AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then what?” Bones prodded.
Danny shrugged. “She jumped on Laz and the other dudes. I couldn’t see much ‘cause it was dark, and they were all sofast. After a while, she grabbed me and ran. Next thing I know, she’s screaming, ‘Don’t shoot!’ and some guy’s yelling, ‘Don’t fire, it’s Cat.’ And she was all, ‘Hostile coming fast, aim high’ as Ifinallysaw light again. But then Laz grabbed some dude and she screamed, dropped me, and ran to the guy. His neck was gushing blood, and she yelled, ‘Man down, man down!’ but like, I was bleeding, too? And no one cared. They all ran to him instead.”
“Imagine that,” Rodney mocked.
The sarcasm flew over Danny’s head. “Right? No one even checked on me until after Catherine and some of the other guys ran off. I ended up needing surgery, but they still kept moving me from place to place anyway. Assholes.”
Danny’s description matched the blood evidence, and now, he knew the most important detail: Cat lived in Virginia.
“That’s everything concerning Catherine?” Bones asked him.
Danny nodded. “Yeah. Some bullshit, right?”
Rodney let out a short laugh. “God, I’m hungry.”
“I’m hungry, too,” Danny said, oblivious to the subtext.
Rodney usually ate what he called a ghoul’s version of vegetarian, which meant foods that came from a farm or a garden instead of from a human. But every so often, ghouls requiredothersustenance, and from the way Rodney was looking at Danny, the sod was about to become Rodney’s cheat meal.
Bones met Rodney’s eyes. “Fast and painless, and I can’t stay to watch. After all, I promised.”
Rodney gave him a single nod. “I understand.”
Bones squeezed Rodney’s shoulder and walked away.
“Hey!” he heard Danny say as Bones closed the door behind him. “Isn’t he going to take me back to the hospital?”
“No.” Rodney’s voice, much harsher than his normal tones. “And Iunderstoodwhat he told me, but I didn’t agree to it.”
Bones paused, a smile tugging his mouth. He hadn’t, had he?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny asked. “Hey, what’s with your jaw? It’s getting really huge and…arrgggh!”
Danny’s scream faded as Bones kept walking. He hadn’t harmed Danny himself, and he hadn’t stood by and watched.
Promise kept.
5
Bones hadn’t just snatched Danny from the hospital room. He’d also left something important behind for Cat-the same watch she’d set beside her goodbye letter to him over four years ago. It looked like a regular, old-timey watch, but it had a special alert feature that was connected to the mobile Bones still had. With it, she finally had an untraceable way to reach him.
Bones expected the first week of waiting. It might take Cat a few days to get to the hospital after she heard of Danny’s abduction. Her boss did send her all over the nation, and she might have been in the middle of a hunt when she got the word.
The second week was more difficult. Catdefinitelyshould have responded by now. She would know who the watch was from and what it meant as soon as she saw it. Granted, Bones hadn’t seen Cat enter the hospital despite monitoring its entrances, but she could have snuck in another way. He certainly had.
The third week, doubt tore at him like a scavenger feeding from a kill. No chance that she hadn’t seen the watch by now, and yet she still hadn’t pressed that button. Why not? Fear that her boss would discover any attempt to contact him must be why she hadn’t reached out all these years, but now, she finally had a secure way to do so! Why hadn’t she used it yet? Didn’t…didn’t she want to see him again?
By the fourth week, Bones refused to speak to Rodney, who was now echoing Charles’s admonitions that he was taking things too far and needed to move on with his life. Neither of them understood. Catwouldreach out. With that watch, she wouldn’t choose to stay lost any longer. She wouldn’t.
The fifth week, a knock sounded on his hotel room door.
“Go away,” Bones said without looking up from his feed of the hospital’s entrances. “I don’t need my room serviced.”
“I’m not housekeeping, and I’ve come too far to leave now,” a feminine and very unexpected British voice said.
Bones snapped his shields into place. Annette was the first vampire he’d made, so she’d feel his emotions through his sire bond to her unless he shut her out. He rose, his joints briefly burning before the surprising pain vanished. How long had he been sitting in that exact same spot? He couldn’t remember.
He opened the door, revealing a lovely, curvaceous woman wearing a dark blue Chanel suit. Annette’s strawberry blond hair was perfectly coiffed, and diamond earrings winked from her earlobes. She’d been smiling, revealing the fine line around her eyes and mouth, but that smile fell as she looked at him.
