminiscing, and hearing you admit it that night Geri pulled you out of New Orleans, yeah. I do.”
His gaze felt like it was drilling into the back of my head. “You saw pictures of me entering my home with women, but you didn’t see what happened once the door shut. I’d gone to New Orleans under the pretense that I was celebrating my bachelorhood, hoping Gregor would take the bait. He did. Even sent Cannelle there, as if I were too stupid not to smell him on her. It was easy to drink her blood and convince her to report back to Gregor that I was defenseless in my debauchery. By the time Fabian confronted me, several of Gregor’s spies were around. What was I supposed to say to him?”
My mind reeled. “But I heard you. You told Cannelle she’d picked all the women the two of you had fucked together!”
“And she believed that,” Bones replied. “I let her pick a new human girl each night to take back to my house. Then I drank the pair of them into insensibility and had them wake up naked together. It was a simple deception. I know what it would have looked like to you, Kitten, but you should have let me explain what it was, instead of going off with Tepesh.”
My emotions warred with my suspicion. I mean, what woman, after everything I’d seen and heard, would believe it was all an elaborate charade, and her lover had been only fake cheating?
“But you left me.” I couldn’t keep the pain out of my voice. “You said you were through.”
Bones sighed. “I went mad when I discovered you’d gone to Gregor. Didn’t know if you’d choose to stay with him out of love, or you’d be forced to—and neither idea made me rational. By the time you’d returned, I still hadn’t gotten control of myself. One of the reasons I left was because if I didn’t, I’d have said more things I regretted. Then I went to New Orleans to end this issue with Gregor, intending to sort things out with you afterward, but you jumped the gun.” Again, his tone implied.
“By rescuing you?”
He gave me an exasperated look. “Did you forget I could fly? Gregor knew that. So did Marie. She wanted me to slaughter Gregor, so she told Gregor she intended to force me from the Quarter, knowing full well Gregor would realize either he had to come in and get me or I’d fly out to safety. But you sent your old team after me, which Gregor would have soon been alerted to no matter how covert they were. I knew they’d get themselves killed if I resisted and gave Gregor time to storm in, so I let them take me. But it ruined my plan.”
Bones didn’t say the other, obvious word: Again. Oh shit. If a hole had appeared in the ground, I’d have gladly crawled into it. Spade’s right, you are an idiot. With a capital I.
My mental flogging must have gotten through to him, because he said, “You’re not an idiot. Charles told me he dragged you into it, though he of all people should have known better. Still, he’d have said trapping Gregor alone was too risky, which is why I didn’t tell him about it.”
“You must hate me,” I said with a groan. “That’s twice I’ve fucked things up while thinking I was helping.”
His brow arched. “Three times, actually. You also left me to go off with Don, thinking you were helping me. I thought all of these showed your lack of respect for me by not letting me fight my own battles, but I’ve come to realize you can’t help yourself. It’s who you are. You will never sit and wait for the outcome of a fight involving someone you love before throwing yourself into the mix, no matter how you might promise to change.”
His words were like a knife in my heart. This is why he left, my conscience taunted me. You’d like to think it was just so he could fuck around, because then it would be his fault, not yours. But it was you. Bones is right; you’ll never change. And no one in their right mind would put up with you.
Saying I was sorry was useless. More than useless—insulting, considering everything that had happened. So I did the only thing I could do to show how much I wished things were different. I dropped my shields, opening my mind to let Bones hear everything I was feeling, stripping myself naked of all the things I normally used to rationalize my actions.
He closed his eyes. A ripple went through him, as if my thoughts struck him like a physical blow. Once freed of the tight restraint I kept on them, everything seemed to tumble out of me, with long-hidden emotions frothing to the surface.
“Kitten,” he murmured.
“I just wanted you to know I understand.” The lump in my throat made it hard to speak. “You gave it your best, Bones. I’m the one who trashed things.”
