“Have you seen the woman following our steps?” Arrow asked.
Bone drew in a deep breath. “I haven’t but Grant was in St. Petersburg with me. I warned him if she continued and did not make her intentions clear, I would kill her. He became angry, threatened me and I reiterated that she was an unknown.”
“Do you still think it might be her?” Bullet asked, looking over Bone’s shoulder back toward the house.
Bone nodded. “I feel in my heart she did not die that night. I can give you no concrete proof though I’ve searched. I would say Blade knows for sure but it has always been her secret to hold, not ours. My best guess is the girl was moved somewhere. Once the children she carried in her body were no more, Joseph would have moved her to be trained or he would have tried once again to get her pregnant. Something about her was important to him—it is just a feeling but everything I’ve seen leads me to that conclusion.”
“I haven’t heard from Blade, but I know Rand would have told me if he had information on the boy.”
“It is her,” Arrow said, glancing at them both before she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “There have been times when I smelled her and I thought it was my mind reminding me of my duty, getting me back on track when the darkness called too loudly.”
“She’s been close enough for you to smell?” Bone asked in disbelief.
Arrow pinned her with that eerie amber gaze. “When I was shot here weeks ago, she was in the woods. I do not think Damon was aware of her because he never said a word.” She looked away, up into the darkness, her face tight. The silence grew between them and then Arrow’s ancient, death-smothered voice split the blanket of night that covered them. “Do you remember that night so long ago, Bone?”
“I remember everything, sister. I remember the screams, the blood, the absence of light. I remember the cries and the sobs. I remember the pain and I remember her curses,” Bone responded sadly. “I remember it all and yet I do not know her face or her name. The black was too much that night—the terror too complete.”
“Yes,” Arrow said sadly. “It was.”
“Nameless,” Bullet said softly. “Grant protects this woman who follows us?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is her. Grant was playing both sides then as he continues to play them now. I have no doubt that as he was helping us hide the son, he was helping Joseph save the mother. And now we have another player on the board, another one who has suffered God only knows what at the hands of Joseph,” Bullet mused.
“But is she ours?” Arrow tossed out the question that was in all their hearts.
“She was never ours. But the boy is—we risked our lives so he might live,” Bone asserted. “Grant protects her much as he did the boy when Blade took him to Grant that first night. But I will kill her if she hurts any of you.”
Her sisters nodded and thunder rent the sky.
“Gretchen!” A male voice called from the darkness.
Rand Beckett.
“Saya,” another voice joined the first.
Adam Collins.
But no one called Bone.
“You do not seem to like the names I call you, so I came to you instead,” Dmitry said, his deep voice stirring her in ways she wanted to deny.
She turned and walked to him, not questioning how the man knew what she’d been thinking, simply entering his embrace without wondering the why of it all; acceding to the need to do so. He was warmth. He was fast becoming her port in the storm.
Bone did not know how long they stood there. It wasn’t until he shifted that she raised her head from his chest.
“It is raining, moye.”
Mine, he called her. It was as good a name as any she supposed.
Bone stepped from him, recognizing her need for him was a weakness that would be used against her. Joseph was a master manipulator and though he was on the run, trying to cover all his bases, he was a plotter seeking every way to hurt them and bring them to heel. Bone wasn’t ashamed to say she thought that even in death Joseph Bombardier would seek to destroy them.
Dmitry grabbed her hand, pulling her from her musings. She allowed him to tangle their fingers and as she glanced down at their entwined hands there was a curious wrenching in her chest. She shook her head, ignoring what her mind demanded she recognize.
She followed him into the house, up the stairs to the west wing of the house but then she dropped his hand and walked to her room.
“It will happen,” he said at her back.
She gave her response to the door in front of her. “Ja slishkom mnogo poterjal, ot menja nichego ne ostalosj.”
“Then I will give you me to replace what you have lost,” he told her simply.
She stood there, forehead on the wood door, heart in her throat. His door closed and still she stood, unable to move lest she break into a million pieces.
She had never known love but as close as a killer could come to the emotion, she was there.