“I’m a danger to myself? On the pier, you used an inherited power that’s only worked by accident once before,” I flung back.

His dark brown gaze didn’t waver. “No, luv. I made sure I’d mastered the gift I inherited from Tenoch before I used it at the pier.”

He’d. Been. Practicing. For a few seconds, I was so stunned I was speechless. Then I said the words that had been burning inside me ever since I figured out his degeneration into a corpse had been a trick.

“You let me watch you die.”

My voice was raw, while the memory of seeing him wither ripped through me like razors had replaced my emotions. I wished our supernatural bond went the other way so I could shove those feelings back into him and watch him buckle under their weight.

“You knew I’d think it was real, and you did it anyway!”

He gripped my shoulders, but I knocked his hands away with an incoherent hiss. Bones didn’t try to touch me again. Only his gaze held mine as he spoke.

“You said it yourself: You are a fighter, and I can’t expect you to change. No matter my objections or the danger, you were going to use yourself as bait to get Madigan because he was an evil sod who needed taking down. That’s who you are, Kitten. It’s who you’ve always been.”

Then his mouth twisted into a humorless smile.

“But you forgot who I am—a ruthless bastard who will do anything to keep you safe. So yes, I pretended one of the soldiers fired silver bullets in order that you, and everyone else, would believe I’d died. It was the only way to protect you when Madigan brought you back to the compound, and I had no doubt he’d capture you if you went to meet him. He’s waited too long not to come at you with everything he had, and if I’d told you of my plan beforehand, your reaction wouldn’t have been genuine, and Madigan would’ve smelled a trap.”

He reached out again, but my glare stopped him. What he’d done hurt too much to handle feeling his hands on me.

“Madigan would never have captured me if you hadn’t pulled that filthy trick,” I said through gritted teeth. “We could have grabbed him and been gone. I managed to fly away just fine when his team descended. I only came back when I saw that you weren’t with me.”

“He had drones standing by and laser targets painted on you from the moment you arrived,” Bones said sharply. “Ask Denise, she saw them. None of us were leaving the area except in his custody. My ‘filthy trick’ ensured that Madigan didn’t pull those triggers. He knew, as I did, that you would never leave me behind.”

News of the drones and laser targeting startled me, but Madigan’s willingness to blow himself up along with us, if it came to that, didn’t. He’d proven pretty definitely that he would rather die than be our captive, as his body outside attested. Seems Bones had thought of everything before pulling his Trojan Horse ruse to get Madigan to bring us into his super secret, ultra-guarded facility.

Well, almost everything.

“In all of your planning, did it ever occur to you that I wouldn’t want to live if I thought you were dead? You almost woke up to a big surprise because I intended to check out as soon as I killed Madigan.”

Horror flashed across his features, and he grabbed me too fast to block. “You promised me you would never do that, Kitten!”

“To quote Ian, ‘I changed my mind, Crispin!’ ” I thundered back. Then I ducked beneath him, shoving him when he tried to grab me again.

He stayed where he was, hands still stretched out as though gripping phantom flesh. Then he dropped them, and this time, his shields dropped with them.

Emotions blasted into me with such force, I backed up until the wall stopped me. Then there was nowhere to go as a geyser of tormented anguish flooded me, drowning my anger under its depths. It turned into glaciers of ruthless resolve that chilled my sense of betrayal until it crystalized and shattered. Finally, an inferno of love swept over the remains, burning all my hurt with its searing, excruciatingly beautiful flames.

Without meaning to, I slid down the wall. I’d thought my emotions would buckle Bones if he could feel them, but I was the one too shaken to stand beneath the onslaught of his. It didn’t negate what he’d done. Instead, it affirmed it. What we felt for each other couldn’t be reasoned with, controlled, or tamed, and with the maelstrom still swirling inside me, I knew Bones would do the same thing again despite it delivering a crippling blow to both of us.

“I love you, Kitten.”

How puny those words seemed compared to the feelings strafing mine, but his voice vibrated as he said them. Then he crouched beside me.

