Once Vlad took Leila’s hand, the ceremony started. It turned out to be surprisingly traditional. Mencheres handed over the rings when the time came, and a brunette who resembled Leila accepted her bouquet. Aside from Vlad’s giving his responses in both English and Romanian and the roar his people let out after he declared that he would love, honor, and cherish Leila as his wife, it was a textbook-normal wedding.
And a dose of normal was apparently what I’d needed. I already knew I’d missed our far quieter life in the mountains, but I hadn’t realized how much until now. Something tightly clenched inside me unwound a little as I listened to two people swear to take on all of life’s challenges together in the name of love.
In my thirty years on this earth, I’d already seen and done more than many people would in a lifetime, but I wouldn’t have made it this far if not for love. That had been the solid ground beneath my feet when everything else around me had crumpled, and despite the danger and uncertainty of what lay ahead, I knew it would be again.
For a split second, I pitied Madigan. He only had ambition and ruthlessness holding him up. How great his fall would be from such a tenuous, unreliable perch.
Silently, I slipped my hand into Bones’s. At once, he brought it to his lips, brushing a whisper soft kiss over my knuckles. Another hidden knot inside me eased as the cloud that had been hanging over me from weeks of frustration became pierced by rays of hope. We’d been through so much together. Surely we hadn’t come this far to fail now.
Buoyed by the thought, I cheered when Vlad and Leila were formally pronounced man and wife—according to human law, anyway—and vowed to make the most of this brief time-out from our troubles. Soon I realized that if the ceremony had been more traditional in nature, the reception had shades of Vlad’s over-the-top style. It spilled into the entire third floor of his mansion and had enough food and drink to make even vampires physically sick, and that wasn’t counting the wedding cake that stood taller than me in high heels. I didn’t even get a chance to say hello to Vlad until almost three hours in, when we brought up the rear of the reception line.
Vlad’s long dark hair was slicked back enough to show his widow’s peak. The severe style also emphasized his high cheekbones, strong brows, and unusual coppery green eyes. He wasn’t classically handsome like Bones, but he was striking in a way that couldn’t be ignored. His fur-edged scarlet cloak and the richly braided suit beneath it only added to his commanding presence, not to mention he could club someone to death with the massive gold pendant hanging around his neck.
“You’re going to coin the term ‘medieval fabulous’ in that outfit,” I teased as I leaned in to kiss his cheek. Then I murmured, “I’m so happy for you,” against his stubbled skin.
He embraced me, brief but welcoming. “I’m pleased that you came, Cat.”
His lips curled downward as he looked over my shoulder, but all he said was “Bones” in a noncommittal tone.
“Tepesh,” Bones greeted him in an equally ambiguous voice.
I rolled my eyes. At least they weren’t threatening to kill each other. That was progress for their relationship.
Then I turned my attention to Leila, wrapping her in a hug before a zap of electricity reminded me that she gave off voltage due to a power line accident when she was a teenager.
“Congratulations,” I told the lovely, raven-haired bride.
She thanked us while looking a little overwhelmed, not that I could blame her. The first time I’d been in a room filled with thousands of supernatural creatures, it had freaked me out, too, and I’d only been half-human at the time. Leila was fully mortal, new Mrs. Dracula or not. If I’d had a stiff drink on me, I would have given it to her at once.
Bones kissed her gloved hand while offering his own congratulations. Before we left them, I slanted a glance at Leila, and mischievously said, “No one thought what you just did could be done, you know. You’ll earn the nickname of The Dragon Slayer.”
Vlad glowered at me, but Bones laughed. As we walked away, he leaned down until his lips grazed my ear.
“Makes me wish Denise were here,” Bones whispered. “She could show Tepesh a dragon that would put his house emblem to shame.”
