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Bones snorted. “Think I’d fret about a room full of humans? Let them keep their toys. Will teach them a valuable lesson. No matter how well she’s trained them, they’re still not her.”
“He can take on all of them when they have silver?” Juan sounded shocked.
Cat sighed. “With the element of surprise and a closed, barely-lit space? Yeah. Is that necessary, though, Bones? Or time efficient? And you can’t kill any of them; they’re my men.”
“All in one place is faster than group by group, Kitten. Your culprit will be the one trying hardest to kill me, or the one wetting himself. Either way, don’t fret about your merry men, Robin Hood. If they’re not the traitor, they’ll live to fight another day. Speaking of, this group is clear.”
With that, Bones left the employees in the hallway and returned to Cat’s side.
Don gave him an appraising glance. “This will be interesting. I don’t normally get to see a Master vampire in action. I only see their messy end results.”
“Wrong again,” Bones said pointedly. “You’ve seen her fight, so youhaveseen a Master vampire in action. You just didn’t realize it because she also has a pulse.”
Cat looked startled to hear him call her a Master. She ever undervalued herself. If she’d been anything less, she wouldn’t have survived Don’s repeated trial-by-fire missions.
“Well.” Don cleared his throat in the sudden, awkward silence. “Then let’s see whatyoucan do, Bones.”
29
Bones thought he’d be through with her team in less than five minutes. It took him nearly ten.
Cat’s training room turned out to be an impressive mix of a gauntlet, boot camp, triathlon course, and collapsing-building simulator considering that sections of the ground abruptly dropped or slanted without warning. Its purpose was clearly meant to prepare her team for every battle environment, and she’d succeeded. They were the toughest humans he’d ever encountered. The fact that they had such stamina and fortitude without the added benefit of vampire blood was truly remarkable.
Bones looked up at the glass-enclosed viewing section above the football-sized arena, where Cat, Don, Tate, and Juan had watched the melee. Cat seemed disappointed in her team’s performance, but she shouldn’t be. If he didn’t fly, they might have even had him a time or two. As it was, his skin still burned from their many silver slashes and stabs.
Don, however, looked stunned. Sod had probably been hoping that Bones would be dead by now. Instead, Bones was standing over the unconscious forms of thirty of her vampire killers.
“We won’t have enough Brams to heal all of them,” Don said in a dismayed tone.
“Then I’ll use Bones’s blood,” Cat replied. “Probably need a pint of it, at least, after this.”
“He’ll justgivethat to you?”
Cat shot Don a scornful look. “He climbed into our hell capsule for me earlier, and you think he’ll refuse to donate a little blood? Dumb ass.”
“They’re clean, Kitten,” Bones called out. “No traitor here. They’re a good bunch of blokes.”
The man at his feet groaned and tried to get up. Bones gave him a light kick that knocked him back down.
Cat shook her head. “’Kick ‘em when they’re down’ was always his favorite rule,” she said to Tate. “You’re familiar with the rest of them because I taught them to you.”
“How can he tell that none of them are involved?” Tate sounded testy. “He’s been in there less than ten minutes, and most of them aren’t even conscious anymore!”
“I trust him,” Cat replied. “Bones wouldn’t say they were clean unless he was sure, and that’s enough for me.”
Juan had been silent the entire time, but his inscrutable expression suddenly changed into a wide smile.
“I don’t care if no one else admits it. That wascool.”
Bones stifled his laugh. “Let’s finish this, Kitten. The sooner we get through the other employees, the sooner you can get that blood from me.”
The second sublevel of the compound turned out to be clear, but the moment the elevator doors opened on the third, a familiar scent had Bones pushing Cat back into the elevator.
“Stay here, Kitten. I smell something.”
Cat stayed. Tate did, too, muttering “What can he smell?”
Bones didn’t bother listening to Cat’s reply. He ran past an archway labeled “Pathology,” following the source of the faint vampire scent. Juan and Don followed, but they weren’t the only rapid footfalls Bones heard. Someone else was running, too.
