He took her hand. “None of this is easy. Pretending otherwise is an exercise in futility.”

  She said nothing. Just squeezed his hand and stared at him as if trying to memorize every line of his face. Bones raised her hand and kissed it, frowning when she pulled away.

  “What is it?”

  “You,” she said, her laughter harshening. “You shouldn’t have done it.”

  His brows rose. “What? Agreed to be on your team?”

  “Searched for me for so long.” Now, her voice dropped to a whisper. “I sure as hell didn’t deserve it.”

  He grasped her hand again, holding on when she tried to pull away. “Kitten, what is this?”

  She blinked hard, but that didn’t stop her eyes from welling with tears. “I left you. Worse, then I never contacted you because I thought I was being heroic, but it turns out I was only being an idiot because Don just did everything you wanted him to do, so I left you for nothing. How can you forgive that?”

  “Kitten-”

  She was suddenly across the room. She’d moved quicker than he’d anticipated, or maybe, she was faster than he realized.

  “The guys think I risk my life over and over because I’m brave.” Her derisive laugh ended in a choked sob. “They don’t know that I wanted to die. I kept trying to get on with my life without you, but it hurt too much, and the only thing worse than the days were the nights. I hated going to sleep because I knew I would dream about you, and then I hated waking up because the pain would hit me all over again as soon as I opened my eyes, and you weren’t there.”

  Bones closed his own eyes at that. Oh, how he knew that pain. He and it were old friends.

  “Kitten,” he tried again.

  “Don’t,” she said with such force, his gaze snapped open. She held out her hands as if to ward him off as she paced.

  “You went incredibly out of your way to bring me the truth today, so let me be truthful with you. I wanted to die, and with this job, I kept thinking it would happen, but you trained me too well. None of the fanged fuckers I took on were able to kill me, so I kept going, and I told myself at least this way, I was doing something useful. Then, a few months ago, I tried setting Denise up with Noah, and she ended up setting me up with him instead. I knew it was hopeless, but I started dating him anyway because I was so tired of hurting all the time. I’d tried every other way to forget you, so I figured…why not this one?”

  It was so close to his reasons for his colossal mistake with Annette that the weight of the memory nearly crushed him.

  “Go on,” he said in a hoarse voice.

  She swiped at the tears that leaked out despite her rapid blinks. “You know how that turned out, but I told myself at least I was trying. So, I kept trying…right up until I saw you at that altar. I wanted to leap into your arms, but I didn’t because I still believed everything everyone had told me about why it could never work, and now”-a wild wave-“I know it was all bullshit. Mom isn’t going to kill herself if I date a vampire, you’re not going to force me to change into one, and Don isn’t going to kill you. Hell, he just hired you! So, I should be thinking about how my father’s trying to kill me, or how Don’s really my uncle, but all I can think is that I ripped my heart out-and yours!-for nothing, so I say again, how can you forgive me for that?” Her voice broke as she added, “I can’t.”

  Bones had her in his arms before her next breath. Her tears left hot trails down his cheek as he pressed his face to hers, and her breaths were harsh, rapid puffs against his jaw.

  “Easily,” he said, shushing her instant, ragged scoff. “That doesn’t mean our time apart wasn’t brutal on me, Kitten. It was, but I knew you acted out of love. I’ve made many mistakes in my life, yet I can’t say that about most of them. You can. That’s why forgiving you is easy. Your heart was in the right place, even if your actions weren’t.”

  Her head dropped to his shoulder. “I don’t deserve you.”

  A grim laugh escaped him. “Too right, but that’s because you deserve better than me. Still, I’m too selfish to step aside, so I need you to make me a promise.”

  She looked up, confusion on her tear-stained features. “About what?”

  He tilted her chin up. “That no matter the circumstances, you will never vanish on me again.”

  Her breath shuddered out of her. “After everything that’s happened, would you even believe me if I did promise that?”

  He caressed her face. “Yes. I would.”

  She closed her eyes, another shudder wracking her. When she opened them, her gaze was no longer shimmering gray. Instead, it was pure vampire green.

