Halfway to the Grave

by Jeaniene Frost

  He spread his hands toward me in a conciliatory way. “Look, you don’t have to flash anyone anything. Believe me, a vampire will know right off without you showing him that your box is unwrapped.”

  Pushing the crude imagery out of my mind before I exploded, I jumped right in with both feet. “And just how’s he supposed to know that? No panty lines?”

  “The scent, pet,” he replied instantly. That did it. My face must have been every shade of crimson. “No vamp in the world could mistake that. Like dangling bloomin’ catnip in front of a kitty. Bloke gets a good whiff of—”

  “Will you stop?” I fought to alleviate my intense embarrassment. “I get the picture! Stop drawing it, okay? God, but you are—are…profane!”

  With anger as a buffer, I could look him in the eye again.

  “I hardly see how that’s necessary. You’ve got me dressed in these screw-me clothes, I’m all dolled up with hair and makeup, and I’m going to burn their ears off with dirty talk. If that isn’t enough to get them to take me for a ride, then I think it’s hopeless.”

  He stood very still the way vampires do, utterly motionless. It creeped me out when he did that, because it let me know how foreign our two species were. I had half of that contamination. Half of that blood flowed in my veins. His face was thoughtful—we could have been discussing the weather. The hollows and planes of his cheekbones were reflected from the overhead light. He was still the most chiseled man I’d ever seen.

  “It’s like this, luv,” he responded at last. “You look right fetching now with your new togs, but suppose a fellow prefers blondes? Or brunettes? Or likes ’em with a little more meat on the arse? These aren’t greenhorns looking for the first available artery. These are Master vampires with discriminating tastes. We might need something to tip the scales, as it were. Think of it as…advertising. Is it really that difficult for you? You know, with a vampire’s natural sense of smell, it’s not like he can’t sniff you out in the first place. Blimey, I can tell right off when you’ve got your monthlies, knickers or no knickers. Some things you just—”

  “All right!” Inhale slowly, exhale slowly. Don’t let him see how he’s traumatized you with the thought of him scenting out your period. “I get your point. Fine, I’ll do it, when we go out on Friday. Not before. I’m not negotiating on this one.”

  “Whatever you say.” He sounded amenable, but it was a lie. Everything was done his way. I only pretended to win some battles. “Now, then, let’s get on to the nasty speak.”

  We sat at a table opposite each other. Bones held my hands despite my protest, arguing that if I flinched or twitched repeatedly, it would be a dead giveaway. Pun intended. Between my expressions and my hand movements, he had his lie detector test. For every blush and recoil I gave, it would be ten miles running through the woods with him chasing me. I was determined not to take that nature jog from hell.

  “You look luscious, pet. The only thing that could make your mouth more beautiful is if it were wrapped around my cock. I wager you could start my heart again. I’d like to bend you over just to hear how loud you can scream. I bet you like it rough, you’d like me to tear into you until you can’t beg anymore….”

  “My, my, someone hasn’t been laid in a while,” I mocked, proud of myself for not running out of the room.

  It wasn’t just his words, or the little circles his thumb traced on my palm. His eyes were dark and heated as though lit from within, looking right into mine with a knowing stare that made every word more intimate. Filled with promise and threat. His tongue flicked out to trace the inside of his lower lip, making me wonder if he imagined doing all of the things he described. It took all of my willpower to hold his gaze.

  “I’ll take your breasts inside my mouth, licking your nipples until they turn dark red. They’ll do that, luv. The more I lick and the more I nibble, the darker they’ll get. Let me inform you of a secret about vampires—we direct where the blood goes in our bodies, for as long as we want it to be there. I can’t wait to find out how you taste, and you won’t want me to stop even after I’ve completely exhausted you. You’ll think you were on fire, your skin will burn. I’ll suck all of your juices out of you. And then I’ll drink your blood.”

  “Huh?” Understanding dawned about the sequence of the last two lines, and with it came a sudden mental image of him doing that to me.

