The Bite Before Christmas

by Jeaniene Frost

  “I’m also more impatient than my reputation,” Bones replied coolly. “So get on with it.”

  With another noise of exasperation, Wraith set down his long stick and walked over to the back of the car. The trunk popped up without even a spark and Wraith pulled out a flat, sheet-draped, rectangular object.

  “Here,” he said, holding it out to Bones. “I also have archives, but if this doesn’t convince you, those won’t either.”

  Bones took it and pulled the sheet away. It was a painting; old, from the state of the framing and the canvas, but I didn’t need more than a single glance at the subject to let out a gasp.

  Bones said nothing, simply staring at the image of a man who bore an eerie resemblance to him, only his hair was corn-silk blond and he had lines around his mouth that looked too harsh to be caused by smiling. He wore a ruffled shirt and an embroidered coat with so many tassels, buttons, and braids that it looked like it could stand on its own. A jewel-handled dirk sticking out of his belt completed the image of extravagance, as if the arrogance in the man’s expression wasn’t clue enough that he’d been born to a life of luxury.

  “Meet the Duke of Rutland,” Wraith said, his voice breaking the heavy silence. “In case his face isn’t proof enough, records show that he was christened Crispin Phillip Arthur Russell, the Second. My human name was Crispin Phillip Arthur Russell, the Third. Same as yours.”

  I flashed to eight years ago, when I was still getting to know Bones and he told me the reason behind his real name.

  Merely a bit of fancy on my mum’s part, since clearly she had no idea who my da was. Still, she thought adding numerals after my name would give me a bit of dignity. Poor sweet woman, ever reluctant to face reality . . .

  If the vampire standing across from us was correct, Bones’s mother hadn’t called him “the third” on a whim. She’d named him after the father he never knew he had.

  When Bones spoke, his voice was strained from the emotions I could feel him fighting to contain.

  “If you’re my half-brother, that makes you over two hundred years old. If you knew of our ties, why, in all that time, did you never attempt to find me before now?”

  Wraith’s smile was sad. “I didn’t know until recently when I heard your real name from some warmongering ghouls. I thought it was a jest, but then I found a picture of you. Our resemblance was enough to get me digging into my family history. In some very old archives, I found mention of a sum my father paid to Viscount Maynard for reparations concerning the viscount’s unwed pregnant daughter, Penelope. Then your name appeared in the Old Bailey trial transcripts, and your age matched how old the child would’ve been. If that plus our identical names wasn’t enough, meeting you is. You look and act enough like my father to be his dark-haired ghost.”

  Something else swirled amidst the wariness in Bones’s emotions, something so poignant it brought tears to my eyes. Hope. Was it really possible that after all this time, Bones had found a living member of his family? Wraith’s real name, resemblance, and the portrait were damn compelling, not to mention the records Wraith cited could be easily authenticated. Plus, why would someone go to the trouble of lying about a family connection? Bones wasn’t the type of person who’d appreciate being Punk’d.

  I linked my arm with his, hoping to help calm his whirling emotions. “You say Annette knew about this?”

  Wraith nodded. “I thought news such as this should be delivered in person, so I went looking for a member of your line who’d know your location. Once Annette was satisfied of my claims, we agreed to meet at the hotel, intending to arrive here together.”

  “As my present,” Bones murmured, looking over Wraith with more curiosity than suspicion this time.

  A smile quirked Wraith’s mouth. “Afraid I drew the line at tying a bow around myself.”

  The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes had said that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever was left, no matter how improbable, had to be the truth. It seemed unbelievable that the vampire standing across from us was Bones’s brother, but so far the facts pointed to that very thing.

  “I know this may be rather startling,” Wraith went on, still with that same lopsided half-smile. “Or you might not care. So much time has passed since our humanity that I understand if this news means little to you. If you’d rather I leave, I will, but I— I had hoped that perhaps we could get to know one another.”

