Bones turned around and left. It was that, or he’d rip Ian’s head off, which would be gratifying in the moment, but have long-term consequences. Besides, he already knew that Cat distracted her targets with kisses right before she slaughtered them. Ian was just lucky enough to live to tell the tale.

  “If there’s nothing else, I have places to be,” Bones threw over his shoulder. Thank God the sire bond went only one way and Ian couldn’t feel the possessiveness burning through him.

  “Don’t be a stranger!” Ian called out.

  Bones turned to give a scathing reply, thought better of it, and spun back around-

  -and walked right into someone coming up the staircase. Only Bones’s quick grip prevented the man from falling backward down the stairs since his arms were filled with yet another crate, and he held it up to protect it instead of grabbing the handrail. Bones couldn’t even see his face with the crate in the way, and he steadied the stranger with a short laugh.

  “No need to surf the staircase with your backside rather than drop one of Ian’s trinkets.”

  “If you knew what was in this, you’d understand,” the man replied with a Midwestern American accent.

  “Max, is that you?” Ian called out. “Took you forever to fly in! Now, tell me you have my Faberge eggs.”

  “Right here,” Max said, and lowered the crate.

  The floor felt like it vanished beneath Bones. That face.

  He knew it better than he knew his own, for he’d long ago memorized those dark red brows framing thundercloud gray eyes, that straight nose, those high cheekbones, that stubborn jaw line, and those generous lips, but never before had Bones seen those features anywhere except on Cat. Now, they were also on a tall, athletic-looking vampire striding through Ian’s door.

  Max disappeared into the parlor before Bones could snatch him back. His blasted shock had cost him precious seconds! Now, he could only hope that Ian wouldn’t notice the resemblance-

  “Break my back and baste my balls!” Ian shouted, shattering that hope. “I knew the Red Reaper looked familiar! I even told her so. I just couldn’t place where I’d seen her before. Turns out I hadn’t, not really. Max, you magnificent bastard! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “No,” Max said, sounding very confused.

  Ian’s laughter preceded a wave of glee as his sire’s emotions crashed through their connection. “You probably don’t. You wouldn’t unless you’ve seen her. Now, tell me about every woman you shagged immediately after I turned you…”

  Bones left. He didn’t need to hear Max’s reply. He already knew that twenty-seven years ago, Max had raped a young Justina Crawfield so soon after becoming a vampire that his sperm was still viable. Five months later, Justina gave birth to Cat, and raised her to despise all things vampire, including herself.

  Blast it all, if he’d only reacted to Max immediately! Now, Ian was too clever not to recognize the huge advantage he’d just gained over Cat. At least Max had no useful information on her. Max had no idea that Cat even existed.

  He would now, but more importantly, Bones had discovered a new way to track Cat: Ian.

  Ian didn’t fit the profile of every other vampire Cat had been sent after. The others had murdered humans in messy, attention-getting ways. Not quietly dropped two bodies without even a fang mark to show for it. Ian must have been personal for whoever pulled Cat’s strings. Because of Max? Or something else?

  Either way, it meant a trail that Bones could follow back to Cat’s boss, and to her.

  3

  Following that trail proved more difficult than Bones imagined. With her father’s first name plus his mid-twenties age range and the month and year he would have “died,” Bones expected to have Max’s human information in less than a day. Instead, he had nothing. According to the internet, Max had never existed.

  Within three days, every trace of information related to Cat’s attack on Ian had vanished, too. Even the cover story about Ian’s house being the site of a violent drug bust was nowhere to be found. It was maddening, but also further confirmation that Ian was the key to finding Cat. None of the other cover stories for her vampire hunts had been deleted this way. Only Ian’s, and how interesting that all traces of Max’s life as a human had been erased with the same thoroughness.

  Bones didn’t believe in coincidence. Cat’s boss had to be behind both. Now, Bones could narrow his current list of suspects from the hundreds he had to something more manageable.

