Etched in Bone Read online

  James Wallace shoved his hands into the pockets of his trench. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he replied. “I’ve been worried since the moment I learned you’d disappeared. And before that—from the moment I realized you’ve been protecting a vampire. Lying for him. Covering up for him.”

  “That’s pretty damned funny coming from a pathological liar,” Heather said.

  “That’s not you talking, Pumpkin.”

  “I’m pretty damned sure it is.”

  “No. It’s not. It’s that bloodsucker, not you. And I plan to free you from Dante Prejean and his influence. Help you redeem yourself.”

  “His name isn’t Prejean, it’s Baptiste. And you’re wasting your time,” Heather said, her voice tight, knife-edged. “I don’t need or want your so-called freedom or your goddamned redemption.”

  “You don’t get it—of course you don’t,” her father said, stepping down from the entrance’s mouth and into the club proper. “That bloodsucker has messed with your mind and your loyalties. You no longer know what you want. You’re no longer in control of your own life. You’ve even destroyed your career because of him.”

  “You’re so far from the truth, I don’t even know where to begin,” Heather said. “But I’m not going to bother, because you’ll never understand that every action I’ve taken has been my choice. So . . .” She reached back for her Colt and locked her fingers around the grip. “You need to leave. I have things to do.”

  It was nearly noon, and Heather kept expecting to hear the thump of the streetside doors as Jack or Eli or Emmett Thibodaux arrived to add more warm bodies to their daytime security detail.

  C’mon, guys. Now would be good. Before things escalate.

  She’d be even happier if Lucien De Noir were present, but he’d gone to the fire-bombed plantation house to meet with the insurance adjuster. But some things could never be compensated for—not even in blood. When Guy Mauvais had orchestrated the house’s destruction, his henchmen burning it to a smoldering pile of rubble and ashes, Dante hadn’t just lost the home he’d shared with Von, De Noir, and the others, he’d also lost Simone, his chère amie, in the gasoline-fueled blaze.

  “You’re right,” James Wallace said, voice strained, “I don’t believe any action you’ve taken since meeting Prejean has been your own. You’re lying to yourself, Pumpkin. You’ve chosen nothing.” He walked across the wood floor, headed for the bar. The clean scent of his Brut aftershave preceded him. “That’s just what Prejean or Baptiste or whatever name the bloodsucking bastard goes by wants you to think. But I’m going to put an end to that.”

  “No, you’re not.” Heather slipped the Colt free and swung it around in a two-handed hold, leveling the muzzle with her father’s chest. Her aim was steady despite the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Hold it right there. Not another step.”

  “Heather,” Annie breathed.

  James Wallace halted and lifted his hands into the air, palms out. One eyebrow quirked up. “Is this necessary?” he asked.

  “Sadly, yeah,” Heather replied. He might be her father, but he was also the man who’d sold her out to the SB.

  “We’re blood, Heather. Family,” her father said, his words calm and matter-of-fact. “Human. That should count more than a roll in the sack with an inhuman, bloodsucking scumbag. He’s not human, and never will be.”

  “Right now, that’s a point in his favor,” Heather replied. “And you’re wrong about what he is.”

  Von’s words, spoken a lifetime ago, were etched into her mind: He is the never-ending Road.

  And that never-ending Road Slept upstairs in the bed he and Heather shared, his hair a silky night-black spill across the pillow, with Eerie nestled beside him on the red velvet comforter in a fluffy orange kitty-ball.

  Silver and Von Slept as well. All three nightkind lost to the narcotic embrace of Sleep. All vulnerable. And all beyond her ability to awaken.

  Heather flicked the Colt’s safety off, her heart drumming against her ribs.

  “You can’t shoot Dad,” Annie said in an incredulous near-whisper.

  “His choice,” Heather said. “If he turns around and leaves, then I won’t have to.”

  Resolve tightened her father’s jaw, deepened the lines bracketing his mouth. He touched a finger to the base of his ear. “I can’t leave without what I came for,” he said.

  Com set. Lying bastard isn’t alone. The sound of heavy boots against wood echoed from the entrance hall. Tac team.

