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Bones stared at her. No, she wasn’t joking, which meant she was barking mad. “You think I’d let you attack a group of vampires you’re not even intending to kill-which makes it bloody harder-while I’m off securing your pet vet?”
“It’ll work better this way,” she said with infuriating blitheness. “The guards won’t know who I am at first, thanks to my brown hair. Once they do, they won’t try to kill me. Ian would be furious at being denied his prize, and they’d know that. So, I’m safer with them than with anyone else.”
Annette gave a concurring shrug. “It may indeed work better. Ian’s guards would be less likely to suspect an ambush if they thought we were also there for their…entertainment.”
In theory, they were both correct. Two lasses were less threatening than a bunch of blokes, especially when one of those lasses had a heartbeat. And Ian’s guardswouldrather stake themselves than explain to Ian why they’d killed his coveted new prize. It truly might be safer, except for one thing.
“After yesterday, I have cause to wonder if you’re offering this with ulterior motives, Annette. So, let me tell you what will happen to you if any harm comes to her.”
Bones pinned Annette’s gaze with his as he drew out a knife and scored a deep rent in his palm. Blood clung to the blade and dripped between his fingers.
“On my blood, I swear I will cut you off from my line.”
Annette gasped. It was the worst punishment a vampire could inflict on another vampire since it would leave Annette defenseless in a world where the vulnerable were often preyed upon by the powerful. But Annette could always get a new protector, so Bones had to make his threat even more terrifying.
“I’ll also offer a standing reward to anyone who makes your life an unbearable hell,” he went on, hardening himself against the devastation in her gaze. After yesterday, he couldn’t trust her loyalty. He could only trust her fear. “Do you understand?”
Annette didn’t seem capable of speech, so she nodded.
Cat winced, giving Annette a pitying look. She knew the hierarchy in the vampire world, and blood oaths were unbreakable bonds, so she understood the magnitude of what Bones had done.
Bones turned to Cat. “NowAnnette can accompany you with your men, and I’ll go after Noah with Rodney.”
Instead of being relieved, Cat looked miserable as she stared at Annette, then Tate, then Rodney, and finally back at Bones. Her heart began beating faster, and anxiety turned her scent from vanilla and cream to sour fruit and spoilt milk.
“Bones.” She took his hand with fingers that trembled. “None of you needs to risk dying for me at all. Ian only wants me because being a half-breed makes me rare, but if I’m a full-blown vampire, then I’m nothing special. So do it. Change me over. Make me a vampire-”
“Fuckno!” Tate shouted, leaping up from his chair.
For once, he and Bones were in complete agreement. “No, Kitten. I won’t.”
Shock suffused her features, followed instantly by anger. “Why not? Do it, dammit! Or was Annette right? Does fucking a warm body meanthatmuch to you?”
She wouldn’t bait him into letting her sacrifice herself in the second-most permanent way possible. “You’re used to leaping before you look, but not this time. You don’t want this, luv. You think you have no choice, but I’ve told you time and again that there isalwaysanother way.”
“Yeah, a way that can get you and the people I care about killed,” she said in anguish.
His hands tightened on hers. “If you truly desired to change over, then I would do it. You know that. But not like this. Once you do this, it’s done, and then even the most poignant regret afterward is wasted.”
She said nothing, which only hammered home that he was right. Shedidn’twant this. If any part of her did, she’d still be howling her objections to his refusal. Now, to address the other part of what she’d said.
He released one of her hands to tilt her head back, caressing her ear with his lips. “And if I were really just so fond of your flesh being warm, I’d throw you into a hot tub before I shagged you. You’d be ninety-eight degrees in twenty minutes, so sod Annette and her nasty little comments.”
Suddenly, she was gripping him as tightly as he held her. “Something could happen to you with Max.”
He snorted. “Not a chance. You’re right that Max wouldn’t dare take me on. If he did, I’d bend him in half the wrong way and deliver him to you in a box.”
“But if Annette and I fail, I can’t just stand there and watch Ian kill one of my guys,” she whispered.
Tate made an insulted noise that Bones ignored as he drew back to look her in the eye.
“There’s another way around that as well. Once I’m free of Ian’s line, I’m free to take my people-and my possessions-with me. You don’t like it,” he added as her jaw tightened, “but the fact remains that in the vampire world, you’re considered mine by right of blood and bed. I’ll claim your men as mine, too. Then, Ian couldn’t kill them without risking a war with me.”
Cat waved in Tate’s general direction. “But you haven’t fed fromorfucked any of them, and unless things are about to get downright freaky, that’s not gonna change!”
“I would rather die,” Tate muttered.
“You’re already covered since Annette is under my line,” Bones said without looking away from Cat. “When she shagged you, that made you her property, which also makes you mine by default, though I won’t be proud to say it.”