  If I hadn’t been touching Bones, I wouldn’t have noticed the slight tremor that went through him when Wraith stumbled over those last words, showing a glimpse of vulnerability underneath that cocky exterior. Wraith might claim he’d be okay, but it seemed clear that a rebuff would wound him. As for Bones, I could tell he very much wanted to know more about this vampire who might be the only link to his long-lost human family.

  A gust of frigid wind blew Wraith’s hair around his face, reminding me that we could continue this conversation in comfort instead of standing along the side of a road.

  I smiled at him. “Why don’t we go back to the house? It’s warmer there, and then I can congratulate Annette on her choice of a gift. She topped my present by a mile.”

  Five

  Wraith’s eyes widened when we walked into the cabin and he saw Annette being restrained by Ian, the other vampire’s hand still clamped over her mouth.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. We had, uh, a prior failure to communicate,” I said by way of explanation.

  Ian’s brows rose but he didn’t let go of Annette. “If this is our trespasser, care to explain why he’s not in pieces?”

  “He’s not the bloke who butchered Annette,” Bones said, clearing his throat. “Turns out, he might be my . . . my brother.”

  Bones reiterated Wraith’s story, uncovering the painting for illustration. Ian looked stunned at the revelation of both Bones’s parents being members of the nobility, but Bones didn’t notice. His attention was all for the blond vampire standing beside him.

  “Hmmph,” was what Ian said when Bones was finished. “So your human father was the Duke of Rutland, but who was your vampire sire, Wraith?”

  “His name was Sheol, but he’s been dead for over a century,” Wraith replied.

  I made appropriate sympathetic noises, but in truth, I was relieved. How awkward would it have been if Wraith was part of an enemy’s line? To say vampires existed under a feudalistic system was to put it nicely. It could be better compared to the way the Mafia operated. On steroids.

  “How tragic.” Ian didn’t even try to sound sympathetic, but that was par for the course with him. “Whose protection have you been under since then?”

  Wraith squared his shoulders. “I’ve stayed Masterless.”

  “At your power level?” Open disbelief colored Ian’s words.

  My jaw dropped. I’d also noticed that Wraith’s aura didn’t mark him as particularly strong, but it was crossing a line to rub that in.

  Bones agreed. “Ian,” he drew out in warning.

  “Quite all right,” Wraith said, but his lips had thinned to twin slits. “I kept to myself most of the time. Might be lonely that way, but safer considering the many power struggles our kind indulges in.”

  Annette elbowed Ian in the ribs. At that, he finally took his hand off her mouth.

  “I’m so pleased you made it here, Wraith,” she said. Her gaze slid to Bones. “It’s not how I imagined the two of you would meet, of course . . .”

  Wraith came forward to take her hand, kissing it. “You couldn’t help that terrible attack. I’m only relieved that I arrived when I did. I vow I’ll find whoever did it and repay him in kind.”

  Annette didn’t refute a word, indicating that Wraith had told the truth about his actions at the inn. That meant we had another problem on our hands, but I was glad it didn’t involve the tawny-haired vampire who seemed more and more likely to be Bones’s brother.

/>   Annette rose from the couch, her pale amber gaze meeting Bones’s dark brown eyes.

  “Crispin, I assure you that I checked into Wraith’s claims when he first contacted me. I’d never have arranged to bring him here otherwise. From everything I discovered, he is exactly who he maintains himself to be—your half-brother.”

  “I’ll turn the archives I mentioned over to you,” Wraith added. “They’re in my car. Modern technology could confirm it as well, if you wish to compare our DNA—”

  “Excellent notion, I know a bloke who can run those tests,” Ian interrupted.

  “Stop,” Bones said, holding out his hand. A smile twisted his mouth before he went on. “I’m sure tomorrow I’ll want to see everything concerning your, or our, family history, but right now, I’d like to just . . . talk for a bit. Get to know one another.”

  Wraith stared at Bones, his expression mirroring the same cautious optimism I felt from Bones’s emotions.

  “I’d like that,” he rasped.

