“If one of you moves, I’ll open my jugular,” I vowed.
They exchanged a glance between the two of them. I dug the knife ominously into my neck. I wasn’t bluffing. He’ll kill your family, so you will have no one but him to protect you, Gregor had said about this Bones. Not if I could help it.
And then my arm felt like it was blasted with liquid nitrogen. So did my legs and other arm. The only things I could still control were my neck, head, and torso. That left me pretty much a stump. I could breathe. I could talk. Nothing else.
Mencheres walked toward me, and I spat at him, unable to do more in defense. He took the knife from my paralyzed grip.
“You see?” he said to Gregor. “You can take her from her home, poison her head with lies, convince her you are her savior, try to control her completely…and yet she is still the same inside. What did she do when threatened? She got a knife. It’s my proof, Gregor. Yours is as empty as your intentions.”
“I hate you,” I spat. “You might take me home, but I know the truth. My mother knows. We’ll run away from you and Bones.”
Mencheres’s face was thoughtful. “I believe you.”
“You…can’t…”
Gregor forced the words out. Mencheres gave him an inquiring look and flicked his finger. It was like someone switched Gregor’s vocal cords back on.
“You can’t manipulate her mind,” he announced, the words rushing out with savage triumph. “I’ve tried, but her bloodline makes it impossible. She won’t forget me, no matter what.”
Manipulate my mind? Gregor tried to do that?
Mencheres made a sound that was almost a tssk. “Just because you don’t know how to do something doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
He turned away from Gregor, another twitch of his fingers cutting off Gregor’s shout of rage in midhowl. Then Mencheres considered me next, like I was a project that needed finishing.
“Get away from me,” I hissed.
Those charcoal eyes stared into mine. For a moment, I thought I saw compassion. Then he came forward.
I was terrified. What was he going to do to me? Was he going to take me to the vampire who’d end up killing my family? Would they kill Gregor, too? Was there anything I could do to stop this?
I stared at Gregor, speaking my last words before those cool hands wrapped around my forehead.
“If I get away, I’ll come back to you. If you get away, promise me you’ll come back to me, too.”
Then I felt and saw nothing at all.
SIXTEEN
HIS EYES WERE THE FIRST THING I BECAME aware of, gray-green and lighted with emerald. Next was his face, hazy but discernible, features clarifying with every second. Finally, his body, and being held in his arms as tightly as if I’d never left them. In the fragmented moments of returning consciousness, it didn’t even seem like I had.
“Gregor,” I breathed, dizzy from the deluge of memories.
“Yes, chérie,” he whispered. “We are together again.”
His mouth sealed over mine. Relief flooded me, and I wrapped my arms around him, kissing him back. Even as he held me tighter and I trembled with the memory of those last horrible moments when I’d thought Gregor was about to be killed, the rest of my life clicked into place.
Bones.
The emotions I felt for Gregor were buried under an avalanche. My memories of Gregor had wormed their way into my heart, true, but Bones already owned all that space.
I turned away, cutting off Gregor’s kiss. “No.”
His whole body stilled. “No?”
I pushed on his shoulder with firmness. “No.”
His brows drew together, that scar stretched warningly, and his next words were a disbelieving bellow.
“You refuse me?”
My first reaction was to flinch at his anger. Gregor took that as a sign of surrender and pushed me back onto the pillows. I’d been sitting up when this whole trip down memory lane began, but he’d maneuvered the covers off me at some point and put himself conveniently on top of me.
He started to kiss me again when I struck. I might care for him, but this was not going to happen. Too bad Gregor had forgotten I still had a knife.
“Let me tell you something you must have missed these last several hundred years—no means no. I suggest you don’t try any strenuous moves, Gregor.”
The silver knife, the same one I now knew had been used to bind us, was stuck in his back. My hand was wrapped around the etched handle as firmly as I’d ever held a weapon. No way would I betray Bones with Gregor, no matter what residual feelings I might still have for him.
The knife hadn’t pierced Gregor’s heart, but the blade was close. He must have felt that, because he froze.