This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress 5)

I called Bones back three times, but in each instance, I only got his voice mail. Figures now that I could talk, he wasn't able to. Worry nagged at me, but I shoved it back with all the other things I wouldn't allow myself to dwell on. I hadn't been able to answer Bones's calls before, but that didn't mean I was in mortal danger. He was tough. He could take care of himself.

I should stop with the paranoid images of his drying corpse running through my mind.

As an extra precaution in case anyone observed our activities at the drive-in, Mencheres doubled back several times on our way to the town house, then parked a half mile away and carried me as he and Vlad flew the rest of the way. I didn't bother to tell them that I could fly now, too. One, I was tired. Two, I still couldn't fly that well, and if I crashed into a telephone pole or something similar in front of Vlad, he'd never let me live it down.

We landed around back, in the darkest part of the lawn, and then went around to the front of the town house. It was about the same size as the place I'd grown up in, but I bet Mencheres hadn't stayed anywhere this small in the past thousand years. He slept on the pullout couch while Vlad and I occupied the two upper bedrooms. I'd just taken my boots off on the patio - remnants of my upbringing, when tracking dirt inside a house was akin to a capital crime - when Mencheres suddenly jerked his head up to stare at the sky.

"Aliens?" I joked, but tensed anyway, reaching for my knives. Ghouls couldn't fly, but what if someone else menacing had somehow managed to follow us from the drive-in? Our enemies weren't only of the flesh-eater variety . . .

My senses began to tingle like they'd been shot with steroids even as Mencheres said,

"Bones."

Vlad barely had time to mutter, "And this had been such a nice evening," before the vampire in question dropped out of the sky, landing a few feet away with his black coat swirling around him. Joy and yearning slashed across my subconscious as our eyes met. I went to him, throwing my arms around him, reveling in the strength and vehemence of his answering embrace.

"I missed you, Kitten," he growled. Then his mouth crushed over mine, his kiss more filled with raw need than romantic welcome.

That was fine; I felt the same way. Aside from my compulsive urge to run my hands over him to assure myself that he was really here, relief, happiness, and the most profound feeling of rightness zoomed through me, settling all the way to my core. I hadn't realized how deeply I'd missed Bones until that very moment, hadn't let myself acknowledge how everything felt off when I was apart from him. On some levels, it was frightening how much a part of me he'd become. It let me know just how much I'd crumble if anything happened to him.

"Why didn't you answer your mobile earlier?" Bones murmured once he lifted his head.

"I tried you several times. Tried Mencheres, too. Even Tepesh. None of you answered. Scared the wits out of me, so I stowed away on a FedEx plane to make sure you were all right."

"You came all the way from Ohio because I didn't answer the phone?" I was torn between laughter and disbelief. "God, Bones, that's a little crazy." And it was, except the part of me that had had images of his tombstone dancing in my head because he hadn't answered his phone earlier was nodding in complete understanding.

Despite all our protestations, we were so alike when it came to fear over the other's safety, and I doubted we'd ever change.

"Crazy," I repeated, my voice roughening with the surge of emotion in me. "And have I told you lately that your crazy side . . . is your sexiest side?" He chuckled before his mouth swooped back over mine in another dizzying kiss. Then he picked me up, brushing past Vlad and Mencheres without even a hello, though I doubted either of them was surprised.

We'd made it into the bedroom, already ripping at each other's clothes, when a discreet cough made my head whip around. Bones instantly had a knife in his hand, my bra dangling from his wrist. I'd gotten my own blade out when I realized the person in the room couldn't hurt us if he tried.

"I somehow ended up here, but I can see that this is a bad time, so I'll just check back with you later," the unknown ghost said before disappearing into the wall.

"Not any time soon if you value your afterlife," Bones called out after him.

I let out a strangled sound. If this was what I had to look forward to until Marie's blood was out of my system, I seriously needed to invest in a lot more garlic and pot.

