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She gave me a fraught look over his shoulder. “Catherine! You can’t mean to stay with this creature! He’ll take your soul, he’ll change you-”
“My soul is mine and God’s, Mom. Bones couldn’t take it if he tried.” I moved out to face her and took in a deep breath. Stand your ground. Now or never. “But I’m not going to let you or anyone else decide what I do with my personal life anymore. You don’t have to like Bones. Hell, you can hate his guts for all I care, but as long as I’m with him, you will have to tolerate him. So will Don and the others, or…or I’ll leave and never come back.”
She just blankly regarded me, passing her gaze over each of us in turn. Then a gleam appeared in her eye. I laughed bitterly.
“Just try it, Mom. Try to call my work and have him killed. You saw what he did to them years ago on the highway, and that’s when he wasn’t even mad! Furthermore, if anyone comes for him, I’ll kill them myself. No matter who it is.” I let her see from my gaze that I meant it. I might do anything I could to avoid that-but ultimately, I meant it. “Then afterward, Bones and I will disappear. Permanently. You really want that? After all, if I stay here with you and them, I have much less of a chance to want to change into a vampire. Take me away from all of my human support and…well, you never know.”
I was shamelessly playing on her greatest fear, but she’d earned that. Bones’s lips twitched.
“Look at the bright side,” he urged my mother with devilish intent. “If you let us be, she could grow tired of me in time. But forcing us to run gives me few other alternatives…” He dangled the sentence.
“Like I’d believe anything you’d say,” she shot back. “It would be better for everyone if you’d just stake yourself and die for good. If you really loved her, you’d do that.”
Bones gave her a jaded look and then let it rip. “You know what your problem is, Justina? You’re in desperate need of a good shag.”
I downed a gulp of gin to cover the laugh that forced its way out. God, if I’d thought that once, I’d thought it a thousand times!
She let out an outraged huff. Bones ignored it.
“Not that I’m offering you one myself, mind. My days as a whore ended back in the seventeen hundreds.”
The gin was abruptly sucked back into my lungs as I gasped. He did not just tell my mother about his former profession; sweet Jesus, let me have heard incorrectly!
I hadn’t, and Bones went right on. “…but I have a friend who owes me a favor and he could be persuaded to…Kitten, are you all right?”
I’d stopped breathing as soon as he casually admitted to his prior occupation. Add that to the liquid stuck in my lungs, and no, I wasn’t all right.
My mother was oblivious. A torrent of insults erupted from her throat.
“Filthy, degenerate, molesting sodomite-”
“Isn’t this a proper flashback to her childhood? You’re more concerned with yourself than your daughter, bloody woman; can’t you see she’s choking?”
Bones pounded me on my back as I coughed to expel the gin from my windpipe. The first breath seared me when it came. My eyes watered profusely, but at least I was able to take in another painful one, and then another.
Reassured that I was breathing again, Bones picked up where my mother left off.
“Sodomite’s incorrect, Justina. Women were my clients, not men. Just wanted to clear that up; I’d hate to have you think something false of me. ’Course, if you don’t trust my recommendation for a shag, I reckon your daughter’s friend Juan might be up for the arduous task of-”
“That’s it!” she shrieked, snatching the front door open.
“Come back soon,” he called after her as she slammed it behind her hard enough to shake the windows.
“She’ll go straight to Don,” I got out, voice hoarse from my accidental attempt to breathe gin.
Bones only gri
I wasn’t convinced. “You should still watch your back. They could send a team after you.”
Bones laughed. “To what end? It would take a small army to corner me, and I’d hear that coming. Don’t fret, luv. I’m not so easy to kill. Now, do you want to wear that? Or do you want to put something else on?”
“For what?” I asked suspiciously.
“I’m taking you out to di
“But what if-” I began, then stopped.
From his expression, Bones knew I’d been about to say, But what if we’re seen together? If I really meant what I said about giving this relationship a shot, then I’d have to reconcile Bones and my job. More specifically, I’d have to reconcile Don with Bones. Or quit-and hope like hell I wasn’t the team’s next elimination assignment.
Now or never. “I’ll go change; wait for me.”
Bones gave me an ironic smile. “I’m rather used to that.”
EIGHTEEN
DESPITE MY FEARS, THREE DAYS PASSED WITHOUT a hint of my mother or my work. I was amazed that Bones seemed to be right and my mother hadn’t run to Don screaming, “Nosferatu, arrgh!” or some variance. Did she really fear losing me as much as Bones said? After my whole life of feeling like my mother would be happier without me, it was very unusual to think she’d sacrifice some of her raging prejudice to have a relationship.
Or she was just biding her time. That was the more likely scenario.
Bones took me out every night. We went to di
Which was getting harder and harder not to do. Sure, I’d said to take it slow, but the more time I spent around Bones, the less I remembered why I’d thought taking it slow was a good idea. Every time he held my hand, every time our bodies brushed, damn, every night he left me on my porch and walked away without so much as a good-night kiss, I ached with longing. I couldn’t bear to take it slow much longer. I’d end up assaulting him.
On the fourth night, Bones said he wanted to cook me di
Since I didn’t have anything in my house other than microwave-ready meals, he went to the store first. I came out on the porch to let him in, smiling at his multiple bags of groceries, and then was puzzled to see his expression harden.
“We’re being watched.”
Bones didn’t turn around as he said it. Years of practice made me resist the urge to look about myself. I took some bags from him and asked a soft question.
“Ian?”
“No. It’s your bloke, the same one in Ohio. He’s down the street in his car, and from the way his pulse just shot up, you’ve been found out. He can tell what I am.”
“Tate?” He was the only person Bones had seen back in Ohio when Don used his “join me or die” recruiting tactic. “Do you think my mother called him?”
Bones used his body to propel me inside.
“From his heart rate, he’s shocked. No, he had no idea. Probably thought to offer you some company in hopes you’d break down and shag him. Wanker.”
I began to pace. Bones put away the groceries as if undisturbed. Practicality was definitely his strong suit. That’s what I get for training the guys to notice those slight nuances in appearance and movement that separates a vampire from the rest of the population, I thought. Apparently I’d done my job too well, since Tate had picked up on what Bones was from down the block. I listened hard, sending my senses outward. In a second I, too, heard Tate’s accelerated breathing and heart rate. Yeah, he was shaken, you could safely say.