I was still in the throes of orgasm, nerve endings shredded with pleasure, and only the concern for oxygen gave me the ability to talk. “Can’t… breathe…”
Between his ceaseless kissing and his iron grip, my lungs were deprived. He loosened his hold and tore his mouth from mine, leaving a hot trail down to my breast. A strangled moan tore out of me when he sucked hard on my nipple. I took in rapid breaths and then bit my lip at the intensity of his motions. He was rough enough for it to have been rape, except I strained toward him and reveled in the ravishment. No pain had ever felt this good. Strangled sounds escaped me and I punctured his back with my nails.
“Forgive me,” Bones moaned into my ear. “I can’t be gentle. It’s been too long.”
“Don’t stop.” I raked my nails down his back for emphasis, sparing him nothing in the gesture. The storm broke around us, rain pelting down in sheets. I felt more wild than it was, what with the passion that had my nerve endings contracting and twisting in a frenzy.
“I can’t stop,” he muttered as a twist of his hips shot rapturous torment into my loins. The muscles inside me clenched and unclenched in furious competition. I unleashed all control over myself, tearing into him with the same force he inflicted on me, and the thunder and downpour absorbed our cries. There was nothing tender in the way we took each other. We were both too desperate for that.
When Bones finally convulsed, tremors shaking him, I’d almost fainted. My heart pounded and my ears rang with the blood thrumming in them. He gathered me closer and let his mouth rest over my pulse, and I could feel its rampant beating against his lips.
“That took some of the edge off,” he breathed into my neck.
I managed a wheeze of a laugh. “If that only took some of the edge off, you’ll kill me before you dull the blade.” It was true. I’d be black and blue by nightfall, and my walking abilities were in serious jeopardy.
I felt him smile against my skin, and I opened my eyes. His glowing emerald gaze held mine and the reality of him being with me, me actually inside his arms, struck me belatedly. The anguish I’d carried for so long eased bit by bit, reluctant to break its stranglehold. Tears came to my eyes, and I couldn’t hold back the truth any longer.
“Everything I said to you before was shit. I still love you. I couldn’t stop, no matter how hard I tried! Oh God, Bones, I’ve been so lost without you…” I couldn’t speak anymore. I tried to fight the tears, but they came anyway, and a sob choked off my words.
“It’s all right, Kitten,” Bones said softly. “You’re not lost any longer. I found you, and I love all of you. I love the narrow-minded teenager who tried to kill me when we first met because she thought the world had two categories: human and evil. I love the budding fighter who made a deal with a vampire to protect her family, and I love the sensual young woman who hid underneath. I love the lying bitch who left me because she thought she was protecting me. I love the hardened warrior you’ve become. I can even love you for getting engaged to that fluffy scrap of humanity you thought would change you into something you’ll never be. I love you whether you’re Cristine, Cat, Cathy, Kitten or even Catherine, and I will love whoever you become in the future too.”
That did it; I burst into full, wracking sobs that shattered the walls within me. More than anything else, I’d longed to hear that he still loved me, and more incredibly, as he’d pointed out, he loved the real me, in all my flaws and forms. It was an inexpressible relief to break down, drop my shields, and be emotionally defenseless without fear of rejection. Bones held me the entire time that I cried, and when the storm of my tears finally passed, I kissed him with such fervor that I tore my lips on his fangs.
Bones made a guttural noise as he swallowed my blood. Then one hand tangled in my hair and his mouth sealed over my throat. I had a split second where I guessed what he intended, and tensed in instinctive defense.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, then his fangs sank into me.
Just like that one time years before when he’d bitten me, what logic told me should hurt only felt good instead. Really, really good, and increasing with each pull from his mouth. I tried to talk and couldn’t. There seemed to be an invisible highway connecting my artery to my loins, and I felt him there as if he were inside me again. The last time he’d bitten me hadn’t been like this. It had been fast and explosive. This was slow and sizzling, both alarming and erotic. He wasn’t draining me by inches; he was doing it by millimeters.
