Bones nestled against me, kissing the spot on my neck he’d bitten, we’d bitten, whatever. Hell if I knew the proper way to describe it.
“It was incredible,” I settled on saying softly. “I can’t even begin to articulate how much. Although technically, I just had sex with another woman, even if it was me.”
He gave a sinful chuckle and began to unwind the sheet. “And you said you’d never have a threesome.”
“That’s as close as it comes, Bones,” I said without anger. My body was too languorous for that. I’d actually been inside his skin, closer than I ever thought to be. Astonishing. “How often can that, um, be done? Is there a burnout factor? You were leaking power like a ruptured oil tanker—it must have cost you something.”
Bones successfully got rid of the cotton barrier separating us. He began to caress me as he answered. “Cost a bit, Kitten. Everything worthwhile does, right? I’d say at a guess without it affecting me unduly… twice a month?”
“Really?” I mulled the response, stretching under those probing hands. He closed the distance between us.
“You know,” I murmured as his head lowered to my breast, “I heard some of those things as you thought them. You have a very dirty mind, Bones. Just depraved.”
He smiled against my skin. “Absolutely. What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you? Now let me prove it once again, Kitten.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Belinda Gets Fired
Author’s note: In At Grave’s End, Belinda gets killed after a calamitous sting operation at Chuck E. Cheese’s. In the original version, the Chuck E. Cheese’s scene never happened, and thus Belinda died very differently. In both versions, however, Belinda has brief contact with another vampire and tells him the exact date and time that Tate was going to be changed over, giving Max the information he needed to attack Cat when Bones and her team would be occupied. In the published version, Cat killed Belinda before they had to chance to discover that. In this version, Belinda deliberately goads Cat with some very explicit recollections, but the end result is the same.
Two weeks later, we strolled back into the Virginia compound. If I weren’t so afraid of the word perfect, it would be what I used to describe our honeymoon.
We had originally intended to spend a week at our home in the Blue Ridge and then go to Jackson Hole, but an extended snowstorm nixed our travel plans. I could honestly say I didn’t care. We toasted marshmallows, made snowmen, had a freezing version of a strip snowball fight and spent hours in our outdoor hot tub. The house was stocked well with food, and we only ventured out a few times for Bones to feed. He didn’t want to only take blood from me for practical reasons, and a couple of flashes from his eyes later and the gas station attendants were unaware of their contribution to his appetite.
The time passed too quickly. I hadn’t even spoken to anyone from work. They’d been given strict instructions not to bother us unless there was a serious emergency. Since there had been no calls, I assumed all must have been well.
Don looked up from his computer as we came in his office. Instead of taking my usual seat in the chair opposite him, I sat on the couch with Bones. Obnoxious maybe, but I couldn’t stop touching him yet. Maybe in another couple of weeks.
Don cleared his throat. “You’re both looking well. It appears you had a nice honeymoon.”
“Very much so, old chap. Too short, of course. Were it not for our vampire-in-training, you wouldn’t have seen us for over a month.”
The intimate tone he used, combined with the light brush of his lips on my temple, made my uncle shift in his chair. Open affection between me and a vampire never failed to unsettle Don. I put him out of his misery by changing the subject.
“Did anything noteworthy go on while we were gone?”
Don started tugging his eyebrow. Oh, so there had been activity. “We had some incidents locally,” he began. “A disturbance at a restaurant that serves vampires. Apparently you knew about this place, Cat, and didn’t bother to enlighten me.”
I shrugged off the accusation in his tone. Before Bones, Don had had a pretty stringent policy when it came to vampires. See ’em, kill ’em, find out later if they were being naughty. I had my own way of handling things. If the vampires didn’t hurt humans, I didn’t hurt them, hence my relaxed attitude about the places they frequented where bodies didn’t turn up.
“What restaurant?”
That earned me a dirty look. “How many of them are there? Aren’t you concerned about a large number of vampires congregating in the city when your mother lives?”
“Bloody hell, mate, vampires and ghouls are everywhere,” Bones interjected. “Roughly ten percent of the population is undead. Going to have her try to hack her way through all of them?”
Don blanched at the statistic but returned to the subject. “The place was Arturo’s, an Italian restaurant where they served blood side by side with the red wine, it seems. Some humans who were there called 911, and since we monitor those calls for supernatural content, we sent a team.”
“Who went?” I hated it when my team went anywhere without me. Although Dave was great at filling my shoes, being undead and all, protective instincts died hard. No pun intended.
“Dave, Tate, Angus, and Belinda. We brought her to give a low profile since she’s a vampire. Cooper stayed nearby with more soldiers for backup, and only those four went inside. As it turned out, it was just a couple of vamps being very indiscreet by feeding off their playthings at a table, and the sight of that naturally freaked the other humans out. The owner of the restaurant apologized profusely and swore that nothing like that had happened before. He even mentioned you, Cat. Said you’d been there and you knew the place was okay. You can imagine how much I liked hearing that.”
