“Be calm,” Bones said next. When her heart rate slowed to a normal rhythm, Bones gave her a thin smile.

  “You’d kill me if you could, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “And dismember you.”

  “Anything else?” he asked in a dry tone.

  An emphatic nod. “I’d burn your pieces into ashes and then use you as fertilizer for my garden!”

  Bones snorted. “Must run in the family. Cat planted several vampires in the back of your family’s cherry orchard after decapitating them. She ever tell you that?”

  Doubt creased Justina’s features. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not,” Bones said, his gaze compelling her to realize that. “What did you think she did with all those bodies? Or did you not bother about the details, as long as you had as many dead vampires as your teenage daughter could slaughter?”

  Justina only said, “Shut up and kill me already.”

  Bones let out a grim laugh. “Oh, the thought’s crossed my mind over the years, but no. I won’t even lay a finger on you, and here you’d cheerfully murder, dismember, and cremate me were our situations reversed. Who’s the real monster, hmm?”

  “You are,” she said at once.

  Another snort. “Whatever. I’m not here to change your mind about me, but you will tell the truth to the questions I ask you. First, what did you threaten Cat with before she left me?”

  Frustration suffused Justina’s features, but she gritted out, “That I would never speak to her again, and I’d run away from her the first chance I got if she took me with you.”

  And with vengeful vampires after them, Justina would’ve gotten killed. Cat would never risk her mum’s life that way, as Justina well knew. Cat already blamed herself for her grandparents’ deaths at the hands of vampires.

  “Did Don threaten to kill me unless she left with him?”

  Justina’s mouth clamped shut, but the word “Yes” snuck out.

  “Of course she thought love meant throwing herself into a meat grinder,” Bones said. “That’s what you taught her!”

  Grunts came from Justina. It was all she could get out since he hadn’t asked her a question. He didn’t care. Her denials were worthless when they both knew it was true.

  Now, for the hardest question. “Does she still love me?”

  Justina sucked in a breath and held it. Bones watched, his brows going up as the seconds ticked by and she still didn’t breathe. Was she trying to pass out rather than reply?

  “Answer. Me,” he bit out.

  “I don’t know,” Justina said with a burst of pent-up air. “For a long time, she did, but now that she has a boyfriend, I think she finally might be over you!”

  Pain made him briefly close his eyes. A boyfriend.

  When he hadn’t smelled another man in her bedroom, he’d hoped she was still single. Apparently not, and the boyfriend must be human from how vindictively pleased Justina looked.

  “One last question. Do you love your daughter?”

  Justina looked away. “When I realized she had Max’s evil, I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t…I couldn’t not love her.”

  “You should tell your daughter you love her,” Bones said. “She hasn’t heard that nearly enough from you.”

  Justina looked away again, but he saw her bite her lower lip as if she were trying to stop it from trembling.

  Bones gave her a moment. Then, he said, “Look at me.”

  With a scowl, she did.

  He leaned forward, turning up the power in his gaze. “You will never threaten your daughter with doing anything to harm yourself again, and if she ever runs from Don, you will never reveal her location to him. In fact, if Don forces Catherine to run away again, you will ring me and tell me where she is.”

  Bones handed her a piece of paper with his number on it. Justina nodded even though more anger bloomed from her scent.

  Yes, forcing you to do this is unfair, he thought coldly. Just like you forcing Cat to choose Don over me because she thought you’d get yourself killed was unfair.

  Take every cheap shot and every low blow against an opponent, he’d taught Cat. This was his low blow.

  “You’ll also forget I was here as soon as I leave,” Bones said, taking the page back. “You’ll only remember what I told you as subconscious directives, should those situations arise. If they don’t, when you see me again, it will be as if you haven’t seen me in years. Understood?”

  Another nod followed by another whiff of anger. “I suppose you’ll also make me stop hating you.”

