One Foot in the Grave

TWENTY-EIGHT

BONES WAS VERY BUSY THE NEXT DAY, PULLING in his people from around the nation and even across the globe. He wanted them nearby when he told Ian that he’d found me and had hostages. Bones made me stay put while he went to my house and fetched my cat, who hadn’t been happy to be left alone for two-plus days. Then the next morning we woke up at ten, frightfully early for us both, and headed straight to the compound.

“You said you had captive vampires here, right, Kitten?” he asked after we arrived.

“Yeah, three of them, why?”

Bones clucked his tongue in contemplation. “They might be useful. Let me see them.”

Tate, Juan, and Cooper accompanied us down to the lower level where the vampires were housed. The guards averted their eyes when Bones walked past, having been instructed by Don not to interfere, but they had never seen a vampire unfettered and strolling about. Their obvious discomfort filled the air.

“In this pen we have Grumpy,” I narrated, flipping up the concealing liner that hid the vampire in his prison. It was only raised when the other guards were safely out of eyesight. Since Tate, Juan, and Cooper were juiced with Bones’s blood, they could look at him and not worry. “His real name is Dillon, or so he told us. He’s about thirty, I guess, in grave years.”

Dillon’s blue eyes widened when they met the cool, appraising brown ones. Bones nodded, indicating he was done viewing him.

“Next is Jack, but he’s known as Chirpy. He’s got a real high-pitched voice, hence the nickname. I’d say sixty? Seventy? We snagged him at a baseball game. He liked to drink the beer vendor girls.”

Sixty or seventy again referred to his undead years, but the living ones didn’t seem far off from that number, either. Jack was small, wrinkled, and frail-appearing. Right up until he’d try to rip your throat out.

“And this”-I raised the last shield to reveal the blond vampire I’d captured months ago-“is Sunshine. We don’t know her real name; she never told us.”

As soon as Sunshine looked up, she vaulted off her cot in a blur of speed to press herself against the glass.

“Bones! How did you get here? Never mind, just kill them and let me out!”

“Belinda, fancy seeing you here,” Bones chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not here to rescue you.”

“You know her?” I asked foolishly, since it was obvious.

She touched the glass. “How can you say that, after what we meant to each other?”

I stiffened, but Tate jumped right in. “You fucked Sunshine?”

I was waiting for his reply as well, with a pointed glare.

“We didn’t mean anything to each other aside from a few shags, Belinda,” Bones answered the question bluntly with his rejoinder.

My hands clenched. Now I wished I’d killed her instead of capturing her.

Juan said something in Spanish I couldn’t follow, and to my added amazement, Bones replied in the same language. Juan’s forehead crinkled as he laughed at whatever the exchange was.

“That’s rude,” I snapped, not amused in the slightest. Somehow I knew they weren’t discussing Sunshine’s-or Belinda’s-teeth.

For the first time, I looked her over as a woman, and I didn’t like what I saw. Belinda was very pretty, even without a smidgen of makeup. She had long blond hair, hence the nickname we’d given her, big breasts, and a small waist on top of curvy hips. Her cornflower-blue eyes complemented her full pink lips. All the better to kiss Bones with…

“Sorry, Kitten,” Bones apologized, switching back to English.

Juan clapped me on the back. “He speaks better Spanish than I do, querida.”

“Apparently there are a lot of things I don’t know about him,” I purred dangerously.

Tate hid a smile behind a sudden cough.

Bones turned back to Belinda. “Quit batting your lashes at me. If you’re in there, then you tried to hurt her.” He nodded at me. “So you could shrivel to dust for all I bother. However, your stay here could be more pleasant if two things happen. The first involves the lovely lady at my side. She would have to agree. The second pertains to your total cooperation or, failing that, your gruesome, prolonged death. Are we clear?”

Belinda nodded and stepped back from the glass. I shut the obscuring screen, since her face was more than I wanted to see anymore.

“I for one vote for her gruesome, prolonged death,” I said as I stomped away. When we were out of the holding level for the vampires, I rounded on Bones.

“You and her? Eww.”

My three captains hung back, but with their new hearing abilities, it didn’t matter. Bones crossed his arms and let out a resigned noise.

“Kitten, this was before you. It didn’t mean anything.”

I understood that, but still. This felt worse than when I’d met another of Bones’s previous girlfriends, Francesca. At least she’d been helping us track down a scumbag who used to run a Meals on Wheels with humans as his main course. Belinda, who I’d met when her roommate brought me home thinking I’d make a nice dinner for two, had no such saving attributes.

“Clearly it meant something to her.”

Bones shrugged. “Then kill her, if it makes you feel better. Can’t say I’d blame you, and I truly don’t care. If you like, I’ll do it myself.”

That stopped me in my tracks. By his face, Bones was serious. He really would kill her, or just stand by and watch while I did.

“I don’t murder people just because I’m jealous.” Not yet, anyhow. “Fine. I’ll be adult, even though the thought of you with her makes me want to hurl. So, then. What’s your idea?”

