Her laughter was genuine, albeit with a distinct wheeze from her injuries. “Yeah. An arrogant bastard.”

  Bones wagged a finger at her. “You know what they say about sticks and stones, luv. Come now, how’s about a farewell kiss for old time’s sake?”

  Her brow arched. “Want a kiss? Come and get it.”

  “She’s biting him for certain,” Ian said with a laugh.

  Bones ignored that and came toward Cat. Then, as he’d longed to do all night, he took her in his arms. Her mouth met his halfway, and she moaned as she sucked the blood off his tongue after he sliced it open with a fang.

  “What in the literal hell?” Ian shouted. “That’s enough, Crispin! Cat is mine, so remove your hands and get out!”

  Bones stopped kissing her, but he didn’t let her go. “’Fraid I have to refuse, Ian. I like my hands where they are.”

  Shock scalded Bones as Ian’s walls dropped and he felt his sire’s emotions. Then, those walls snapped shut, and Ian jumped into the arena.

  “Have you gone mad, Crispin? You dare to antagonize me over a woman you barely tolerate, and haven’t even seen in years? That’s hardly the behavior a new leader shows his people, unless this is your excuse to start a war with me?”

  “I’m not trying to start a war,” Bones said with complete honesty. “But if you start one, I’ll finish it. It’s very simple, Ian. I won’t let you force her to do anything against her will, but if she fancies you, I’ll walk away. So, luv,” he tilted Cat’s face up. “Who would you rather be with? Me or Ian?”

  She smiled. “You.” Then she turned to Ian. “Sorry, but you’re not my type. Plus, kidnapping my friends to try to make me become your latest arm trophy? Not cool.”

  Rage darkened Ian’s face before he flashed a truly cold smile. “You remember slaughtering my friend Magnus, Cat? You’ve just decided that same fate for one of your mates.”

  With that, Ian pulled out his mobile and dialed.

  Cat only watched, a half smile on her face.

  “If you step away from Crispin right now, I might let you persuade me not to kill anyone,” Ian said as the line rang. “But you’d need to come up with a damn enticing offer. Otherwise, it’s the luck of the draw as to who my men execute-”

  “Francois’s phone,” Tate answered on the third ring.

  “Put Francois on the line,” Ian said brusquely.

  “Hi, buddy,” Cat called out in a loud voice. “That’s Ian you’re talking to. Tell him the good news.”

  Tate laughed. “Oh, hi, Ian! Francois can’t come to the phone. He’s tied up with a silver stake in his heart.”

  Rage blasted from Ian in a wave that nearly made Bones back up a step. Then, Ian met Bones’s eyes. Seeing the knowledge of his betrayal reflected in his sire’s gaze hurt more than Bones had expected it to.

  “See, Ian, you don’t have any of my men hostage,” Cat said in a smug tone. “But I have several of yours.”

  45

  “You. Betrayed. Me.”

  Ian bit out each word while more of his rage blasted into Bones. Ian snapped his shields shut an instant later, but not before Bones felt the pain beneath that rage. He hated being the cause of it, but Ian had brought this on himself with his ruthless, vainglorious attempt to “acquire” Cat.

  Bones stared back. “I did what was necessary to ensure that you didn’t force Cat into making a decision she’d regret. This isn’t the eighteenth century, Ian. Manipulating women into bed is no longer fashionable.”

  “If you want your boys back, you’ll agree to leave me and my friends alone,” Cat said, her tone hardening. “I haven’t killed any of your men yet, and I’ll return them all to you unharmed, as long as I have your word that you won’t bother me or mine again. What’s it gonna be, Ian? Your ego, or your men?”

  Ian’s mouth narrowed as he looked from Bones to Cat to the thousand-plus crowd watching them. Then, his gaze returned to Bones…and filled with the promise of bloody revenge.

  Bones inclined his head in the barest nod. Yes, there would be a reckoning for this. He’d always known that.

  Ian looked away as if Bones were now beneath his notice.

  “Well done, Red Reaper,” he said with a lot more sarcasm than he had before. “Once more, I underestimated you, and once more, you made me regret it. Very well, we have an accord. In exchange for my men’s safe return, I vow to leave you and yours alone, so you and they are free to go.”

