I felt one person’s absence acutely today. My uncle and I still weren’t on speaking terms, but I was glad that my mother was here, spooning dressing onto her plate before passing the container to Denise. Fabian and Elisabeth were here as well, floating above the two chairs we’d left open for them. After all, they were as important to me as everyone else at the table. They just didn’t take up as much physical space.
I tapped my wineglass with a fork, the dinging noise getting everyone’s attention. “I’d like to propose a toast,” I said, rising and lifting my glass. “To family, whether by blood or by affection. We’d all be lesser people without them.”
Multiple glasses clinked together, but before I could sit down, Ian spoke.
“Another toast, this one to the Honorable Viscount Maynard. Though you were a sod who didn’t help your sister Penelope when she was thrown out by her da, at least you were a randy bloke who shagged your serving girl or I wouldn’t have been born.”
“Here, here,” Bones said, grinning as he clicked glasses with Ian.
Now I knew why Ian had looked so shocked when Bones revealed that his mother was really Penelope Maynard, the viscount’s daughter. Ian was the bastard son of the younger Viscount Maynard, so he’d well recognized that surname. After she was thrown out by her family, Penelope must have called herself by her former lover’s last name so Bones would grow up as Crispin Phillip Arthur Russell, the Third—the name that marked him as the firstborn son of the Duke of Rutland to the few people who knew him by that instead of his title. Penelope might not have told Bones about his real father, but she’d left him a clue that had taken two hundred years to unravel.
Life was more than rough sometimes, but not every curveball it threw was a bad one. Case in point: Bones was spending the holidays with family, after all. Even though that family turned out to be a depraved, narcissistic vampire who annoyed the hell out of me on a regular basis, oh well. You could only pick your friends, not your family, and through my marriage to Bones, Ian was now my family, too. That was karma coming to get me, I was sure, but I’d handle it. With Bones at my side, I could handle anything.
I touched my glass to Ian’s with a rueful grin. “Merry Christmas, cousin.”
He winked. “You’ll never be quit of me now, Reaper.”
That was probably true. And since it turned out that we were related, I’d felt obligated to get Ian a Christmas present. A chunk of coal sat in a brightly wrapped box under the tree, his name written in big bold letters on the front of it.
Ian might be family, but he still had been a very naughty boy this year.
The wait for Cat and Bones is finally over . . .
The next Night Huntress novel is here!
Keep reading for a sneak peek from
UP FROM THE GRAVE
by Jeaniene Frost
Available soon from Avon Books
Prologue
CRUNCH.
The sound was a relief. So was the sudden limpness in the form underneath her. It was over.
She jumped off the body before it started leaking as they all did. Then she stood at attention, careful not to look directly at the old man who watched her from behind a thick layer of glass. He didn’t like it when she stared into his eyes.
The man pursed his lips as he considered the results of her latest test. Not a muscle moved, but inwardly, she smiled at the melody that kept repeating in his mind. Her other instructors rarely sang in their thoughts, yet he did. Every time. If it wouldn’t have made him mad, she would’ve told him she enjoyed it, but her instructor didn’t like people prying into his mind. She’d overheard that shortly after getting the ability, so she never told him about it.
“Seven seconds,” he said at last, glancing down at the body. “These subjects no longer represent a challenge to you.”
He sounded pleased, but still she didn’t smile. Displays of emotion led to too many questions and she wanted to get back to her manuals.
“It’s time to move onto the next phase,” he continued.
The words seemed to be directed at her, yet he was really speaking to the man behind the mirrored glass fifty meters above him. Since she wasn’t supposed to know he was there, however, she nodded.
“I’m ready.”
“Are you?”
The way he drew out the words warned her that this next test wouldn’t be easy, which was why she couldn’t stop her surprised blink when the chute above her opened and a new subject tumbled into the arena. It looked no more imposing than the others she’d neutralized, but when it leapt up and faced her, she understood. Her new opponent had no heartbeat.
“What is it?” she asked, her own heart starting to speed up.
Her opponent had a question, too.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Neutralize him,” her gray-haired instructor commanded.
She hid her disappointment. Perhaps if she finished quickly, she’d be rewarded with an answer. At the very least, neutralizing this . . . thing would give her more information about it.
She charged toward it without another moment’s hesitation, sweeping its legs out from under it before slamming her elbow down on its throat.
Crunch.
Its bones shattered with the usual sound, but instead of going limp, the thing threw her off and leapt upward while giving the old man a disbelieving look.