Then Bones dropped his knife and swept me back into his arms, and I forgot to care about any potential ghostly voyeurs.

"You have to leave already?" I murmured, blinking at Bones through the bright slants of sunlight that peeked out from the gaps in the drapes. "But you barely slept." The grin Bones flashed me was quintessential cat-that-got-the-cream, though that expression was probably better suited to me at the moment.

"I know," he said, the words drawn out with the warmth of remembrance.

I sat up, dragging the sheet with me. "I'm serious."

"Kitten" - Bones paused from pulling on his shirt - "four hours of sleep while holding you is far more beneficial to me than eight hours of endless tossing and turning because you're not there."

I couldn't say anything for a moment. His tone was utterly matter-of-fact, no hint of romantic exaggeration or playful bantering. After all this time, I should be used to Bones's unabashed bluntness about his feelings, but it still struck me. He didn't hesitate to bare the most vulnerable parts of himself without care that I wasn't the only one who could hear him. Me, I layered up in emotional safety nets most of the time, using humor or irony to conceal how deeply certain things affected me.

Not Bones. Badass undead killer he might be, but ever since we started dating, he'd never hidden his emotions from me, or did the macho downplaying of what I meant to him in front of others. He wasn't just stronger than me physically or in power abilities. Bones also left me in the dust when it came to inner strength, daring to show his deepest vulnerabilities without any fear, safety net, or rationalization.

And it was high time I followed suit. Sure, I'd bared my heart to Bones in the past, but not nearly enough. He knew I loved him, knew I'd fight to the death by his side if need be, but there was more to it than that. Maybe some hidden, fragmented part of me had feared that if I admitted to Bones how much he truly meant to me, then I'd be acknowledging to myself that he had the power to destroy me more thoroughly than anyone, even Apollyon or the vampire council, could. All the rest of the world could only kill or devastate my mind and body. Bones alone held the power to demolish my soul.

"You once told me you could stand many things." My voice was raspy from all the emotions battering against those well-honed inner defenses. "So can I. I can stand whatever Apollyon dishes out, can take the bigotry from others over what I am, the freaky ghost juju from Marie, all the craziness my mother can throw at me, and even the pain of my uncle dying. But the one thing that I would never, ever recover from would be losing you. You made me promise before to go on if that happened, but Bones" - here my words broke and tears spilled down my cheeks - "I wouldn't want to."

He'd been near the side of the bed when I started talking, but was in my arms before the first tear fell. Very softly, his lips brushed over those wet streaks, coming back pink from the drops still shimmering on them.

"No matter what happens, you will never lose me," he whispered. "I am forever yours, Kitten, in this life or the next."

A poignant sort of pain flowed over me, because I knew what he was promising with that statement, and what he wasn't. Bones couldn't swear that we'd never be separated. Being undead didn't give any of us a claim on immortality; it just made us harder to kill. Unless Bones and I happened to be slain at the exact same time, one day, either he or I would know the grief of being without the other. I meant it when I said I wouldn't want to go on if Bones were dead, but hard lessons from the past showed that I'd have to. Or Bones would have to go on without me. No matter how many enemies we defeated, or what impassioned promises we made to each other, this was the harsh reality.

And maybe that reality was what my last few inner shields had been trying to protect me from. Admitting that I'd be irrevocably broken without Bones meant accepting that it would happen. One day, we'd be separated. Not by our will, or even through any potential fault of our own, but through the cold, merciless barrier of death. Unless we died fighting back to back, it would happen. I'd put off being as open as Bones was about how he resided in every crevice of my heart because nothing scared me more than acknowledging that harsh, inevitable reality.

Now that I finally had, the strangest kind of relief flowed over me, covering even the pain.

Holding back had done nothing to change the truth of how I felt, or of our inevitable circumstances. I'd only been fooling myself, but even worse than that, I was also cheating the time Bones and I did have together. No one knew their own fate. We could have hundreds of years together. Thousands. Or only ten minutes before a meteor struck the house and vaporized me but missed him, for all we knew. Our time together was finite, and that was all there was to it.

