“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.

F RIDAY 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.