“I would never hurt you that way save for one reason: to keep you safe. I can live with your anger, your retribution—bloody hell, despise me if you must, but don’t expect me to behave as though you aren’t the most important thing in my life. You are, and I will let no one, yourself included, bring you to harm.”

I didn’t tell him that was impossible. He knew our lives were dangerous even on a good day. He was Master of a huge vampire line; at any time, he could be called upon to risk his life for one of his people. Something could happen with Tate or Ian tonight where I’d have to risk mine, too, but now I knew there were no limits to what Bones would do to prevent that. He was right—it was who he was, and I couldn’t expect him to change when I couldn’t alter who I was, either.

It meant we had more fights and heartache ahead of us, but that was the price I’d pay to be with the man I loved more than life itself.

I could have told him that, yet we both already knew it. Besides, he’d always been more about action than words. So I said nothing as I pulled his head down, crushing my lips against his and plunging my hands under his clothes, suddenly desperate to feel his flesh beneath my fingers.

Then I felt his weight as his body flattened mine. Moaned against his mouth at the bruising intensity of his kiss. My tongue raked his until the tang of blood faded, and nothing was left except his taste. I only pushed him away to inhale until his scent was deep inside me, and when he slanted his mouth back over mine, I drank him in like I was trying to drown.

One hard yank took my bulletproof vest off and opened my lab coat, revealing my na**dness underneath. His ruined clothes were easy to tear away, and then there was nothing between us. Feeling the rub of his hard, sleek body almost brought me to orgasm, and I arched against him with a wordless cry for more. He pulled me closer, touching me as though he needed to feel every inch of me now, or he’d never get another chance. When he slid down and gripped my hips, I raised myself to him in blatant need.

His mouth was cool, belying the heat that shot through me with every greedy flick of his tongue. Moans turned into cries that echoed around us, joining the guttural sound he made as he pulled my thighs over his shoulders and delved deeper into my flesh. My hands ran through his hair in a feverish way, but whether I was trying to pull him up or push him closer, I didn’t know. I wanted him to stop, so I could feel him inside me, and I never wanted him to stop because the pleasure was overwhelming.

He made the decision moments later when he slid up, the length of his body a tormenting friction until his h*ps settled between my legs. Then I knew nothing except the mind-numbing bliss of his hard flesh cleaving into me. His mouth swallowed the cry I made, large hands cradling my head as he moved deeper, until he ground against my clitoris, setting off a firestorm of sensation.

Nerve endings flared with each new thrust, twisting and tightening, making me gasp, then groan at the increasing ecstasy. Muscles rippled in his back as he moved faster, harder, and I dug my nails into him just to hold on. His movements were forceful to the point of roughness, but the tears sliding from my eyes weren’t of pain. I needed more of this, of him. Everything. His arms were like steel around me, thrusts so deep I could barely stand it, yet it still wasn’t enough. In desperation, I wrapped my legs around his waist and sank my fangs into his throat.

A harsh sound vibrated against my mouth. His blood, still warm from his recent feeding, tasted sharp and sweet. Like salted caramel. I swallowed, shuddering at the instant jolt it delivered to my system. Every sense suddenly heightened, crystallizing the sensations that had me writhing against him and tearing my mouth away to cry out in what sounded like screams. Then everything clenched so tightly it almost hurt before rapture flooded through me, pulsating in waves I felt twice when Bones’s cl**ax invaded my subconscious with ferocious pleasure.

He didn’t let go after the last shudder caused his muscles to contract in the most delicious way. Instead, he rolled us to the side, using his arm as a pillow for my head. His other hand dragged down my body in a way I would’ve called lazy except for the look in his eyes. Nothing languid lurked in those depths. They blazed with single-minded intensity, causing shivers to break out over me. For a second, I knew what prey felt like right before it was devoured. If I didn’t burn with an equally compelling desire to be consumed, I might have been afraid.

“Crispin.”

The single word reverberated through the silo, making the clang of metal against the exterior an unnecessary attention-getter.