  Ian opened his mouth, but my hand landed on his shoulder. “Let’s go tell the others about our new guest,” I said, squeezing hard in warning. “Annette, why don’t you come with us? We’ll get your bags and you can put something else on.”

  Ian glared at me, but I only smiled sweetly while tightening my grip. He could be his normal dickish self some other time. Annette needed no persuading to give Bones a little privacy with Wraith. She almost snatched at Ian’s hand to tug him away.

  “Come along. If I have to wear this dreadful robe a moment longer, I’ll stake myself.”

  Dawn was near by the time Bones slipped into bed. I’d come up a couple hours ago, not to sleep, but to just mull over the evening’s surprising events. On one hand, I was thrilled at the prospect of Bones finding a member of his presumed dead family. On the other, my initial excitement over Wraith had become tempered by nagging questions. Maybe Ian’s negativity was just rubbing off on me, but why hadn’t Annette mentioned to anyone that, oh, by the way, she was bringing Bones’s long lost brother with her tonight? It was one thing to surprise Bones with the news, another to drop that bomb on everyone else, too.

  And why hadn’t she mentioned Wraith when we arrived at the hotel? For God’s sake, we could have accidentally killed him while looking for her attacker! When Ian asked Annette this question, she didn’t have an answer, seeming a little baffled by her actions, too. I found it rather strange. Granted, I might have assigned a few uncharitable words to Annette over the years, but “airhead” wasn’t usually one of them.

  Then there was the tidbit Fabian revealed after I excused myself to go upstairs. In his hurry to tell us that an unfamiliar vampire prowled around our property, Fabian had neglected to mention what he saw him doing. According to Fabian, Wraith had been circling the lower part of the hill while periodically cutting his hand to sprinkle blood on the ground.

  Even for a vampire, that was plain weird. Wraith’s family ties to Bones so far seemed solid, but being family didn’t automatically make someone honorable. I knew that better than most people. Still, I didn’t want to immediately attack Bones with my doubts, so I rolled into his arms with only three words.

  “How was it?”

  Wraith was in one of our guest rooms below, but I wasn’t worried about being overheard. Due to recent events, we’d modified our bedroom. It was now soundproofed as well as ghost-proofed, thanks to copious amounts of weed and garlic between the thick insulation in the walls. With that and our low voices, not even an attentive vampire could catch our conversation.

  Bones ran his hands along the length of my back, causing me to scoot closer in enjoyment. He always came to bed naked, and the feel of his hard, sleek body was enough to make me want to skip talking altogether, but this was important.

  “Pleasant, for the most part.” Then he paused, seeming to choose his words. “Bluebloods often sired bastards in both the upper and lower classes, so I have fewer doubts about Wraith being my relation than I do about the type of man he is. The former, he seems eager to discuss. The latter, he’s reticent about.”

  That mirrored my own concerns, but I’d let him go first. “How so?”

  “His sire was killed, nothing unusual in that.” Bones paused again, and I could almost feel his cynicism battling with his desire to believe Wraith. “Yet he continues to claim no real association with vampires since then. Even if he stayed out of political alliances for safety reasons, our kind isn’t known to be solitary.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to admit he’s pals with some of your enemies because he’s worried it’ll affect your opinion of him?” I had my doubts about this, but for Bones’s sake I’d suggest an optimistic reason.

  “Perhaps,” he mused. “What do you make of him?”

  “With the resemblance, name, documents, and portrait being so easy to authenticate, I think he’s probably your brother, but that doesn’t mean I trust him,” I said honestly, and proceeded to outline my concerns.

  His expression tightened as I spoke. By the time I was finished, he let out a sigh.

  “Nothing to do but investigate him, then. If he can’t accept my doing that, then we’ve no hope of a relationship. I wouldn’t fault him for looking into my life before seeking me out. Two centuries is too long to throw caution to the winds for sentiment, even if we are family.”