  Relief had barely settled in when Cat said, “Not so fast, Ian. There’s one more issue we need to settle first.”

  “What are you doing?” Bones gritted out. They’d already won! There was no further “issue.”

  Cat acted as if she couldn’t hear him. “Vampires have the right to challenge their sires to a duel. So, I challenge my father, Max. Bring him out. I’m claiming my right to duel him-”

  “Bloody hell, Kitten!” Bones shouted.

  Ian’s laugh preceded a wave of vicious satisfaction that coated Bones like poison as his sire reopened their tie. Soon, Ian was wiping mirth-induced pink tears from his eyes, too.

  Bones could barely process his own rage-infused disbelief, let alone Ian’s emotions. She had really done it this time.

  “What’s so funny?” Cat asked sharply.

  “Did everyone hear that?” Ian replied, ignoring her as he addressed the crowd.

  Affirmative responses sounded at once.

  “You should have talked to me about this,” Bones hissed.

  “You would have told me to wait,” Cat shot back.

  Ian burst into fresh laughter. “Indeed he would have, Cat! You see, you just acknowledged that you consider yourself to be a vampire. You know what that means, Crispin,” Ian added, allowing another wave of cruel amusement to wash over Bones before Ian shut him out of his emotions. “Everyone else here does, too. As a vampire, Cat, you are now therefore mine, so Crispin, I’ll thank you to get away from one of my people.”

  “I challenged Max, not you,” Cat sputtered. “So Max has to accept that challenge, and if I kill him, then I’m my own damn vampire, and no one else’s!”

  Bones fisted his hands. It was that, or he’d shake her until he finally knocked better communication skills into her.

  “Oh, poppet, you’ve got a few things very wrong.” Ian was still chuckling. “You could indeed challenge Max for your freedom if he were head of his own line. But he’s not. Max is still under my rule, and as a brand-new member of my line, you can’t challenge me for a year. That law was made to prevent rash baby vampires from taking on more than they could handle.”

  All of which Bones would have told her, had she only shared her plans with him. But no. She’d been blinded by her need for revenge against Max, just as he’d feared.

  “As it turned out, I didn’t even need to kidnap your men,” Ian went on brightly. “You just delivered yourself into my hands, and you’ve got three hundred and sixty five more days before you can issue me that same challenge. I wonder what we’ll do to fill the time?” he added with an insinuating grin.

  “But I’m already Bones’s,” Cat protested, waving in his direction. “He’s bitten me and done things in bed with me that are probably illegal in few states!”

  Ian’s smile was luxuriant. “Lineage supersedes property, my dear Reaper. So, while Crispin will doubtless have fond memories of you…memories are all he’ll have.”

  Ian gave Bones a single, triumphant glance before oiling him with more runoff emotions from his unexpected victory.

  Rage burned through Bones, deadly and purposeful. I’ll see you dead before you lay one finger on her, war be damned!

  He was about to murder Ian when his prior words whispered across his mind, followed by the cooling embrace of his ice.

  There is always another way…

  There was, actually. One.

  “I beg to differ, Ian,” Bones said with his newfound, glacial calm. “Yes, lineage does supersede property, but you have no claim over her if she’s my wife.”

  Ian’s shock was mirrored by Cat’s, although Ian was the first to speak. “But she isn’t.”

  Time to fix that.

  Bones withdrew a silver knife and slashed it across his palm. Then, he grasped Cat’s hand, his blood seeping out between their joined fingers. “By my blood, you are my wife.”

  She stared at him in disbelief.

  A sardonic smile hid his sudden nervousness. “Yes, I rather envisioned something more romantic for a proposal, too, but circumstances don’t allow for that.”

  She drew in a breath to speak, but Ian cut her off.

  “You must be mad, Crispin!” he shouted, and yanked out his own knife, raising it to strike.

  Bones raised his, pushing Cat behind him, when power blasted out and froze him into place.

  “Do not move,” a familiar voice ordered.

  Bones couldn’t. Neither could Ian, from how he was still in that same half-lunge. Mencheres’s telekinesis didn’t just mean that he could move objects or people. He could freeze them, too.

