"Missed me already, Kitten?"
I didn't know how he managed to make the question sound indecent, yet he did. I would've said the English accent helped, but his best friends were English and their voices never turned my insides to jelly.
"Yes," I replied, rising and coming over to him.
He watched me, not moving when I slowly slid my hands up to lace them behind his neck. I had to stand on tiptoe to do it, but that was okay. It brought us closer, and the hard feel of his body was almost as intoxicating as the swirls of desire that curled around my emotions. I loved that I could sense his emotions as though they were my own. If I'd realized that was one of the perks of him changing me into a full vampire, I might have upgraded my half-breed status years ago. Then his head lowered, but before his lips brushed mine, I turned away.
"Not until you say you missed me, too," I teased.
In reply, he picked me up, his grip all too easily subduing my mock struggles. Smooth leather met my back as he set me onto the couch, his body a barricade I didn't want to dislodge. His hands settled around my face, holding me with possessiveness as green filled up his irises and fangs slid out of his teeth.
My own fangs lengthened in response, pressing against lips that I parted in anticipation. His head bent, but he only brushed his mouth over mine with a fleeting caress before chuckling.
"Two can play at teasing, luv."
I began to struggle in earnest, which only made his laughter deepen. My high kill count had earned me the nickname of the Red Reaper in the undead world, but even before Bones's startling new powers, I hadn't been able to best him. All my thrashing did was to rub him against me in the most erotic way - which was why I kept doing it.
The zipper on my hoodie went all the way down without his hands moving from my head. My clothes accounted for most of his practice with his fledgling telekinesis. Then the front clasp on my bra opened, baring the majority of my br**sts. His laughter changed to a growl that sent delicious tingles through me, hardening my ni**les. But when the buttons popped open on his indigo shirt, its color reminded me of Tate's eyes - and the news I needed to tell him.
"Something's up," I said in a gasp.
White teeth flashed before Bones lowered his mouth to my chest. "How cliche, but true nonetheless."
The baser part of me whispered that I could postpone this talk for an hour or so, but concern for my friends slapped that down. I gave myself a mental shake and grabbed a handful of Bones's dark brown curls, pulling his head up.
"I'm serious. Don came by and relayed some potentially disturbing information."
It seemed to take a second for the words to penetrate, but then his brows rose. "After all this time, he finally told you what he's been hiding about Madigan?"
"No, he didn't," I said, shaking my head for real this time. "He wanted to let me know that Tate and the others haven't been home in over three weeks. I tried their cells and only got voice mails. Actually, that distracted me from pushing Don about his past with Madigan."
Bones snorted, the brief puff of air landing in the sensitive valley between my br**sts. "Clever sod knew it would. I doubt it was an accident that he gave you this information while I was out."
Now that concern for my friends wasn't foremost in my mind, I doubted it was an accident, too. Don had been by my house enough to know that Bones left for a couple hours every few days to feed. I didn't go with him since my nutritional needs lay elsewhere. Inwardly I cursed. Finding out if my friends were okay was still of paramount importance, but so was discovering what Don knew about Madigan. It must be monumental for my uncle to keep it under wraps even when we didn't speak for months as a result. After all, I wasn't just the only family Don had left - as a vampire, I was also one of the few people who could see him in his new ghostly state.
"We'll deal with my uncle later," I said, pushing Bones away with a sigh of regret. "Right now, we need to find a way into my old compound that doesn't involve both of us ending up in a vampire jail cell."
Chapter 1
Four weeks earlier
I stood under a waterfall of flames. Vermilion and gold spilled over me, twining through my hair, separating into rivulets along my body before sliding between my fingers to fall at my feet. The flames were so dense that I couldn't see through them, reducing my world to a glowing arena of sunset-colored hues. Being engulfed this way should have killed me, but I was unharmed. I wasn't even afraid. A strange sense of longing filled me instead. I kept trying to catch one of the flames but I never succeeded. Fire might cover me from head to toe, yet it still managed to evade my grasp.
"Leila," a voice called, too faintly for me to discern who it was. "Leave before it's too late."
Logic urged me to do what the nameless person said, but I didn't want to. The flames didn't seem to want me to go, either. They kept gliding over me, caressing instead of burning my flesh. See? I thought in defiance. They wouldn't hurt me.
"Leila," that voice said again, more emphatically. "Leave."
"No," I replied, and tried to clasp the fire to me again. As usual, those brightly lit bands slipped from my hands, but this time, their lustrous color darkened. When they landed at my feet, they looked like ribbons made of tar. Then the waterfall above me abruptly dissipated, leaving me naked and shivering in the sudden, overwhelming blackness.
Fear turned my insides to ice. The voice was right. Something bad was about to happen . . .
I didn't have time to run before fire lit up the darkness again. It didn't spill gently over me like it had before, but crashed into me from all sides. Pain ravaged me as the flames attacked me with all their devastating power, charring and burning every inch they touched.
"Why?" I cried, betrayal second only to the agony I felt.
"I warned you," that unknown voice replied, safe outside of the wall of fire. "You didn't listen."
Then I didn't hear anything but my own screams as the fire pitilessly continued to annihilate me.
"No!"
In my head the word was howled in anguish; in reality, it left my lips in a whisper. It was enough to wake me up, though, and I jerked away in horror until I realized I was covered in sheets, not flames. The only fire was safely contained in the hearth on the other side of the room.
It took several deep breaths to shake off the aftereffects of the nightmare. After a minute, my heart quit thudding and settled into a more normal rhythm. With a stab of dismay, I saw that the bed was empty. Now I wouldn't have to admit I'd had the same nightmare again, but I didn't like that more and more frequently, I went to sleep alone and woke up that way, too.