She certainly could if it wouldn’t out her as one of the world’s only shapeshifters. A demon had branded Denise with his essence, which became permanent after his death. Now my best friend had all the powers the demon had had, including near immortality and the ability to shapeshift into anything she chose. She’d picked a dragon to scare off Heinrich Kramer when the ghost had been about to kill Bones. Though I’d seen it with my own eyes, part of me still couldn’t believe Denise had transformed into a two-story-tall mythical creature just as easily as if she were changing clothes . . .
I stopped walking so abruptly that only vampire reflexes kept the couple behind us from barreling into our backs.
“What’s wrong, Kitten?” Bones asked, drawing me away from the throngs of people.
Excitement made my voice vibrate though I was careful to speak only in a whisper.
“I know how we’re going to infiltrate that underground facility in Point Pleasant. They’re going to let us in.”
Twelve
We had turbulence on the long flight back to the States. I was fine with it, but Bones, who hated to fly even under good conditions, was in a less-than-charming mood by the time we landed in St. Louis. It was his bad luck that Spade and Denise hadn’t been staying at their England estate. That would have been a relatively short trip from Romania.
Of course, his ill temper might be because he hated my plan. Still, as I’d told him more than once on the bumpy fight back, if he had a better idea, I was open to hearing it. His silence on that subject spoke volumes, but I knew Bones. He wasn’t done fighting yet.
Then again, neither was I. Besides, while I felt confident of Denise’s response, we also had to convince Spade to go along with this. If he wouldn’t, Bones had nothing to worry about.
By the time we pulled up to Spade and Denise’s house, the sun was setting, though jet lag and traversing several time zones in the past two days had me feeling like it was the crack of dawn. Spade was already waiting at his front door, causing me to wonder which had alerted him to our arrival first: sensing other vampires’ presences or hearing our car pull into the driveway.
“Crispin,” Spade said, referring to Bones by his real name since, like Ian, he’d known him back when they were all human. “Cat. Welcome.”
The words were gracious, but Spade’s tone was more cautious than cordial. I gave the tall, black-haired vampire my most winning smile, which earned me an instant scowl.
“Now I know your visit brings trouble, as if your telling me to clear out our staff before you arrived wasn’t warning enough.”
“You’re not wrong, Charles,” Bones said, also using Spade’s birth name. Then he clapped him on the back. “But you need to hear this nonetheless.”
I followed them inside, glad to see a friendlier face coming down the hallway.
“Denise!”
She grinned, giving me a hug when she reached me. I squeezed back, not worried about hurting her with my strength. In many ways, the demonic essence Denise was branded with had made her tougher than I.
When she pulled away, though, her grin had faded. “What’s going on? Is your mom okay?”
“She’s fine,” I said, making a mental note to call her soon. “We’re here about something my uncle started a long time ago.”
We filled them in on the details while sipping coffee in their living room. Spade’s handsome features were set in hard lines by the time we finished.
“He’ll cause a war if he succeeds,” he stated. Then he gave Bones a measuring look. “The answer is yes, Crispin. I’ll fight with you to prevent cross-species contamination from ever happening.”
Bones snorted. “I never doubted that, mate, but that’s
not why we’re here.”
With that, I cleared my throat. “We can’t storm the base where we think Madigan is running his experiments—and holding our friends—until we know who his government backer is. And we can’t find that out without getting inside the base, so it’s been a Catch-22 until now.”
I glanced at Denise before I fixed my attention back on her husband.
“Only Madigan can waltz into that facility and get the information we need without arousing suspicion. Or someone who looks just like him.”
I’d always thought Spade’s eyes resembled a tiger’s. Right now, seeing them fix on me in a way that made every survival instinct scream “Red Alert!” I was sure of it.
“Charles,” Bones said.
Though the single word was soft, the crash of power that instantly flooded the room was anything but.
Spade let out a sound; half growl, half hiss. “Don’t threaten me, Crispin.”
“Then don’t glare at my wife that way,” was his instant response.