Another pull from his mouth curled my fingers and toes in delirious reflex. A hoarse sound left me when his tongue laved the punctures before sucking again. Heat raced through my veins with searing alacrity. My head fell back, and my fingernails dug into him while I trembled.
“How does it feel?” His voice was a growl.
I couldn’t keep up with the deluge of new sensations. I was faint and exhilarated all at once. Goose bumps rippled over me, gray spots danced in my eyes, and I clung to him as my world tilted.
“Hot. F-feels hot. I think… I’m dying.” Strangely, the thought of my demise had never bothered me less.
“You’re not dying.” He drew on my neck again and I shuddered, wondering how I could be so feverish when Bones was warmer than I’d ever felt him. “Give in to it,” he urged me and bent my spine back, his fangs still locked on my throat. “Let yourself go.”
My heartbeat seemed to rage inside my chest. Nothing felt separate anymore, and with every continued suction from his mouth, my pulse flamed with heat until my body felt incinerated. I cried out in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own as he sucked harder, deeper. There was a burst of color behind my eyelids, an even stronger suction, and those incredible sensations built until it felt like I emptied into Bones along with my blood. When the climax crested through me, I stepped off the edge of consciousness into the blissful, waiting darkness.
Chapter Sixteen
After the Vampire Wedding Ceremony
Author’s note: Over the years, many readers have asked what Cat wrote to Bones in the note she left him at the end of Halfway to the Grave. In this deleted section, you will find out, as well discover a few other tidbits. This deleted scene would have taken place before chapter 39 in the published version, for reference. It ended up being deleted so that readers would get to the graveyard scene where Dave is raised faster.
We hitched a ride with Spade, who drove us back to the airstrip where the same helicopter that brought me here would now take all of us back.
Ian had fumed, but a stern remark from Mencheres sent him off. Noah was summarily released from his cage and sat as far away from me as the SUV would allow. Who could blame him? I didn’t. Perhaps my greatest shock was when the other vampires began to disperse without trying to kill me. Bones informed me that since I was his wife, if they attacked me they attacked him. No one wanted to try their luck with all his people milling about.
We changed helicopters twice to throw off any tail before landing at the base five hours later. Sunrise broke the horizon, and I was tired. Bones was also, but there was one more favor I was going to ask him to do, and it couldn’t wait until later.
I whispered what it was in his ear. He stared at me for a moment before nodding shortly. “If that’s what you want, Kitten.”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
Bones and I made our way to the back of the helicopter where Noah huddled. We had landed, but no one disembarked yet. Nosy bastards.
Noah took in the sight of me in my barely there dress with Bones following close behind and turned his face away. “I don’t know who you are or what you are, Cristine. How am I supposed to live the rest of my life when the only person I’ve ever loved turns out to be… a monster,” he finished at last.
“You don’t have to live the rest of your life like that, Noah.” I tried to smile but couldn’t, and he was too terrified by me for it to be comforting, anyway.
Bones pushed me gently aside and knelt in front of him.
Noah sighed. “You’re goi
ng to kill me now, aren’t you?”
“No, mate, I’m not,” Bones said steadily. “Now don’t look away, look right in my eyes…” Once Noah was lost under their hypnotic power, Bones began to repeat what I’d asked him to say. “Your fiancée left you, but that’s all right, because you’ve come to realize that you don’t love her. In fact, you’re glad she’s gone, and you’re not bitter or afraid to trust someone again because tonight, you were involved in a car accident. You survived, so you feel like you’ve gotten a second chance at life. Tomorrow, you’ll wake up without any guilt or pain over your broken engagement, and you’ll be happy one day when you meet a nice girl who wants a family. Sleep now; you’re very tired. Sleep…”
Noah’s eyes fluttered closed, and a hint of a smile creased his mouth. It was the only thing I could do for him, and I prayed that it held for the rest of his life.
***
I half staggered through the door to the house, exhausted. The silver heels on my shoes were stained with blood, and I kicked them off. When I reached up to unfasten the halter of my dress, anxious to shower so I could wash the rest of the blood off me, cool hands stopped me.
“Ah, Kitten, that’s my job, remember?”
I smiled, but it slipped when I remembered the other thing I’d sworn to do tonight, if I lived through it. “Wait a minute.”
I pushed him back and went to grab the folder I’d picked up at work.
“Is this how it is?” he teased me. “The shagging stops as soon as the wedding’s over?”
“That’s not it, but I have something for you.” I reappeared and sat on the bed. “Something I want you to see.”
Bones watched me curiously as I set the trash can in front of me and flicked his lighter until the desired flame appeared. With the other hand, I pulled out the wadded piece of paper that had shattered both our lives.
He recognized it and closed his hand over the page. I watched him reread the words and didn’t need to see the page to know what they said. They had branded me with pain when I wrote them nearly seven years ago.
Don’t come after me because I’m already gone. I’ve taken Hennessey’s body and told them it’s yours, so they think you’re dead. We could never be safe together, and I won’t kill you or my mother trying. Every word I ever told you about how much I loved you was the absolute truth. You are my life, Bones, and now consider me dead because I am. I will always love you, right down to my final breath. Your name will be my last word, I promise you.
“Rodney saved it. He gave it to me yesterday. I cried the whole time I wrote that, Bones, and now I want to destroy it along with every doubt I ever had about you. I love you, and no matter what, I’m never leaving you again.”
Bones traced his finger over the page and then over the healed slash on my palm. “Let’s get rid of this, Kitten.”
He smiled at me and held the paper over the trash can as I set fire to the edge. When the flames brushed his fingers, he dropped it and we watched it burn.
Chapter Seventeen
Original Ending to One Foot in the Grave
Author’s note: In the published version of One Foot, Bones allows Justina to have Cat’s team capture him because he wants to infiltrate Don’s compound. Justina had thought she was setting Bones up to be killed, but in reality, she was playing right into Cat and Bones’s hands. One Foot ends without readers seeing how Justina took the news that she had been outfoxed, but in the unpublished version, I had written all that out. So here is the original ending to One Foot in the Grave, which includes an additional chapter to show Bones giving Justina a little of the comeuppance that she so richly deserved.
“Mom, there’s good news and bad news, and you don’t get to pick the order.” I opened the door of the single barrack where she’d stayed the past couple of days.
She looked up from the book she’d been reading. Her expression was guarded, understandably, and faint smudges of bruises still darkened her eyes.
“Catherine, I—” she began.
“Save it.” Shortly. “I already know more than you do about what happened, and here’s the good news. I’m not angry at you for calling Tate or bringing the boys over. Not a bit. Wouldn’t have expected any less from you, in fact. Now for the bad news…”
Bones stepped out from the doorway where he’d been concealed, a jaunty grin on his face.
She screamed as soon as she saw him. “They told me you were dead! Shriveled. Why won’t you just die and leave her alone? Guards? Guards! There’s a vampire here! Somebody come quick!”
Tate appeared and shook his head at her. “Sorry, but he’s allowed here. Much as I hate to say it, he works here now. In a way. For Cat.”
I had never seen someone look so close to a stroke without actually having one. Her face went five shades of red and purple before settling on dead white.
“He’s corrupted you too, I see. Is there no end to his evil? Isn’t there somebody here who can’t be influenced by his tricks?!”
Don was the next batter up. “I’m not influenced, Justina, and Tate is correct. I’m the only other person who’s hated vampires as much as you have, but necessity makes for strange bedfellows. Until Cat sends him away, he stays. No matter if we like it or not.”
A rash of profanity next spewed from her lips, enough to make Don wince and Bones laugh as he rubbed my shoulders. “I told you, Kitten, you’re just like your mum. No matter who you resemble physically. Old chap, do you mind…?”
A set of handcuffs exchanged hands, and my mother was shackled before she realized he had even moved. Next came the gag, stemming the obscenities that grew even more shrill.
“Should have done this to you from day bloody one.” He grinned at her and hoisted her effortlessly over his shoulder.
I helpfully manacled her madly scissoring legs.
Don coughed. “Are you two going to be all right with her?”
I looked back at him as we headed out the floor and to the exit.
“We’ll be fine. Just need a little family time, that’s all.”
“You’ll be in tomorrow?” From Tate.
“Afternoon at the earliest. This might take a while.”
***
We borrowed a car since his motorcycle wouldn’t suffice. Bones drove and my mother rested comfortably in the backseat, bound and gagged. God help us if we were pulled over for a traffic violation. Then again, those glaring green eyes of his would settle it.
The house he drove to was unfamiliar to me, set back off the road and larger than his previous one in Richmond. At least this one might come with all the kitchen chairs intact, I thought to myself. Maybe it also had a bar. A gin would do me wonders about now.
“Wait here for a second, luv, I just have to settle Bertrand. This is where he’s staying for the week; he just drove in.”
“Settle him? You owe him money?” I was confused.
Bones chuckled and climbed out of the car. “No, that’s not it. You’ll see.”
With those intriguing words, I sat and watched as Bones rapped on the door. A dark figure opened it. They exchanged a hug, and Bones rested his hands on the other man’s shoulders as he spoke.
“Now, mate, you don’t have to fret because we’ve got her tied up, right? We won’t untie her, promise, and you’ll be safe because I’m here. Don’t let Cat frighten you because of her heartbeat. She’s half-vampire and won’t hurt you. Come on, mate, I’ll introduce you. That’s it.”
Huh? Bones waved me over and the form cringed as I drew near. From appearance he was a man in his forties, albeit a vampire. He had dark curling hair and pale blue eyes, high patrician cheekbones, and was the same height as Bones. What made him stand out startlingly was the way he cowered away from me and turned his face in fear.
“Show him your eyes, Kitten, lights on,” Bones urged me.
In compliance I flashed their glow at him. There was visible lessening of anxiety when the emerald brightness fell on his face.
“Bertrand, this is my wife
. Her name is Cat. See, she’s not all human. Don’t be afraid.”
Icy blue eyes met mine in quavering nervousness even as he forced a smile. “Honored to meet you.”
I held out a hand. As soon as he touched me, he jerked back in terror. “Her skin is warm! Oh, Bones, I don’t know if I can do this!”
“Have I ever led you astray? You’ll be all right. Kitten, wait here with him whilst I fetch your mum. Won’t be a moment.”
Bertrand led me inside the house while giving me a wide berth. When Bones entered with the squirming body of my mother under his arm, Bertrand actually tripped over his own feet to back away.
Now that was a first. Vampires were notoriously graceful in their movements, yet here this one was petrified to an outstanding degree of a human. Granted, my mother could be a real piece of work, but still. Bertrand could snap her in two, cowardly lion or no.
Bones deposited my mother in the first available room. Then he accepted the length of cords Bertrand extended to him and tied her to a velvet chair. When he was done, he squatted in front of her.
“Justina, you and I have a dilemma to sort out. You despise me, and quite frankly, I don’t care for you. What we do have in common is our love for your daughter. That is why I’m willing to overlook your continued plots to kill me. However, I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life with my wife sad that her mum won’t visit on the holidays.”
Her eyes bugged at the word wife, and unintelligible, furious grunts snuck out from behind her gag. Bones ignored that.
“You and I are going to have to agree to dislike each other and get past it. Now, I know you think vampires are the scum of the earth and you’re downright livid that your daughter is with one, but look at her.” A wave of his hand indicated me. “You have done nothing in your life you should be more proud of than raising her. Remarkable things usually come at a high price, and she is more than remarkable, isn’t she?”