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Her hand flashed out again. This time, he grabbed it before she could slap him.
“Bastard!” she shouted. “You didn’twarnme!”
He didn’t blink from her furious gaze.
“Would it have changed your decision? You thought we were both going to die that night, not to mention you would have done anything to save your mum. You could also live to be as old as I am without it. Don’t take my word for it,” he added with a sliver of anger he couldn’t suppress. “Go to your boss. Look Don in the eye and ask him what he already knows. All the pathology they’ve done on you over the years, I’mdamnsure he knows.”
She was breathing heavier, and now, the tears in her gaze looked rage-induced. He’d take all the anger he was due and more, but he was far from alone in the blame.Of courseher boss knew this. Her mum probably did, too. So would Cat, if they hadn’t made her trip all over herself pretending to be human except for the times it suited them for hernotto be.
“That’s why I have no reason to pressure you into becoming a vampire,” Bones added in a much softer tone. “With your mixed heritage and the occasional consumption of my blood, you’d live as long as you want to, just as you are.”
She stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. Then, she stalked over to the bedroom door.
Bones stopped her before she could open it. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out,” she said as she shoved at his chest with far less than her usual strength. “I can’t look at you right now.”
The bearer of bad news always bore its brunt. Still… “You’re in no condition to drive.”
Her laughter rang out, harsh and brittle. “Why don’t you open a vein for me, then? What’s another fifty years, right?”
He sighed. “Kitten…”
She swatted away the hand he reached out. “Don’t touch me.”
Having the future you expected stolen from you and replaced with something far different was brutal. Bones knew that from experience. Ian had done the same to him, and now, Bones had had a hand in doing that to her, even if most of her extended lifespan would come from her lineage instead of his blood.
“Fine,” he said. “Where do you want to go? I’ll drive you.”
She closed her eyes. “Take me home.”
“After you,” he said, and held open the door.
16
Dawn splashed the sky with swaths of apricot and gold as Bones pulled up to Cat’s house. She hadn’t said a word during the half-hour drive, and she jumped out of the car as soon as it came to a stop in her driveway.
“I’ll see you later,” Bones called out after her.
She didn’t reply. He didn’t expect her to. Understandably, she had a lot on her mind.
Bones drove away, but he didn’t go back to his rented house. He went to the office space he’d leased along the main route that Cat drove when she went back and forth to Don’s secret compound. If he knew Cat, she’d stew for a few hours, and then confront Don with what he’d hidden from her. Bones had to be ready in case Don didn’t take it well. Justina’s subconscious directive wasn’t the only failsafe Bones had prepared.
“Rodney,” Bones said after ringing the ghoul. “Standby.”
“On my way,” Rodney said. He’d been in town since the day after Bones found Cat, just in case of something like this.
Bones hung up with Rodney and then made the call that he’d put off until now.
“Crispin.” Sleep thickened Charles’s voice as he answered on the second ring. No surprise that Charles was abed. It was dawn, after all. Bones didn’t waste time on pleasantries. He and Charles hadn’t been on good terms for a year, so his mate deserved to know straightaway why Bones had woken him.
“I found her, Charles, and I was right. She did stay away because they threatened my life, and she does still love me.”
A long, shocked silence. Then, Charles said, “I’m very happy for you…and now also very ashamed of everything I said.”
Bones grunted. “Don’t be. You meant well, and I probably would have told you the same had our situations been reversed.”
Charles’s heavy sigh filled the line. “No, you wouldn’t. You would have supported me, same as you did when I went mad from grief and hunted Giselda’s killers. You were right to remind me of that, and I think…I kept telling you to move on with Cat because I didn’t want you ending up like me. I haven’t moved on in more than a century, and I didn’t…I didn’t want you to be ruined the way I am.”
