Jeaniene Frost - At Grave’s End

He nodded and opened his eyes. “Very much so. In fact, I’ve never felt better. At least not unless we were alone.”

Pig. Now I knew it was the same man I’d fallen in love with. Bones might have changed in power, but not in any other way. It was almost a relief to find his mind still in the gutter.

“Let’s get you off me, then, your elbow is jabbing me in the kidney-”

Something on his face made me stop in midsentence. “What?” I asked.

“Did you just call me a pig?”

I froze. Had I said that out loud?

“Bloody hell, no you didn’t!” he answered for me, springing to his feet in a lithe motion.

Good God,he could read minds now? There was something neither of us had thought would happen.

Bones pulled me up and kissed me. There was so much raw energy permeating from him that his tongue almost hurt when it slid into my mouth, but then it felt good. Very, very good.

“Shh,” he whispered into my ear when his mouth trailed from mine.

I could guess why the secrecy, of course. We were in mixed company, and if Bones’s enemies didn’t know he had the new ability to read minds, then they wouldn’t worry about it being used against them.

I won’t say anything. But you and I will have to talk about this, because you can’t just invade my mind whenever you want to be nosy.

“Ahh!”

It came out of me in a gasp when he bit my neck in the next moment. Mother of God, my knees went weak. Bones supported me when they lost strength entirely in the next second.

We’d planned on him taking some of my blood afterward. Even though he was now hyped full of vamp juice, it wouldn’t nourish him. Only human blood could, and mine still half qualified. Thus it wasn’t the shock of him biting my neck that buckled me. No, it was the fierce erotic waves pouring over me with each pull of his mouth. Holy shit, it had never felt like this before. He’d gone down on me with similar effect.

Bones raised his mouth from my throat but didn’t let go of me, which was good, because I might have toppled over. Thank God he’d stopped biting me when he did-I would have been mortified to have an orgasm in front of a thousand people. It was bad enough that they could all sense just how much I’d liked having my neck turned into a straw, but at least I wasn’t about to ask for a cigarette.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Bones said low. “I feel the same way every time I drink from you. We’ll finish up here soon, Kitten, now that the formalities are over.”

He still had his arm around me when he turned to Mencheres. The other vampire was refreshed as well from his blood donor, albeit less sensuously, I’d bet. They clasped hands once before facing the crowd.

“Our alliance has been sealed,” Mencheres said formally.

Bones was more casual about it. “Then this is a party, mates. Let’s have at it.”

BONES, EVER PARANOID THAT ONE OF THESE guests could be Max’s mysterious benefactor, was plastered to my side. I didn’t mind for two reasons. First, he could be right. There was a shitload of pulseless people here, and who knew how many of them were really allies? The other reason was simple. That new throb of his power felt like a caress along my skin.

But when the naked human men and women came out to mingle among the guests, I stopped in my tracks.

Bones chuckled, hearing the question in my mind, or guessing from the look of my face.

“These are the hors d’oeuvres, Kitten. See that glitter they’re covered in? It’s a very special mixture, edible as well. Note the ones with the extra arms? They don’t have birth defects, those arms are food delicacies shaped like limbs and glued onto them. Ghouls have to eat also.”

I stared in disbelief as one of the walking treats sat on the lap of a vampire, offering her neck. Meanwhile, a ghoul sedately gnawed on what appeared to be a fake fourth arm protruding from her torso. Yuck!

I found my voice. “That is the sickest version of a snack plate I’ve ever seen. How did you get these people to agree to this? Mind-fuck them?”

He snorted. “Not nearly. They’re willing volunteers, pet. Some are humans who belong to Mencheres or me, and others are groupies, for lack of a better word. People who know about vampires and ghouls and are hoping some nice undead bloke will choose them to change over. It happens, of course. Else they wouldn’t flock to us in droves. Some of them offer more than a bite or a beverage, but that’s their choice. I don’t require it.”

Oh, so they were dinner and entertainment. How my life had changed. Here I was, one of the hosts of a bang-and-bite soiree honoring Bones’s alliance with a mega-Master vampire. What next, presiding over a massive orgy?

Bones caught my hand. “We’re sneaking away for a moment,” he whispered, backing me into a nearby study. Once past the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, he pressed a lever, and then we were in a narrow dark passageway before I’d ever seen where it was.

“Secret tunnel?” I teased. “How very cloak-and-dagger.”

He smiled. “Ah, here we are. Alone at last.”

“Here” was a small room, unfurnished, no windows. Only a hatch in the ceiling about three feet square in size.

“Leads to the roof by way of the attic,” he supplied. “Quick way to make a dash for it, if one needed to. Also, this room has thick concrete walls, so less sound travels.”

So that meant we could talk without being overheard. “You can read my mind now,” I breathed. “God, Bones, that kind of freaks me out.”

“I’d tell you I won’t listen to your thoughts, but that would be a lie. You’re too close to me for me to block them out completely, and I can’t say I would even if I could. I want to know all of you, Kitten. What you show me, and what you try not to.”

There was no use arguing over it. If I’d been endowed with the same power, I’d be just as guilty of using it. Mencheres had said Bones’s strength would grow, but he hadn’t mentioned that he might get new abilities altogether. I wondered what else was going to be different.

“My vision and hearing are clearer,” Bones answered for me. “And of course I feel significantly stronger. As for what else is different, we’ll have to wait and see.”

“I still don’t know about this,” I muttered. It was weird having him pull the questions out of my mind before I could even ask them.

Bones studied my face. “I haven’t changed, luv. Just my abilities. Can you believe that?”

He would have heard the answer before I said it out loud, but I did it anyway.

“Yes.”

Bones gave me a few drops of his blood to replenish what he’d drunk before we returned to the questionable festivities. I felt like I’d downed a bottle of NoDoz, I was so wired.Don will be doing backflips when he gets his sample for his weekly collection, I thought irrelevantly.

Tate was across the room. He caught my eye and rubbed his nose, twice. I tensed. That was an old signal that there was trouble. He turned around in the next moment, so it wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone that a message had just been exchanged.

This was a time when Bones’s new telepathic eavesdropping would come in handy.Something’s up, Tate’s freaked. If you have a lockdown mode for this place, now would be the time to implement it.

Bones made his way over to Mencheres, keeping me close to his side as we passed by other people. They didn’t exchange words. Maybe Mencheres had also heard my mental warning, because he nodded once and then gestured to a nearby guard.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

A vampire walking toward us blew up. Just blew into pieces of scorched body parts. Then three more rushed in our direction at kamikaze speeds.