This Side of the Grave (#5 Night Huntress)

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egimented, impeccable grooming habits. “Don loves you, too,” I whispered. Then I walked away, leaving Tate to go into my uncle’s room. Chapter Thirty-one I knew how critical Don’s condition was. Understood that, if not for my mother’s intervention earlier, he’d already be dead now. But somehow, I hadn’t truly accepted that he was dying until I walked into his room and the final shreds of my denial were ripped away from me. It wasn’t the bluish paleness of Don’s features as he lay, eyes closed, on the bed. Not the hospital gown he’d previously refused to wear, the EKG machine that showed his shockingly low blood pressure, or the heavy scent of what I now knew was cancer. It wasn’t even his erratic heartbeats that drove home the reality that this would be the last time I would ever see my uncle. No, it was the rolling tray pushed into the corner of the room—naked of a phone, laptop, or any files—that tore through my heart with all the pain of a thousand silver blades. You just talked to him a few days ago! a voice screamed inside me. How could it come to this so fast? I shoved back the sob that threatened to break free and went over to his bedside, very softly running my hand over his arm. I was afraid to disturb him by letting him know I was here, and afraid not to. He was hooked up to an EKG, but aside from the tubes in his nose, he breathed on his own in small, shallow puffs that didn’t give him enough oxygen, judging from his pallor. I sat there in silence for half an hour, watching him, thinking back to the first time I met Don, all the way to the last time I saw him before now. We had both good and bad history between us, but the mistakes of the past faded underneath my belief that Don had always tried to do what he thought was right. That hadn’t always made him a good uncle, but it made him what we all were—flawed people who tried to do their best under rough circumstances. I had no grudges over our past. Only gratitude that he’d been in my life at all, and a wish that he didn’t have to leave it now. “Cat.” The faintest smile ghosted across Don’s mouth as he woke up and saw me next to his bed. “Didn’t think I’d get to see you again.” I took in a deep breath. It was that or I’d lose the fragile hold over my emotions that kept me from breaking into uncontrollable tears. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t, except I hear you’re having obedience problems with your new recruit,” I said, managing a smile even though it felt like my face would splinter. Don let out a small, pained laugh. “Turns out your mother obeys orders just as well as you did.” His wry comment served to underscore our history, intensifying my grief at the thought of losing him. The only emotion my father and I shared for each other was mutual loathing, but Don had found his way into my heart even before I knew I was related to him. “You know what they say about the acorn and the tree,” I replied. Then my composure cracked and a few tears slipped out despite my best effort to hold them back. Oh, Cat, don’t cry. Don didn’t say it out loud, but I heard in from his thoughts as clearly as if the words were shouted. His hand drifted over, patting mine before his eyes closed. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered. And I heard the other thing he didn’t say, but it echoed across my mind with more clarity than I thought I could stand. So glad the pain will be over soon . . . “Don.” I leaned forward, stroking his hand pleadingly. “You said no before, but it’s not too late if you’ve changed your mind. I can still—” “No,” he interrupted, opening his eyes. “I’ve lived longer than I should have as it is. Promise me you’ll let me go, and that you won’t bring me back.” I’m tired, so very tired, his thoughts sighed. A piece of my heart broke, but I held his gaze and nodded as I forced the words out, whisking away another tear that slipped down my cheek. “I promise.” Good girl. Proud of you. So proud. I got up and began to pace so he couldn’t see that more tears rushed out at hearing that from him. I’d been in countless battles before, but letting him go would take the kind of strength I didn’t know if I had. “You don’t know how much I’m going to miss you,” I whispered, keeping my back to him, trying to wipe away the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing no matter how hard I tried to stuff them back. He grunted softly. “I’ll miss you, too.” Love you, niece. Wish I would have gotten to know you sooner. Shouldn’t have waited so long . . .
