Bones tilted his head to the side for a second. “Your mum’s here.”
I went downstairs to greet her, since Bones wasn’t dressed yet. I hadn’t seen her since that unbelievable night at Rodney’s, and I didn’t even want to know if they were now, um, dating. Rodney, being a gentleman, hadn’t mentioned the incident when he showed up this morning to prep for the evening’s meal, but I’d heard Bones greet him with an “All hail the dragon slayer!” salute.
I opened the door…and my smile froze. This couldn’t be my mother.
Her brown hair was free of gray and had new lighter highlights. Whether it was makeup or a chemical peel that seemed to have taken ten years off her in less than three weeks was anyone’s guess. Her dark amethyst velvet dress was tighter than mine, and cut high on one leg before draping down to her ankle on the other side. One shoulder was bared in Grecian style, and her hair was swept half up with stray pieces trailing. Her blue eyes were the only thing familiar about her.
“Catherine.” She swept by me without a hug. Okay, that was familiar, too. “You really should wear something warmer, it’s freezing out.”
Hello to you, too, Mom. Or whoever the hell you are, because you sure don’t look like the woman who raised me.
“You should talk,” I managed. “I can see all the way up to your thigh. My God, if Grandma saw you now, she’d come right out of her grave!”
My mother opened her mouth, paused, and then smiled. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
I was going directly to the kitchen to fall to my knees in awe before Rodney. Lo and behold, he’d managed to give her a sense of humor, and here I’d figured that would take voodoo, several headless chickens, and a lot of gris-gris.
“Let’s get you some eggnog, Mom,” I said, recovering from my shock enough to steer her into the living room. “It’s spiked.”
FOURTEEN
O UR LIST OF GUESTS WAS SMALL DUE TO THE unfestive circumstances of being at war. There were Rodney, Spade, Rattler, Tick Tock, Ian, Zero, and another vampire Annette brought as her date named Doc. Mencheres wasn’t here, and that was fine by me. My guests consisted of Denise, Randy, my mother, Don, Cooper, Dave, Juan, and Tate.
Bones had invited Ian at the last minute. He hadn’t been on my original list of people I wanted to spend time with, but since he’d thrown in his side with ours, Bones felt he’d deserved the nod. I’d been hoping he wouldn’t show, but that was in vain. In fact, I wondered if the reason Ian came was because he knew he was here against my preference—and got a kick out of that.
We were sitting in the dining room. Ian had arrived late and as soon as he crossed the threshold, my mother and Don had gotten up from the table. They were lingering near the porch with Dave, Cooper, and Juan, who also had reason not to like the chestnut-haired vampire across from me.
“Why, Cat, you seem edgy,” Ian baited me after my silence at the table grew pointed. “You’re not still cross at me over kidnapping your ex-boyfriend last summer, are you?”
I resisted the urge to hurl my plate at him. “Of course not, Ian. It’s just that normally at this hour, Bones and I are fucking like rabbits, so I get twitchy when I have to wait for him to climb aboard.”
Ian wasn’t amused. “Do you let her insult me when I have come in goodwill, Crispin?” he demanded.
Bones lifted a brow. “You’re not insulted in the least, and bringing up reference to how you attempted to force Cat into your line was extremely ill-mannered. Let it be the last time you speak of it.”
The words were mild—his eyes weren’t. They were swimming with green.
Ian leaned back in his chair. “Well, mate, look at you. Claws come shooting out straightaway, and here I was barely even being rude. At first I thought you snatched her away from me out of spite, but that’s not it, is it? You of all people to fall prey to love.”
They had over two hundred and twenty years of history between them, both good and bad. The air seemed to thicken around the table.
“You didn’t come here just to discuss my wife, did you?”
Ian leaned forward. “It was Max’s treatment of her that prompted you to declare violent retribution to any who had a part in it. Why wouldn’t I want to see how committed you were before I stuck my own neck out farther than I already have? If you were merely angry out of a sense of pride, well…” Ian dangled the sentence with a careless flick of his hand. “Why endanger me and mine over ruffled feathers?”