  “I promise,” she whispered, and pulled his head down to hers.

  Salt flavored their kiss from her tears, but they soon dried as his mouth moved over hers with deepening intensity. Then, he picked her up, needing to feel her body flush against his. Her arms tightened as her feet left the ground, but he didn’t carry her upstairs to the bedroom. That was too far. He molded her against him while kissing her until she was breathing raggedly from passion instead of guilt-infused pain.

  She lifted his shirt when she couldn’t reach enough of his skin through the holes left from the capsule’s prongs. Bones broke their kiss to pull it off. Her shirt was likewise tossed aside, and he unclipped her bra to fill his hands with her full, luscious breasts before he captured her mouth again.

  Her moan was a rumble of pure need, and she ran her hands over him as if she’d die if she didn’t touch him. He felt the same, and her denims suffered for it as he ripped them in his impatience to remove them. Then, he savored her gasp as he pushed her knickers aside and slid his fingers into her hot, wet depths. Her soft flesh gripped him, quivering with every deep, knowing rub, until she was moving against his hand while tearing at his trousers until she’d rent them in two.

  Her hands were delicious brands as she grabbed his cock and handled him with rough, rhythmic strokes. Pleasure built until he wanted to plunge inside her right then, but their last encounter had been too fast, and too limited. He wasn’t settling for only touching her this time. He needed to taste her, too.

  He brought her to the floor with him. There, he tore off the remains of her denims and broke the thin straps on her knickers. She cradled his hips with her thighs and arched beneath him, but despite a torturously sensual graze that seared his cock, he pulled away. Her objection barely left her lips when his mouth closed over her nipple and a slow, deep suction made an entirely different sound escape her.

  Her hands fisted in his hair before she twisted, trying to reach for him again. He pushed her back while he laved her other nipple before sucking it until a cry tore from her and her hips moved as if he were already inside her.

  “Now, now,” she urged while trying to pull him up to her.

  “Not yet,” he murmured, and trailed his mouth lower.

  Her stomach was warm satin, and her scent was heady perfume as his mouth teased the crisp curls that crowned her center. He moved lower, groaning with primal lust as he tasted her honeyed depths. Those hot, silky petals slicked with more nectar as he teased them, and when he plunged his tongue deep within her, she arched as if someone had yanked on her spine. He needed to feel that again, so he did it faster, and her thundering heartbeat competed with her rising cries. Still, it wasn’t enough. He pulled her thighs tighter around him while he twisted his tongue faster, deeper, until he was lost in her scent, her taste, her screams, and the blood singing through her veins.

  His shoulders were striped with red welts from her nails when she came, and he savored every spasm before sliding his mouth up her stomach in a reverse of the pathway he’d taken before. A fine sheen of sweat beaded her skin, and she was trembling from her climax, but the look in her eyes set him on fire. She looked as if she were about to devour him, and he had never wanted to be consumed more.

  “I want to make you scream like I just did,” she swore before slanting her mouth over his. After a blistering kiss, she twisted away and tried to take his cock in her mouth, but he pushed her back against the floor.

  “I want this more,” he growled, and yanked her thighs around his hips. Then, he filled her with a long, hard stroke that seared his flesh while it burned away his last coherent thought. He wasn’t a man or a vampire anymore. He was only raw, pulsating need, and she was everything else.

  He didn’t regain control until his climax crashed through him with enough force to crack his spine. Then, he shifted until he was no longer pressing Cat against the floor, but holding her next to him. Her sweat painted both of their bodies, her hair was a tangled mess, and her heart beat like a trapped hummingbird within her chest. What had felt like mere minutes to him must have been longer, judging by the state of her.

  A glance at the clock on the nearby wall made his eyes widen. Not minutes at all, then. Hours.

  She dropped her head against his chest with a gasping laugh. “Finally got that scream out of you, but I am way ahead on the orgasm tally, and I don’t have energy to catch you up.”

  He laughed as well, and dropped a kiss onto her shoulder. “Yes, well. There’s always later tonight.”

