“I was in a state of hibernation until Denise killed a bloke and dripped his blood into my mouth. Then I drained him and the next two sods I came across, which gave me enough mental strength to go after you. As to why I didn’t drink more along the way, you were being shot at. Any time spent feeding was too long to waste with you in danger.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I was still fuming over his pulling the cruelest deception possible, but underneath that, I was so happy he was alive that I wanted to hug him and never let go. Maybe the urge to throttle him with one hand while cradling him with the other was how I’d made Bones feel all of these years. If so, one could argue that I’d had this coming.

Suddenly, Bones snatched me up, coming to a full stop without a single skid. The abrupt change in velocity snapped my head back hard enough to break my neck, but before the pain even registered, I saw it. Networks of lasers hung like a spiderweb in front of us, the same light blue color of the walls and so close that if I reached out, I’d lose my fingers.

“Motherfucker,” I breathed. Three more steps, and Madigan would have been scooping up our remains with a shovel.

Then Bones flung me to the floor and flattened himself on top of me. