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Mencheres gave Ian a look of fatherly exasperation. “It is not a matter of sides. Bonesisright in all ways but one. Cat has not yet claimed him as her husband.”
“And you don’t know what that means, Cat,” Ian instantly said. “Divorce is as common as breathing for humans, but if you agree to a vampire marriage, you’d be bound to Crispin for the rest of your life. No changing your mind, no release, until one of you is trulydead. If you even shagged anyone else,” Ian’s voice rose with horror, “Crispin would have the right to kill that person without retribution in the vampire world.”
Cat’s brows went up, either at the accurate description of a vampire marriage, or Ian’s tangible revulsion over the thought of only shagging one person for the rest of his life.
Mencheres gave a bleak smile, reminding Bones that he well knew the darker side of this vow. “That is correct, Cat. Once declared, this can never be retracted.”
Cat looked at Bones, her expressive face unusually closed off. Only her eyes hinted at her emotions, and those storm-cloud depths swirled with growing intensity as she held out her hand.
Bones gave her the knife. Anticipation made him unable to speak as she poised the blade over her upturned palm.
“Don’t you want to meet your father?” Ian loudly asked.
Cat’s head whipped in Ian’s direction. Then, she lowered the knife as if she’d forgotten why she’d accepted it.
Ashes filled Bones, bitter and burning. Of course she couldn’t resist this, and he’d known it! He should have killed Max when he had the chance.
Ian’s slow smile as he saw Cat’s reaction was salt in the wound. “I’ll make a new bargain with you, Cat. You can still leave here tonight with all my previous assurances that I won’t trouble you or your men again. Furthermore, I’ll give you Max, to do with what you will. All I require in return is that you refuse this offer and part company with Crispin forever.”
Ian’s gaze gleamed as he said that last part. Then, he glanced at Bones, savoring the flinch that Bones couldn’t hold back. Bloody hell, this was all his nightmares all at once.
“Your word on it, Cat,” Ian drew out.
She said nothing, but her hand tightened on the blade Bones had given her. Was she about to forsake him in a blood oath to Ian? Or was she still considering Bones’s proposal?
Ian didn’t wait to find out. “Maximillian, come out!”
The double doors to the hallway opened, and a grim-faced Max walked into the stadium.
Cat stared at her father as Max approached. Her gasp was short and harsh while her heartbeat sped up like the crescendo of a drum cadence right before an execution.
Max stopped once he reached the arena’s edge, not looking at Cat, and not coming any closer.
Cat pulled her hand from Bones’s grasp to close the last few feet between her and her father. She stopped when she was only a foot away, but she still didn’t speak. Neither did Max, although he glanced at her for the briefest moment before looking over her shoulder at Ian.
Ian didn’t bother to look at Max. He was watching Cat with the satisfaction of a feline with a longed-for mouse trapped beneath his paw. Then, he turned to Bones.
You lose, he mouthed with malevolent glee.
The blood drying on his now-healed palm seemed to echo that sentiment. So did the fact that Cat hadn’t even glanced at him since Ian said Max’s name. All her attention was on the silent, redheaded man whose features were an eerie mirror of her own.
“Do you know what I promised myself when my mother told me what I was, and how it happened?” Cat whispered to Max.
Bones did, and it was playing out before him as the coldest laugh left Cat when Max flinched as her fingers grazed him.
“Oh, Max,” she said in a chiding tone. “I can feel your power level, and it’s not that high. I’m much stronger than you, but you already knew that, didn’t you? It’s why you hired someone to blow my head off so I couldn’t get to you first.”
Ian’s brows went up. When Max didn’t deny it, Ian glanced at Cat, and then at Bones for confirmation.
Bones didn’t respond. Neither did Cat. She was too busy circling her father like a shark narrowing in on its prey. Rage scorched her scent as if she’d set fire to that honey-and-cream mixture, and green pinpoints sparkled in her gaze.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to kill you?” she suddenly snarled at Max.
Her father didn’t speak, but from his expression, he expected that death blow any second.
“I first heard about you on my sixteenth birthday,” Cat went on. “Sweet sixteen, and what did I get? The truth about my nightmare heritage. So that day,I sworethat you’d pay with your life for raping my mother. Did you hear what Ian just offered me? Your ass, with all the other parts attached!”
Emerald overtook all the gray in Cat’s eyes as she screamed that last part at Max. He still didn’t speak, but fear turned his scent to rotted sandalwood.