But now, I also finally understood what Bones already knew. Just because death would eventually separate us, that didn't mean it would destroy what we had. I am forever yours, in this life or the next. Some things could penetrate even the formidable barrier of death, and love was one of them. Even if death kept me from being with Bones for a while - or him from me - it couldn't keep us apart forever. In the end, nothing could, and at long last, I understood that.

"You'll never get rid of me, either," I said, and my laughter came out thicker from tears.

"No matter which side of the grave we're on. I'll haunt you, chase you all around eternity, whatever it takes, but it's you and me until the stars burn out." I barely had time to see his smile before his mouth moved over mine with slow, blistering intensity. It wasn't the skillful way he kissed me that made my chest tighten as though my heart might start up again at any moment. It was the last wall falling down between us.

"Bones," I breathed, long moments later when he lifted his head. "There's something I want to do once this mess with Apollyon is over."

The seriousness of my tone made him pull back slightly. "What's that, luv?" I whispered it to him, seeing his brows go up, his slight frown, and then at last, his nod.

"If that's what you want."

I stared at him, more of that tightness swelling up in my chest.

"It is."

Chapter Twenty-six

Fabian came toward me. He couldn'thave smiled any wider if I was holding out a plate of ectoplasmic cookies, which, of course, I wasn't, because to my knowledge, such a thing didn't exist. I smiled back, giving Fabian an abbreviated version of a hug, which pretty much meant I put my arms in a half circle around the general area where he floated. From my peripheral vision, I saw Vlad roll his eyes, but I didn't care. I hugged friends when I hadn't seen them in a while, and Fabian might not be solid, but he was still a friend.

"Save one for me, too?" Dave asked, appearing behind the ghost.

I laughed as I gave him a big squeeze next, this time feeling the person in my arms. Dave fluffed a handful of hair when he let me go, grinning as he took in my latest disguise.

"With the new black hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin, you almost look a little bit Latina.

Juan would need to be pried off you if he saw you like this." I let out a snort. "I doubt it. Juan acts a lot more respectful since he became a vampire.

Hardly tries to grab my ass at all now. Guess because Bones already killed him once, Juan doesn't want to provoke him into a repeat."

Just talking about Juan made me miss him, unrepentant pervert that he was, and that made me miss everyone else back at the compound, too. It also made me think of my uncle and mother with a fresh spurt of anxiety. It was a small offense compared to what Apollyon intended to do, but I hated him for more than just using me to attempt to provoke a clash between ghouls and vampires. I also hated Apollyon for robbing me of spending time with Don in what might turn out to be the last few months of his life, and for denying me more opportunities to talk sense into my irrational, death-tempting mother.

I shook my head, clearing that out of my thoughts before I started to endlessly stew over my stubborn family. Dave said hello to Vlad and Mencheres, then flopped onto the couch, looking tired. He didn't have long before he had to get back, but he'd said this message was something he wanted to deliver in person.

"The meeting I went to last night was more like a rally and a seminar combined," Dave started without preamble. "Apollyon wasn't there, but the keynote speaker was a ghoul named Scythe who sounded just as fanatic. Preached about how vampires have been holding ghouls down for millennia, blah, vamps are evil, blah. Then he started on how you changed over but still had an occasional heartbeat, so you could still turn into a vamp-ghoul hybrid. And once that happened, you'd be leading the vampire charge to subject ghouls to slavery."

"That's such bullshit!" I snapped, unable to stuff it back. Then I got ahold of myself.

Everyone here already knew that.

"Go on," I said to Dave, in a less strident tone than before.

"I'm not sure how true this is, but Scythe said that the ghoul movement to 'take back their rightful place' was gaining ground all over America. That they'd start the war here, because vampires had a weaker hold here than in Europe. Then, once they'd thrown off the vampire shackles in the States, they'd move on to the rest of the world."