“Hey.” Denise stood up, waving her hand to break their staring contest. “Remember me, the person this is about?”
Spade looked her way, his expression softening at once.
“I do, darling, but you can’t walk into that facility on your own. It’s too dangerous.”
“I agree,” I said calmly.
That startled Spade into looking at me without his former death stare. “What?”
“I agree,” I repeated. “Even if Denise got in, she’d have no idea how to hack into Madigan’s computer to get the information we needed. While I’m not as good as the hacker group Anonymous, I know enough to recover what we’re looking for. That’s why I’d be going with her. Madigan’s been after me for years, so his scientists would see me pretending to be his captive and just assume he’d finally accomplished his objective to imprison me for full experimentation.”
And once we were inside the compound, and I discovered who’d been backing Madigan, plus what had happened to Tate, Juan, Cooper, and Dave . . . the real fight would begin.
Spade’s gaze flicked to Bones. “You’re willing to let her do this?”
A bark of laughter preceded his response. “Willing? No. Resigned, yes, but she’s not going in alone, either. I’ll be going with them.”
“Bones,” I said in a sigh, “we talked about this. One hostage vampire, his staff would believe, but two? That’s pushing it.”
“Normally, yes,” he said in a mild tone. “But anyone who sees me will swear I’m completely harmless.”
Of course. Because a six-foot-two, muscled Master vampire known to be a centuries-old badass was the picture of helplessness.
“You’d need to employ mass hypnotism to convince anyone of that, and his guards wear visors to prevent being mesmerized.”
Bones’s smile was dangerously luxuriant, like poison concealed in the finest of wines.
“You’ll see, but before we get to that, we need to find a way to capture Jason Madigan. Denise can’t pull off impersonating him in West Virginia if everyone knows he’s still in Tennessee.”
Fabian dropped through the kitchen ceiling of our rental apartment, his translucent features telling the story before he spoke.
“He still hadn’t left the compound, has he?” I asked in resignation.
The ghost shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cat.”
Denise’s face mirrored my own disappointment, but Spade turned away before I could catch his expression. It was probably a smile. He’d risk his own life without any qualms, but when it came to his wife’s safety, he even managed to make Bones look under-protective.
“This isn’t working,” Denise said, stating the opinion I’d come to days ago. “Madigan might have left the compound every couple weeks before, but he’s obviously burrowed in like a tick now. What if it’s months until he comes out on his own?”
“The shortest distance between two points is a straight line,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “I’ll call Madigan and tell him I want to meet. We now know how badly he wants to capture me, so that’ll get him out of the compound.”
“Absolutely not,” Bones snapped.
“Hooks work best when they’re baited,” I replied, throwing his words from the other day back at him. “I’m what Madigan wants. He’ll come out if he thinks he can grab me.”
“Yes, with the strongest army he can amass to capture you,” Bones said, his emotions flashing through mine with the intensity of lightning strikes. “Need I remind you that the last time you met an adversary on his terms, you were shot and nearly burned to death.”
By reflex, I ran a hand through my hair. Even with vampire healing abilities, it still hadn’t grown to the length it had been the night Kramer set fire to me.
“But who’s here and who’s locked in a spectre trap?” I countered. “If history’s most powerful ghost couldn’t do me in, then humanity’s biggest asshole doesn’t stand a chance.”
Spade leaned back, making himself more comfortable while a satisfied expression crossed his features. No doubt he was thinking paybacks were a bitch as he listened to Bones and me argue over acceptable safety risks.
Then the person I least expected to take my side strolled into the kitchen, wearing nothing but a bed sheet wrapped around his hips.
“Why do you bother, Crispin? You married a fighter, so stop trying to convince her that the sidelines suit her better.”
“The day you love anyone but yourself is the day I’ll take your marital advice, Ian,” Bones bit back in an icy tone.
