Chapters (52)
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Epilogue
- An excerpt from Halfway to the Grave
- An excerpt from One Foot in the Grave
- An excerpt from At Grave’s End
- An excerpt from Destined for an Early Grave
- An excerpt from This Side of the Grave
- An excerpt from One Grave at a Time
- About the Author
- By Jeaniene Frost
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
Then he drew me close, his lips brushing my forehead while his hands ran down my back in a way that was both soothing and possessive.
“That’s why I didn’t stick to our agreement, Kitten. If you couldn’t best Marie to save yourself, I knew you wouldn’t let me die.”
What a reckless, arrogant assumption, and how humbling that he’d been right. What he didn’t know was the other reason I’d fought harder than I knew I could in order to live.
Katie. I couldn’t let her die, either.
Thinking of her, out there all alone, gave me the strength to smother the siren call of the grave. Ready or not, I was a mother now, and my daughter needed me. I couldn’t let her down. Too many other people already had. I wasn’t about to add my name to that list.
Buoyed by that knowledge, I grasped Bones’s hands, glad they no longer felt like they were burning me. The voices were gone, too, and while I was still hungry, the bottomless hole inside me had eased. Satisfied I wasn’t about to lose it, I turned my attention to Marie.
“If you don’t want to do this for the right reasons, do it for selfish ones. We need you to have as much of a stake in this as we do, so either you call your people off and tell everyone that you killed Katie, or we’ll kill you.”
She let out a sigh that seemed to hold the weariness of the world, and when her dark gaze met mine, it was with resignation.
“I do remember my people’s captivity, Reaper, which is why if it were as simple as saying the child was dead, I would do it. Not merely to save my own life, but because I’m better than those who once enslaved my race.”
Then her voice became brittle with bitterness.
“But unless there is a public execution, they will keep hunting for her. Even if I swore that I killed her, they would not be satisfied, and our races would eventually war. I cannot allow that, so do what you must.”
At that, I expected Bones to tear her head off. A big part of me wanted him to. What she outlined was a future with nothing but death for Katie, and I couldn’t accept that.
From the grim look on Marie’s face, she expected that Bones would kill her, too. That’s why both of us were shocked when all he did was tap his chin in a thoughtful way.
“Public execution, hmm? If we promise you that, will you agree to the rest of our terms?”
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, horrified.
“Will you or no?” he pressed, ignoring that.
Suspicion creased Marie’s brows into a single dark line.