  Bones inclined his head as Mencheres came down the aisle toward them. It was all he was capable of since the rest of him was still immobilized.

  “Mencheres, am I correct in my assertion about Cat?” Bones asked.

  “In all ways but one,” Mencheres replied with a tinge of amusement. Then, he released Bones from his invisible grip.

  Ian’s gaze flashed green as he straightened, revealing he, too, had been set free. But that didn’t make Ian any happier. “You have ever taken Crispin’s side over mine, Mencheres!”

  “Not this again,” Bones muttered. As usual, Ian’s ego was turning everything into a contest.

  Mencheres gave Ian a look of fatherly exasperation. “It is not a matter of sides. Bones is right in all ways but one. Cat has not yet claimed him as her husband.”

  “And you don’t know what that means, Cat,” Ian instantly said. “Divorce is as common as breathing for humans, but if you agree to a vampire marriage, you’d be bound to Crispin for the rest of your life. No changing your mind, no release, until one of you is truly dead. If you even shagged anyone else,” Ian’s voice rose with horror, “Crispin would have the right to kill that person without retribution in the vampire world.”

  Cat’s brows went up, either at the accurate description of a vampire marriage, or Ian’s tangible revulsion over the thought of only shagging one person for the rest of his life.

  Mencheres gave a bleak smile, reminding Bones that he well knew the darker side of this vow. “That is correct, Cat. Once declared, this can never be retracted.”

  Cat looked at Bones, her expressive face unusually closed off. Only her eyes hinted at her emotions, and those storm-cloud depths swirled with growing intensity as she held out her hand.

  Bones gave her the knife. Anticipation made him unable to speak as she poised the blade over her upturned palm.

  “Don’t you want to meet your father?” Ian loudly asked.

  Cat’s head whipped in Ian’s direction. Then, she lowered the knife as if she’d forgotten why she’d accepted it.

  Ashes filled Bones, bitter and burning. Of course she couldn’t resist this, and he’d known it! He should have killed Max when he had the chance.

  Ian’s slow smile as he saw Cat’s reaction was salt in the wound. “I’ll make a new bargain with you, Cat. You can still leave here tonight with all my previous assurances that I won’t trouble you or your men again. Furthermore, I’ll give you Max, to do with what you will. All I require in return is that you refuse this offer and part company with Crispin forever.”

  Ian’s gaze gleamed as he said that last part. Then, he glanced at Bones, savoring the flinch that Bones couldn’t hold back. Bloody hell, this was all his nightmares all at once.

  “Your word on it, Cat,” Ian drew out.

  She said nothing, but her hand tightened on the blade Bones had given her. Was she about to forsake him in a blood oath to Ian? Or was she still considering Bones’s proposal?

  Ian didn’t wait to find out. “Maximillian, come out!”

  The double doors to the hallway opened, and a grim-faced Max walked into the stadium.

  Cat stared at her father as Max approached. Her gasp was short and harsh while her heartbeat sped up like the crescendo of a drum cadence right before an execution.

  Max stopped once he reached the arena’s edge, not looking at Cat, and not coming any closer.

  Cat pulled her hand from Bones’s grasp to close the last few feet between her and her father. She stopped when she was only a foot away, but she still didn’t speak. Neither did Max, although he glanced at her for the briefest moment before looking over her shoulder at Ian.

  Ian didn’t bother to look at Max. He was watching Cat with the satisfaction of a feline with a longed-for mouse trapped beneath his paw. Then, he turned to Bones.

  You lose, he mouthed with malevolent glee.

  The blood drying on his now-healed palm seemed to echo that sentiment. So did the fact that Cat hadn’t even glanced at him since Ian said Max’s name. All her attention was on the silent, redheaded man whose features were an eerie mirror of her own.

  “Do you know what I promised myself when my mother told me what I was, and how it happened?” Cat whispered to Max.

  Bones did, and it was playing out before him as the coldest laugh left Cat when Max flinched as her fingers grazed him.

