The words weren’t a surprise; the emotions they stirred were. Fangs that had receded jumped out as I fought a strong urge to rip her throat open for daring to say such a thing.
“That’s why you’re going to tell everyone that you already killed her,” I responded in a voice far calmer than I felt.
Disbelief creased her smooth, café latte skin.
“If the truth were discovered, my people would tear me apart!”
Bones’s smile was a mixture of ice and steel.
“Hence your motivation to keep your word should your honor prove vulnerable.”
Marie glowered at him for a moment. Then she let out a deep sigh.
“Even if I wished to, what you ask is impossible.”
Her neck dented as Bones’s power flexed in an instant vise. “If that’s true, then you’re no use to us.”
I gripped his arm, urging him not to increase that punishing hold. That’s when I noticed how warm he felt. He must have fed right before crashing through her window.
“Give it another chance,” I said, so low she wouldn’t be able to hear me. Then I stared at Marie.
“Your people spent hundreds of years in captivity because of their race. Even after all this time, the memory of it must still burn.”
Marie’s head jerked as Bones released her to answer. The connection we now shared let me feel her anger as it pulsated through the air.
“Don’t,” she snapped. “You have no right, white girl.”
“I don’t, but Katie does. Until she ran away, captivity was all she knew, too, and now she’s been marked for death because of her race.” My voice roughened. “Either you believe that’s wrong, or you don’t.”
Marie continued to glare at me, but she didn’t say anything.
All at once, it felt like the temperature dropped sixty degrees. At the same time, hunger rose with an ache that reminded me of waking up as a brand-new vampire. The Remnants began to sway as though listening to music no one else could hear. They were being reactivated.
“Stop it,” I said curtly. “If you try using them on us again, Bones will take your head off.”
Marie gave me an irritated look.
“I’m not the one channeling them. You are.”
“Kitten.” Bones’s voice was soft but urgent. “Look at me.”
He grasped my shoulders, and I almost jerked away. His fingers felt like they were scalding. It was only when his grip tightened, holding me steady, that I realized I’d been swaying like the Remnants.
Marie was right. Although I wasn’t having the same crazed response as the first time I drank her blood, I was being pulled into the icy, ravenous embrace of the grave. I forced it back, trying to forget about how good the cold was starting to feel. Then I shook my head to clear the whispers that didn’t come from the nearby neighbors’ thoughts. If I lost myself to this, it might take me days to recover, and we didn’t have that kind of time.
Snap out of it! I ordered myself. Focus on Bones. He’s what’s real, not that cold, hungry power, and—
“Why are you here?” I suddenly blurted. “We agreed that you’d come only after I called and gave you the all clear. That way, if things went south, you’d still be alive to help Katie.”
A sardonic smile curled his lips.
“I smelled your fear when Veritas asked if we wanted to change our statements. You’re never afraid for yourself, so I knew it was fear for me.”
Then he drew me close, his lips brushing my forehead while his hands ran down my back in a way that was both soothing and possessive.
“That’s why I didn’t stick to our agreement, Kitten. If you couldn’t best Marie to save yourself, I knew you wouldn’t let me die.”
What a reckless, arrogant assumption, and how humbling that he’d been right. What he didn’t know was the other reason I’d fought harder than I knew I could in order to live.
Katie. I couldn’t let her die, either.
Thinking of her, out there all alone, gave me the strength to smother the siren call of the grave. Ready or not, I was a mother now, and my daughter needed me. I couldn’t let her down. Too many other people already had. I wasn’t about to add my name to that list.
Buoyed by that knowledge, I grasped Bones’s hands, glad they no longer felt like they were burning me. The voices were gone, too, and while I was still hungry, the bottomless hole inside me had eased. Satisfied I wasn’t about to lose it, I turned my attention to Marie.
“If you don’t want to do this for the right reasons, do it for selfish ones. We need you to have as much of a stake in this as we do, so either you call your people off and tell everyone that you killed Katie, or we’ll kill you.”
She let out a sigh that seemed to hold the weariness of the world, and when her dark gaze met mine, it was with resignation.
“I do remember my people’s captivity, Reaper, which is why if it were as simple as saying the child was dead, I would do it. Not merely to save my own life, but because I’m better than those who once enslaved my race.”