A choked noise escaped me hearing that. I stabbed my fingernails into my palms, hoping the slight physical pain would distract me enough to control my raging emotional anguish. It didn’t. My heart constricted, aching from an injury that no amount of supernatural healing abilities could soothe. Moments later, I heard a familiar booted stride and felt power in the air that I’d recognize anywhere. God, Bones had gotten here fast. That only further hammered away at my fragile control. He’d come quickly because he knew how devastated I’d be, and I loved him more for it even as it reminded me of how much I’d hurt when Don was gone. Then Bones was beside me, his dark gaze raking the room to take in everything in an instant, hard arms reaching out to pull me to him. I allowed myself a few precious seconds to sag in his embrace, not needing to pretend I was strong with him, before turning around to give Don a forced cheerful smile. “Look who else made it.” “I see that.” Then a pained cough came over my uncle. Bones took my hand as his heart had several ominous pauses in between beats. “You turned out to be a better man than I expected,” Don rasped once he’d regained control. Bones stared at my uncle, his gaze steady and serious. “So did you, old chap.” “Bones and I talked,” I said, trying to smile so I wouldn’t burst into tears at the knowledge that this was their way of saying goodbye. “Remember your offer to give me away as a bride? Well, we’d like to take you up on it.” Don’s mouth twitched in a wistful smile before his features tightened, his thoughts revealing that more pain flared in his chest. I glanced at the EKG machine even though I knew what it would say. My mother’s blood had brought him back, but it wouldn’t be for long. His heart was failing right in front of my eyes. “ ’Fraid I won’t be around for your wedding, Cat,” he murmured, eyes fluttering closed. “Yes you will,” I said, so strongly that Don’s eyes reopened and stayed open. “Because we’re going to renew our vows here and now.” “Cat.” His face pinched with sadness. “You were planning a big wedding once things were . . . settled down. You don’t have to ruin those plans . . .” He paused to close his eyes, his breathing and heart rate dipping for a moment. I bit my lip, squeezing Bones’s hand until a cracking noise let me know to loosen my grip. “These are hardly the right circumstances,” my uncle finished a few moments later, waving vaguely at the machines by his bed. I thought back to when I was a little girl and how I’d imagined what my wedding day would be like. I’d pictured wearing a white dress, of course. Imagined my grandfather fussing over his tie like he always did when he was forced to wear one, and my grandmother replying that yes, it was straight, with that little roll of her eyes. My mother would be there, smiling because she was so happy for me, and I’d have friends who would be helping me get ready to walk down the aisle. My bouquet would be roses and wildflowers, my hair would be up, and I would look at my husband-tobe through a filmy white veil that would only be lifted once we were pronounced man and wife. Of course, I’d imagined all that back when I didn’t believe in vampires, let alone realize I was half one. Bones had wanted to give me a close version of that dream, somehow knowing I’d still held on to it, but the lives we led kept interfering with making that white wedding fantasy a reality. My wedding would never play out like that dream from when I was a child. It wouldn’t be now, either, in the hospital wing of a secret government facility that policed the activities of the undead. My wedding had been on a blood-spattered arena, witnessed not by friends or family, but by hundreds of vampires I’d never met before. My bridegroom hadn’t lifted a white veil from my face at the pronouncement from a minister that we were married. Instead, he’d cut his hand and held it out to me, swearing by his blood that I would forever be his wife, should I choose to accept him as my husband. That was my wedding day. Pretty much the exact opposite of everything I’d ever dreamed, but I wouldn’t try to substitute it with something else. The image I’d had of myself as a child was someone I’d never be, and it was only recently that I realized it was okay to be who I was. That bride might have worn a slutty black dress instead of a beautiful white one, or had blood in her hands instead of holding a bouquet, but no woman had ever been as lucky as I was the day Bones held out his hand and declared me to be his wife. “This isn’t about circumstances,” I replied, continuing to fight back tears as I tried to sum up everything I’d only recently learned. “It’s about family.” Don hadn’t been there on that day. Neither had my mother, and my grandparents had been dead for years by then. But both of them could be here for this. It wasn’t a new ceremony for my sake, but a reenactment of the previous one for theirs. “Will you do it?” I went on. Don’s eyes misted. Through his thoughts, I heard how much the request meant to him even though he only spoke a single word in reply. “Yes.” “Tate.” I turned toward the doorway, knowing he’d lingered in the hall this whole time. “You think you could bend the rules to let that disobedient new recruit back up on the floor for a little while?” A grunt escaped him; half laugh, half disbelief as he filled the door frame. “Jesus, Cat.”
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This Side of the Grave by Jeaniene
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“We were only supposed to meet wi
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“I have got to stop drinking your
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The lack of disarray in the apartme
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Scratch ran a hand through his gray
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“That just leaves one more thing,
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are correct.” Everything in me te
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“Querida,” he murmured, opening
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Chapter Six Don sat on the bed, an
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Sometimes the old-fashioned way was
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“I’m really sorry about what ha
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of my hand. He’d really gone all
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finding out from his roommate where
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ground them into powder to make cer
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His mouth slid up to mine again, ki
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Page 34 and 35: I gave a pointed look at the less-t
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Page 40 and 41: “Told you helmets were safer,”
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Page 50 and 51: holding cell in West Virginia. He c
Page 52 and 53: And being so close, they could hear
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Page 56 and 57: I let out a small snort. “I don
Page 58 and 59: The word was almost harsh in its ve
Page 60 and 61: Bones’s shout before a deep spasm
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Page 72 and 73: Dave glanced at his watch. “I got
Page 74 and 75: into battle all those centuries ago
Page 76 and 77: Still the Remnants slithered over V
Page 78 and 79: This as Vlad continued to laugh the
Page 80 and 81: “Actually, Reaper, the thought of
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Page 96 and 97: Veritas straightened to her full fi
Page 98 and 99: “Hail to our queen!” one of the
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This Side of the Grave (#5 Night Huntress)

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