Don stood up. "Well, Tate? What's your answer?"
Tate gave Bones a look of pure hatred. "You order me to go, Don, and I'll go."
Don sighed. "You're the finest man I know. You'll prove that everything I believed about integrity being corrupted after turning into a vampire was wrong." Don's gaze flicked to Bones. "I'll need someone to replace him. Cat's gone too much now, and Dave isn't enough."
Bones didn't flinch. "Let me have Tate 'round another week, then you can ship him off and I'll provide you with a replacement."
Don turned back to me. "Go on, Cat. I'll handle things from here."
Even though this was for the best, I felt anguished for Tate. I knew what it was like to be forced to walk away from the person you loved. I just wished that with this absence, Tate would fall in love with someone else. Maybe being away from me would wake him up to the fact that there were plenty of great women out there, instead of always having the person he thought he wanted dangled just out of his reach.
"Damn you," Tate growled to Bones.
"I hope..." The proper words failed me, so I just mumbled, "Take care of yourself, Tate," and walked out the door with Bones beside me.
Chapter Nineteen
WE DIDN'T LEAVE RIGHT AWAY, WHICH WAS Bones's idea, not mine. I went to my office while Bones went off to talk to Juan. When the two of them came back fifteen minutes later, Juan looked paler, but he also seemed to be excited.
"What's up, buddy?" I asked him.
Juan glanced around my office. "Bones,aqui? Ahora? "
Bones gave him an impassive look and shut the door. "Si. Listos?"
Juan's eyes met mine, and then he nodded. "Si."
I was still translating when Bones grabbed Juan and buried his fangs deeply into his neck. What thehell? Then what they'd been saying penetrated.Bones, here? Now? Yes. Ready? Yes. Oh God. Juan must be the vampire replacement Bones had just promised Don. Talk about not wasting any time.
Juan's legs buckled and his eyes fluttered closed. He lost consciousness, his body rapidly going into shock from the mass amounts of blood leaving it. Bones held him, sucking harder at his neck. Juan's face drained of color even as Bones's became pinker, almost flushed. If I touched him now, I knew he'd be warm, though his new temperature would only last as long as it took for Juan to suck his blood back out of him.
Juan's heartbeat slowed. What had been a fast, nervous beating when Bones first bit him turned into lazy, lethargic buh-booms with growing spaces in between. After a minute, Bones raised his head.
"Kitten, hand me that letter opener."
It took me a second to shake myself from seeing my friend dying in front of me, but then I passed the requested item over. Bones took it and plunged it into his own neck, blood spilling out from the unusual fullness of his jugular. He put Juan's head there, forcing his blood into Juan's mouth.
Dave came in the door, an odd expression on his face. Thin crimson lines streamed into Juan's slack mouth. The air became charged, like there was an electric storm nearby. Bones held Juan to his throat, the letter opener still piercing his skin. Juan's lips twitched. His mouth began to fasten of its own volition onto Bones's neck. The letter opener fell unneeded to the floor, because Juan was biting at him now. With single purpose, he clutched Bones, chewing into the pale neck.
Juan sucked on Bones's throat, tearing his flesh and swallowing in ravenous gulps. Bones held him, his lips in a tight line as Juan's blood was given back to him irrevocably altered. Finally he grasped Juan and tore his mouth away, wrestling him to the ground and pinning him. Juan struggled, his teeth snapping and starting to curve with the first hints of fang.
"No you don't, mate," Bones said.
Dave moved toward me, standing in the way of the now-insensible man who would kill anyone out of sheer, blind hunger.
Juan continued to thrash for another minute before he shuddered violently. Then his whole body went limp and his last few heartbeats went forever silent.
Bones grunted in weariness and rolled off him. Changing a vampire weakened him of power. Not to mention he'd just been sucked dry.
"You need a refill," I stated, and went to pass by Dave to get some plasma from our in-house blood bank.
"Don't."
Bones was on his feet before I could blink.
"Just...stay right here, Kitten."
Understanding dawned. The last time he'd changed someone over, I'd gone away for "just a minute" and ended up being tortured and nearly killed.
"I'll get it."
The offer came from Dave, who seemed to remember.
"No, you won't," Bones said. "You'll stay right here on the very slim chance our friend wakes up and makes a go for her throat. That way I wouldn't have to kill him. Call Ian, have him bring the blood up."
Jeez, he was being cautious. The odds of Juan rising so soon and overcoming Bones were near absolute zero, but I didn't argue. Dave made the call. The fact he also didn't argue meant he must be equally paranoid.
"Why aren't we just putting him downstairs in the secured cell? That's what it's there for."
"Because, Kitten..." Bones put Juan's lifeless body on the couch and stayed close to him. "We're leaving, and we're taking him with us."
It was several hours and a dizzying free-flying jaunt from the compound back to our cars later that we rounded the last curves on our driveway in the Blue Ridge.
"Where will we put Juan?"
Three cars behind I could hear him howling, cut off the next moment by the slurping sound of him feeding from the plasma bags I'd packed. He'd just risen. Five vampires were in the car with him, and three of them were Masters. No, he wasn't going anywhere.
"The cellar," was Bones's reply. "It's reinforced, and we'll have Tick Tock, Dave, and Rattler take turns staying with him. Within a week, he'll be himself."
Until then, Juan was a danger to anyone with a pulse.
"We're not going to have enough room if everyone stays."
"Three of the couches have pull-outs and the rest will make do with blankets and the floor. Each one of them has endured worse, believe me."
"We're the ones with the urgent problems and it's our house they're staying at, we should take the floor," I noted. "It's only polite."
Bones snorted. "Right. In my own home on Christmas? I think not."
Yes, it was after two a.m. and therefore officially Christmas Day. This wasn't the romantic, private evening I had planned, but oh well. We were together.
I leaned over and kissed his neck, letting my breath tickle his ear. "Merry Christmas," I whispered.