“If anyone’s under a spell, Justina, it’s me. Your daughter put one on me five years ago, and I haven’t broken free of it yet. Oh, and you’ll be delighted to know, we’ve decided to resume our relationship. Don’t bother with congratulations—trust me, your expression is congratulations enough.”
I took a longer drink from the bottle. Bones had obviously decided against killing my mother with kindness and was going right for the throat instead. Typical vampire.
My mother’s tone was acid. “I thought you’d gotten over your whoring when you left him, Catherine, but it seems you only postponed it.”
Bones’ face turned to stone, and he answered her even before I could snap out an indignant response.
“Don’t you ever speak to her that way again.” There was pure warning in the whip of his words. “You can call me any name you like and more, but I will not stand by while you slander her out of your own ignorance.”
She backed up another step, and something in her expression changed. As though she finally realized she’d have to contend directly with him and not just through me.
“Are you going to just stand there and let him threaten me?” she demanded to me next, switching tactics. “I suppose you’d just sit back and let him suck the life out of me, too?”
“Oh stuff it, Mom,” I barked. “He wouldn’t hurt you, which is a damn sight more than you’d do to him given the chance. Excuse me if I don’t defend you when you’re pissed that he doesn’t want you calling me nasty names. Must be that flaw in my character.”
She shook a finger at me. “Blood will out, my father always said, and he was right! Look at you! You have debased yourself, leaving a good man for a filthy animal, and a thing not even an animal! Lower!”
“I’m standing right here, Justina, and you’d better get used to it. You want to call me an animal? Turn your eyes this way then.”
Bones moved in front of me until she either had to look at him or look away. My mother fixed her attention to him for the first time, looking straight in his eyes. To her credit, she didn’t back down under his stern gaze. She was many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them.
“You. What’s your name again?”
Her taunting allusion to his lack of importance made me hide a smile behind his back. She knew damn well what his name was.
“It’s Bones. Can’t say it’s a pleasure to be properly introduced, but it’s about time, don’t you agree?”
I could see her to the side of his shoulder. She let her belittling gaze take him in from top to bottom, and finally she gave a dismissive shrug.
“I don’t agree, in fact. Well. Aren’t you pretty.” It wasn’t a compliment from the way it fell from her lips. “Her father was pretty also, just gorgeous. Of course you should know—she looks just like him. Sometimes I could barely stand to look at her for their resemblance.”
A jab of pain sliced in me, because I’d felt that all my life. She might love me, but she didn’t accept me. Maybe she never would.
“She might look like him; I can’t say,” Bones replied steadily. “Never met the bloke. But let me assure you, she has a great deal of you in her. Stubbornness, for one thing. Courage. A nasty temper when she’s upset. She can also hold a grudge quite well, but you’ve got her beat there. Over twenty-seven years later, you’re still punishing her for what happened to you.”
That made her advance until she pointed a finger an inch from his chest. “How dare you! You have the nerve to throw up to me what one of your kind did, what you have no doubt done yourself, to my very face, you dirty, murdering fiend!”
Bones stepped right up also. They were toe to toe.
“If I were merely a murdering fiend, then I would have punched your ticket years ago. Would have made my life a measure easier, I assure you. You had her in shambles when those wolves came with their greedy little offer, and we all know why she took it, don’t we? It doesn’t bother you a bit that she’s been as miserable as I’ve been these past years, or that she’s had more near-death experiences than bloody Houdini. No, you sit back on your satisfaction that she’s out killing vampires instead of shagging one! Well, Justina, I hope you enjoyed your interlude, because it’s over. I’m back and I’m staying.”
She gave me a fraught look over his shoulder. “Catherine! You can’t mean to stay with this creature! He’ll take your soul, he’ll change you—”
“My soul is mine and God’s, Mom. Bones couldn’t take it if he tried.” I moved out to face her and took in a deep breath. Stand your ground. Now or never. “But I’m not going to let you or anyone else decide what I do with my personal life anymore. You don’t have to like Bones. Hell, you can hate his guts for all I care, but as long as I’m with him, you will have to tolerate him. So will Don and the others, or... or I’ll leave and never come back.”