His reproachful tone made me squirm, and then I took the offensive. “They have great lasagna, so what? No one else knew who I was. The owner guessed because of my frigging hair and skin. I didn’t go back, and that was a year ago! They didn’t let their clientele get rowdy, so why should I have called in the troops?”
Don twisted his lips. “That’s not all there is to the story. Belinda vanished for about ten minutes until Dave sniffed her out. She didn’t try to run, which surprises me, but she did have, ah, contact with another vampire before she was discovered. We have her in lockdown now.”
I didn’t get it at first, but Bones did. He gave a short bark of laughter. “So you caught her shagging the first undead sod she came across, did you? Undisciplined chit. Doesn’t say much for the rest of them, to let her wander so off her leash.”
“That little slut,” I muttered.
Don nodded. “As I said, she’s been confined to her cell since then, blood allotment decreased by fifty percent. I was waiting further decision on her punishment until you returned, Cat. Nothing else out of the ordinary has happened. The restaurant remains open, but it’s being monitored now.”
“Was Belinda questioned when she was brought back? What about the vampire she was nailing, was he checked for any weapons?”
My uncle shook his head in frustration. “She was questioned, yes, and also searched, but nothing was found. The vampire she consorted with managed to run away, as the team was more concerned with securing Belinda. We’ve watched the restaurant, but he hasn’t returned since. Belinda claims never to have seen him before. According to her, she wasn’t being particular.”
Bones stood. “We should talk to her, Kitten. Find out if there’s more.”
I stood as well. “What a good idea.”
***
In place of a warm hello, Tate, Dave, and Angus all received stinging rebukes from me for letting Belinda out of their sight. Even though she’d done nothing more than screw around, the point was that she could have. Since she’d behaved while training the men and had gone on a few missions without incident, they’d dropped their guard. Forgotten how dangerous she was. I never forgot. After all, she had once tried to kill me.
The vampire cel
ls were on the fourth sublevel, the most heavily guarded area of the compound. We’d once housed four of them; now there was only her. The others became unnecessary after Bones began to supply Don with blood for Brams. Belinda was a training toy, and we didn’t need more than one of those.
Bones lounged in the doorway as the reinforced metal doors were opened. A silver blade dangled from in his hands. I smiled at her as I entered the small room.
“Did you miss me, Belinda? You must have. I heard you were so lonely you snuck away for comfort while on a mission. Now tell me, whatever did you and that other vamp talk about?”
Her cornflower-blue eyes glowered at me, and she tossed her fair hair over her shoulder. “We didn’t talk, as I told your other goons. You’ve had me locked up here for over a year, Cat. I deserved a little fun. I didn’t try to run away, I knew he’d just hunt me down and stake me.”
The “he” in question stared at her. “Why, sweet, that’s the first intelligent thing I’ve heard you say. You’re quite right, and I would have been horribly displeased about your interrupting my honeymoon. It would have taken me weeks to finish killing you.”
The flatness in his voice sent a shiver up my spine. This was a side of Bones I didn’t see very often. From his expression, he’d meant exactly what said.
“Oh, so you’re married now?” She flicked her gaze between the two of us. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks, I know you really mean it,” I growled. “Back to the question, and don’t give me that wide-eyed little-girl look. Who was the unlucky schmuck, and what did you say?”
“What did we say? Word for word? Well, it went something like this: ‘Hurry up and fuck me before these idiots notice I’m gone. Um, oh, yes, mmm, harder, ah…’”
Her mocking grunts continued until I slapped her.
“You asked,” she snapped.
“You’d better cease the grunting, Belinda, and be more helpful,” Bones warned her.
She blinked at him. “You liked hearing it before, remember? You know, your face looked so much better when I was sitting on it.”
I threw her across the room with such force I heard multiple bones break. Belinda managed to give a strained chuckle even as she huddled in pain.
“Do you know how the four of us fucked him back then?” she grated. “One on his cock and one on his face, and then we just kept switching—”
A gurgle interrupted anything else she’d been about to say. Belinda had the strangest look on her face as she stared at the twin knives protruding from her chest. I hadn’t seen Bones throw them, but they were buried so deeply in Belinda’s sternum that their hilts were past her rib cage. Then Belinda’s pretty features began to shrink, wrinkle, and shrivel. She tilted over, withering more with each passing second.
Bones came behind me and gripped my shoulders. “Bugger,” he said softly. “I should have asked her more questions first. Lost my temper, Kitten, I apologize.”
I was still transfixed by the sight of Belinda withering in front of me, not to mention the images she’d inserted into my mind with her words.
“I can smell your anger,” Bones went on. “Is it at me for killing her, or at her for what she said?”
“At her,” I breathed. “I don’t care that you killed her. In fact, I’m pretty pleased about it. I doubt she told the other vampire anything useful. My location is random, my identity has been common knowledge since Ian’s, and this compound is too big for Max or anyone else to try to wage an assault against it.”
Finally I looked up and met Bones’s gaze. “I’ll get over the rest of it. While I didn’t need her giving me a mental picture, it’s in the past. I can’t walk around all the time being pissed at things you did before meeting me, can I?”