“Then today is that day,” Ian replied sharply, “for I love you, you wretched, pig-headed guttersnipe. I also love that arrogant, overprivileged dandy smirking at us”—a wave indicted Spade, whose aforementioned smirk vanished—“as well as the emotionally fractured, malfunctioning psychic who sired me. And you, Crispin, love a bloodthirsty hellion who’s probably killed more people in her thirty years than I have in over two centuries of living, so again I say, don’t bother trying to convince her that she isn’t who she is.”
Denise’s mouth hung open, either at Ian’s less-than-flattering descriptions of us, or the notion that I’d killed more people than he had. Spade’s expression was now stony, but a muscle ticked in Bones’s jaw—the only indication of his feelings since he’d shrouded his aura under an impenetrable cloud.
As for me, I didn’t know whether to punch Ian for calling Bones a pig-headed guttersnipe or thank him for stating the obvious. I might be tired of all the fighting and constantly straddling the line between life and death, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t good at it.
Some people were born to be mothers, fathers, inventors, artists, speakers, preachers . . . and then there was me.
“He’s right,” I said in a quiet tone. “My true skill is killing. I’ve excelled at it since I was sixteen, when I took on my first vampire without knowing anything about them.”
Then I went over to Bones, framing his face in my hands.
“It was you who taught me to judge people by their actions instead of their species. You saved me from a life of misery, regret, and well-earned recriminations. Now it’s time to let me do my thing, Bones”—I smiled wryly—“and trust that you taught me to be the best damned killer I could be.”
He covered my hands with his own, his flesh vibrating with the power he kept so tightly under control. Then he kissed me, gentle yet full of scorching passion.
Which was why, when he drew away and spoke, I couldn’t believe what he said.
“You’re right, luv. But I still refuse to be a part of this.”
Then I really didn’t believe it when he walked out of the apartment.
Thirteen
This wasn’t the first time Bones had gotten pissed enough to walk out on me. Whoever said marriage was easy? Not me.
“He just needs time to cool off,” I tol
d Denise, who hovered in the doorway, holding a bottle of gin in one hand and a pint of Häagen-Dazs in the other. Had to give it to my best friend: She knew how to cover her bases.
I pointed at the gin. She came inside, handing it over. Then she sat next to me on the bed and popped the lid off the ice cream, digging into that one herself.
“Of course he’ll be back,” she said between spoonfuls. “But are you, you know, okay in the meantime?”
I took a swallow of gin before I answered. “I’ve been better. When Bones does return, we’ll have it out over the way he chose to express his dissenting opinion, but marriage is a marathon. Not a sprint.”
Denise raised her spoon in salute. “True, that.”
I patted her arm, taking a last swig of gin before I put the bottle on the nightstand. Then I pulled out one of my burner phones, dialing a number that used to connect me to my uncle when he was alive.
“Madigan,” a brusque voice answered.
“This is Cat Russell,” I said. “We need to talk.”
The space of two heartbeats went by before Madigan replied, “Aren’t we doing that now?” in a manner that sounded more cautious than sarcastic.
I let out a short laugh. “Humor never was your strong suit, Jason. I mean face-to-face, and sooner rather than later.”
“Come on over, then. You know where I am,” was his reply.
“So I can stand in the cross fire of dozens of machine guns concealed in your walls?” My scoff was soft. “Thanks, but no.”
This time, his silence stretched longer than a couple heartbeats. Probably trying to figure out how I knew about the guns.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked at last.
“Midnight tonight at the Rat Branch Pier off Watauga Lake. It’s just east of Hampton, Tennessee. Come alone, and I’ll do the same.”
Laughter floated across the line, harsh as glass being ground by rocks. “You’ll do the same? We both know Bones is glaring over your shoulder right now, silently vowing to accompany you.”
“If he were here, he would be,” I said, and that was the unvarnished truth. “But we already had this fight, and he got pissed and left. That’s why our meeting has to be tonight. He won’t be gone long, and once he’s back, he’ll insist on coming.”