Destined for an Early Grave

wouldn’t be tempted to look back.

“How do you think he found us?”

I didn’t ask the question until much later. Truth be told, I hadn’t felt like talking after seeing Gregor. Neither had Bones, from his grim silence. The sun was up. Liza still drove. Ghouls weren’t as susceptible to morning tiredness as vampires were. Hopscotch and Band-Aid slept, dark sunglasses fixed over their eyes.

In this new SUV, at least there was more room than the last two cars. In case we were being followed, we’d switched vehicles three times. Bones glared the unknowing other drivers into submission while we hijacked their ride. It was done so quickly, a tail would have to have been right on top of us to catch it. There had been no sign of Gregor yet, and we were almost to Fort Worth.

Bones made an irritable noise. “Unless one of Marie’s people went behind her back—and that’s unlikely—or one of mine did, I’m at a loss.” His fingers drummed on his leg. “Perhaps Don had a hand in it. What name did he use to have those pills delivered to my home, Kitten?”

“Kathleen Smith.” I scoffed at the thought that my uncle would be so stupid as to use my real name. “And if you factor in the time frame, just a day from me telling him where we were, it doesn’t fit. We know Gregor was in Paris and London when we were there, so he’d have to have left soon after we did to make it here. That rules out Don.”

Bones stared at me. “You’re right. Only Charles knew where we were bound to when we left his house. I don’t reckon he ran an ad about it. Marie knew after we arrived. That leaves few people who could have informed Gregor, and they’re all in this car.”

That woke up Band-Aid and Hopscotch. Liza gave a widened glance into the rearview mirror. I tensed, wondering if one of the two vampires would abruptly attack.

Neither did. They looked back at Bones, and he met their gaze, his expression cold and hooded. Without saying it, I knew he was weighing the option of killing them.

“Sire,” Band-Aid began.

“Save it.” Shortly. “After Rattler, I don’t put betrayal past anyone but three people, and you’re not one of them. Still, no need to be hasty. Neither of you will leave my sight until we’ve arrived, and then you’re going to be secluded. If Gregor still finds us, we’ll know it wasn’t you.”

Each of them had a slightly stunned look to his face. Hopscotch recovered the fastest and nodded.

“I wouldn’t betray you. I welcome the opportunity to prove it.”

“As do I.” Band-Aid seconded, giving a furtive glance to Liza.

“Whatever you need me to do,” she said softly.

“I won’t force you.” Bones almost sighed. “Yet I would ask, Liza.”

She smiled in such a sad way, it even hurt me to see it. “You’ll feel safer. It’s such a small thing to do for you.”

It sucked giving the people around you a suspicious eye. Big dark cave. It was sounding better and better.

“I know I only just met her, but somehow, I don’t think it was Marie,” I said.

Bones raised a brow. “Why not?”

“Well…she told me a weird story about poisoning her husband. At first I thought it was just to scare me, but it was after she said if I was married to Gregor, she’d back his side, since vampires can’t divorce.”

“Really?” Bones mulled it. “That’s interesting. Oh, everyone knows Marie killed her husband when she was human. What I’ve never heard before is how she did it.”

“I thought she hit him with an ax,” was Liza’s response. “That’s the story I was told.”

“Interesting,” Bones repeated. “Why do you believe this makes her sympathetic to our side, luv? Seems she stated whom she’d support.”

I’d rather not say.

I shifted on the seat, wishing I’d shut up before.

“You’re blocking me.” His eyes flashed green.

Yeah, I was keeping him out of my mind with all the mental armor I could muster. Big mouth. Why can’t you just leave well enough alone?

It wasn’t directed to him; I was berating myself. There were a few things I’d wanted to discuss privately with Bones after meeting Majestic. This wasn’t private by anyone’s standards.

“We agreed not to do this,” Bones went on. “Hide any knowledge or speculation. Whatever it is, Kitten, tell me.”

I blew out a deep breath. He wasn’t going to like this.

“Marie told me Gregor could return my memories, and that you and Mencheres knew it. She wondered why you didn’t want me to remember what happened. On the street back there, she had the chance to demand I get my memories back. We were in her backyard, outnumbered; she could have insisted. But she let us go. I think she did it…because she believes I am bound to Gregor, and she knows she’d have to back him if it was proven.”