  Bones threw himself into the search. Four weeks later, his list of suspects among high-ranking FBI agents, Secret Service, Homeland Security, CIA, and other important government officials was down to fifty, but he was too concerned to celebrate. Cat hadn’t surfaced again since Ian. Not since the first six months of her forced tenure had she been off the grid like this. Had something happened to her?

  Bones was scouring both the regular internet and the dark web when one of his alerts grabbed his attention. He’d set up several of them to trawl for lethal crimes with a supernatural slant. A cursory glance made him frown. A couple hacked to death in their bedroom last night was tragic, but it hardly fit his search parameters. Why had this triggered his alert system? Wait…what was that address?

  “Bloody hell,” Bones swore, and left at once.

  His plane touched down in Ohio four hours later. It was the fastest he could get there after driving to the nearest airport and mesmerizing a clerk into bumping a passenger and adding him instead. Even still, every moment felt like razors on his psyche, and not for the usual reason of how Bones hated to fly.

  Cat would be at this murder scene. She wouldn’t be able to resist it. After all, it had taken place inside her old house.

  He checked for updates as soon as he landed. Anticipation crackled through him when he saw that the previous reports had already disappeared. He’d been in the air only two hours. This must be the work of Cat’s boss, and why else would he erase the evidence unless he was sending her here?

  Bones hailed a cab. “Take me to Licking Falls, and hurry.”

  Nearly an hour later, Bones was at the winding road that led to the cherry orchard bordering Cat’s former house. He was halfway through the orchard when Cat’s scent danced on the wind, causing him to nearly stumble as he caught that honey-and-cream mixture. Bones inhaled-and instantly caught the metallic tang of blood plus the unmistakable stench of death. He hadn’t beaten her here after all, but she might still be in the house. In moments, he could be looking into her eyes…

  The thought nearly caused him to fly right into the dash cameras of the police cars surrounding the house. Bones forced himself to stop at the edge of the orchard. Several police guarded the perimeter, but were they the only ones here?

  Bones circled around to the back of the property. It helped that the trees were overgrown and brush had grown between the once neatly trimmed rows. Cat would mourn to see her family’s orchard so neglected. He pushed that thought back. One of the men patrolling the perimeter had come nearer. From his utter lack of attention to the trees at his back, this wasn’t one of Cat’s human vampire hunters. They’d know better. Bones loudly snapped a branch. The officer came closer without so much as a mention to the others of what he was doing.

  Thank you, you arrogant fool.

  Bones grabbed him from behind, crushing his body camera into pieces before turning the bloke to face him. “Not a word,” Bones hissed while green filled up his gaze.

  Mutely, the officer nodded.

  “Is there a woman inside the house?” Bones whispered.

  Cat didn’t have a vampire’s incredible sense of smell, but she did have their supernatural hearing. With luck, the squawk from dispatch in the patrol cars would drown his out.

  Another nod. Adrenaline shot through Bones. She was here!

  “More men inside with her?” Bones asked softly.

  Another nod, though less emphatic. Something about the question had confused the officer. Not that it mattered.

  “Return to your post,” Bones whispered. “You didn’t see me. Then, in one minute, shout ‘Over here!’ and run the other way.”

  Another nod. Bones released the officer, who resumed his leisurely stroll around the orchard for another sixty seconds.

  Adrenaline and anticipation boiled within him, making him feel like a bomb about to detonate. Almost. Almost…

  “Over here!” the officer shouted, and ran in the direction Bones had indicated. At once, the other six officers guarding the exterior rushed to follow him.

  Bones burst from his spot and torpedoed through the back door of the house. Wood and glass exploded around him, briefly blinding the single guard on the first floor. One punch knocked the guard out, and Bones flew up the stairs. He heard another heartbeat coming from Cat’s old bedroom…

  …where a bloke with brown hair and goggles jumped back from Bones’s sudden appearance. Aside from two very bloody bodies on the floor, the brown-haired man was the only one here, and from the silence, no one was in the other upper bedroom, either.

