Twenty cramped minutes later, my heart leapt when I heard steady footfalls coming toward the cave. Then a feeling of power I recognized filled up the space as those footsteps came closer.
Bones rounded the corner and stopped short. A single dark brow arched even as I leaned back, letting go of the vampire’s head at last.
“Charles,” Bones said distinctly. “You’d better have a splendid explanation for her being on top of you.”
SIXTEEN
THE BLACK-HAIRED VAMPIRE ROSE TO HIS FEET as soon as I jumped off, brushing the dirt off his clothes.
“Believe me, mate, I’ve never enjoyed a woman astride me less. I came out to say hallo, and this she-devil blinded me by flinging rocks in my eyes. Then she vigorously attempted to split my skull before threatening to impale me with silver if I so much as even twitched! It’s been a few years since I’ve been to America, but I daresay the method of greeting a person has changed dramatically!”
Bones rolled his eyes and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re still upright, Charles, and the only reason you are is because she didn’t have any silver. She’d have staked you right and proper otherwise. She has a tendency to shrivel someone first and then introduce herself afterwards.”
“That’s uncalled for!” I said, insulted at the suggestion that I was homicidal.
“Right.” Bones let that go. “Kitten, this is my best mate, Charles, but you can call him Spade. Charles, this is Cat, the woman I’ve been telling you about. You can see for yourself that everything I’ve said is…an understatement.”
From his tone, that didn’t sound altogether complimentary, but I felt a tad bit guilty about what I’d done to the lanky vampire eying me, so I didn’t comment and just held out my hand.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Spade repeated, and then threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Well, hallo to you, too, darling! I’m very pleased to meet you now that you’re not flogging me unmercifully.”
He had tiger-colored eyes, and they gave me a thorough once-over while he shook my hand. I did the same to him. Fair was fair. Next to Bones, Spade looked two inches taller, which made him about six-four. He had lean attractive features, a straight nose, and inky hair that spiked up from his crown before hanging past his shoulders.
“Spade. You’re white. Isn’t that kind of…politically incorrect?”
He laughed again, but this time it was with less humor. “Oh, I didn’t choose that as a racial slur. It was how the overseer in South Wales used to address me. A spade is a shovel, and I was a digger. He never called anyone by their names, only their assigned tool. He didn’t feel the convicts were worthy of more.”
Oh, so he was that Charles. Now I remembered the name from when Bones had told me about his past imprisonment. There were three men I became mates with—Timothy, Charles, and Ian.
“Sounds pretty demeaning. Why’d you keep it?”
Spade’s smile didn’t slip, but those striking features hardened. “So I’d never forget.”
Okay. A change of subject was in order. Bones beat me to it.
“Charles has some information on a flunky of Hennessey’s who might prove useful.”
“Great,” I said. “Should I grab my slut clothes and pile on the makeup?”
“You should stay out of it,” Spade replied in a serious tone.
That made me want to fling more rocks at him. “My God, is it a vampire thing to be a chauvinist? Or just an eighteenth century one? Keep the girl in the kitchen where she won’t get hurt, right? Wake up and smell the twenty-first century, Spade! Women are good for more than cringing and waiting for men to rescue them!”
“And if Crispin felt differently for you, I’d bid you good luck and tell you to have at it,” Spade responded at once. “Yet I happen to know firsthand how devastating it is when someone you love is murdered. There’s nothing worse, and I don’t want him going through that.”
A part of me was inwardly pleased that Bones had told his friend he had feelings for me. I still didn’t believe he loved me, but it was nice to know I wasn’t just another warm body to him.
“Look, I’m sorry vampires killed someone close to you, truly I am. But—”
“Vampires didn’t kill her,” he interrupted me. “A group of French deserters cut her throat.”
I opened my mouth, paused, and shut it. That told me a few things right there, aside from the fact that I’d been wrong about what race killed her. She’d been human, whoever she was.
“I’m not like everyone else,” was what I ended up saying, giving Bones a questioning look to see if he’d told him that as well.
“So I’ve heard,” Spade said. “And you certainly caught me off guard earlier, but whatever your extraordinary abilities…you’re easy to kill. That beating pulse in your neck is your greatest weakness, and if I’d had a mind to before, I could have flipped you over and torn it out.”
I smiled. “You’re pretty cocky. So am I, when it comes to certain things. We’ll get along just fine. Wait right here.”
“Kitten…” Bones called after me, no doubt guessing where I was headed.