I shoved past people with nearly the same blurring speed he had. Once in the parking lot, I only paused long enough to snatch a cell phone away from a person unlucky enough to have one pressed to his head while I galloped by.

“Thanks!” I called out, then said, “He’ll call you back!” and hung up on whoever was on the other end. I dialed while keeping one eye on Bones as he zigzagged after our last perpetrator. He was about fifty yards ahead of me and gaining. Goddamn, but I’d forgotten how fast he was.

“Tate,” I gasped as soon as he answered. “Can’t talk, but we need a containment group at the GiGi Club, stat. Got vamp bodies, human bodies, three victims still breathing, and a hell of a lot of witnesses.”

“What are you doing at the GiGi Club?” Tate barked. “That was supposed to be with us, tomorrow night!”

I jumped over a fence, ripping my borrowed dress, and played a brief game of speed Frogger as I darted across a busy street.

“Can’t talk now,” I repeated breathlessly. “I’m chasing down a vamp; I’ll call you later!”

Then I threw the phone aside and pulled out one of my knives instead.

I couldn’t see Bones anymore. He’d dashed out of my line of vision while I was concentrating on not getting hit by oncoming traffic. I kept running full out in the same direction, however, cursing my heels and debating whether it was faster to stop and take them off-damn ankle straps!-or keep running with the potential neck breakers. Wouldn’t that make a charming epitaph? Here lies Cat. Killed not by fang, but Ferragamos.

I was half through an empty soccer field, about to say screw it and take off the shoes, since heels plus running in grass equaled very unstable footing, when I saw a flash of green up in the distance. Vampire eyes, glowing in the dark. Screw the heels, full speed ahead!

I saw them just as Bones jerked his blade out of the vampire’s chest. They were on the ground inside a fenced new construction site. Mentally I let out a sigh of relief. At this hour, the crews were long gone. Good. No witnesses to worry about.

I came to a halt by Bones once I vaulted over the fence, my heart racing from adrenaline and the run. He gave the body a final kick and then turned to face me.

“You and I need to talk, Kitten.”

“Now?” I asked in disbelief, gesturing to the dead vampire near his feet.

“It’s not like he’s going anywhere, so yeah. Now.”

At once I began to back away. I’d been so caught up the past hour catching the killers that I’d forgotten things were very different between Bones and me. How stupid. I’d felt so comfortable in our routine of hunting down the bad guys that I’d let myself end up in a deserted construction site with nowhere to flee. If I were smart, I’d have stayed back at the GiGi Club and let Bones chase down this last jerk himself.

Bones watched me edge backward, and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t you move another step.”

“I-I have to go back to the club, my team’s on the way…” I hedged.

“Do you still love me?”

The blunt question almost made me trip. I looked away, biting my lip and hating myself for the lie I was about to tell.

“No.”

He didn’t say anything for so long, I dared a peek at him. Bones was staring at me hard enough to make me wonder if he was able to see through to the back of my head.

“If you don’t love me, then why didn’t you kill Ian? You had a knife in his heart. All you had to do was twist. Your job is to kill vampires, after all, but you let him live. It was if you were sending me a bloomin’ valentine.”

“Sentimentality.” I grasped at straws. “For old time’s sake.”

His mouth twisted. “Well, luv, as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. You should have killed him, because now he’s looking for you. You made quite an impression. While I would never force you to do anything against your will, Ian wants to find you to do just that.”

“What are you talking about?”

Bones smiled, but it wasn’t pleasant. “He’s enamored, of course. Ian’s a collector of rare things, and there’s no one rarer than you, my beautiful half-breed. You’re in danger. Ian doesn’t know I’ve found you, but he’ll track you himself soon enough.”

I mulled this over, and then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I beat Ian before and I can do it again.”

“Not the way he’ll play it.” There was something in his voice that made me look sharply at him. “I know my sire. Ian won’t just come at you one night and try to take you on in a fair fight. He’ll grab everyone you love first and then strike a deal with you, his terms. Believe me, you won’t like them. Now, your one advantage is me. Because of your clever little description of our relationship, Ian believes you hate me and vice versa. Nice touch, that. Especially the money part. Still want a check?”

“I’ll write you one if you leave,” I muttered.

Bones ignored that. “Furthermore, you still have a price on your head. I told you in the loo that I’d been offered contracts on you before that I traced to their source, but I don’t know who’s behind this last one. He or she is being very discreet. So you have another threat hanging over you that’s even more dangerous than Ian, and like it or not, you’re going to need my help.”

“Vampires and ghouls come after me all the time,” I said dismissively. “If I need help, I have my team.”

“Humans?” Scorn dripped from his tone. “The only way they’ll be able to protect you is if they incapacitate the hitter by making him eat too much!”

“You are so arrogant.”

Bones came closer until only a few feet separated us. “I’m powerful. More than you’re aware of. That is truth, not arrogance. Every member of your team combined couldn’t protect you as well as I can, and you know it. Now isn’t the time for your stubborn insistence on going everything alone, Kitten. Whether you want my help or not, you’re getting it.”

“Dammit, Bones, how many times do I have to tell you that the biggest way you could help is to leave? I appreciate the warning about Ian, but if you stay around me, you’re the one who’ll be in danger. Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself.”

His brow arched insolently. “And right back at you, pet. I’m not the least bit afraid of your boss or your band of merry men. You want to get rid of me? Then you’ll have to kill me.”

Oh shit. I couldn’t do that. Hell, I hadn’t known how I could kill him when I thought he’d slaughtered an innocent family!

“Then I’ll leave,” I said, frustration making me reckless. “I ran away once; I can do it again!”

I was suddenly gripped in Bones’s arms with my head tilted back, without seeing him so much as twitch for warning. Maybe that was my own fault and not just due to his speed. I’d been so busy keeping up my emotional shields, I’d pretty much forgotten about my physical ones. And truth be told, I never expected him to bite me.

Yeah, I’d let my usual vampire guards down all the way with Bones.

His fangs buried deep into my neck. Just like that one time years before when he’d bitten me, what logic told me should hurt only felt good instead. Really, really good, and increasing with each strong pull from his mouth. The strangest kind of heat flooded all through me, even though with my blood spilling into Bones, I should be feeling colder, not warmer.

Stop it, I wanted to say, but couldn’t seem to form the words. What came out was a primitive groan instead. Bones tightened his arms around me, tilting me back, and licking my neck before sinking his teeth in again.

I jerked in pleasure even as a warning shot through me. Was he going to kill me? Change me into a vampire? Neither possibility appealed to me. Spots began to appear in my vision, assuming my eyes were even still open. Add that to the roaring in my ears, which was either my heartbeat or the noise one hears right before passing out.