“Oh, Bones will find you. Count on it.”
They glanced around, uneasy at the vehemence of my tone.
“Pathetic,” Max said at last. “You’re trying to scare me into letting you live, but it won’t work. Still, Calibos, go outside and keep watch. Just in case her playboy decides to drop by early.”
“But I haven’t gotten to play with her yet,” Calibos protested, with a look my way that made me recoil.
“You’ll get your chance,” Max snapped. “But I set this up, so I go first.”
Calibos smirked at me as he headed out the door. “I’ll see you soon, sweetie.”
Max got up and sauntered over to my mother next. She was almost on her tiptoes to keep the drape around her neck slack enough to breathe. Underneath her, the chair wobbled ominously on its three legs. Her hands were tied together with another piece of drapery, and Max grinned as he contemplated her fingers.
“Which one will you lose, Justina? Let’s see, this little finger went to market,” he started to singsong, tapping one of them. “This little finger stayed home. This little finger had roast beef…”
I tried to mentally prepare myself for my chance. Now that one of them was outside, this was my best opportunity. It was hard for me to focus, however. I’d had years of experience getting knocked around, but with all of my injuries, I kept feeling myself wandering closer to unconsciousness.
My mother met my eyes…and then kicked the chair out from under her.
“Goddammit,” Max snapped, holding her up with one hand. “Why’d you do that?”
In the second that he was distracted, I yanked against the knives on my wrists with all my strength, feeling my flesh shred. I’d gotten one of my hands free when Max turned around.
“What the hell?”
He let my mother go. She dangled by the neck, her feet well above the floor, while I wrenched my other arm free, ignoring the white-hot burst of pain that caused. I tried to grab one of the knives, but my wrists were too damaged for me to hold anything. I kicked them away and then lunged at Max instead, head-butting him hard enough to knock him over. All I need is a little of your blood, I thought, biting at him savagely, and I’ll be healed enough to fight.
A burst of noise jerked my head toward the window. The last thing I saw was glass smashing—and then there was a burning in my neck and my vision went black. I thought I heard screams, but all at once, everything seemed farther away. I couldn’t feel anything, either. It was a relief to be free from the pain.
Awareness came back with something wet being poured down my throat. I tried to cough it out but couldn’t. The flow wouldn’t stop, forcing me to swallow. Again. And again.
“…don’t you let her die!” I thought I heard my mother scream, then there was Bones’s voice, very close.
“…come on, luv, drink! No, you have to have more…”
I gagged, the liquid overflowing my mouth, when shapes around me formed into clarity. I had my mouth plastered to a blood-slicked neck, and I pushed away even as I coughed and swallowed once more.
“Stop it,” I managed to say.
Hands set me back. It was Bones’s throat I’d been pressed against. His neck wasn’t the only thing smeared red, either. So was the entire front of him.
“Christ Almighty, Kitten,” Bones breathed, stroking my throat.
“Catherine,” my mother cried. I jerked my head around in time to see her slip in something as she staggered toward me. That drape was still tied around her neck, but the other end was no longer attached to the banister. In the far corner of the room, I heard Max’s muttered cursing and a feminine English reply.
“Don’t you move, you little shite.”
“You’ve got him?” Bones asked in a truly chilling voice.
Annette sounded as fierce as I’d ever heard her. “I’ve got him, Crispin.”
My mother reached me. She was hugging me and trying to pull me from Bones’s arms even as she kept feeling my neck.
“Did he fix it? Are you all right, Catherine?”
That’s when I noticed the rest of the blood. It wasn’t only splattered on Bones, but all over me, around me, even on the nearby wall.
“What happened?” I asked, torn between dizziness, numbing gratitude that we were alive, and being aghast at all the blood surrounding us.
“Max ripped your throat out,” Bones replied. There was the weirdest mixture of relief and rage in his blazing green gaze. “And he’s going to dearly wish I’d kill him before I’m through with him.”
SIX