His eyes opened. “No. It was my insistence in taking Gregor on alone that caused our separation. I could have told you it was a trap before putting you into that panic room. I could have told you about New Orleans and had you take those pills, so Gregor couldn’t learn it from your dreams. But I wanted to handle everything myself. My pride and my jealousy drove us apart. Every mistake you’ve made with me, Kitten, I’ve made the same with you, but I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I don’t want to talk at all.”
He drew down his zipper even as I blinked in shock. “After all this, you still want to sleep with me?”
Bones slid out of his pants. He didn’t have anything on under them, as usual.
“After all this, I still love you.”
That stunned me into silence. Then I spoke the first words that came into my mind.
“You must be crazy.”
He laughed, soft and wry. “It was your brash bravery that made me fall in love with you in the first place. Even though the same thing drives me mad now, I probably wouldn’t love you if you were different than the way you are.”
I wanted so badly to believe that love could conquer all. That Bones and I could make things work based on sheer feelings alone, but life wasn’t that easy.
“If neither of us can change,” I said, my heart squeezing, “sooner or later, we’ll drive each other away again.”
He put a knee on the bed. “You’re right—we won’t change. I’ll always want to protect you, and I will get insanely brassed off when I can’t. You’ll always jump into the fire for me, no matter how much I want you to stay safe on the sidelines. We’ll have to constantly battle our own natures to make this work. Are you willing to take that chance?”
When I started dating Bones over six years ago, I knew a relationship with him would break my heart. It had, more than once, and Bones wasn’t offering assurances that it wouldn’t this time, either. Yet just like back then, I couldn’t resist him.
“Playing it safe is for chickens,” I whispered.
He crouched on the bed, all curved sinews and pale hard flesh. Then he leaned forward, taking the time to drag his mouth from my stomach to my neck. My nipples hardened, need clenched in my belly, and I arched toward him.
His mouth slanted over mine as he gathered me in his arms. Feeling his naked body on top of me blew my control apart. My skin tingled everywhere his flesh made contact. I couldn’t get close enough to him, and I kicked the covers away. Bones kissed me like he was drowning, his tongue raking mine while he continued to rub sensually against me, stroking me without entering, touching me everywhere and all at once.
I ran my hands over him as well, moaning into his mouth. My need was almost painful when he pushed his fingers into me, finding my most sensitive spot and rubbing it intensely. I began to claw at his back. Tears leaked from my eyes. The ecstasy built to a tremendous level, straining against my skin, until I tore my mouth from his.
“God, Bones, yes!”
It was a sob and a scream combined. He responded by flipping me on top of him, lifting me in the same motion, and burying his mouth between my legs.
I convulsed at once, the spasms shaking me. His arms clamped around my waist while he tongued my flesh and sucked without fangs, as if he were drinking my pleasure into him. I clutched his head, shuddering, as the last remaining waves rippled over me.
Bones set me back against the mattress without breaking contact
with his mouth. I was still panting from the orgasm and now half-sagged on the pillows. He lifted his head, his gaze pinning mine as he crawled upward toward me.
“Look at me,” he said, lowering his hips between mine.
I did, opening my thighs and arching to meet his first thrust. Oh God, I’d forgotten how Bones stretched me when I wasn’t used to him. His hardness pushed against my walls, filling me so deeply, I felt tears in my eyes. Yes. Yes. I’ve needed you like this.
“Harder.”
Moaned when he began to move gently in me, but I didn’t want gentleness. I wanted what I knew he had lurking past his concerns for being tender.
He moved with more force and kissed me, his eyes still open. I didn’t close mine, either. Seeing his face while he was inside me overwhelmed me. I grabbed his hair, locked my gaze to his, and kissed him until I had to break away to breathe.
“I can taste myself on your mouth,” I panted. “I want you to taste yourself on mine. I want to suck you, swallow you when you come—”
“Stop talking like that, or I’m going to come right now.” His hands flexed on my hips, holding me tighter. He was close. I could feel it in the way he held me and in those tempered, measured thrusts that devastated me with passion. His nearness to orgasm filled me with erotic purpose, making me want to bring him over the edge.