Tate, Juan, and Cooper filed into the training room. They weren’t wearing full battle gear, which would have been a bulletproof vest, a flexible silver-lined neck protector (which I designed after Dave’s death), or automatic and semi-automatic guns complete with silver cartridges. No, they were each wearing just the usual cotton pants with crewneck T-shirt that all our team wore while training.

Except this was no ordinary training operation, even by our standards. Next to me, Bones held Belinda in an iron grip. Don, safe in his overlook box above us, looked decidedly bleak. He hadn’t liked this idea. Neither had I, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t see the merit of it.

“Are you guys ready?” I asked.

My tone was calm, belying my inner churning stomach. All three men nodded.

“Then take a knife, each of you. Just one.”

They complied, going over to the container where we had knives piled up like so much garbage. I glanced at Bones. He nodded once and then bent to Belinda’s ear.

“Remember what I told you,” he said very softly, yet his voice dripped with ice.

Then he released her, and she charged like a blond Tasmanian devil at my men.

They scattered, moving with a speed that would have been impossible for them a week ago. Pumped full of Bones’s blood, however, they managed to avoid her first grab. Tate spun behind Belinda, flinging his single knife at her back, and it lodged to the hilt right where her heart would be.

She swung around, reaching behind her while I barked out a reprimand.

“That’s great if you’re intending to kill her, but I told you to treat this situation like a test run for Ian’s guards. If they’re dead, what hostages am I supposed to bargain with?”

A fleeting look of sheepishness crossed Tate’s face. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just knee-jerk reaction, I guess.”

Belinda snatched the knife out of her back and flung it at Tate’s feet.

“Asshole,” she growled at him.

Bones gave me a knowing look. “See why I insisted on steel knives instead of silver? I reckoned one of them might panic and go for the kill instead of the capture.”

I knew it was more than nerve-wracking to face a vampire with nothing more than a single weapon, but Tate and the others had to master their emotions. Not only would it be bad for bargaining purposes to be without hostages, but if we slaughtered Ian’s men, I was guessing he’d be even more unreasonable to deal with.

“Your objective is to restrain Belinda with nonlethal means,” I said sharply. “If you can’t manage to do that, then you’re off this mission. Period.”

“And if after an hour you haven’t restrained me,” Belinda purred, “I get to taste one of you. Mmm, fresh blood. I haven’t had that in over a year.”

She licked her lips as she said it, eyeing them with a lustfulness that had nothing to do with sex. Juan swallowed. Tate backed away. Even the normally stoic Cooper looked uneasy. This was news to them.

“For motivation,” I said coolly. “Now, who’s going to be happy in an hour? You guys, or her?”

Belinda bared her fangs and leapt at them again. This time, she picked just one and dove low, knocking Juan’s legs out from under him. Juan scrambled, but Belinda was faster. She had her fangs near his throat before he could push her away.

I tensed, ready to hurl myself into the action, but Bones grasped my arm. At that same moment, Cooper and Tate jumped on Belinda. Cooper yanked her head back by her hair, and Tate gave her a roundhouse kick to the face that would have snapped the neck of a normal person.

Belinda was dazed for a moment. Only a moment. Then she reached behind her and flung Cooper over her head so hard, he landed a dozen feet away.

“Let them handle it,” Bones said low. “You can’t always be there to protect them.”

I set my jaw. Sure, Bones had threatened Belinda with truly horrible punishment if she got out of line and killed one of them, but that wouldn’t make the unlucky one any less dead. Bones didn’t think she was dumb enough to try it. I wasn’t so confident. Still, his logic had been undeniable. Belinda was an average-strength vampire, and if my guys couldn’t handle her, then they couldn’t be counted on with Ian’s men. Nothing like trial by fang, I thought grimly. Come on, guys, make me proud. Take the blond bimbo down.

Tate and Juan circled around Belinda while Cooper got up and shook himself. His forehead was bleeding. Belinda’s nostrils flared with hunger. She glanced at Juan, smiled, and then ripped her top open. Her full, bra-less breasts bounced into view.

Juan stared, faltering for an instant. It was all the time Belinda needed. She lunged, slamming her fist into his head. Juan’s eyes rolled up, and he dropped to the floor. Tate chased her, but she’d already reached Cooper. A hard blow to his abdomen had him instinctively hunching, and her tongue snaked out to lick the red trail dripping from his forehead.

“An appetizer,” she murmured, then lifted Cooper like he was a toy and threw him at Tate, who was almost on them. The two men went sprawling with a jumble of limbs.

I gritted my teeth. Bones reached down and gave my hand a squeeze. I knew what he was thinking. We’d have to come up with a Plan B for capturing Ian’s men, because Betty Boop here was whipping their asses even though the odds were three against one. Well, two against one now, since Juan was solidly passed out. Wait until I got ahold of him, letting a pair of tits distract him like that. Juan would wish he hadn’t woken up.

