One Foot in the Grave

kiss Bones with…

“Sorry, Kitten,” Bones apologized, switching back to English.

Juan clapped me on the back. “He speaks better Spanish than I do, querida.”

“Apparently there are a lot of things I don’t know about him,” I purred dangerously.

Tate hid a smile behind a sudden cough.

Bones turned back to Belinda. “Quit batting your lashes at me. If you’re in there, then you tried to hurt her.” He nodded at me. “So you could shrivel to dust for all I bother. However, your stay here could be more pleasant if two things happen. The first involves the lovely lady at my side. She would have to agree. The second pertains to your total cooperation or, failing that, your gruesome, prolonged death. Are we clear?”

Belinda nodded and stepped back from the glass. I shut the obscuring screen, since her face was more than I wanted to see anymore.

“I for one vote for her gruesome, prolonged death,” I said as I stomped away. When we were out of the holding level for the vampires, I rounded on Bones.

“You and her? Eww.”

My three captains hung back, but with their new hearing abilities, it didn’t matter. Bones crossed his arms and let out a resigned noise.

“Kitten, this was before you. It didn’t mean anything.”

I understood that, but still. This felt worse than when I’d met another of Bones’s previous girlfriends, Francesca. At least she’d been helping us track down a scumbag who used to run a Meals on Wheels with humans as his main course. Belinda, who I’d met when her roommate brought me home thinking I’d make a nice dinner for two, had no such saving attributes.

“Clearly it meant something to her.”

Bones shrugged. “Then kill her, if it makes you feel better. Can’t say I’d blame you, and I truly don’t care. If you like, I’ll do it myself.”

That stopped me in my tracks. By his face, Bones was serious. He really would kill her, or just stand by and watch while I did.

“I don’t murder people just because I’m jealous.” Not yet, anyhow. “Fine. I’ll be adult, even though the thought of you with her makes me want to hurl. So, then. What’s your idea?”

Tate, Juan, and Cooper filed into the training room. They weren’t wearing full battle gear, which would have been a bulletproof vest, a flexible silver-lined neck protector (which I designed after Dave’s death), or automatic and semi-automatic guns complete with silver cartridges. No, they were each wearing just the usual cotton pants with crewneck T-shirt that all our team wore while training.

Except this was no ordinary training operation, even by our standards. Next to me, Bones held Belinda in an iron grip. Don, safe in his overlook box above us, looked decidedly bleak. He hadn’t liked this idea. Neither had I, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t see the merit of it.

“Are you guys ready?” I asked.

My tone was calm, belying my inner churning stomach. All three men nodded.

“Then take a knife, each of you. Just one.”

They complied, going over to the container where we had knives piled up like so much garbage. I glanced at Bones. He nodded once and then bent to Belinda’s ear.

“Remember what I told you,” he said very softly, yet his voice dripped with ice.

Then he released her, and she charged like a blond Tasmanian devil at my men.

They scattered, moving with a speed that would have been impossible for them a week ago. Pumped full of Bones’s blood, however, they managed to avoid her first grab. Tate spun behind Belinda, flinging his single knife at her back, and it lodged to the hilt right where her heart would be.

She swung around, reaching behind her while I barked out a reprimand.

“That’s great if you’re intending to kill her, but I told you to treat this situation like a test run for Ian’s guards. If they’re dead, what hostages am I supposed to bargain with?”

A fleeting look of sheepishness crossed Tate’s face. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just knee-jerk reaction, I guess.”

Belinda snatched the knife out of her back and flung it at Tate’s feet.

“Asshole,” she growled at him.

Bones gave me a knowing look. “See why I insisted on steel knives instead of silver? I reckoned one of them might panic and go for the kill instead of the capture.”

I knew it was more than nerve-wracking to face a vampire with nothing more than a single weapon, but Tate and the others had to master their emotions. Not only would it be bad for bargaining purposes to be without hostages, but if we slaughtered Ian’s men, I was guessing he’d be even more unreasonable to deal with.

“Your objective is to restrain Belinda with nonlethal means,” I said sharply. “If you can’t manage to do that, then you’re off this mission. Period.”

“And if after an hour you haven’t restrained me,” Belinda purred, “I get to taste one of you. Mmm, fresh blood. I haven’t had that in over a year.”

She licked her lips as she said it, eyeing them with a lustfulness that had nothing to do with sex. Juan swallowed. Tate backed away. Even the normally stoic Cooper looked uneasy. This was news to them.

“For motivation,” I said coolly. “Now, who’s going to be happy in an hour? You guys, or her?”

Belinda bared her fangs and leapt at them again. This time, she picked just one and dove low, knocking Juan’s legs out from under him. Juan scrambled, but Belinda was faster. She had her fangs near his throat before he could push her away.

I tensed, ready to hurl myself into the action, but Bones grasped my arm. At that same moment, Cooper and Tate jumped on Belinda. Cooper yanked her head back by her hair, and Tate gave her a roundhouse kick to the face that would have snapped the neck of a normal person.

Belinda was dazed for a moment. Only a moment. Then she reached behind her and flung Cooper over her head so hard, he landed a dozen feet away.

“Let them handle it,” Bones said low. “You can’t always be there to protect them.”

I set my jaw. Sure, Bones had threatened Belinda with truly horrible punishment if she got out of line and killed one of them, but that wouldn’t make the unlucky one any less dead. Bones didn’t think she was dumb enough to try it. I wasn’t so confident. Still, his logic had been undeniable. Belinda was an average-strength vampire, and if my guys couldn’t handle her, then they couldn’t be counted on with Ian’s men. Nothing like trial by fang, I thought grimly. Come on, guys, make me proud. Take the blond bimbo down.

Tate and Juan circled around Belinda while Cooper got up and shook himself. His forehead was bleeding. Belinda’s nostrils flared with hunger. She glanced at Juan, smiled, and then ripped her top open. Her full, bra-less breasts bounced into view.

Juan stared, faltering for an instant. It was all the time Belinda needed. She lunged, slamming her fist into his head. Juan’s eyes rolled up, and he dropped to the floor. Tate chased her, but she’d already reached Cooper. A hard blow to his abdomen had him instinctively hunching, and her tongue snaked out to lick the red trail dripping from his forehead.

“An appetizer,” she murmured, then lifted Cooper like he was a toy and threw him at Tate, who was almost on them. The two men went sprawling with a jumble of limbs.

I gritted my teeth. Bones reached down and gave my hand a squeeze. I knew what he was thinking. We’d have to come up with a Plan B for capturing Ian’s men, because Betty Boop here was whipping their asses even though the odds were three against one. Well, two against one now, since Juan was solidly passed out. Wait until I got ahold of him, letting a pair of tits distract him like that. Juan would wish he hadn’t woken up.

Fifty minutes later, Tate and Cooper were soaked with sweat, Juan was just coming to, and Belinda hadn’t been successfully restrained. Oh, Tate and Cooper had come close a few times, but they hadn’t managed to hold on to her long enough to hand her back to Bones, which had been their objective. My stomach seemed to drop. If it had just been a matter of taking a kill shot, they would have succeeded several times over. But they couldn’t subdue her without resorting to unacceptable means. Motherfucker. That was going to have two bad consequences,