“Yes, Kitten. More…don’t stop…”
I closed my eyes, caught up in the ecstasy. My fingers wound the sheet into handholds as I moved faster.
“Yes…”
The sensuality of the moment faded as a haze seemed to appear around us and the sheets began to develop a life of their own. They coiled around my wrists and ankles, as if the cotton had become an evil serpent. I tried to tell Bones to stop, but when I opened my mouth, blood poured out.
“Still trying to be brave, little girl?” a voice witheringly asked.
Horror crawled over me. I knew that voice.
The haze lifted, and I screamed in a long, piercing wail as Bones and the bed faded, and I was somehow on the floor in front of my father. Those serpentine sheets became knives that speared me through the wrists. My gut, leg, and arms throbbed in agony.
“Know what I’m going to do to you, little girl?” Max went on. “I’m going to rip your throat out again.”
He came toward me. I tried to twist away, but those knives in my wrists prevented me. Max laughed as his fangs neared my skin, my struggles as frantic as they were useless. Then I screamed as he dragged his fangs slowly across my neck.
“Stop stop stop stop—!”
Max pressed something to my mouth. I coughed, sputtered, and swallowed, but after a few moments, Max faded and I could see someone else.
“Wake up, Kitten!”
Bones focused in front of me. Before my gaze, welts and scratches on him healed, leaving only blood to show where they’d been. His wrist was pressed to my mouth, the sheets were shredded all around us, and we weren’t alone in the room.
Spade was at the side of the bed grasping my shoulders. He let go and sat back with a noise of relief when I blinked at him. Dave, Rodney, and Tate hovered by the door, Denise almost hopping to see over them. Then all I saw was Bones’s chest as he clutched me to him.
“Bloody hell, you’re awake.” He pushed me back and cupped my face. “Do you know where you are?”
In my bedroom. Stark naked and so was Bones. Spade rose to his feet and I looked away. We weren’t the only ones undressed.
“Bones, what is everyone doing in here? Spade, cover up. Frigging vampires think everyone wants to see what they’ve got.”
Bones still had me clasped to him. At least being in his arms kept my breasts from being on display.
“Will you animals get out of my way!”
Good Lord, my mother was in the hallway trying to get in? She’d faint if she saw this.
“Spade, towel, bathroom,” I hissed. “Save some of the mystery.”
He laughed, but it sounded more like a tired wheeze. “Crispin, she’s all right. I’ll take myself off so she doesn’t exhaust herself chiding me.”
Spade had blood in drying lines on him as well. What the hell? Tate stared at me, and his presence made me squirm. He shouldn’t see me like this.
Ian pushed by the other people in his way, snapping a cell phone shut.
“I told him it worked, Crispin. He said to call him later—”
“Now this is too much,” I shouted. Forget Ian’s businesslike manner, not even a wink or inappropriate leer. “I had a bad dream, there isn’t a full-scale assault going on, so everyone, go.”
Ian looked at me with pity. “More concerned with propriety than peril. We’ll talk soon, Crispin.”
“Right, then.”
Finally, the room emptied. When the last person closed the door, I relaxed enough to tremble.
“God, that was the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. If I didn’t know better, I’d say my neck still hurt…”
Which it did, actually. How was that possible?
Bones met my gaze. “Kitten, that wasn’t just a dream. It was a spell to trap you in your own nightmare. Your neck hurts…because the spell was reenacting that day with Max, and if you hadn’t have woken up, it would have finished the job and killed you.”
I tensed everywhere, trying to get control. “How do you know it was a spell?”
“You started screaming in your sleep. Charles dashed in the room—that’s why he was naked, he came straight from bed—and we tried to wake you. Then you became violent. Obviously, we knew it was more than a nightmare, and when I concentrated, I could read in your mind what was happening to you. No one had a bloody idea what to do. Ian rang Mencheres to tell him what was happening. He’s the one who knew how to stop it.”
“How long did this go on? It only seemed like a few minutes.”
“It lasted round half an hour, though to me, it felt like years.”
Half an hour! “You said Mencheres knew how to stop it. How’d he know?”
“Because Patra did it,” Bones replied with quiet fury. “Practicing witchcraft is forbidden, but Patra studied it in secret. The spell would have been sealed with her blood, so only her blood—or the blood of her sire—could break it. Mencheres was too far away, so since he’d shared his blood and power with me, he thought it was possible mine would suffice. It did.”