He dropped his head onto my lap a moment before replying.
“How can you even suggest that? First of all, this is my fault for getting you into this, because I should have stuck to my instincts and never allowed it. Then, I should have just killed Danny that night like I intended to. At the very least if I would have stolen his mind about how his hand got injured, he wouldn’t have given your name to the police. But I was angry, and wanted him to know who did it and why. Of course I’m going. Even Hennessey, who hasn’t the slightest idea that I love you, knows I will. Doesn’t matter if she’s already dead and there’s nothing to be gained from it but vengeance, I’ll still go, and I swear to you, I shall rip off every hand that touched her or your grandparents. That much at least I can do for you. The only thing that frightens me is the thought that you’ll see me as a monster again, because it was vampires who did this.”
Bones stared at me and his eyes were tinged pink. Vampire tears. So absolutely foreign from the clear streaks of saline zigzagging down my cheeks. I slid down until I sat on the floor and held him. He was the only thing that was constant and solid. Everything else around me was crumbling.
“I will never stop loving you. No one can change that. No matter what happens later, I’ll still love you.”
My illusions about tonight only went so far. We would be walking right into a trap, and in all likelihood, we wouldn’t walk out. Right now my mother was terrified, if she was even still alive, and there was nothing I could do but wait until later. This could be the last time Bones and I held each other. Life was too short to waste even moments of it.
“Bones. Make love to me. I need to feel you inside me.”
He pulled back until he could look in my eyes as he stripped the shirt over his head. Mine followed suit and was thrown to the ground. He undid the belt around my waist, untied the knives and guns, and tugged off my boots with their stake accompaniments. The spandex around my legs was stiff from dried blood, but I pushed the image of my grandparents’ crumpled forms out of my mind. They wouldn’t go far. I would see them in my nightmares the rest of my life. If I ever lived to dream again.
“I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. This isn’t goodbye, Kitten. I didn’t survive over two hundred years to find you only to lose you within five months. I want you, but I’m not saying goodbye to you, because we will get through this.”
Bones traced his hands over me with such delicacy, I could have been made of glass threads and not shattered. His mouth followed everywhere his hands did, and I tried to absorb the feel of him beneath my fingers. Not for a minute did I believe that this wasn’t goodbye. Still, I had loved and been loved in return, and there was nothing greater than that. It far outweighed the alienation of all the previous years. Bones thought five months was too short; I was amazed I’d been granted joy for so long.
“I love you,” he moaned, or maybe I said it. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. The lines had dissolved between us.
I refused to wash the blood off, wanting it to stain my skin. Later—if I lived—I would wash it off after it was covered by the blood of those who’d done this. Finally I understood why Bones’s long-dead Indian friend had painted his skin before going off to battle. It was a symbol for all to see of the depth of his resolve, and my family’s blood was mine. Before we were done tonight, many things on me would be painted. My mouth was one of them.
Bones raised the issue, and for once I accepted without hesitation. His blood would make me stronger—temporarily, that was true—but then that’s all that was needed. On the extra plus side, it would also help heal any injuries I was no doubt going to incur. The quicker I healed, the quicker I could kill.
First he topped off like a car getting gas. In this neighborhood, it took only minutes for him to find someone spoiling for trouble. The unlucky victims were four men thinking they were going to score a wallet. They scored some iron deficiency instead. Not bothering to waste the power in his eyes, he simply knocked them out with a single swirling punch that connected with their jaws in one graceful blur of a semicircle. If the situation weren’t so dire, I would have laughed at how they fell in a row without a blink among them. Maybe this would drive home that crime didn’t pay.
Bones took from each of them, and his face was positively flushed when he glided back to me on feet that didn’t touch the ground. With a shake of my head, I started back toward the hotel.
“You are going to wash your mouth out. If you kiss me, I don’t want a face full of hepatitis.”
My shield of sarcasm was on with full armor backup. Any emotions deeper than the surface would have to wait to crawl out of the cage I’d locked them in.