  A flush scorched across my cheeks in the next instant. Mortified, I snatched my hands away and stood so abruptly the chair fell over.

  Taunting laughter followed me.

  “Oh, Kitten, you were doing so well! Guess you just couldn’t pass up a nice stroll in the woods. Beautiful night for it, I smell a storm coming. And you wonder why I had you pegged as an innocent. I’ve met nuns who were more promiscuous. I knew it would be the oral stuff that did you in, I would have bet my life on it.”

  “You don’t have a life, you’re dead.”

  I was trying to remind myself of that. Listening to his explicit detailing of everything he could do to me—not that I would ever let him, of course!—had made that a hard point to remember. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the images dancing in it.

  “That’s a matter of opinion. In fact, if you judge by senses and reflexes, I’m as alive as any human, just with a few more upgrades.”

  “Upgrades? You’re not a computer. You’re a killer.”

  He rocked back on the two legs of his chair, easily balanced. He wore a charcoal-gray pullover that hugged his shoulders and skimmed his collarbone. Black pants were nearly a staple with him; I wondered if he owned any other color. The dark colors only accented his light hair and pale skin, making them even more incandescent. This was no accident, I knew. Everything was deliberate with Bones. With those incredible cheekbones and his ripped physique, he was stunning. And dangerous, yet somewhere along the line I’d lost most of my fear of him.

  “You’re a killer, too, luv, or did you forget that? You know, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and all that rot. Really, Kitten, why so shy on our former topic? Didn’t that sodding chap who shagged you kiss you everywhere first? Don’t tell me the wretch neglected foreplay.”

  “Not unless you count him taking his clothes off as foreplay.” Goddamn Bones, and damn Danny Milton as well. Maybe one day I could look back and not feel a sting. “Can we not talk about that? It hardly puts me in the proper mood.”

  Something cold flashed across his face, but his voice was light. “Don’t fret over him, pet. If I meet him, I’ll snap him in half for you. No, we won’t speak of him any longer. Ready to go back to the table now? Or do you need a few more minutes to cool off?”

  There was that insinuating tone again, making simple words sound graphic.

  “I’m ready. I just wasn’t prepared before.” I sat back at the table and slid my hands into his waiting grip. “Go on. Give it your best shot.”

  He grinned with a slow sexy twist of his lips and the fire leapt back into his eyes.

  “Love to give it my best shot. Let me tell you just how I’d do it….”

  Two hours later, my ears were burned to twin crisps, and I owed him forty miles. Bones was in high spirits. Why wouldn’t he be? He had just hypothetically fucked me into incomprehension. Tartly I asked him if he wanted a cigarette when he was finished, and he informed me with a laugh that he’d quit smoking. Heard it wasn’t good for his health. God, the man amused himself with his own jokes.

  I used one of the cave’s small enclosed areas as a changing room to strip out of the harlot’s dress and put on my jogging clothes. Bones always collected on his bets, never mind that there was now a thunderstorm out. We were going for our little tortuous run in the woods. With my hair rolled into a bun to avoid it lashing me in the face, I squeezed out from behind the rocks to find him waiting for me. He gave me a once-over, and that cocky twist returned to his lips.

  “There’s the Kitten I know and love. Felt like you’d been away for a while, with how different you looked.
Ready for a romp in the rain?”

  “Let’s get this over with. It’s nearly nine o’clock and I’d like to get home. After this evening, I feel like I have to wash.”

  “Well, luv”—we had reached the mouth of the cave, and the rain came down in torrents—“I aim to please. One shower, coming right up.”

  The run was brutal, as expected. He even had the nerve to laugh behind me the whole way. When I climbed into my truck, I was soaking wet and exhausted. It was an hour-and-a-half round trip every day I went to the cave, and the truck was a gas guzzler. Bones was going to have to start contributing to my travel expenses, because I wasn’t going to use more of my college money on gas.

  The lights were out at the house when I pulled in, and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. I took my shoes off and headed straight for the bathroom. Once inside, I removed all of my clothes and ran a hot bath.