  “Annie, get your ass upstairs,” Heather snapped. She kept her gaze locked on their father. Sweat trickled between her breasts. “You’re not taking Dante,” she told him.

  “It’s not Dante I want,” James Wallace replied as black uniformed and masked figures armed with assault rifles dashed into the club, red neon from the BURN sign flickering over them as they passed beneath it and spread out. “I’ve come for you, Pumpkin.”

  Heather stared at her father, her pulse pounding. “Don’t you know what they’ll do to me?”

  Genuine pain flickered across James Wallace’s face. “Whatever’s necessary to save you,” he said, his voice husky.

  Heather shook her head. Not according to the headline provided to the press by FBI ADIC Monica Rutgers: TRAGIC MENTAL ILLNESS CLAIMS FBI STAR PROFILER HEATHER WALLACE. Not unless “whatever’s necessary” meant involuntary commitment to a mental institution, followed by a convenient and tragic suicide.

  “Trust me, neither the Bureau nor the Shadow Branch are interested in saving me,” Heather said. Adrenaline poured through her veins, made her aware of each breath she drew, aware of the position of each agent in the room. She was surrounded and outnumbered.

  What would happen to Dante and the others once she’d been taken down?

  She didn’t know if she could awaken Dante from Sleep through their bond, but she had to try. Tightening her grip on the Colt, she closed her eyes and funneled her adrenaline-fueled awareness into her link with Dante.

  His scent of burning leaves and November frost permeated her, perfumed her senses, then she felt the razor edge of his nightmares scrape against her mind. Heard the drone of wasps. Her breath caught in her throat.

  He’d been Sleeping easy—for a change—his beautiful, pale face relaxed, when she’d reluctantly slipped free of his heated embrace and risen from their bed. Before leaving the room, she’d placed a lingering Sleep-well kiss on his lips.

  Dual pangs of apprehension and sorrow pierced Heather as she realized her wish hadn’t come true; once again, the past raged through Dante’s mind like a monster hurricane, a tidal surge of dark and dangerous debris running ahead of it, scouring away his hard-won quiet, his scraps of peace.

  What Von had told her in their motel room in Damascus coiled through her memory.

  You’re Dante’s life-line, doll. I’m sorry you had no say in getting bonded to him, but you quiet the storm inside a him. And that’s a damned good thing.

  It looked like her father was intent on severing that life-line.

  An echo of pain—Dante’s pain—bled in through their bond and whispered against Heather’s thoughts as she tried to wriggle her way past his shields and into the wasp-droning darkness he did his best to keep locked away from her.

  she sent, banging mental fists against his shields.

  Something stung Heather’s left shoulder, hitting with all the force of a knuckled punch, shattering her concentration. Her eyes flew open. A dart protruded from the front of her snug cornflower-blue sweater. Cold oozed down her arm and into her chest. She looked at her father as he lowered the trank gun. She tasted the drugs, bitter and icy, at the back of her throat.

  “Dad! What the fuck?” Annie cried. Leaning across the counter, she plucked the dart from Heather’s shoulder.

  “Get out of here, Annie,” Heather said, her words already slurring. The room took a slow carousel spin around her. Her stomach lurched. “Find Jack . . .”

  �
�You’re not going anywhere, Annie,” James Wallace said. “Stevenson, hold her, please.”

  “Fuck you, you lying, motherfucking sonuvabitch!” Annie yelled.

  A stool clattered to the floor. A wordless shriek of fury followed as someone—the unlucky Stevenson—grabbed Annie and attempted to hold on to her. Heather didn’t look, keeping her attention focused on James William Wallace instead. She blinked as his trench-coated figure blurred, then tripled.

  “Heather, listen to me,” her father said, his voice low but firm. “Put your gun down before you—”

  Heather squeezed the trigger. The Colt’s retort cracked through the air like thick ice breaking apart on a lake, the sound rippling from one end of the club to the other. James Wallace, all three blurred copies of him, dove to the floor.

  “Christ!” her father cried.

  Heather concentrated on keeping the Colt upright and in both hands, concentrated on steadying her aim. But she found herself going up, then down, as if riding one of the spinning carousel’s horses. A loud clunk drew her gaze to the floor. Her Colt rested on the hardwood, its muzzle pointing at a plastic bucket full of bar rags.