  “Oh, Max,” she said in a chiding tone. “I can feel your power level, and it’s not that high. I’m much stronger than you, but you already knew that, didn’t you? It’s why you hired someone to blow my head off so I couldn’t get to you first.”

  Ian’s brows went up. When Max didn’t deny it, Ian glanced at Cat, and then at Bones for confirmation.

  Bones didn’t respond. Neither did Cat. She was too busy circling her father like a shark narrowing in on its prey. Rage scorched her scent as if she’d set fire to that honey-and-cream mixture, and green pinpoints sparkled in her gaze.

  “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to kill you?” she suddenly snarled at Max.

  Her father didn’t speak, but from his expression, he expected that death blow any second.

  “I first heard about you on my sixteenth birthday,” Cat went on. “Sweet sixteen, and what did I get? The truth about my nightmare heritage. So that day, I swore that you’d pay with your life for raping my mother. Did you hear what Ian just offered me? Your ass, with all the other parts attached!”

  Emerald overtook all the gray in Cat’s eyes as she screamed that last part at Max. He still didn’t speak, but fear turned his scent to rotted sandalwood.

  “Come on, Max, whatcha think?” she taunted him, her glowing eyes now shining with furious tears. “I mean, what a gift, right? Who could say no to that, especially since I’ve wanted to kill you more than I’ve wanted anything in my whole twisted, abnormal, dysfunctional life!”

  Bones closed his eyes. There it was, spoken for all to hear. Between revenge on Max or her love for him, vengeance won. On an objective level, Bones could even understand, but his feelings had no objectivity. They seethed with endless pain.

  He opened his eyes to see Cat raise the knife he’d given her. It was still smeared with his blood from his unreciprocated vow, and now, it was aimed at Max’s heart.

  Max braced, but he didn’t beg her to stop. Not that it would have mattered. She’d made her choice.

  Laughter suddenly exploded out of Cat, so ragged it resembled grinding metal instead of a sound that a person made.

  “You’re a worthless piece of shit, Max,” she said with more of that terrible laughter. “But you’re also about to do the first, last, and only thing you’ve ever done for me as a father, because there’s someone who means more to me than even killing you. So, congratulations, scum”-she lowered the knife and strode over to Bones-“you just gave away the bride.”

  Shock froze him more than Mencheres’s power had. Was he imagining this, or was Cat actually raking that blade across her palm and clasping his hand?

  “By my blood, you are my husband,” she said in a loud, clear voice. Then, it lowered. “Is that what I’m supposed to say? Did I do it right-?”

  His kiss cut her off. Then, his embrace lifted her off her feet, and despite his still being on the ground, Bones felt like he was flying.

  46

  He could have kissed Cat for the rest of the night, but Ian’s power began stinging him like a swarm of rabid hornets. His sire was nearly insane with rage. Best to leave now, before Ian’s emotions obliterated his crumbling control.

  Bones dragged his mouth from Cat’s, savoring the disappointed sound she made. He was about to speak when Max’s voice cut through the silence.

  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” Max said in his first words of the night. “Do you believe that, little girl? I do, and you and I will have our day, mark my words.”

  Cat stiffened, but Bones smiled with all the lethal ice filling him.

  “Is he threatening her, Ian? You should remind Max that anyone who comes after my wife-or anyone belonging to her, such as her mum or her uncle-declares war on me as well. Unless war is your position, Ian? Does Max speak for you?”

  Nothing enraged Ian more than being usurped, as the look he gave Max proved. “No, Max does not speak for me, and he has nothing else to say on the matter. Do you, Max?”

  “I do not,” Max replied. Then, his tone went from obedient to taunting. “But I do have something to say about her mother.”

  The acrid scent of rage exploded from Cat’s pores.

  “You’ve been misinformed,” Max went on with open satisfaction. “I fucked her, oh yes. But I didn’t rape her.”

  Bones hardened his arms, caging Cat. If he hadn’t, she would have hurled herself at Max right then.

  Ian smirked as he saw it. “You gave up your chance to kill him, Cat, and Crispin’s threat works both ways. Max is mine and under my protection, so a strike against him is a strike against me, and war will follow.”

  Cat stopped straining against him. Then, she took a deep breath that Bones felt as well as heard.