D ON ARRIVED AT MY MOTHER’S WITH THE full team less than fifteen minutes after I called him. They must have broken every traffic law known to man, not that any local cops could give them speeding tickets.
Bones and Annette strapped Max into the capsule. Don was taking him—for now. Bones curtly said he’d send someone by later to collect Max, and the tone he used made me glad my uncle didn’t argue. Of course, I didn’t think Don wanted Max on his hands very long. The look the brothers had exchanged while Max was being strapped into that capsule was filled with so much history, Don glanced away even before Max started to curse him.
I had to be given several pints of blood to replace what I’d lost. Bones’s blood had healed my multiple injuries, but my pulse had been dangerously weak.
“That was close,” I said to Bones with a shaky smile after my final transfusion. I was sitting in his car. He’d used a towel to wipe off as much blood from me as possible. We were leaving soon. Bones didn’t want to stay longer than necessary here, since we couldn’t be sure who else Max and Calibos might have told about their ambush plans.
Bones met my eyes with an unfathomable look. “I’d have brought you back one way or another, Kitten. Either as a vampire or a ghoul, even if you hated me for it afterward.”
“Not if Max had his way,” I muttered. “He was going to cut me into pieces.”
Bones let out a hiss that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Then he seemed to get himself under control.
“I’ll remember that,” he said, each word bitten off.
So many emotions were surging in me. Relief, delayed panic, anger, exhilaration, and the urge to clutch Bones and babble about how thrilled I was to even see him again. But there wasn’t time for a meltdown, so I stuffed those feelings back. Get it together, Cat. Can’t have you turn into a mass of psychological goo, there’s too much to do.
My mother was in the backseat. She’d refused to go to the compound, even though she wouldn’t have been there long. Don was moving everyone out. Max had found my mother’s house, so it was an easy guess to make that he knew where the compound was, too. Don wasn’t taking any chances that Max had told other vampires where to find it. Don’s operation had killed enough of them that some might decide to pay it a visit.
So my mother was leaving with Bones and me now, and Don would get her set up with another place to live later. Once he finished relocating our entire team.
“I’m sorry, Catherine,” she mumbled, not meeting my eyes. “I didn’t want to call you. I heard myself saying the words, but I couldn’t seem to stop.”
I sighed. “It’s not your fault. Max used mind control. You couldn’t help what you were saying.”
“Demon power,” she whispered.
“No,” Bones said firmly. “Max is the one who told you all vampires were demons, right? You think he’s capable of telling the truth, even after this?”
“Whatever Max told you back then,” I added, “you would have been compelled to believe, just like you were compelled to call me before. Vampires are another species, Mom, but they’re not demons. If they are, why are you still alive? You’ve tried twice to get Bones killed, but today he saved you instead of letting you hang.”
Her face was twisted with emotion. Being confronted with the reality that what she’d fervently believed for twenty-eight years might be wrong was a hard thing for anyone to swallow.
“I lied to you about your father,” she said at last, so soft I could barely hear her. “That night, he didn’t…but I didn’t want to believe I could have let him, not after I saw he wasn’t human…”
My eyes closed for a moment at her admittance. I’d suspected that the night I was conceived wasn’t rape, but here was confirmation at last. Then I met her gaze.
“You were eighteen. Max had you believing you were giving birth to a modern-day version of Rosemary’s baby, just because he thought it was funny to tell you all vampires were demons. Doesn’t make him any less of an asshole. Speaking of that…” I pulled the IV out of my arm, then put on the jacket Cooper had kindly left for me, since my own shirt had been cut open and was sopping with blood. When I was covered, I hopped out of the car. No more horizon-tilting dizziness. It was amazing the difference vampire blood and three bags of plasma could make. I didn’t even have a mark on me anymore, whereas by rights, I should be in a body bag.
“What are you doing?” Bones asked, lightly holding my arm.
“Saying goodbye to my father,” I replied, walking over to where the capsule sat like a huge silver egg in the driveway.
“Open it,” I said to Cooper, who was standing guard until it could be loaded into our specialized van.