  As I sank into the water, I closed my eyes. Everything ached from the run. For a few moments I just sat, allowing myself to relax. The steam from the water caused moisture on my upper lip and I wiped it away, startled when the brush of my fingers caused an unexpected tightening in my belly.

  I tried it again, never having done this before and imagining my fingers were not my own. Gooseflesh broke out on my body and in a completely surprising reaction, my nipples hardened.

  I cupped my breasts next, gasping at the increased sensation. The water felt like it caressed me as well now, in the most intimate of places. I skimmed the outsides of my thighs, amazed at the ripples of enjoyment that followed. Then I ran a hand along the inside of my thigh, stopped guiltily for a moment, and reached lower.

  A soft moan escaped. With my eyes closed, open mouth breathing in warm humid air, I let my fingers move a little faster, a little faster….

  …feel your tight wet box wrapped around me, pulling me deeper inside you…

  Bones’s words stole through my mind and I snatched my hand away as though burned. “Oh, shit!”

  I jumped out of the tub, slipped on the wet tile, and fell with a crash to the floor.

  “Sonofabitch!” I shouted. Great, that was going to leave a mark. There’d be a bruise the size of my stupidity.

  “Catherine, what happened?”

  My mother was outside the bathroom door. The thump or my shout must have woken her.

  “It’s okay, Mom, I just slipped. I’m fine.”

  I dried off with a towel while lashing myself under my breath.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid, thinking about a vampire. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?”

  “Who are you talking to?” Apparently my mother was still outside the door.

  “No one.” No one intelligent, that’s for sure. “Go back to bed.”

  After changing into a pair of pajamas, I carried my dirty clothes downstairs and put them in the washing machine, reminding myself to start a load in the morning. When I went into the room I shared with my mother, I found her sitting up in her bed.

  That was different. She was usually asleep by nine every night.

  “Catherine, we have to talk.”

  She couldn’t have picked a worse time, but I stifled a yawn and asked her what she wanted to talk about.

  “Your future, of course. I know you waited two years to start college so you could help out after Grandpa Joe had his heart attack, and you’ve been saving for another two years so you can transfer to Ohio State University from the community college here. But soon you’ll be leaving. Living on your own, and I’m worried about you.”

  “Mom, don’t worry, I’ll be careful—”

  “You can’t forget you have a monster inside you,” she interrupted me.

  My mouth tightened. God, she’d picked a great time to go into this! You have a monster inside you, Catherine. Those were the opening words she’d used when I was sixteen to tell me what I was.

  “I’ve been scared for you since I found out I was pregnant,” she went on. The lights were off, but I didn’t need them to see the tension in her face. “From the day you were born, you looked just like your father. Then each day after that, I watched your abnormalities grow as you did. Soon you’ll leave, and I won’t be there to watch over you anymore. You’ll have only yourself to make sure you don’t become like the monster who sired you. You can’t let that happen. Finish school, get your degree. Move out of town, make some friends, it’ll be good for you. Just be careful. Don’t ever forget you’re not like everyone else. They don’t have evil in them trying to break out like you do.”

  For the first time in my life, I wanted to argue with her. To tell her that maybe there wasn’t any evil in me. That my father could have been bad before he turned into a vampire, and my unusualness made me different, but not half evil.

  Even as the denial sprang to my lips, however, I choked it back. It hadn’t escaped my notice that our relationship had dramatically improved since I started killing vampires. She loved me, I knew, but before that, I’d always felt like a small part of her also resented me for both the circumstances of my birth and the repercussions of it.

  “I won’t forget, Mom,” was all I said. “I won’t forget, I swear to you.”

  Her features softened. Seeing that made me glad I hadn’t argued. There was no need to upset her. This was a woman who’d raised the child of her rapist, and in this small town, she’d been alienated just for having a baby out of wedlock. No one even knew the horrible truth behind her pregnancy. As rough as that was, to top it off, I had hardly been a normal child. She didn’t need me lecturing her on right and wrong.