I ground myself against him, crying out at how good that felt. “More. Take me harder.”
He unleashed his restraint, leaving me gasping at the blinding concentration of sensations. It hurt in the sweetest way, causing me to strain toward him even as I cried out at his rough, rapid strokes. When he reached his climax, he threw me against the headboard and shouted with rapture, his whole body trembling. I clung to him, shaking also, my heart beating fast enough to explode.
After several seconds, Bones unglued me from himself—and the headboard—to lay me back on the bed. “Bloody hell, Kitten, are you all right?”
If I hadn’t still been gasping, his concern over my assumed injury would have made me laugh. “Come back here.”
I pulled him down from his hover until he was on top of me once more. He balanced his weight, his free hand sliding to my head as I moved lower to suck his nipple.
He tasted like salt, but that was probably from my sweat. His hand tangled in my hair as he pressed me closer, a deep groan coming from his throat.
“I’ll be gentler this time, but I need you again now.”
I bit him, feeling him shudder. Yeah, he liked that. So did I, and right now I couldn’t stop touching him or tasting him.
“Don’t be gentle. I love it when you lose control. I want you to lose it again.”
I slid lower, tasting the part of him that was salty with something other than sweat. My lips wrapped around him, taking him into my mouth until he overflowed it, then moaning as he twisted position to reciprocate.
Everything blurred into a haze of skin, lips, tongues, and hard flesh. My need grew the more he fed it, and he kept feeding it. After what seemed like an hour, I squinted over his shoulder at the light intruding into the room.
“Did you turn on a lamp?” I gasped, wondering when he would have done that.
Bones craned his neck, squinting also at the new shaft of light coming from the corner.
“That can’t be,” he muttered.
“What?” I asked as he jumped from the bed.
More light came in when Bones tugged back what I now noticed was a curtain. He turned to me and raised his brow.
“It’s the sun.”
It couldn’t be morning already. But the proof was there with those yellow rays illuminating the front of him.
Bones stared at me before closing the drapes with a snap. “I don’t care,” he said, getting back into bed. “Now then, where were we?”
TWENTY-SEVEN
YOU WHORE!”
The first punch rocked me back before I even registered who’d thrown it. Another one came, then another. I tried to defend myself, but my arms weren’t moving. Neither were my legs. It took me a second to realize why. They were bolted to the floor. Gregor knelt next to me, beating me without mercy.
“You’ll be sorry for this,” I got out as soon as he paused.
“You threaten me?” A brutal punch to my stomach doubled me over as much as the metal clamps would allow. Goddamn, who ever said you couldn’t feel pain in dreams? “I am your husband, even though you don’t deserve to call me that, you traitorous bitch!”
Suddenly the punches stopped, and Gregor caressed my cheek. “Chérie, why do you do this? Why do you persist in angering me? You know I must punish you for your adultery, but it pains me to do so.”
I managed to laugh even through the pain. “Oh sure. This hurts you more than me, huh? You are the world’s biggest asshole, Gregor.”
“You will do as I say!” That false sweetness was gone. He was back to whacking me with every other word. “You will return to me right now, or you will wish you had.”
“Go ahead. Show me everything you’ve got! I’ve been beaten and tortured before, but with you, it all goes away as soon as I open my eyes. You don’t scare me, Gregor.”
He seized my hair, yanking it so hard I felt clumps pull out. “If you let him turn you into a vampire,” he hissed, “I will make sure you suffer. Do you understand me?”
I stared at him. “When I was sixteen, I used to care about you. When I first got my memory back, a little part of me still did. Now, however, as God is my witness, I swear I will put you in the ground. Do you understand me?”
He hit me so hard everything went black, but his temper was to my advantage, because it knocked me right back into reality. I heard an anxious voice.
