This Side of the Grave (#5 Night Huntress)

anymore, I’d thought being a friend and family meant someone would keep me in the loop. Boy, was I wrong.
“Christ Almighty,” Bones muttered.
Don shot him a look. “We’ll talk about that later. Now, tell me what trouble is brewing with the ghouls, Cat.”
My uncle’s expression said that continuing to discuss the obvious reasons why he should save his life would only be pointless right now. I tried to
pull myself together enough to focus on why we’d come, but I felt like the floor had just opened up underneath me.
“You remember last year that a ghoul leader, Apollyon, was all worked up about me possibly changing into a vampire-ghoul hybrid? Well, he
hasn’t calmed down . . .”
Several minutes later, I’d given Don all the details as we knew them. He tugged on his eyebrow as he listened. When I was finished, he let out a
heavy sigh.
“Those vampires reporting back to you are a good start, but I don’t think it’s enough. If hostilities increase between vampires and ghouls, humans
will bear the brunt of the fallout. We need someone to infiltrate Apollyon’s group. Find out everything we’re only guessing at now.”
I let out a grunt. “That would be great, but there’s a problem. Any ghouls we’d trust enough to spy would be known associates of Bones and would
be killed on the spot. Finding someone tough and reliable that Apollyon wouldn’t recognize will be hard . . .”
My voice trailed off even as Bones raised a brow. Don gave me a short nod.
“Dave.”
I closed my eyes, hating the thought of my friend in such a situation, but Don was right. Dave was smart, tough, experienced, and already dead.
Bones had raised Dave as a ghoul over two years ago after Dave had been killed on a mission, but few people in the undead world had ever met
Dave. He’d been too busy as a member of Don’s team to hang out at many fang or flesh-eater parties.
“We’ll ask him,” I settled on. “Let him decide if he wants to do it. Going undercover is always dangerous, but going undercover to infiltrate a group
of murderous undead zealots is too dicey to make it an order.”
“Go get him,” Don said. “He’s in the Wreck Room.”
I met my uncle’s intractable gaze with an equally stubborn one of my own. “I’ll go get him and we’ll deal with the ghoul situation, but I’m not giving
up on you. Think about my offer. About all the positive changes you can make in the world if you’re still alive.”
He gave me a faint smile. “I was always going to die, Cat. Whether in a few months or a few years, it’s inevitable. You should have already
accepted that, but you haven’t. You’ve thought with the mind of a vampire since the day we met. Your fangs are new, but that’s the only difference I
see since you changed over.”
I bit my lip, refusing to acknowledge that he might be right. “I’ll go get Dave.”
Chapter Five
I walked out of Don’s room with Bones following me, trying to concentrate on anything but my uncle’s sad, stubborn gaze. Click-click-click went
my shoes on the tile. Lung cancer. Click-click-click, bringing me closer to the elevator. Past the point of surgery, chemotherapy, or vampire blood.
Click-click-click. Known for seven years.
Once inside the elevator, however, my control cracked and tears blurred my vision. Aside from my mother, Don was the only real family I had left.
My grandparents had been murdered several years ago and my father was serving a whole new definition of “hard time” for repeatedly trying to kill
me. Even though our relationship was nowhere near normal, over the past few years, Don had become the closest thing to a father I’d ever had.
And soon he’d be gone. Forever.
Bones folded me into his arms. With his height, my face was pressed to his collarbone, his leather jacket cool against my cheek while his hand
smoothed over my hair. I held on to him, sinking into the oasis of his embrace, feeling his strength not just in the muscled wall of his body, but also in
the power that enveloped me like a thick cloud as he dropped the shields from his aura.
Then I pushed him away, clearing the pink from my vision with several blinks. If I let myself dwell on this now, I wouldn’t be able to handle the very
important tasks ahead of us. I wasn’t giving up on Don, but I had to pull myself together and concentrate on what needed to be done. This wasn’t the
time for me to fall all to pieces.
“I’m okay,” I said to Bones, holding out a hand when he would have spoken. “Let’s just get Dave. One crisis at a time, right?”
The elevator doors opened to reveal a darkly handsome vampire on the other side, black hair in a loose ponytail and normally playful expression
subdued.
“Hey, Juan,” I said, managing a limp smile.