Jeaniene Frost - Destined for an Early Grave

“Come here, lovelies. That’s better.”

Bones’s voice changed. Became the luxurious purr that used to melt me. Listening to it now only made me pissed. Worse, next there was breathiness and the soft chafing noises of kissing.

Then Geri said, “Hey now, sugar. Ease up a bit.”

“Why?” Cannelle’s voice was belligerent. “I am ready for you to please me.”

I glanced at the time. “Two more minutes. Stall but be cool, Geri.”

“Cinnamon, don’t be so greedy. I’ll sweeten her up for you. You’ll like it better for the wait.”

I beat my fists against my legs but didn’t scream anything. Instead, I watched the seconds tick past and tried to listen with clinical detachment for signs of danger. Unfortunately, most of what I heard wasn’t the sounds of danger.

Thirty seconds to go. Even if someone overheard, we couldn’t wait any longer. “Tell him the score, Geri,” I said.

“Bones, a chopper’s going to do a pass over the church about two hundred yards up. He’ll have a chain ladder dangling. When you see him coming, you blast your ass up with both of us and grab it. As soon as we’re clear of the city, you’ll leapfrog onto the back of another plane. Spade will be on it.”

“What is this?” Cannelle hissed.

“Ten seconds,” I rasped. “Nine, eight, seven…”

“Know something, Cinnamon?” Bones lost the seductive timbre to his voice, and it turned into cold steel. “I’m sick of your complaining.”

“…one,” I yelled.

Then there were only the sounds of the helicopter before I heard a clanging of metal, a thump, and the words I’d been waiting for from Geri.

“We’re in!”

The chopper had special silent blades, which reduced its normal noise. It made Cooper and the two copilots inaudible, however. Geri still wasn’t, of course.

“Is she still breathing?” Geri asked. “You hit her pretty hard.”

“She’s alive.”

There was a sliding noise, then Geri said harshly, “Try to shove my head between your legs, huh? Who’s happy now, bitch?”

“She can’t feel you kicking her,” Bones said, no criticism in his voice.

“Yeah, well, I can feel it, and I’m enjoying it!”

More thumping sounds ensued. I didn’t want to interrupt. Cannelle being kicked pleased me too much.

“Where is she?” Bones asked.

I froze. Geri let out a final “oof!” that sounded like a grunt from a coup de grâce kick and replied.

“When you get on the plane, you’ll be flown to her.”

Bones didn’t say anything, but his silence seemed to say it all. There’s no need to see him face-to-face, I thought bleakly. Everyone else has been your choice, Bones had said to Cannelle. Yeah, that was all I needed to hear to know it was over. Vampires might be able to forgive cheating as an acceptable form of revenge, but I must be too human for that. I’d put up with a lot from Bones and consider it justified payback, but not this.

I waited until Bones had transferred to Spade’s plane as planned before unhooking my headpiece. Geri was probably delighted not to have my voice pumping into her eardrum anymore. Only Bones was doing the aerial jump; Geri and Cannelle were staying in the helicopter. Spade’s plane was supposed to rendezvous with me at one of Don’s locations, but that wasn’t necessary now.

I called my uncle. “Change Bones’s flight plan,” I said. “Don’t tell me where to, but don’t fly him where I’ll be.”

My uncle didn’t ask unnecessary questions. “All right, Cat.”

I hung up. Vlad had been watching me the entire time. I managed to muster what would have been a terrible imitation of a smile.

“That answers that.”

“It’s not as if his prior habits were unfamiliar to you,” Vlad replied, no false sympathy in his voice.

No, they weren’t. But I hadn’t expected to listen while Bones admitted to numerous affairs. Or had I? He might have told me the same thing to my face had I met with him. God, at least I could avoid that. I’d burst into tears and lose the very small shred of dignity I had left.

Two hours later, we landed at the base, though I didn’t know where. From the outside, most military installations looked the same, anyway, not that I was looking. I had my eyes shut and my hand on Vlad’s arm as I got off the plane.

“Hello, Commander,” a male voice said.

I smiled still with my eyes closed. “Cooper, I’d say nice to see you, but give me a minute.”

He grunted, which was his version of a belly laugh, and soon I was inside the facility.

“You can open your eyes now,” Cooper said.

His familiar face was the first thing I saw, dark-skinned and with hair even shorter than Tate’s. I gave him a brief hug, which seemed to surprise him, but he was smiling when I let go.

“Missed you, freak,” he said, still with a smile.

I laughed even though it was hoarse. “You too, Coop. What’s the news?”

“Geri’s chopper arrived thirty minutes ago. The prisoner was secured and awake. Ian is here. He’s been questioning the prisoner.”

That made me smile for real. I’d had Ian flown here because he was a cold-blooded bastard—and right now, I liked that about him.

“You can stay here or come with me, it’s up to you,” I said to Vlad.

“I’ll come,” he replied, giving Fabian, who’d just floated up, a cursory glance. The ghost hovered over the ground next to Cooper, who couldn’t see him because he was human.

“Fabian, you’ve been incredible,” I said. “No matter what, I’ll take care of you. You’ll always have a place to stay.”

“Thank you,” he said, brushing his hand through mine in his form of affection. “I’m sorry, Cat.”

He didn’t need to say what for. That was obvious.

My smile turned brittle. “Whoever said ignorance was bliss was shortsighted, if you ask me. But what’s done is done, and now I have an acquaintance to renew.”

The ghost looked momentarily hopeful. “Bones?”

“No. The little bitch inside, and you might not want to follow me for this one. It’s going to get ugly.”

I didn’t have to tell him twice. In a whirl, Fabian vanished. Neat trick. Sucked to have to be a phantom to do it.

My uncle waited for me farther inside the hallway. He looked…bad.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, instantly worried. Had Bones’s plane been tailed, or attacked, or worse?

“No.” He coughed. “I just have a cold.”

“Oh.” I gave him a hug hello. It surprised me when he squeezed back and held on. We weren’t a cuddly family.

Vlad sniffed the air. “A cold?”

Don let me go and gave him an annoyed look. “That’s right. Don’t concern yourself. I’m not contagious to your kind.”

He said it harshly. Jeez, maybe Don really did feel like shit. My uncle wasn’t normally so surly, even though vampires weren’t his favorite group of people.

Vlad looked him up and down and shrugged.

Don went right to business. It was his defining characteristic. “I just came from the downstairs cell. The prisoner hasn’t been very forthcoming about her role in this.”

“Then it’s time for me to see my old friend.”

CANNELLE DIDN’T APPEAR TO HAVE AGED Aday in the twelve years since I’d seen her. In fact, only her reddish brown hair was different with its new, shorter length. I guessed it was where she got her name. Cannelle. French for cinnamon.

She sat on a steel bench that took up an entire wall in the square, boxlike space. Cannelle wasn’t restrained, since Ian and Geri were in the room with her. Even if by some miracle she got past them, there were still three more guards outside the door. Her eye was black, and blood dripped from her mouth and temple, but she wasn’t cowed.