  Bones laughed. “Hate away; I don’t care. None of this was about you treating me better. It was about you treating your daughter better.”

  Justina said nothing. He hadn’t asked her a question, so she couldn’t reply, but her gaze told him to fuck off.

  He would, after one last thing. “Oh, and I meant it about the purple dress. That beige frock is hideous.”

  With that, he left.

  9

  Randy smiled with relief when Bones entered the parlor adjacent to the country club’s main stateroom.

  “You’re here!”

  Bones had been deliberately late, but not to the point of delaying the wedding. Just enough that the bridesmaids were now sequestered away with Denise and not flitting among the other friends and family in the main stateroom, which served as the site for the upcoming nuptials.

  “Sorry. Traffic,” Bones lied, keeping his voice down.

  “Yeah, it’s a nightmare,” Randy said. “We got here crazy early to avoid it.” Then, Randy turned to a slightly taller man with sand-colored hair and similar features. “This is my brother, Philip. Philip, this is my friend, Cris.”

  “Nice to meet you, and here’s your boutonniere,” Phillip said, handing him a lavender-colored flower for his lapel. “Now, I’ll go tell Denise that we’re ready.”

  Finally, Phillip’s tone implied.

  Bones gave him a bland smile. He didn’t blame Phillip for his crossness. He had no idea that Bones wouldn’t have missed this wedding for the world.

  “Wow, this is really happening,” Randy said in a dazed way.

  Bones’s brow rose. “Not getting cold feet, are you?”

  Randy grinned. “The opposite. I can’t wait to marry her.”

  On the other side of the hall, he suddenly heard Cat say “Felicity, could you get the flowers?”

  Her voice hit him like dozens of silken whips. He hadn’t heard it in years, and something visceral within him roared in response. He barely managed to keep his aura from blasting out, too.

  “Are you ready, Denise?” he heard Phillip ask next, to a cheerful response of “Let’s go get me married!” from a female voice, and then Cat’s “We’ll meet you in front,” to Philip.

  A few moments later, Phillip opened the door. “It’s time.”

  Randy grinned. “Let’s do this!”

  The four of them left the parlor and entered the stateroom. It had been transformed for the wedding, with rows of chairs for the guests, a flower-covered nuptial arch, and petals strewn along the aisle separating the bride’s side from the groom’s side. When the justice of the peace saw Randy, he nodded to the pianist, who began playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

  Randy grinned again as the doors at the end of that flower-covered pathway opened and the first bridesmaid began walking down the aisle. The guests murmured with appreciation when they saw the pretty, petite brunette. She seemed to take as her due, and her smile widened when it landed on Bones. Then, she added a little more sway to her hips.

  He didn’t smile back. He was here for one bridesmaid alone.

  The second bridesmaid, an older woman with black hair, began descending the aisle. Cat would be next. In moments, he’d be looking into her eyes. Would they still be expressive, telegraphing what was in her heart more clearly than words? Or would their long years apart have killed that trait in her?

  It could have. Bones had been friends with soldiers who’d been one person when they went off to war and someone else entirely when they came back. Cat had been exposed to the same cycle of trauma, danger, and death. It would have hardened her, or she wouldn’t have survived. How much of the woman he loved remained in the woman about to walk down the aisle?

  The music increased in volume as Cat appeared at the back of that petal-covered path. Not a muscle in him moved, but inwardly, Bones braced. It still wasn’t enough. His shields cracked as soon as he saw her, letting some of his aura escape.

  God, her face. So beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with her expertly applied makeup. She’d dyed her brows brown to match her newly darkened hair, but her complexion was still alabaster dappled with roses, her lips were full and sensual, her brows framed her eyes like twin wingspans, and her high, sculpted cheekbones invited envious stares. Her scent hit him next, and Bones breathed in its mixture of warm vanilla swirled with cream and cherries. He wanted to keep breathing it until he was dizzy from inhaling too much oxygen, and her eyes-

  -swept either side of the room with sharp, measured glances while her muscles tightened and wariness thrummed from her. She must have felt the tinge of supernatural power when some of his aura leaked out, and government-sanctioned vampire hunter that she was, she was now looking for its source.