  He felt her smile against his skin, and warmth of a different kind suffused him. God, he’d forgotten how happiness could make him feel like a light had been turned on from the inside, filling every part of him with a golden glow.

  “Let’s get you off this floor, Kitten,” he said, and finally carried her up the stairs into the bedroom.

  She pushed the covers aside when he deposited her onto the bed, but he knew she’d be cocooned in them soon enough. He was actually looking forward to waking up chilled and coverless because it meant that he’d be waking up next to her.

  She turned into his arms when he slid into bed. Her eyes fluttered closed, and her breathing went from pants to deep, even breaths as the minutes ticked by, but she wasn’t asleep. Her fingers kept brushing his shoulders in slow, absent strokes.

  “I don’t want to think about reality yet, but I also know it won’t wait for us,” she finally murmured. “Ian’s still coming for me. Max is, too, and so is possibly another hit man.”

  “None of them will hurt you,” Bones swore, ice spearing through his previously warm glow.

  She didn’t say anything for several moments. Then, “Since Ian is your sire and my father’s sire, that means I’m technically part of Ian’s vampire family, doesn’t it?”

  She didn’t know how true that was. Ian had a strong claim on Cat in the vampire world, and his sire was too wily not to use it, should Max prove to be inadequate bait. But Max might be all Ian needed to get Cat to bargain with him in a way that she’d later regret. Still, she’d searched for her father ever since she found out she was half vampire at sixteen, so her need to kill Max to finally avenge her mum was so deeply instilled in her that it might prove greater than anything else.

  Bones didn’t let himself dwell on the thought. It was too disturbing. Instead, he’d ensure that Cat was never faced with such a choice. Forbidden fruit couldn’t tempt if you were never offered it. Toward that end, he had some manipulating of his own to do. Ian would be proud of him, if that manipulating wasn’t against him.

  “That’s true, but there’s a way to nullify it,” he said in as casual a voice as he could manage. “Toward that end, there’s a vampire I want to introduce you to. He’s very important in the vampire world, and to Ian in particular, so we need to meet him in secret, and you can’t tell anyone.”

  “Let me guess. It’s Dracula?” she teased.

  God, no. That sod was insufferable. “Hardly.”

  She yawned. “Of course I’ll meet him, and I won’t tell anyone. So, how is this mysterious vampire important to Ian?”

  Bones closed his eyes. “He’s Ian’s sire.”

  32

  College campuses were usually awash with people. The Virginia Tech university was no exception. Despite it being an hour before midnight, students still flowed through the grounds like living streams. In such an environment, tracking someone by scent was impossible. Even by sight it could be cumbersome. All one needed was a low-slung ball cap to shadow the eyes and the cotton helm of the ever-popular “hoodie” to cover the head, and you’d be just another anonymous form in the crowd.

  That’s what Bones was wearing, but Cat didn’t need such measures. With her appearance frozen in her early twenties, she already looked like a student, especially since she’d worn her favorite pair of denims and a simple, form-fitting navy shirt.

  “I thought we were meeting some important vampire,” she murmured as Bones began striding toward Derring Hall. “Did we stop here because you wanted to grab a bite to eat first?”

  The thought that he’d need such measures to find a vein made him laugh. “No, luv. This is where we’re meeting him. Well, beneath here, as it were.”

  “Underground?” she asked with a skeptical glance around.

  Bones led her forward. “Follow me.”

  They went inside Derring Hall. Bones ignored the common passageways in favor of the stairs leading to the basement. Then, he took a little-used corridor and went to the end of it, where a young human man was near the grate in the floor. He might have been mustering up his courage to try the infamous tunnels himself, or he was waiting for someone. Either way, Bones said, “Leave, and we were never here,” while flaring up the power in his gaze.

  The student nodded and walked away. Bones yanked up the grate in the floor, revealing a rusted metal ladder beneath some of the old steam pipes that used to be the primary heating source for the campus. Then, he motioned to Cat.

  “After you.”

