Pedophile!

“Liza, would you please inform Cat how old you were when you were changed?” Bones asked, giving me a pointed look. “I’m about to be assaulted because of a misassumption.”

She laughed, a shy series of sounds. “I was seventeen. I think if I’d been human, I would have been referred to as a ‘late bloomer.’”

“Oh.” At least that wasn’t a felony in current times, and from Liza’s vibe, that would have been legal back when she was alive. “Why didn’t you wait to change over, then?”

Something in Liza’s face clouded. “I couldn’t. I’d been poisoned and was already dead. I’m only here now because I’d drunk vampire blood that same day. My family shipped me home for burial. After my body arrived, Bones broke me out of my grave and raised me as a ghoul.”

“Oh!” Now I felt even more like a bitch. “Sorry. Whoever it was, I hope he killed the hell out of them.”

She smiled in a sad way. “It was accidental. A doctor gave me the poison, thinking he was treating me. Medicine’s come a long way since 1831.”

“Speaking of medicine, we should call Don. Maybe he has something for me.”

“Are you ill?” Liza looked surprised.

“She’s not,” Bones stated. “Has rumor of Gregor’s claims reached here yet?”

Liza shot a quick glance to me. “Yes.”

“Right, then.” Bones sounded even wearier. “Means Marie would have heard them as well.” He strode to a phone and started punching numbers into the line. After a second, he began speaking in a language that didn’t sound French, but close. Creole, maybe?

Of course, that meant I didn’t understand a friggin’ word.

“He’s telling the person who he is, and that he desires a conference with Majestic,” Liza translated, guessing my frustration. “He’s saying he wants it with all haste…they’ve put him on hold, I think…” Made sense, Bones wasn’t talking. His fingers drummed on his leg as the seconds ticked by, and then he began again. “Yes…yes…He’s agreeing to wait for a call back.”

Bones hung up. “No need for me to reiterate. Now you can ring your uncle, luv. Do it from your cell, I don’t want to occupy this line.”

He was almost curt. I reminded myself that he was suffering from jet lag, lack of sleep, and no small amount of stress. While Bones filled in Liza on details concerning Gregor, I dialed Don. By the time I hung up, Don had given me instructions on the dosage of a medication and promised to have it sent immediately to me.

“Don made something for me,” I said as soon as I hung up. “It’s supposed to knock me from consciousness straight into deep sleep, skipping REM. But it only lasts about seven hours, so then you have to counter its effects by giving me blood to wake me. That way I don’t go into a lighter, REM sleep when it wears off.”

An expression of relief washed over Bones. “Makes me glad I didn’t kill that chap when we met like I wanted to. That’s excellent news, Kitten. I didn’t think I could stand to let you fall asleep, wondering if you’d disappear from my sight even as I held you.”

The emotion in his tone dissolved my earlier irritation at him. If the shoe were on the other foot, and it were Bones who could vanish, yeah, I’d be spitting nails, too.

“I’m not going to disappear.” I went to him and wrapped my arms around him.

Then Liza’s phone rang.

SIX

I WANDERED AROUND THE TOWN HOUSE, struck by its size. It had a beautiful interior, wrought-iron balconies, and three levels. The walls were painted in strong hues, with white elaborate crown molding. All the bathrooms I’d seen were marble. In short, it was rich and tasteful without making me afraid to sit on the eighteenth-century chairs.

Pieces of Bones’s influence were seen amidst the feminine touches. A collection of silver knives. Couches that cradled instead of cramped. Of course, I had time to notice such things. He’d left to see Marie without me.

His announcement that he was going alone sent me into a sputtering, livid objection that had Liza hurrying from the room. Bones took my anger in silence, waiting until I’d finished to flatly refuse to take me. He said my presence would distract Marie from hearing him out, or some crap like that.

I didn’t believe him for a moment. Bones was just trying to protect me again. If I wasn’t going, no matter his claims of “safe passage,” then it meant his meeting with her was dangerous. Still, it boiled down to either physically wrestling with him when it was time for him to leave or letting him go with promises of payback. I chose the latter.

So, after I wandered around the house, I took a bath in a claw-footed tub. Then I put on a lace robe and began roaming the house again, looking for a washer and dryer. I didn’t have clean clothes to wear, and nothing of Liza’s would fit me. It was too early to buy something new, either. The only thing still open after three in the morning was the bars.

When Bones returned, it was almost dawn. He came through the door, pausing at the sight of Liza and me. We were on the floor, and I was braiding her hair. While he’d been gone, I’d struck up a conversation with Liza. She seemed to be a truly nice person, and I’d come to like her with surprising quickness. I gave Bones a single, lasered glance even as I melted with relief that he was safe, then resumed my attention to Liza’s hair.

“Your hair is gorgeous. So thick. You should grow it until you trip over it.”

“I see the two of you are getting on,” Bones said with faint astonishment. “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went, Kitten?”

“You walked in and took the stairs one at a time,” I answered. “And you haven’t barked at me to get in the car, so I take it Majestic didn’t tell you our asses were trophies for hunting season. Am I wrong?”

His lip curled. “Still brassed off at me, I see. Then you should enjoy this—Marie wants to meet you, and she refuses to let me be present when she does.”

I laughed with a sharp, self-satisfied guffaw.

“God, Bones, you must have argued yourself blue in the face. Hell, I like her already.”

“Thought you’d fancy that.” His expression told me how unamusing he found it. “Should I leave you to your braiding and take myself to bed? You seem to find Liza’s company preferable to mine.”

“Really annoying when you have to sit back and twiddle your thumbs while the person you love goes off into danger, isn’t it?” I said, not feeling guilty in the least.

“I didn’t relish the thought of leaving you behind,” he shot back. “Yet you’re almost cackling over your chance to do the same to me.”

Liza’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of us. Since I still had three of her braids in my hands, however, that made it more difficult.

“You didn’t care how I felt, as long as I stayed behind,” I flared, the tension from the past several days catching up with me. “So yeah, I’m enjoying the payback. Guess that makes me shallow.”

“It makes you a spiteful brat,” Bones snapped, striding forward until he loomed over me. “What say you to that?”

I dropped Liza’s braids and got to my feet. So the gloves were off, huh? “That it takes one to know one. What’s the matter? Are you mad that you sauntered in there, swinging your dick at Marie and reminding her about old times, but you didn’t get the results you wanted?”

“For your information, I have never shagged Marie.” Bones actually jabbed me in the chest as he spoke. Liza scrambled out of the way.

I gave an incredulous glance down at his finger, still pressed into my chest. “Get that off me or I’ll knock it off.”

His brow arched in open dare. “Take your best shot, luv.”

You asked for it. My fist connected with his jaw. Bones ducked before I could land another one, green flashing out of his eyes.

“Is that all you’ve got? Not nearly good enough.” And he jabbed me in the chest again.