  “You’re two hundred and forty-five,” I reminded him, changing the subject. We both agreed that Wraith needed checking out, plus we had to hunt for the vampire who attacked Annette, but we could do those things later. Right now, I wanted Bones focused on pleasant things, not more stresses. It was his birthday, after all.

  I slid my thigh between his, brow arching in challenge. “So, you ready for your other present? Or now that you’re almost a quarter-millennium old, maybe you want to take a nap instead?”

  His laugh was sin at its most tempting. “For that, luv, I’ll make you beg.”

  Bones rolled, yanking me on top of him. He gripped my wrists in one hand, the other urging up my short silk nightie. Unlike him, I never went to bed naked. Not when it was so arousing to let him peel the clothes from me.

  “Let go of my hands,” I said, aching to run them over his body and feel the myriad of muscles beneath his pale, smooth skin. Already his power flowed over me, vibrating along my nerve endings like seeking, invisible fingers.

  He chuckled as he used his free hand to part my legs. “You forgot to say the magic word.”

  Then he slid down the bed, letting go of my wrists. I tried to move them, but found my wrists still held in an unbreakable grip, this time with invisible bands of power instead of flesh.

  “I see you’ve been practicing with your new telekinesis,” I said breathily. “That’s cheating.”

  He laughed again as that flex of power kept me where I was. Strong fingers kneaded the small of my back as he pulled me closer, bringing my lower half to his mouth. I sucked in a gasp when his lips caressed my stomach, tongue teasing my navel with flickering strokes before continuing downward. His fangs snagged on the top of my panties, tugging them, but far too slowly. My straddling him hindered their removal, too, but when I tried to swing my leg around, he stopped me.

  “Something you want?” he murmured.

  His mouth was so close that his lips brushed against the lace underwear I now cursed myself for putting on.

  “I want these off,” I said, arching toward him. For a split second his mouth pressed to my flesh, shooting red-hot pleasure through me as his tongue snaked out with devastating skill. But then it was gone, leaving me throbbing with need.

  “Bones, please,” I moaned.

  A dark laugh made everything flame where his breath landed. “You call that begging? Oh, Kitten, you can do much better than that . . .”

  Six

  I awoke to a vampire leaning over me, nothing unusual since I’d gone to sleep wrapped in one’s
arms. But what made this out of the ordinary was that the vampire wasn’t Bones.

  Ian’s hand clapped over my mouth before I could snap out an indignant demand for him to leave. I grabbed his arm, intending to break it in several places, when my sleep-fuzzy vision cleared enough to note the gravity in his expression.

  “Shh,” he whispered.

  I nodded, torn between thinking he better have a damn good reason for this stunt and being afraid that he did. Ian removed his hand and I sat up, my gaze darting around. No one else was in the room, and he had the door closed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked at once.

  Ian kept his voice very low. “Crispin is acting strange.”

  “Crispin as in Bones, or Crispin as in Wraith?” We had two of them now, and Bones had seemed fine when I last saw him.

  “The only Crispin I give a shite about,” Ian snapped. “Really, we don’t have time for these games.”

  I couldn’t agree more, which was why I didn’t appreciate Ian sneaking into my room and gagging me just to tell me he thought Bones was acting oddly. For God’s sake, his heretofore unknown brother was in town and he’d resolved to investigate that brother for possible nefarious intentions. It would get under anyone’s skin.

  Still, in case Ian wasn’t overreacting . . . “Strange how?”

  “He’s inordinately cheerful, and he seems almost oblivious to anyone but Wraith. Same with everyone else. I tell you, something is going on.”

  If I weren’t naked, I would’ve shoved Ian out the door right then. “I knew you were shallow, but really? Bones just found out he has a brother and he’s not sure what type of man that brother is. The rest of us aren’t, either. So yes, for a little while, Wraith might get more attention than you. Man up and stop acting like a brat who hates the new baby because now Mommy and Daddy don’t play with him as much!”

  “This isn’t about my shallowness,” Ian said curtly. Then he strode to the door. “When you realize that, meet me at the Hampton Inn in Asheville, unless you’ve been affected, too.”