  “No!”

  The shout tore from Bones while Cat’s scent taunted him, heady even over the harsh stench of death. She’d been here, but she’d already left. Once again, he’d been too late.

  Had the officer lied to him? No, Bones realized after a glance at the bodies. One was a woman, the other a man, so yes, a woman had been inside the house. Just not Cat, and no wonder the officer had hesitated on saying “yes” to Bones’s other question of “More men inside with her?”

  Technically, yes, but not how Bones had thought.

  The brown-haired lad slipped in the blood while backing away. Bones grabbed him, a raking glance noting his surgical gloves and the plastic booties covering his shoes. A medical examiner, probably. Another glance took in the room, pausing on the words scrawled in blood over the victim’s bodies.

  here kitty kitty

  Ice covered Bones’s boiling emotions. Someone had wanted Cat to know that this murder was personal, as if slaughtering someone in her former bedroom wasn’t enough.

  Bones shook the lad. “Where is the woman who was here?”

  “W-hat woman?” he stammered before moaning, “Oh God, your eyes…what are you?”

  “Never mind that,” Bones snapped. “Tell me about the redhead. When did she leave? Where did she go?”

  “Redhead?” the man repeated. “I-I didn’t see a redhead-”

  Bones showed his fangs. “Lie to me, and I’ll eat you.”

  “I promise!” the man shrieked. “There was no redhead! A hot brunette was here earlier, that’s all!”

  Brunette. So, Cat had finally dyed her hair to help conceal her identity.

  Bones hauled him close. “Tell me everything about her.”

  Under the power of Bones’s gaze, the man talked. Fast.

  “I don’t know who she was. Some expert, they said, which is bullshit because she and her crew contaminated evidence, got footprints and fingerprints everywhere…they even dug into the bodies! Then, they left in a helicopter, but right before that, Danvers overheard one of them talking about a special rock in the victim’s chest, but I didn’t see anything special about it-”

  “What rock?” Bones interrupted.

  The man gestured to a red-smeared evidence bag nearby.

  Bones dropped him and grabbed it, ripping it open. Nothing special, indeed. No writing on the rock, no distinctive shape, no rare mineral content. It was just a hunk of limestone…

  Limestone.

  All at once, Bones knew exactly where Cat had gone.

  “You never saw me,” he said to the shaking medical examiner, and left the house as rapidly as he’d entered it.

  By car, the cave was over an hour and a half away. At a dead run, Bones made it there in forty minutes. Flying would have been faster, but it was still bloody bright out, and getting caught on cell phone video displaying supernatural abilities was a sure way to get killed by the Law Guardians.

  Winter had transformed the dried leaves into crackling perimeter alerts, so the last five miles, Bones glided above the ground. A pang hit him as he realized that the last time he’d been here, it had also been winter.

  Three miles out from the cave, Cat’s scent reached him, and from the trampled earth and bent twigs, she hadn’t worried about being stealthy. She’d run right toward the cave knowing full well that any vampire inside could hear her coming.

  Dammit, Kitten! You had to know this was a trap!

  And she’d ignored that with her usual mixture of brashness and bravery. Her courage was one of the reasons Bones had fallen in love with her…and her recklessness was why he’d never known a night’s peace since.

  A mile away, the ground became so trampled that a herd of cattle couldn’t have done more damage, and more scents flooded the area. Cat’s human backup must have come, some driving all-terrain vehicles. From the ruckus they would have made, either things had gone very well, or they’d gone very wrong.

  But where was everyone now? The woods were eerily silent.

  Bones dropped low, flying just above the flattened brush and darting between the trees with the sinuousness of a shadow. It might be quiet, but that didn’t mean he was alone.