He kissed my palm. “I’d take them all back, Kitten, if I could.”
Juan picked that moment to walk by. He took in the sight of Bones and me standing over Belinda’s mummifying corpse, and his eyes widened.
“What the hell happened here?” he asked in astonishment.
I brushed the hair from my face. “Belinda just got fired.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bones Realizes Cat Almost “Jumped”
Author’s note: This is more of a snippet than an actual scene, but I’m including it because many readers who previously saw it on my website said that they really liked what Bones said to Cat. Because of that, I deeply regret not including it in the published version of At Grave’s End. At the time, I thought I had too many emotional statements already, and I didn’t want to venture into purple prose or cheesy territory, so I left it out. In hindsight, that was a mistake. Emotions should be on overload when you realize you almost lost the person you love most, and I’ve tried to remember that when I write the rest of my stories. For context, I’ve included a few sentences of the published version, which starts when Cat and Bones are finally alone after Bones returns from the “dead.”
“Your body aged almost to the point of truly dying. That’s why your hair’s white, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I expect so.”
It hit me then, staring at his unlined, beautiful face and that stark white hair framing it, that neither of us should be alive. He’d almost been killed by a knife in his heart, and add one more step on a rocky ledge for me, and Bones would have returned to my body being broken beyond revival.
His hands closed around my face, and his whole body stiffened. “What is this you’re remembering?”
I let the memory come, restricting none of it, hearing once again Vlad’s pitiless admonishments and the final question that saved my life. What are you?
Bones let out a cry and clutched me to him. Pink liquid streamed from his eyes, matching my own tears in volume if not in color.
“If I would have come back to that, Kitten, it would have killed me more certainly than any silver in my heart. Promise me, promise me, promise me you will never do such a thing. If I die, I will wait for you, do you understand? No matter how long. I will watch from beyond to make sure you live every year you have to its fullest, and then we’ll have so much to talk about when I see you again… Promise me right now, Catherine!”
I held him back just as tightly even as I choked out a laugh. “Did you miss that part? My name isn’t Catherine. It’s Cat.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Original Beginning of Destined for an Early Grave
Author’s note: This is the original beginning of Destined for an Early Grave, cut to get to the main plot point of Cat’s dreams sooner. It was also set about a month before Cat and Bones take their boat trip and features Cat and Bones’s first meeting with Geri, the woman who ended up replacing Cat as “bait” on Don’s team. This was an enjoyable scene to write because I got to show Cat and Bones having a little fun with the new recruit. As I’ve said before, a lot of the “just for fun” scenes got cut in the name of pacing, but it wasn’t all blood, danger, jealousy, and despair at Cat’s former job, and this scene gets to showcase some of the lighter moments between Cat, Bones, and her team. Even Denise came to help out, and as you can see, Denise had a great time moonlighting as a temporary team member.
The blonde sat at the bar, her finger tapping against the rim of her glass. She was drinking scotch and soda, easy on the scotch. The soda was diet. Even the thought of its taste made me grimace. I favored gin and tonics myself.
She kept glancing at the man across the bar. His hair was dirty-blond with dark roots, and underneath the illumination of the strobes, the lighter tips gleamed. So did his skin with its pale crystal texture. His eyes were in stark contrast to his coloring, as were his brows. Both were a brown so deep they could be mistaken for black.
From my position overlooking the bar, I gave an inward smile. Gorgeous, isn’t he? Go on, keep checking out those high cheekbones and those nice broad shoulders. If you like all that, just wait until you see his ass.
A beautiful woman with strawberry-blond hair came down the staircase and went straight over to the blond
man.
“Tell me you’re straight, horny, and want to dance,” she said with an upper-crust English accent. “After that, conversation is optional.”
I shouldn’t have been able to hear her with all the people, blaring music, and distance. But her words were as clear to me as if they’d been spoken in my ear. Being half-vampire had its advantages.
The man’s lips curled in amusement, making him even more attractive. “Yes to all the above, luv,” he replied in a matching English accent.
The blonde at the bar watched them and her mouth thinned. She paid her tab, keeping her eye on the couple as they made their way into the throng of dancers. The man spun the woman around, moving with a prowling grace, all leashed energy and sexiness contained in a lean, rock-hard package. Next to him, everyone else looked clumsy by comparison.
The blonde from the bar marched over, maneuvering her way through the other dancers.
“Can I cut in?” she asked bluntly, giving the other woman an unfriendly look.
“Why?” the man asked in a casual, cool tone. “What can you offer me that this lovely woman can’t?”
The blonde balked. “Um, well… I can, er—”
“I’m already bored,” he said, cutting her off. “Run along.”
His dancing partner laughed. “Carry on.” She smirked.
The man turned his back and continued dancing, leaving the blonde to gaze at him in disbelief before she walked away with brisk, angry strides.
“Asshole,” I heard her mutter.
After a few minutes, I watched the couple make their way from the dance floor to the back exit. The blond woman watched, too, and almost shoved people out of her way to follow. I followed as well, but more discreetly, taking the long way around.