This Side of the Grave (#5 Night Huntress)

“Drink from me,” Tate cut me off. Emerald pinpointed in his gaze. “That’s what you were about to ask him, wasn’t it?”
“Not you,” I said even as Bones stiffened like a rattler poised to strike. “I told you before, I’m all out of patience with you.”
Something like a snort escaped him. “I’m not offering for personal reasons. After I watched you leave with the Prince of Darkness instead of me
when you thought Bones cheated on you, I finally got it. You don’t want me and you never will. Not even if Bones was out of the picture.”
My eyes widened even as Bones muttered, “Thought you’d never bloody learn.” Cooper and Juan pretended to suddenly go deaf, but my uncle
cast a thoughtful look at Tate.
“Then why do you want Cat to take your blood?” Don asked.
Tate squared his shoulders. “Because I’m the leader of this team, so if anyone’s blood is getting spilled, it’s mine.”
The strangest form of nostalgia washed over me. This was the Tate who’d cracked my cold standoffishness when I first joined the team several
years ago. A strong individual who never hesitated putting himself on the front lines, either for his friends or for his unit. Not the pigheaded, caustic
person who’d repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between me and Bones. The friendship I’d just vowed was dead between us gave a small gasp of
life.
“I’m not biting you. A needle and a bag, that’s how we’ll do it,” I settled on saying.
Tate shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Don pressed a button. “Anne, can you bring in a syringe, catheter, and an empty bag?”
The nurse replied with an affirmative and had the items procured within two minutes flat. Tate stuck himself, waving Anne off, and soon the plastic
bag began to fill with crimson liquid.
My stomach let out a rumble that I was sure every person in the room could hear, to my embarrassment.
“Gonna tell us why you’re not drinking from him?” Tate asked, jerking his head toward Bones.
“He’s too strong. I’m picking up more abilities than I can handle,” I replied, trying not to stare in a fixated way at the bag that was now half full.
“And someone like me is nice and weak.” Tate let out a snort.
Even though Tate deserved to be taken down several notches for all the shit he’d pulled the past couple years, I couldn’t bring myself to rub salt in
the wound. “You’re not weak; you’re just a young vampire. If you were Bones’s age, I’m sure you’d be way too strong for me to drink from.”
Bones’s amusement flitted across my subconscious even as Tate muttered, “FYI, pity makes it worse, so next time, don’t try to cheer me up.”
I threw up my hands. Men. They were impossible to reason with.
“How were you intending for Dave to make contact while he’s undercover?” Bones asked Don, changing the subject.
My uncle frowned. “The usual way. Calling in whenever he can safely manage.”
“Too risky, that,” Bones stated. “His mobile could be monitored, texts and e-mails copied . . . you need a communications method the ghouls
won’t suspect whilst he’s still gaining their trust.”
“And what method is that?” Don asked, skepticism heavy in his voice.
Bones’s smile was sly. “Ghostly courier.”
“Of course!” I exclaimed, all of a sudden feeling better about Dave’s chances. “The other ghouls, if they notice Fabian at all, will just ignore him.
Plus, Ohio’s full of ley lines, so he can travel fast if there’s trouble and Dave needs to be extracted.”
Don look intrigued. “Will the ghost be agreeable to this?”
“We’ll ask, but I bet he says yes.” My spirits lifted the more I considered this. “Fabian told me that above everything else, he misses feeling useful.
Being noncorporeal limits a lot of things he can participate in, you know?”
Fabian had also missed companionship, which is how he’d ended up with me and Bones. Loneliness wasn’t limited to the living, after all.
“Why can’t we just have Fabian spy on the ghouls and report back, instead of sending Dave in as a plant with Fabian as the relay?” Cooper
asked.
I pursed my lips. Much as that option appealed to me because it represented the least amount of danger, it wasn’t practical.
“Ghosts are usually ignored, but for Fabian to glean the same amount of intel that Dave could while posing as a new recruit, he’d have to
practically piggyback those ghouls. If they put two and two together about the same ghost always being around, they could feed us misinformation
through him.”