This Side of the Grave (#5 Night Huntress)

during that time, it had somehow become necessary to chain me to a wall?
“Oh shit,” I whispered, the memory of my voice sounding like the gateway to hell reverberating across my mind. “Marie’s blood . . . I absorbed
some of her powers, didn’t I?”
He grunted even as he pulled a key out from under the bed. “Kitten, that’s quite the understatement.”
I thumped my head against the bed a couple times, more angry than afraid. Goddamn Marie. Why the hell had she insisted on me drinking her
blood? Wasn’t it enough that she’d figured out where I got my abilities from? Guess not. She had to add to my problems by forcing me to drink from
her. Now in addition to freaking people out once it became known that I could absorb vampire powers through feeding, Marie made sure to have
proof that I could do the same thing with ghouls. People would be flocking to Apollyon’s side once these little tidbits were revealed.
“She must want war,” I said, rubbing my wrists when Bones unlocked the manacles. “If she didn’t, she would’ve just killed us. Once news of this
hits, nothing but my public execution will calm things down with the ghouls.”
“That’s not going to happen,” he said coolly.
I grunted. “I’m not in favor of dying, either, but when people hear about this, Apollyon’s going to be fighting off converts with a stick—”
“I meant Marie’s not telling anyone, though you’re also right that I won’t let any of that zealot’s sods touch you.”
I sat all the way up, wondering briefly at the dampness beneath me but more focused on what he’d just said.
“Marie won’t tell anyone?” I repeated. “That doesn’t make sense. Why else would she have used such drastic measures to make me drink her
blood, if she didn’t think it could benefit her in some way? And what other way could it benefit her except to tell everyone that I can absorb powers
from vampires and ghouls? I don’t think she did it just so I can be her new voodoo buddy.”
His mouth twisted. “I don’t think so, either, but the last thing she said to me was if we revealed to anyone that you were able to siphon powers
from ghouls, or that you’d drunk her blood, she’d kill the pair of us. Said she’d know it if we told anyone, too. Must mean she already has some
ghostly buggers spying on us. Makes me want to hire an expert to banish every filmy-fleshed one of them I come across, and double goes with the
Remnants.”
“Don’t say that.” Thank God Fabian was with Dave or the ghost would’ve been inconsolable at hearing Bones speak so coldly about his kind.
“They’re not the same as Fabian or other ghosts,” I went on, my voice catching at a fresh surge of memory. “Marie said that, but I could also feel
them. They’re not conscious of right, wrong, what they’re doing, any of that. Those Remnants are just . . . like huge gaping holes of need that
gravitate toward whatever energy source they’re pointed at. They couldn’t help what they did to you—”
“Sweet bleedin’ Christ,” Bones interrupted. “Try not to let this turn you into a Ghost Whisperer, hmm? Adopting Fabian is one thing, but we’re
already turning away spooks by the dozen. If you want another pet, we’ll get you more cats.”
“Speaking of my cat,” I began.
“He’s here,” Bones said, rising from the bed. “Not in this room, for obvious reasons, but Ed dropped him off yesterday.”
I let my gaze travel over his nudity because, one, who wouldn’t? And two, it was almost habit for me to admire him every time he rose from the
bed. But something caught my eye when I lingered over his muscled thighs, making disbelief snake through me. A glance at the dampness under
me as I scooted aside only confirmed it, not to mention the matching pink smudges on my own thighs.
“Bones, are you serious?” I gasped. “You couldn’t wait to have sex with me until I was conscious?” Sure, he was a very sexual person. Almost
insatiable, some might claim, and I’d be tempted to agree, but this was crossing a line—
He began to laugh in a way that was more ironic than amused. “You may not want to have this conversation until you’re a bit less . . . agitated,”
he said, seeming to choose his words with care.
I crossed my arms over my chest, not tapping my foot only because it was still on the bed.
“You’re not going to try that whole lame male ‘I had to do it or I’d explode’ excuse, are you? Because it’s bullshit for humans, but even more so for
a vampire, especially one as old as you.”
His brow arched in challenge. “Really think I’d shag you if you were out cold? Didn’t we cover this a long time ago, before we even started
dating?”
I gave a pointed glance down at the pink stains on the bed, evidence of his climax due to the blood-to-water ratio in vampire bodies. “So you
made those . . . by yourself?” And rubbed some on me for good measure? I mentally added, but didn’t say out loud.
“No, luv, you were most definitely part of those, but you weren’t unconscious,” he replied evenly. “You were crazed with hunger from the effects of
Marie’s blood, and I don’t mean hunger in the nutritional sense.”
Oh. My cheeks actually tingled with the urge to blush. That hadn’t occurred to me, even though one of the last things I remembered with clarity
was a feeling of incredible hunger. Guess I’d misjudged what kind of hunger.
I strained my mind more, trying to think past that moment in the graveyard. After a short wait, a scattershot of images danced across my memory.