  Bones covered his emotions beneath a thick, glacial wall. He couldn’t let her know how deeply he still loved her when he had no idea if she felt the same. Even if she did, that didn’t solve everything. She needed to admit that she never should have left him in the first place. He wasn’t some innocent she’d had to sacrifice herself for. He was a powerful Master vampire, and if Cat didn’t know that before, she damn sure would now.

  At last, she looked at the wedding party. Bullets were softer than that unyielding gray metal of her gaze as it raked over the other groomsmen before landing on Bones. Then, she swept him from his shoes to his shoulders, probably looking for any telltale bulge of weapons beneath his black tuxedo, before she finally met his eyes—

  Bones knew the instant she recognized him. That predatory look vanished, replaced by so much shock that her heart skipped a beat and she tripped and nearly fell. She caught herself with those inhuman reflexes, her movements so fluid none of the wedding guests noticed, all the while staring at Bones as if one blink would make him disappear.

  Bones stared back, his mouth curling ever so slightly.

  Hallo, Kitten. Yes, I found you.

  Her eyes lit up with something more powerful than the green glow that marked her as half vampire. Then, her smile broke out like the sun. Light blazed inside him, too, as her muscles bunched as if she were about to run down the aisle to him. Then, her gaze darkened as she glanced over at where her mum sat.

  Justina was blissfully unaware of Bones’s presence because she hadn’t bothered to look at the groomsmen. As soon as Cat looked at her mum, her expression shuttered like a slammed door. She kept walking, only a slight jerkiness to her movements and her accelerated heartbeat indicating that anything was amiss.

  Disappointment burned before Bones stomped on it. Yes, Cat was still more concerned with her mum’s happiness than her own, but she had been happy to see him. He hadn’t imagined that, even if she were now pretending that she didn’t know him as she took her place beside the other bridesmaids.

  Nowhere to run, luv, Bones thought, letting his gaze slide over her. Unless you destroy your best mate’s wedding.

  The Cat he knew would never do such a thing. Would this one?

  “Don’t even think about the hottie,” the petite brunette bridesmaid whispered to Cat. “I call dibs.”

  “Shut up,” Cat whispered back, her scent sharpening from the new sheen of sweat beading her upper lip. Her fingers also tightened on her bouquet until petals fell to the floor, and her body was so tense that her muscles must be screaming.

  Bones barely noticed Denise descend the aisle. He only saw a flash of mahogany-colored hair and a lacey white dress out of the corner of his eye. Randy took Denise’s hand, and then the entire bridal party faced the justice of the peace.

  Bones couldn’t look at Cat without being obvious, so he focused on her scent and the staccato tempo of her heartbeat as the justice began the ceremony. Both told him that she was the opposite of unaffected by him no matter that she pretended otherwise.

  Anticipation lit his senses. He’d worked with far less. She’d hated everything about him when they first met, and he’d turned that into desire within mere weeks. Oh, what he couldn’t do with some denial and a dash of forbidden interest…

  “Take the flowers,” the brunette bridesmaid hissed to Cat, kicking Cat’s shoe when Cat still didn’t move.

  Cat stammered out an apology when she realized that Denise had been holding out her bouquet to her. Cat accepted it with a glance at Bones that she immediately dropped when he met her eyes. Then, Cat stared at Denise and Randy during the ring exchange as if she’d be struck by lightning if she looked away.

  More anticipation crackled through Bones. These weren’t the actions of someone hardened into unrecognizable coldness by the brutality of the past several years. No, this was his Kitten, trying to fake her way through being a bloody wreck.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the justice said several minutes later. “You may kiss the bride.”