  The room whirled, a runaway carousel, and Heather stumbled, then fell. Stars supernovaed in blue and green through her vision as her head bounced against the floor. She heard Annie scream her name. She stretched her fingers toward the Colt, darkness nibbling at the edges of her vision.

  But Heather’s desperate thought bounced back from a wall of drug-charged static, unreceived.

  The carousel spun her into a starless night.

  2

  THE BEAUTY OF BEING NUMB

  NEW ORLEANS

  CLUB HELL

  March 30

  ANNIE WATCHED IN HORROR as Heather swayed in front of the ebony shelves lined with sleek and colorful bottles of liquor. Her head rocked forward, her red hair fanning across her face, then she crumpled, falling behind the counter and out of Annie’s view with a soft thud.

  “Heather!” Annie screamed.

  But Heather was out cold. Tranked by their own father.

  And it’s all my fucking fault.

  And, as shocked as she was by the fact that her sister had just tried to shoot their father, Annie wished—in that moment—that Heather hadn’t missed.

  Annie struggled against the black-uniformed asshole holding her, kicking ineffectually with her bare feet. She knuckled both fists into his bulletproof vest–protected gut, pounding the mingled odors of sweat and gun oil into the air. He grunted, but more out of irritation than any real discomfort. And his bruising grip on her biceps didn’t ease one iota. In fact, it tightened.

  “Settle down,” he growled, his eyes—the only thing visible beneath the ski mask stretched across his face—gray flint. “We’re here to help you, for chrissakes.”

  “Fucker! Let me go!” Annie tried to ram a knee into the uniformed asshole’s crotch, but missed when he arched his torso away from her.

  “Annie, enough. We don’t have time for your nonsense.”

  She twisted around to see James Wallace standing behind her, brushing at the knees of his wheat-colored slacks. He nodded at the man holding her. “Go ahead and release her.”

  The hands slid away from Annie’s arms and she rubbed her aching biceps. Her fingers tingled as her circulation returned.

  “Finished with your tantrum?”

  Annie met James Wallace’s stern regard and spat into his face. Spittle flecked the lenses of his glasses, glistened on his cheek. “You used me, you fucker.”

  Her father wiped at his glasses and face with the sleeve of his trench coat, his expression one more of weary exasperation than the disgust she’d hoped for. “Of course I did. And without regret. Do you know why?”

  “Because you’re a prick?”

  James Wallace smiled, but there was nothing warm or paternal in that curving of lips. “Because I will do whatever it takes to save Heather’s life.”

  Unspoken: your life—not so much.

  “I was right,” Annie muttered. “You’re a prick.”

  Her father sighed. “Didn’t you tell me that Prejean would hurt Heather someday?”

  Guilt strapped around Annie, tight as a straitjacket. “Yeah, but not deliberately. He fucking loves her. Of course.”

  Her father tilted his head, a knowing light in his cold, hazel eyes. “I think this is one instance where you shouldn’t feel jealous of your sister.”

  “Screw yourself—”

  “Like I said, sweetie,” James Wallace interrupted, curling his fingers around Annie’s aching arm. “I really don’t have time for your nonsense.”

  Movement caught Annie’s attention, and she watched as two members of her father’s black-uniformed posse carried Heather out from behind the bar on a stretcher. Flex cuffs bound her unconscious sister’s wrists, and tendrils of red hair trailed across her face.

  “Where are they taking her?” Annie asked.

  “Same place you’ll be going, sweet pea. A safe place.”

  Annie stiffened. “Me? Oh, hell no. I don’t need to go anywhere. Neither does Heather! Don’t do this. I never would’ve called you if I’d known—”

  “You did the right thing.” Her father released her arm and tenderly grasped her chin. Directed her gaze to his face. Warmth, or the illusion of it, anyway, kindled in his eyes. “That’s my good girl. I’m proud of you.”

  A barbed knot of anger, yearning, and guilt prickled against Annie’s heart.

  I’m proud of you.

