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Back Up From the Grave Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Dedication
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Contents
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Epilogue
  43. An excerpt from Halfway to the Grave
  44. An excerpt from One Foot in the Grave
  45. An excerpt from At Grave’s End
  46. An excerpt from Destined for an Early Grave
  47. An excerpt from This Side of the Grave
  48. An excerpt from One Grave at a Time
  49. About the Author
  50. By Jeaniene Frost
  51. Copyright
  52. About the Publisher

At the word “daughter,” a roaring started in my ears. I forced it back, laughing as though he’d told a joke.

“I don’t think so. Unlike men, women kinda know if they’ve had children, what with that whole pregnancy-and-labor thing.”

“Oh, you were never pregnant,” Trove said dismissively, his eyes gleaming brighter. “But A80 is your daughter nonetheless.”

Twenty-nine

Twenty-nine

Bones had him by the throat before I could react, his pale hand tightening until the demon’s neck broke with an audible sound. All Trove did was wince.

“. . . ausing . . . scene . . .” he garbled.

Even though we were in the farthest corner of the most deserted part of the ballroom’s second level, at any second, it would be clear that more was going on than a private chat. And I was suddenly desperate to hear what the demon had to say even as I reminded myself that it couldn’t be possible.

“Let him go,” I ordered Bones.

“He’s tormenting you for his own amusement,” Bones growled.

I yanked on his arm. Hard.

“I said let him go.”

Bones dropped him. Trove staggered before a sharp sideways yank snapped his neck back into place.

“Touch me again, and I’ll do this,” he hissed.

The demon disappeared for the space of a few heartbeats before reappearing again in the same spot. The only evidence of his remarkable feat was an increased scent of sulfur.

I wasn’t in the mood to comment on his party trick.

“How can I be that girl’s mother if you admit that I was never pregnant?”

Trove flicked a hand through his thick hair, settling it back into place after Bones’s rough handling had mussed it.

“As I said, advances in science. With all the pathology Don ordered when you first started with him, it was nothing for Brad Parker to slip in fertility drugs. It was more difficult for him to extract eggs during the times you came back from a mission unconscious, but when he did, you never noticed the needle marks afterward. With all your other injuries, why would you? In total, Parker netted us over a hundred of your eggs. All were fertilized and implanted in surrogates, but only one survived to term.”

Then the demon leaned closer, smiling.

“Madigan grew impatient with the low success rate of your in vitro fertilization, so he petitioned your uncle to breed you. That got him fired, and Don monitored you more closely. Parker knew he couldn’t risk more extractions, so after a few years, he found another way to make money off you by betraying you to your father.”

“You’re lying.”

I forced the words out despite the emotional whirlwind that made it hard to stand, let alone speak. Then my spine stiffened, and I said them again.

“You’re lying. The little girl I saw had to be ten years old, at least. I started working for Don less than eight years ago.”