Arms seized me, pressing me against a body that collided so forcefully with mine, we fell onto the floor. My face was stuffed next to a throat vibrating with that familiar accented voice.
"...missed you so much, Kitten, I love you..."
This is a dream, it occurred to me.A dream, and I will thank Don from the bottom of my heart for this fake chance to hold Bones again. God bless modern science and tons of codeine mixed with sedatives!
"You're dead," I slurred. "I wish you were really here..."
"Leave me alone with her. All of you, please, give us a moment. Charles."
Something was whispered too low for me to hear even though Spade's dark head bent until it grazed my chin. He nodded once and kissed the pale face still blinking out of clarity to me.
"Anything, my friend."
"Please don't wake me up," I begged, terrified someone would shake me out of my dream. I clutched the figure that seemed so real, squeezing my eyes shut. "Just a little longer."
"You're not dreaming, Kitten." Oh God, his mouth covered mine in a kiss that made my heart break. "I'm here."
"They saw you dead, a-and shr-shriveled, and you're not r-r-real..." Reality and confusion mixed, increased by the pills and doubled with shock.
He carried me to the couch. "This first, talk after," he said, breaking my water glass and slashing his palm with it. I didn't have much choice, since he clapped it over my mouth in the next moment.
With each drop I swallowed, my drugged-out haze began to lift, until I could clearly see Bones kneeling in front of me. My fingers shook as I reached out to touch him, half afraid this was another of Patra's dream spells. One that would end with his body cruelly disintegrating before my gaze.
Bones caught my hand and squeezed it.
I devoured him with my gaze. Aside from his hair, which was shockingly white, he looked the same. His skin was as incandescent as always, and his dark brown eyes bored into mine.
"Are you really here?"
I couldn't shake the terror that he was a mirage. What if I let myself believe, and then woke up to find itwas a dream? I couldn't bear it. I'd go insane.
With sudden desperation, I took one of those jagged pieces of glass and jammed it into my leg. Bones snatched it out, aghast.
"What are you doing, Kitten?"
The instant throb of pain was the most wonderful thing I'd ever felt, because it meant I wasn't dreaming. Somehow, Bones reallywas here. The control I'd had for the past few days evaporated and I burst into tears, launching myself at him even as he tried to push me back to heal my leg.
"You're alive, you're alive...!"
I couldn't stop repeating it even though I was hiccupping with sobs. Feverishly I ran my hands over him, feeling the familiar hard outline of his body under his clothes. Desperate to feel his skin, I ripped his shirt open, fresh sobs coming from me at the reassuring hum of power from his bare flesh.
Bones held me tightly. He was whispering something in my ear, but I couldn't make it out. The grief and agony from the past few days poured out of me, turning into joy and shaking me with its intensity. All the emotional control I prided myself on having was shattered, but I didn't care. Everything I thought I'd lost was suddenly right here. I clung to Bones like I'd die if I let him go, which was how I felt.
It might have been several minutes; it felt like only seconds. Bones set me back enough to kiss me again and I slanted my mouth across his, hungry for his taste. He pulled me even closer, letting out a groan when I wrapped my legs around his waist. Now my hands were running over him for a different reason. It wasn't desire I felt. No, it was a need that went beyond passion or compulsion to feel him inside me.
Bones must have felt it, too, because he didn't wait. There was more tearing of clothes and then the unbelievable ecstasy of his flesh driving into mine. I was gasping through the remains of my tears, pressing myself against him like I wanted to crush him, and then kissing him until I became light-headed from lack of oxygen.
It was fast and explosive. Bones climaxed moments after I did, with a groan of pleasure that was more than primitive. My heart was thrumming in my chest, which, considering all the chemicals in my system, might have been dangerous. Not that I cared. I could die right now and I'd still count myself as the luckiest person ever.
"You don't know how much I've missed you, Kitten," Bones murmured.
"Everyone came back," I breathed with the anguish of remembrance. "Except you. I called your cell. Patra answered. She said..."
I stopped. That brought up the main question that my shock and joy at seeing him had delayed.
"Bones, whathappened?"
For the sake of not repeating it multiple times, Bones called in everyone after he'd gotten some new clothes for both of us. I sat on the couch, drinking old coffee and trying to shake the last of the haziness from my brain. Bones's blood had overpowered my drug-induced sleep, but to say I still felt out of it was an understatement.
When at last Bones let everyone back in the drawing room, he was swallowed up in a mass embrace. The person who almost cleared a path to him with a gun was Annette. She threw her arms around him, kissing him full on the mouth, before he turned away with an apologetic glance to me.
"Don't begrudge her," I said, for once not jealous. "She was as miserable as I was these past couple days."
When Annette finally released him, Mencheres put his arms around Bones with an expression of amazement, fingering his new white hair.
"I have never been wrong before in my visions," he stated. "I saw you withering."
"Don't fret, you don't have a black spot on your record," Bones replied. "But we'll get to that. Thank you for honoring our accord. I won't forget it."
Ian was next, hugging Bones with a chuckle that sounded hoarse from emotion. "Bloody wanker, your wife should roast your arse for this dastardly stunt!"
Bones clapped him on the back. "You're still here, mate. Careful-you're in danger of becoming an honorable man."
The rest of the vampires in the house conveyed their gratitude at seeing him again. Some part of me thought I should be embarrassed, considering everyone would have heard both my emotional breakdown and then the physical part of our reunion, but I didn't care. My modesty could burn in hell-I wasn't regret ting a moment of getting another chance to express to Bones how much I loved him, either by my tears or anything else. Life was too damn short to be concerned with the rest of it.
Finally Bones came to sit by me. I took his hand, still needing to touch him to keep reassuring myself that he was real.