Fifty minutes later, Tate and Cooper were soaked with sweat, Juan was just coming to, and Belinda hadn’t been successfully restrained. Oh, Tate and Cooper had come close a few times, but they hadn’t managed to hold on to her long enough to hand her back to Bones, which had been their objective. My stomach seemed to drop. If it had just been a matter of taking a kill shot, they would have succeeded several times over. But they couldn’t subdue her without resorting to unacceptable means. Motherfucker. That was going to have two bad consequences, the first of which would start now.

Belinda smiled with her fangs fully extended. “I won, so I want my victory spoils. Unless you’re a liar, Bones.”

Bones crossed his arms, giving her a hard stare. “I said you’d get your prize. I didn’t specify when, however.”

Belinda began to curse him when, amazingly, Tate interrupted her.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said shortly, and walked-or rather limped-up to her.

My gaze widened. “Tate-” I began.

“Save it,” he cut me off. “We failed you, Cat. You think her biting me is gonna hurt more than that?”

The rawness in his tone made me blink and turn away. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that even with the added strength from Bones’s blood, he was still human and Belinda was still not. It was a lot easier to kill than to capture a vampire, even for me, or Don would’ve had more sets of fangs in his undead stable. But I knew my sympathy would only make Tate feel worse, so I didn’t say anything. I pretended to be fascinated by the wall in the opposite direction from where he was.

“Who says you’re the one I want?” Belinda asked dismissively.

“Doesn’t matter; I’m the one you’re gonna get,” Tate replied, his tone hardening. “You understand chain of command, suck head? Out of the three of us, I’m the top of the chain, so you’re getting my vein and no one else’s.”

That made me blink more rapidly. God, how like Tate to insist on taking the bullet, or in this case, the bite. It was what made him such a great leader. He never shirked from his duty to his men.

I felt rather than saw Belinda smile. “I guess you’ll do, then. Come here.”

“Not so fast,” Bones said, even as I composed myself and turned around. “Wrist only, Belinda. Not his neck.”

She gave a pout that was both menacing and sultry at the same time. “But I like the throat better.”

“Too bloody bad,” Bones said coldly. “Argue again and you’ll get nothing.”

I’d been about to insist on the same thing. A ripped-up arm was a damn sight less lethal than a ripped-up jugular, just in case Belinda thought about reneging on her promise to behave. Still, she seemed afraid enough of Bones to believe that he’d make her more than sorry if she did, which I guess stemmed from her knowing his reputation. That’s why Bones picked Belinda versus our other two caged vamps to test the guys, he’d explained. They hadn’t known him, so they didn’t know that he would follow through with exactly what he said. Belinda did know him. Too much of him for my liking, but there was nothing I could do about that.

She smiled as she reached out to Tate. Her shirt was still hanging open, leaving her breasts bare, and she cradled his arm next to her. Tate’s heart rate was way above normal and increasing, but I thought that had to do more with the anxiousness over being bitten versus excitement over Belinda’s tits.

“Don’t worry, gorgeous, you’ll like it,” she purred, giving her fangs a last lick.

Tate grunted. “Not on your afterlife, bitch.”

Belinda just laughed. Low, throaty, and knowing. “Yes you will.” Then she sank her sharp incisors into Tate’s forearm.

I saw the tremor go through him even as his heart began to beat faster. He thinned his lips, but not before a soft sound, almost like surprise, slipped from them. When Belinda swallowed and drew deeper, sucking on his arm, Tate’s eyes fluttered closed for a second before he snapped them open. And stared at me.

It was only a few moments, but it seemed to stretch much longer. Tate’s indigo gaze took on that same heated intensity it had the night he’d gotten drunk and confessed how he felt about me. I knew he’d be feeling that intoxicating warmth slipping through his veins. That heady, seductive rush that belied all logic. It didn’t happen every time a vampire bit someone, of course. I knew from experience after some nasty fights with them that a bite could hurt like hell. But when a vamp didn’t want it to hurt-it didn’t. Not even in the slightest way.

“That’s enough,” Bones said in a clipped tone.

Belinda slowly drew back, licking the drops of blood from her fangs. Tate didn’t move. He just kept staring at me like I’d somehow grown undead powers and mesmerized him.

“Close the holes,” Bones directed Belinda. Tate hadn’t even bothered to wipe the blood leaking out in a slow drip from his arm.

Belinda scored her thumb on a fang and held it over the punctures. They vanished in seconds.

“Is this why you can’t stay away from him, Cat?” Tate finally asked, ignoring everyone else around him.

I was stunned at the question, but Bones only smiled, showing a hint of his own fangs.

“You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you, mate?”

“Tate, why would you even think such a thing?” I managed.

“Don’t bother, luv,” Bones said lightly, still showing that same toothsome smile. “I don’t care what lies he uses to comfort himself with when he’s alone at night and you’re with me. Belinda, your time-out’s over. Back to your cell.”

We left without another word, Belinda still licking her lips as we corralled her back to the lower level and her confinement.