  She gave him a look as she shimmied into the small hole. “This isn’t even the weirdest date we’ve ever been on.”

  Bones grinned. “Not by half.”

  When she’d cleared the ladder, Bones descended and replaced the metal grate over the hole. Then, he led her past the maze of pipes, graffiti, and passageways toward their destination.

  “We couldn’t have met him at a Starbucks?” she said after passing a “Warning: Asbestos!” sign.

  “Less chance of anyone seeing or overhearing us down here,” Bones replied as the air suddenly became sweltering. There was a reason these tunnels were off-limits. Being in a dark, winding labyrinth with hidden drops in the floor and sudden, severe changes in temperature was very dangerous for humans. “No one even knows that Mencheres is in the States,” Bones went on. “He’d like to keep it that way for now.”

  “And Mencheres made Ian, and Ian made you. So, that kinda makes Mencheres your fang granddaddy?”

  Bones hid his smile as he picked his way through the debris in the tunnel. “Mencheres is my grandsire, yes, but more importantly, he’s a very powerful vampire that Ian wouldn’t want to cross. Since Max is a member of Ian’s line and still under Ian’s protection, any attack against Max would be considered the same as an attack against Ian in the vampire world.”

  “But Max trying to have my head blown off is A-okay?” she asked with a flash of bitterness.

  Bones picked his words with care. “Remember I told you vampires operated under a form of feudalism? That means when a vampire turns a human, that new vampire is under their sire’s protection. If the sire isn’t their own Master, then that new vampire is also under the head Master’s protection. You were born, not changed. So, no vampire has ever claimed you. That makes you without a sire or Master to defend you against any attacks from within the vampire world.”

  She digested that for a few moments. Then, “So, if I kill Max once I find him, it could set off a war with Ian, like I don’t have enough problems with your horny sire to begin with.”

  Exactly.

  “That’s why I’m going to change your status in the vampire world, Kitten. I’ll claim you, but first, I need to be free from Ian. Otherwise, anyone I claim is automatically in Ian’s line, too. That’s why we’re meeting Mencheres. Ian will be far less likely to retaliate if Mencheres allies himself with me.”

  Cat slanted a look his way. “Did Ian know that you were looking for me before…before I had my run-in with him?”

  “Yes. I told Ian I was hunting you to limit the damage you’d do in the undead world. When his desire for you became obvious, I said a few ungentlemanly things to discourage him.”

  Her brows went up. “Like what?”

  Bones stifled his laughter. “I told him you whined ceaselessly, snored abominably loud, and shagged terribly. Oh, and that you lacked adequate hygiene-”

  “You what?”

  Her shriek reverberated off the steam pipes surrounding them, but that was nothing compared to the look on her face. His laughter burst free.

  “Now, Kitten, I did have your best interests at heart. Besides, you told Ian I exploited you and then refused to pay you, so you were hardly concerned with my reputation, either.”

  “I was trying to protect you, not slander you!”

  “As was I. But, sadly, Ian didn’t fall for my misdirection and still obsessed over you, a trait that we shared.”

  That last comment mollified her, but from the glances she kept shooting his way, she might still hold a grudge for the other, and he hadn’t even been lying about her snoring.

  They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then, she said, “How about you just kill Ian, and I’ll kill Max?”

  Bones paused. She stopped, too, her eyes widening when he grasped her shoulders. It’s not as if he hadn’t thought of that. He had. Many times, and most of them were before he’d ever met Cat. He’d certainly kill anyone else threatening her this way, but with Ian…it wasn’t that easy.

  “If it came to a choice between your life or Ian’s, I would cut him down, Kitten. But despite our many feuds, or how ruthlessly he’s pursing you…Ian and I have a bond. He’s been a large part of my life since I was human, let alone the centuries after that. That’s why, if there’s a way to solve this without killing him, then that is the route I’ll seek.”

  Guilt twisted her features, and she covered his hands with hers. “I’m sorry. Of course you can’t just kill him. I couldn’t, either, once I knew who he was to you.”