“Kitten, wake up!”
Bones was shaking me. My cheek stung faintly, and I knew it wasn’t residual pain from Gregor’s fists. Bones had been doing more than shaking me.
“Stop that, I’ve had enough of being beaten,” I muttered, trying to brush his hands away.
He didn’t let go, but he did stop shaking me. “He was beating you? You were crying out in your sleep because he was striking you?”
I sat up, pulling the covers over me and trying to shake off the remnants of the dream. The phantom pains from it were dissipating with every second. “He was pissed.”
Bones growled low in his throat. His whole body was tense. “You only slept ’round an hour, but should you stay up? Or do you still have those pills? I can’t bear the thought of him abusing you if you fall asleep again.”
“No pills.” I grimaced at the memory of how they’d made me feel. “Gregor’s never come at me twice in one night—or day, I guess. I think it takes too much power for him to make a first attempt, and he needs time to rest up before his next one.
“He won’t get a next one,” Bones said in a grim voice.
No, because later tonight, I’d be turned into a vampire. That’s why Gregor had been so pissed. He knew he’d lose access to me once that happened. Bye, bye, Gregor. Hope you sleep tight. I know I will.
Bones kissed the top of my head. “Then try to go to sleep, luv. Soon this will be over.”
No, I thought. It won’t be over until I kill Gregor. And once I’m a vampire, I’ll be another step closer to doing that.
When I woke up again, Bones was gone. The curtains were still drawn, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was well after one. My last morning as a half-human had passed. This could be the earliest I’d be waking up for a few months after I became a new vampire, unless all those years being a half-breed would help shave time off that.
Now that the day had arrived, a twinge of nervousness wormed in me. What if changing over didn’t make me stronger but weaker, like I was starting from scratch? God, I’d hate to wake up afterward and find out I was a wimp. Furthermore, what did not breathing feel like? How would I handle never hearing my heart beat again? How long would my new bloodlust last? A few days, a week?
And what would it be like to no longer be the rare half-breed
but just be plain old Cat, the newbie vampire? Actually, that thought pleased me. Nothing unusual to see here, folks. Move along. Yeah, I’d wanted that my whole life.
The door opened, and Spade strode in. I snatched at the sheet, since I was still naked, and gave him an aggravated look.
“Don’t you know how to knock?”
“I heard you were awake,” Spade replied. “Here. Brought you breakfast, or I suppose lunch, considering the time.”
He set a tray down on a nearby table before giving me a wicked grin.
“I see you and Crispin resolved your differences. Indeed, the pair of you kept the whole house up last night.”
I closed my eyes. By now I should be over the embarrassment of having anyone with undead ears privy to hearing my intimate moments, but it looked like that still wasn’t beyond me.
“Hope I didn’t make you lose your beauty sleep, Spade.”
The acid in my voice didn’t dissuade him. He waved a hand.
“Not at all. Put Crispin in a better mood, I daresay. He’s been such a foul-tempered sod lately.”
Which brought up a question I’d been wondering. “Where is Bones?”
“Fetching Mencheres. Can’t tell you from where, of course, just in case you catch a nap before the big event tonight. He’ll be gone for hours.”
Oh. I understood, but I wished I’d seen him before he left. With how bad things had been between us, I was greedy for more time with Bones now that they were better.
“Thanks for bringing me breakfast,” I said.
“No trouble. Now I’m off to get my own breakfast.”
With Spade gone, I debated over what to do with myself for the next few hours. Eating and showering would only take up so much time. Maybe I should notify some people about what I was about to do.
I could call Denise. But then again, Denise didn’t need reminders about vampires in her life right now. After Randy’s brutal death, it had been too much for Denise to see Spade making a mess out of that man’s head at the rodeo bar. I’d tell Denise once it was over. That way she wouldn’t have to worry about something going wrong. Giving her one less thing to worry about sounded like the least I could do as her friend.