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Annette hadn’t known whose baby she was carrying, but Bones had. Abbott was sterile from a childhood fever. All the prostitutes Bones had lived with knew that. Abbott knew it, too. Only Annette hadn’t, and Bones had never told her because Annette already grieved the child’s loss when she believed its father was the man she hated, not the man she adored…
“Thank you,” Bones finally said. He couldn’t count all the times he’d uttered those words to her, but he let his voice vibrate with the intensity of how much he meant it.
She laughed again, softer this time. “There’s no need for such things between us, Crispin. You came for me over two hundred years ago, when you had every reason to forget about me, but you didn’t. Then, you killed that monster who forced me to marry him and turned me into a vampire, so I’d have enough power to never be at someone else’s mercy again. More than that, you are my dearest friend, and you always will be. That means I’ll go wherever you go, be it to war, or to peace, or back to America, which I expect is where I’ll need to be soon?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m in Virginia now, but I doubt this is where my confrontation with Ian will take place. Still, wherever that will be, it will happen within weeks, so be ready.”
“I’ll make preparations at once, though I hope to meet the lovely Cat before that happens. If she’s stolen your heart so thoroughly, I’m sure she’ll steal mine, too.”
“She will.” Without meaning to, his voice deepened as he thought of Cat, and Annette heard it.
“Heavens, man, stop whatever you’re doing and return to her, before you have me fleeing to the nearest set of willing arms from contact lust alone.”
Bones laughed. As if she needed such prompting. Annette had a very healthy sexual appetite, as many satisfied men and women could attest. “I do have to go, but not for that, sadly. I have an actual cat to retrieve, among other things.”
“Hurry along, then, and ring me when it’s time for me to come to you,” Annette said.
“I will.”
He hung up, smiling. Annette had taken everything better than he could have hoped. Now, to ensure that the rest of his plans ran as smoothly.
35
They were back at the compound the next morning. Bones would have preferred a longer hiatus, but there was something he’d neglected to do the last time they were there.
“You said you had captive vampires here, right, Kitten?”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Three of them. Why?”
“They might be useful.” Depending on whose lines they belonged to, leastways. “Let me see them.”
She took him to the lowest sublevel of the compound, where he’d first been imprisoned. Tate, Juan, and Cooper shadowed them, which had been Don’s idea. Bones deserved an award for not pointing out to Don that if he had a mind to free those vampires, her blokes couldn’t stop him, added strength or no. But he said nothing as Cat led the way to the opposite side of the sublevel that Bones had been locked away in. Then, she stopped at five screened windows with incredibly thick glass.
“This is Grumpy,” Cat said, pushing a button that lifted the screen on the first window. A blue-eyed Caucasian vampire with overgrown brown hair and tattoos up to his neck stared back at them. “His real name is Dillon, or so he told us. I’m guessing he’s about thirty in undead years.”
From the weakness in his aura, Bones agreed with that guess. He didn’t recognize the vampire, so he nodded and waited for her to raise the next screen.
“Jack’s in this pen, but I call him Chirpy because of his high-pitched voice,” Cat said as the screen lifted, revealing a white-haired Asian vampire with enough wrinkles to resemble a Shar Pei puppy. “I estimate he’s around seventy, both in living and undead years. We snagged him at a baseball game. He liked to drink the beer vendor girls.”
Chirpy smiled and nodded as if to say,damn right!
Bones rolled his eyes. Of all the ways to spend one’s afterlife, that might be the most wasteful.
“And this is Sunshine,” Cat said, raising the last screen. “We don’t know her real name. She never told us.”
A pretty, blonde Caucasian vampire with gardenia-pale skin and full lips glanced up in disdain before her blue eyes locked with Bones’s. Then, she hurled herself against the glass.
“Bones!How did you get here? Never mind, just kill them and let meout!”
He laughed. “Belinda, fancy seeing you here. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’mnothere to rescue you.”
“You know her?” Cat said, and then gave Belinda an entirely different once-over.
“How can you abandon me after what we meant to each other?” Belinda wailed while pawing at the glass.
“You fucked Sunshine?” Tate rudely burst out.
Cat’s brow arched. Clearly, that was her question as well.