  Randy kissed Denise to the audience’s cheers, and then the two of them walked back up the aisle. Cat grabbed Phillip’s hand and nearly dragged him after them, ignoring Phillip’s yelp and his attempt to slow her down.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Cat said. “Tell Noah not to wait for me. I’ll go straight to do the pictures afterward.”

  Noah. The human boyfriend that Justina had been so smug about. Yes, he was here, and unbeknownst to Cat, Bones had already met him, not that Noah remembered.

  Cat ran from Phillip as soon as they were clear of the stateroom. She even dropped her flowers in her haste. Bones slid into a corner and watched as a lanky, black-haired Caucasian bloke with lightly tanned skin and a chin dimple excused himself from Justina’s side and picked up the flowers.

  “Where’s Cristine?” the man asked Philip.

  “Ladies’ room,” Philip replied. “She said she’d meet you after she was done with the pictures.”

  “Oh,” Noah said, his smile covering his disappointment.

  Get used to waiting for her, Bones thought coldly. It’ll last the rest of your life.

  Then, Bones slipped around the corner and followed Cat’s scent. It led to the far side of the clubhouse, past another ladies’ room that had been more conveniently located. The one Cat chose was next to a closed golf shop, with no one outside in the hallway, and it was empty except for one heartbeat.

  Bones paused at the door. If Cat were faking the emotions he’d seen and scented, if she’d become the merciless killer that Don recruited her to be, he’d be walking into a trap. This would be the best way for her to lure him away and then slaughter him without anyone else noticing.

  Sod it, he decided, opening the door. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d tried to kill him.

  Bones entered the loo.

  Cat sat on the floor between the sinks and the stalls. Her back was to the wall and her head was bent over her knees, hiding her expression. Her hands were likewise hidden beneath the folds of her lavender dress.

  Bones was no stranger to her throwing skills. They were truly deadly. Was she concealing silver knives within the folds of her dress?

  Time to find out.

  “Hallo, Kitten.”

  10

  Cat’s head snapped up, revealing a perfectly scandalized expression. “God, Bones, this is the ladies’ room! You’re not supposed to be in here. What if someone sees?”

  Laughter pealed out of him. Such a ridiculous statement proved his concerns were groundless. She was still herself. Despite everything they’d done to her, that hadn’t changed.

  “Still a prude?” he asked with more laughter. “Don’t fret. I locked the door behind me.”

  She jumped up, and he took his time looking her over.

  “Look at you, luv.” Her face might be exactly the same, but her body was curvier, filling out her lacy, lavender bridesmaid dress in all the right ways. “Can’t say I prefer the brown hair, but as for the rest of you…you’re luscious.”

  She moved back until the wall prevented her from retreating another inch. “Stay where you are.”

  Was that fear tingeing her scent? Perhaps she thought he’d changed in the same, lethal way he’d just wondered about with her. If so, his chosen profession wouldn’t allay that fear.

  Bones made his movements slow as he leaned against the countertop. His hands were now both in sight, too, showing that he held no weapons.

  “No need to get lathered. I’m not here to kill you.”

  “No,” she said after a moment. “If you were, you wouldn’t have bothered with the ambush at the altar. You obviously know what name I’m going under now, so you would have just come for me one night when I came home from work.”

  Bones let out a light whistle. “I see you haven’t forgotten how I work. Do you know I was offered a contract on the mysterious Red Reaper three times before? One bloke offered half a million bounty for your dead body.”

  Something flitted over her features, too quick for him to read. She’d gotten better at concealing her emotions. “What did you say, since you’ve confirmed you’re not here for that?”

  “I said yes, of course.” Dark satisfaction filled him at the memory. “Then, I hunted down the sods and played ball with their heads. The bounties on you quit being posted after that.”

  All except whoever had hired Lazarus. That contract had never been public, and he still didn’t know who was behind it.

  That trace of fear in her scent didn’t abate when she said, “So, if not for business, then why are you here?”