  For what? Unintentionally helping him kidnap her sister—the only person in her life who’d always stood beside her?

  Funny thing—just a couple of months ago, Annie’s help might not’ve been so unintentional if it would’ve earned her those very same words.

  I’m proud of you.

  She thought of Heather on the stretcher, drugged and bound, being carted off to shit-knows-where during daylight hours—when nightkind would be unable to rescue her.

  But I can. And I’ve gotta.

  “Motherfucking liar,” Annie spat, jerking her chin free of his hold.

  “Takes one to know one, Annie-bunny,” her father replied, all warmth stripped from his eyes.

  Annie slipped a hand into the pocket of her bathrobe and palmed the dart she’d yanked from Heather’s arm. She doubted drugs still coated the dart, but getting hit with it would still hurt like hell.

  “Now it’s time to go,” her father said.

  As James Wallace lifted the trank gun, Annie stepped forward, jerking her hand from her pocket, and slamming the dart into her father’s throat. His eyes widened and a strangled gasp escaped his lips. The trank gun hit the hardwood floor with a plastic clatter. His hands flew up to the quivering dart protruding from his throat.

  Annie bolted for the stairs, a clear visual of the fire escape at the end of the second and third floor landings in her mind. She wished she could pause long enough to attempt to awaken Silver or Von on her way out—or badass and beautiful Dante—but didn’t know if it was even possible.

  Behind her, several testosterone-laden male voices shouted for her to halt. She lifted a hand, then her middle finger, and kept going.

  Annie raced upstairs, her bathrobe flapping behind her. She glanced down. The belt had come unknotted and now trailed her like an off-centered tail. She was grateful she’d pulled on a pair of Silver’s boxers and one of his skin-tight Inferno tees before restless sleep and hunger had rolled her out of bed.

  Her stomach rumbled and she found herself mourning her cream cheese–slathered bagel. Seriously? Food? Now?

  When Annie hit the second floor landing, she paused and looked down the hall with its Oriental carpet and gargoyle wall sconces to the French window at its end.

  Make a mad dash for the fire escape or try to alert the Snoozing nightkind?

  A thump from above Annie launched her heart into her throat and yanked her gaze to the old-fashioned tin ceiling. No o
ne was on the third floor except for the Sleepers, unless—for whatever reason—one of them was no longer Sleeping.

  Hope blossomed within her.

  The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps from behind propelled Annie around the wrought-iron banister and up the next narrow flight of stairs. When she reached the third-floor landing, a flash of white down the dark hallway captured her gaze.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed.

  Dante was awake. Well, he was on his feet, anyway. And naked except for the bondage collar strapped around his throat.

  He leaned drunkenly against the threshold to his and Heather’s room, his pale hands clutching either side of the doorjamb for balance. Head bowed, his black hair veiling his face, it seemed as though he was already slipping back into Sleep. But beneath his milky-white skin, his muscles were taut, corded, rippling.

  Eerie rubbed against Dante’s legs, orange fur practically glowing against that pale skin, kitty-back arched for pats.

  Annie stared at Dante, pulse racing, mouth dry, as she drank in the sight of his lean-muscled and very naked body, wishing he’d move just a little so she could see the goodies his current position hid from view.

  Ogle later, her mind sing-songed. Danger now. Move!

  As Annie pelted down the hall, Dante half slid, half fell to his knees on the Oriental carpet, his black-painted nails scraping furrows along the threshold on his way down. She knelt in front of him and his intoxicating autumn scent curled around her.

  Eerie mewed at Dante, then bunted his head against his hip, before sauntering back into the bedroom’s inky darkness, as though saying, If you can’t stand up long enough to feed me, then let’s go back to bed.

  Annie couldn’t help it, she glanced down at Dante’s lap, his hard thighs. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Warm flutters rippled through her belly. “Goddamn,” she breathed.

  “J’su ici, catin,” Dante whispered, his words Sleep-slurred. “Je t’entends.”

  Catin. Dante’s pet name for Heather. Annie forced her gaze back up to his face. “English, dork. I don’t understand Cajun,” she said, patting his pale, whisker-free cheek. She sucked in a breath at the fevered heat beneath her fingers.