Bones went absolutely still. His glare intensified until it felt like I was being hit with emerald lasers.

“Do you want to remember your time with him?”

I took another deep breath, longer than the first one.

“It bothers me that there’s over a month of my life I don’t know about. You should have told me, Bones. You promised you weren’t going to hide things from me anymore, either, but I had to find this out from Marie.”

“I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t certain. In any event, I wasn’t going to let that filthy cur put his hands on you, have your mouth on him—”

“Are you serious?” I interrupted. “Where in all of this did you think I’d kiss him?”

Bones shot me a harsh glance. “The power to open your mind is in Gregor’s blood, as he said. You’d have to bite him.”

“I didn’t know how it worked.”

“Right, but you’d do it if you could,” Bones said with such accusation that I clenched my hands to keep from shaking him.

“If someone ripped over a month of memory from your life, you’d want to know what it contained, too.” Spoken without shouting. Good for me.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

His tone wasn’t calm. It was almost a snarl.

“If someone took from my memory an event that might unravel our marriage, I wouldn’t want to remember it under any circumstances, but perhaps our marriage means more to me than it does to you.”

There went my Zen moment of tranquil chi. Blackout rage, aisle five!

“The only person who could unravel our marriage is you. Let’s say I did find out I married Gregor. Does the thought that there might be a chance for you to be single again sound too tempting to you?”

“You’re the only one admitting to looking for a loophole,” Bones replied with equal fury. “Fancy the look of Gregor? Wonder if you might have preferred shagging him to me? Is that what you want to remember?”

I was so insulted, it made me incensed.

“You’ve lost your mind!”

I shoved him, but he didn’t move. “I bled my first time with Danny, got it? Or do you need me to draw you a picture?”

Under normal circumstances, I would never say something so personal with a crowd, but rage is funny. It makes you oblivious to everything else.

Bones drew his face right up next to mine. “That sod could have shagged you all night, and you’d have still bled with Danny later. All Mencheres would have needed to do was give you his blood once he found you. Heals all wounds, right? If they took you from Gregor shortly after the first time he’d bedded you, you’d have had a simple wound that could have been healed.”

“That’s…” I was so aghast at the idea, I couldn’t begin to respond. “That’s bullshit!” I finally managed.

“Really?” Bones leaned closer. “I happen to know differently, because I’ve done it.”

The soft way he said the words made them even more emphatic. Fury, denial, and jealousy spat out my words faster than I could think.

“Damn you for being a conscienceless whore.”

Bones didn’t take his eyes off me, nor was his response any louder.

“That’s what you married, Kitten. A conscienceless whore. But if you recall, I never pretended to be anything else.”

Yeah, I knew he’d been a gigolo when he was human, but that’s not what stung. If only his screwing around had stopped once he didn’t need the money to survive, I thought bitterly. But no. After he became a vampire, he did it for fun, as he just reminded me.

I didn’t want him to know how much his past still had the power to hurt me, so I drew my mental shields around me. They were my only defense to shut him out. Then I looked out the window. I couldn’t bear the sight of his beautiful face at the moment.

Bones let go of me and sat back. We didn’t speak the rest of the trip.

NINE

YEE-HAW!”

The cry made me shake my head. A bar with an inside rodeo. Nope, I wasn’t kidding. It even had a live, snorting bull. For the listed price, proof of prior experience, several signed waivers, and a complete lack of common sense, anyone could ride it, too.

Bones and I were still barely speaking. I told him about the rumor of me wanting to turn into a ghoul, but beyond that, we didn’t talk much. Nothing else was going on, either, and that may have been mutual. When we reached the Fort Worth motel after a straight day of driving, I swallowed the pills Don had sent to me and passed out. The most intimate moment I’d had with Bones was when he woke me with his wrist against my mouth. I’d swallowed his blood, declared that I needed to shower, and that was that. He was dressed and waiting for me when I came out, coolly detached with nothing but business to discuss. The invisible wall between us