It always unnerved me when he called him that. Zero seldom addressed Bones otherwise, no matter how often Bones had urged him to. His milky gray eyes were trained on me expectantly.
“I won’t. He’ll call me when it’s over, maybe in about two hours, maybe more.”
My stomach twisted with worry. It was all I could do not to snatch up my cell and ruin everything with a fervent, useless plea for him to be careful.
“We’ll be halfway to Mencheres’s house by then.” Vlad stretched his legs. “A good thing, too. I’m hungry.”
“We’ll all be better when we reach Mencheres in Colorado,” I said. “Vlad, you’ll get your dinner, Tate, you can see Annette, and I’ll see Bones sometime before midnight. At least we’ll have a few minutes of Christmas together. Maybe.”
God, how I wanted to be at our own home with no one but Bones around. Not shoved in a van surrounded by five vampires on my way to one of Mencheres’s many houses. Life. You could only make plans for it, not dictate orders to it.
“Doc.” I rapped on the metal panel. “Step on it, will you?”
The sounds of a helicopter brought me bolting out of my chair with a glance at the clock. Eleven fifty-one, Colorado Mountain Time. Jeez, Bones had cut it close.
Not bothering to throw on a coat, I went outside in my thin cardigan, shivering as the helicopter landed. Snow flurries were swept away by the churning rotors that whipped hair into my face. They slowed and the side door opened, revealing Spade, Rodney, and Ian.
“Someone get me a bloody good set of irons, I’m sick of sitting on this sod,” Ian spat. His chestnut hair was flying almost as much as mine.
Three of Mencheres’s vampires scurried to obey. The other half dozen went to assist Spade, Rodney, and Ian as they restrained a struggling, cursing figure.
“Angel, fetch your husband and have him give us a hand,” Spade sang out. “Where is the lazy sod—?”
He stopped at the look on my face. Ian halted as well, giving a brutal blow to the unknown vampire they carted like so much luggage.
“Where’s the other chopper? We were delayed, so Crispin should have beaten us here.”
Ian had never sounded so edgy. As if in slow motion, I raised the cell phone in my hand. I’d been clutching it for the past several hours waiting for his call. Nerveless fingers punched in those ten numbers, and then I waited again for that metallic buzzing that served as a ring.
Mencheres came to stand next to me, but I didn’t look at him. All I could do was stare at the helicopter rotors like I was transfixed. My heartbeat was so loud, I almost couldn’t hear the phone as it rang.
One…two…three…four…
God, please. I’ll do anything, please. Let him be all right. Let him be all right.
Five…six…seven…
He has to answer, he has to!
Eight…nine…ten…
There was a click and then background noise. I didn’t wait for more, but screamed his name.
“Bones! Where are you?” I couldn’t hear his voice, just more residual sounds. “Can you hear me?” I yelled even louder. Maybe we had a bad connection.
“Yessss…”
It was a hiss that drove straight through me, chilling me more than the snow falling around me. The voice wasn’t masculine, and it had a distinct Middle Eastern accent.
“Who. Is. This?”
Each word was a growl coming from the center of me. I saw Spade grip my arms, but I didn’t feel it.
A woman laughed, low and vicious. Her voice is deeper than I imagined, I found myself thinking. What else was I wrong about? Why am I sitting on the ground?
If she said anything else after her next four words, I didn’t hear it. I knew I was screaming, that Mencheres snatched the phone from me, and Spade jerked me toward the house even as I fought to stay outside. My eyes were still fixated on the slowing helicopter rotors as if they could magically change everything. They can’t stop, the thought streaked through my mind. If they stop, then Bones won’t come out of that chopper. Someone, turn them back on! Turn them back on!
No one did. They halted with a last, lazy rotation even as Spade forced me inside the house. Something exploded in me then, more powerful than the word pain could ever encompass, and all I could hear in my mind was Patra’s taunting, brutal, satisfied question.
Is this the widow?
TWENTY-ONE
I WAS SEATED NEXT TO SPADE, ANGUISH IN MY soul gouging me like a rabid monster trying to claw its way out.
But to Spade, I simply asked, “What happened?”