  “In fact,” I went on, “I’m going out Friday to hunt again. I’ll probably be home late. I—I have a good feeling I’ll find one.”

  Yeah. Did I ever.

  She smiled. “You’re doing the right thing, baby.”

  I nodded, swallowing back the guilt. If she found out about Bones, she’d never forgive me. She wouldn’t understand how I could have partnered with a vampire, no matter the reason.

  “I know.”

  She lay down in her bed. I got in mine as well and tried to fall asleep. But fears of my changing perspective and who was responsible for it kept me awake.

  Chapter Six

  FRIDAY FINALLY ARRIVED. FOR THE PAST FIVE days, I experimented with makeup and different hairstyles to turn myself into more appetizing bait. The goody bag from Hot Hair Salon had been filled with cosmetics, gels, hair spray, hair clips, nail polish, you name it. Bones also bought me curling irons and hot rollers. After dolling myself up, I would spar with him in full slut gear, preparing myself to fight in a short dress.

  Now Bones waited for me by the entrance of the cave, a rarity. From the looks of him, he was already dressed for the evening. Black long-sleeved shirt, black pants, black boots. With his light skin and hair, he looked like an archangel dipped in coal.

  “Now, you’re clear on all the details, right? You won’t see me, but I’ll be watching you. When you leave with him, I’m going to follow you. Anywhere outside is fine, but do not, I repeat, do not let him take you inside any buildings or houses. If he tries to force you inside one, what do you do?”

  “Bones, for God’s sake, we’ve been over this a thousand times.”

  “What do you do?” He wasn’t about to give up.

  “Hit the pager in the watch, Mr. Bond, James Bond. You’ll come running. Dinner for two.”

  He grinned, squeezing my shoulder. “Kitten, you have me pegged all wrong. If I go for your neck, I have no intention of sharing.”

  Although I would never admit it, having a small safety net like that made me feel better. The watch was rigged with a tiny pager that would only send a series of beeps to Bones, but if it went off, it meant my ass was in jeopardy.

  “Are you ever going to tell me about who I’m after? Or do I find out later if I’ve staked the wrong guy? You’ve been pretty secretive about the whole identity thing. Afraid I’d rat you out?”

  That previous smile was wiped from his face, replaced by an
expression of complete seriousness.

  “It was better for you not to know beforehand, pet. That way no accidental slips. Word can’t get out if word isn’t spoken, right?”

  He followed me to the partially enclosed space where he kept my slutty clothes and accessories. It was amazing how many places a cave held. As near as I could figure, this one was half a mile long. I went inside the makeshift dressing room and put the privacy screen in place with a pointed look. Changing clothes in front of him was not going to happen. The screen didn’t impair conversation, however, so I answered him as my clothes came off.

  “It amuses me to think of you worrying about my Freudian slips. Maybe you didn’t hear me the other times I told you, but I don’t have any friends. The only other person I talk to is my mother, and she’s being kept far out of this loop.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, a hollow feeling grew in my chest. It was true, too true. As twisted as it was, Bones was the closest thing to a friend I’d ever had. He might be using me, but at least he was up front about it. Not sneaky and deceitful like Danny had been.

  “All right, luv. His name is Sergio, though he might well give you another one. He’s about six-one, black hair, gray eyes, typical vampire skin. Italian is his first language, but he’s fluent in three others as well, so his English has an accent. He’s not very beefy. In fact, he may even look soft to you, but don’t let it fool you. He’s almost three hundred years old and more powerful than you can imagine. Also, he’s a sadist, likes ’em young, real young. Tell him you’re underage and that you snuck in with a fake ID, it’ll only switch him on more. You also can’t kill him straightaway, because I need some information from him first. That’s everything. Oh, and he’s worth fifty thousand dollars.”

  Fifty thousand dollars. The words echoed through my mind. And to think I’d been prepared to argue with Bones over pocket change! The words kept resounding, and with them an important detail that had never been revealed before.