Bones didn’t stop caressing me. “Go away, Charles,” he called out in a voice I’d never heard him use with his best friend.

“Can’t,” came Spade’s equally terse reply. “Your new offspring has just awoken.”

Bones’s hand stilled, and he sighed. “Sorry, luv, we can’t risk a new vampire around Denise. If Cooper drank any of her blood—”

“Not Cooper,” Spade interrupted grimly. “Madigan is awake.”

Twenty-four

I’d hoped never to wear the thing again, but left with no other option, I put my blood-soaked lab coat back on. At least it had a belt since Bones had ripped the buttons off. His clothes, however, were hopeless. Being a centuries-old vampire who’d spent his human years as a gigolo, he didn’t care. He strode out of the silo wearing the same suit he’d been born in. If I lamented his lack of modesty, I still had to give it up to Bones for bravery. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t put my dangly parts near a new, malevolent ghoul.

Because I took a few moments to get dressed, I was still inside the silo when I heard someone call out in a singsong voice.

“Hungry . . . hungry . . .”

I paused. Madigan? It had to be, though he sounded almost childlike. Not bellowing with rage like I expected him to be when he woke up and realized he hadn’t given us the slip after all.

I left the silo. In front of the third one down, Bones, Dave, Spade, and Denise formed a circle around what had to be Madigan. As I approached, I noted with distracted amusement that my best friend’s cheeks were pink and she stared straight ahead and nowhere else.

“. . . not trifling with you,” Bones was saying in his sternest tone. “The sooner you realize that, the less painful this will be.”

“Hungry!” was the petulant response he received.

I pushed through the group to see Madigan. When I did, I stared in disbelief.

It wasn’t his disheveled appearance—the phrase “wouldn’t be caught dead” was accurate because no one woke up from the grave looking fabulous. Madigan actually looked better than most since he’d died from poisoning instead of something messier. So it wasn’t his red-stained chest, open shirt, or dirty suit that rocked me where I stood.

It was his gaze. I was used to seeing so many things in his sky blue eyes: contempt, arrogance, ruthlessness, cold satisfaction, blind ambition . . . Now, all I saw was confusion and curiosity, as if he didn’t know who all of us were, but he was mildly interested in finding out.

“Hungry, hungry, hungry,” he chirped while bobbing his head as if listening to an internal sound track.

This was only the second ghoul rebirth I’d witnessed, but from the tense expressions on Bones’s and Spade’s faces, this wasn’t normal. What was wrong with him?

“Bones?” I asked quietly.

He stroked my arm once but didn’t answer. To Madigan, he said, “Well done, mate. Clever of you to fake insanity, but I’ve been doing this for hundreds of years, so I know you’re not crazy. You’re scared shiteless, and you should be, for if you don’t stop pretending, I’m going to hurt you in ways you can’t imagine.”

No spark of acknowledgment lit in Madigan’s gaze, but his thin lips pursed.

“Huuuuunnnnggggrrryyyyyy,” he drew out, as though annoyed that we hadn’t understood him before.

Bones punched him so hard that Madigan’s head left a red smear where it smacked against the silo. Then the gray-haired man lolled in his grip when Bones hauled him up by his tattered jacket.

“Enjoy that?” Bones bit out. “I did. Let me show you how much.”

With that, he began beating the living hell out of Madigan. An hour ago, I would’ve sworn I’d love watching such a thing, but as the blows came thick and heavy, and Madigan still didn’t stop wailing in pained confusion, I began to feel sick. Denise must’ve, too. She walked away, and not in a manner that suggested embarrassment over Bones delivering the thrashing na**d. Either Madigan was the most persuasive actor in the world, or he wasn’t faking it. The longer I watched, the more I became convinced that this wasn’t the same icy government operative who’d masterminded a decade-long plan to integrate three separate species into one unstoppable weapon. This was a little boy trapped in an old man’s body, and he had no idea why the bad man hurting him wouldn’t stop.

“Enough,” I said at last, grabbing Bones’s arm when he was about to let fly another jaw-breaking haymaker.