The image struck me very inappropriately and I started to laugh. This had to be the weirdest thing I’d ever heard.
“We arrived at a pay phone, but the bloke didn’t have any quid for the call. My mind still wasn’t functioning properly—that hadn’t occurred to me. All I knew was I needed to get somewhere safe. I had him ring numbers collect, but he told me all the bloody numbers were disconnected or didn’t answer. I only remembered a few of them: yours, Mencheres’s, Charles’s…but all of you were in emergency mode and couldn’t be reached. There was one last number I recalled, and it worked. I reached Don.”
My uncle? That made me blink in surprise.
Bones gave a rueful snort. “Yes, he was taken aback as well. Don said it didn’t sound like me, well, that was true. I reminded him that the day we met, I told him I wanted to peel his skin like an orange—somehow that I recalled—and I’d do it if he kept arguing over who I was. Don had the chap give him our location and said he’d come. So I wasn’t on display in the street, I had the man throw me in a Dumpster.
“Round two hours later, Don opened the lid. When I saw him, I said, ‘Took your bloody time, old chap,’ and he finally believed it was me—though he did inform me that a dehydrated piece of beef such as myself should be more respectful. Don pulled me into a van and gave me bags of blood. I went through all of them, but I still wasn’t back to myself. Don flew me back to the compound with him and continued to give me blood. It took me over twelve hours to fully regenerate.”
“Why didn’t he fucking call me!”
It burst from my mouth amid my overflowing gratitude toward my uncle. Don didn’t like Bones, never had, and yet he’d saved his life. There was nothing I could do to ever repay him for that.
“For starters, he didn’t know the numbers of who to call, Kitten. Not like he knew their e-mail addresses, and you hadn’t been checking yours, because he did try that. Also, since I didn’t heal right away, he wasn’t sure if I’d recover at all. So Don didn’t want to give you false hope. Round an hour after I regenerated, Tate called Don asking for a prescription for you. Don gave me the location of the pharmacy. Once I got there, I followed Tate’s scent from the pharmacy back here.”
There was something in Bones’s voice that made me belatedly aware there was one person missing in this room. Even my mother lingered by the doorway, pretending not to care about the story as it unfolded.
“Where’s Tate? And why didn’t Don call him when he knew you were better? My uncle knew he was with me.”
Bones met my eyes. There was pity in his gaze—and resolve.
“Don didn’t ring Tate because I told him not to. After all, I didn’t want the person who tried to kill me discovering I was still alive.”
TWENTY-FIVE
B ONES’S WORDS SANK IN, MADE EVEN MORE ominous by the way Spade began to squirm in his chair. When I first saw Bones, he’d murmured something to Spade I didn’t catch. Then I’d been so overcome by Bones being alive, I wouldn’t have noticed a stampede of elephants, let alone the noise of a struggle…
“Where is Tate?”
Amazing how I could be overwhelmed with joy and yet also mad at the same time.
“He’s not dead,” Bones answered. “He’s locked up until he admits to his treachery, and then I shall kill him for it.”
“You think the train station was a setup?” It made sense. That oncoming train with its host of Master vampires and one very mean Egyptian queen was too convenient.
“Only those of us in this room knew of that plot, except of course Dave and Cooper, and it doesn’t add up that it would be one of them. Dave was mostly barricaded in a box with Juan, and Cooper has no cause to see me dead. Tate’s the only one who would risk everything to see me killed in such a manner that you weren’t injured as well. His love for you has driven him to this betrayal, and I want you to hear his admittance from his own lips. Then I’ll kill him quickly, for your sake.”
No. It’s not him.
Bones heard the denial in my mind and sighed. “I’m sorry, luv, I know you care for him—”
I slammed the shields in place that guarded my thoughts, not because of Bones, but for the reason that two other vampires in the room could hear them. There was no way I’d believe Tate would do such a thing. He might taunt Bones and be a dick sometimes, but he wouldn’t betray him to Patra. I just couldn’t believe that.
Which left someone else in the room as the real guilty party.
“Tate’s not going anywhere, right?”
My calm question caused Bones to gaze at me oddly.
“No.”
“Then let’s not deal with him right now. If Tate does admit to doing that, you won’t have to worry about killing him. I’ll do it myself.”