  He was a quarter mile from the cave when the scent of blood drenched the air, so strong that Bones wasn’t surprised to see flecks of it on the leaves and ground. The only surprise was that it was vampire blood, and vampires healed too fast to usually leave this much behind. Worse, Cat’s scent forked, some of it heading deeper into the forest while stronger waves led toward the cave.

  Bones hesitated a moment before following the scent leading into the cave. With how quiet the woods were, Cat could only be in the cave, if she was still here at all.

  Be here, Kitten! Don’t let me be too late again!

  Bones slowed when he reached the mouth of the cave. It was covered in bloody footprints going in both directions, with so many people’s intermingled scents that parsing through them was impossible, especially since blood overpowered them all. Spent shell casings also caught the remaining light, and newly blasted holes in the rocks further confirmed there had been a shootout.

  Bones followed the red footprints leading inward. Almost immediately, they led to two sets of scarlet-soaked stones. The smaller one probably came from a human’s serious yet survivable injury, but the larger one was a lethal arterial bleed-out. Bones had seen enough of those to know.

  He knelt beside it. The blood was still wet, and it smelled human. A deeper sniff revealed the scent of vampire blood, too, and Cat’s scent, sharper from rage and grief.

  Bones rose while his hands curled into fists. She’d held the dying person so closely that her scent had imprinted onto their spilled blood. A fallen friend? Or a fallen lover?

  Jealousy was pointless, so he continued into the cave. In moments, the temperature increased, taking the bite out of the icy day. The cave’s internal temperature stayed around fifty-five degrees year-round. Comfortable enough for a vampire, but chilly for Cat, which is why he’d gotten space heaters for her. Not that those stopped her from stealing all the covers…

  Anguish ripped into him when he arrived at his former living quarters and found them empty. Once again, he’d been too late. She’d been here, though. Blood spattered what remained of his former sofa, tv, tables, and Cat’s dressing area. Some was hers, and some belonged to others. Bones inhaled, allowing the scents to trigger memories like recognizing faces among a crowd. One of these splatters belonged to a bounty hunter named Lazarus, and was that Nicolai’s scent, too? If so, Cat had faced two vampire mercenaries plus several more vampires that Bones didn’t know.

  Who’d sent them? Bones hadn’t seen another contract on the Red Reaper, but Lazarus and Nicolai wouldn’t be here unless someone had put out a bounty on Cat, and a big one, judging from the backup they’d brought.

  Bones inhaled again. Some of the humans who’d been at Cat’s former house had been here, too, but what was this other scent? It was human, but it hadn’t been back at her old house. It had been at the entrance to the cave, though, in the smaller, survivable puddle of blood, and it was…familiar.

  Frustration filled him when no name came to mind. Then again, he’d met thousands of humans in the past decade alone, so he could hardly recall every one. This person must be connected to Cat somehow, and they might also still be alive.

  Bones couldn’t say the same for the vampires Cat had faced. From the dried bits of flesh and bone concealed beneath the foam from his destroyed furniture, several of them had died, though at least one must have gotten away. Cat’s scent had led back into the forest. She’d run after someone.

  Bones gave the destroyed area a final glance before striding away. His answers would be found in either the trail Cat had left in the woods, or in the familiar-smelling human who might have survived the attack.

  4

  Five days later, Bones stared at the large hospital from his vantage point of a roof across the street. Cat hadn’t left anything useful in the woods, but a human had been medically evacuated from the cave, and unlike the black-ops helicopters that transported Cat and her team, med-vac choppers were required to file flight plans.

  Cat’s boss had tried to hide the information, of course. He’d also had the human flown to three different hospitals in two different states before transporting him by ambulance to this facility in Chicago, Illinois. That’s why it took Bones nearly a week to find him, but he had, and when Bones’s binoculars showed who it was through the hospital window, Bones let out a laugh that made the ghoul next to him jump.

  “Whoa,” Rodney said with a sideways glance at Bones. “Hell just called, and it wants its ringtone back.”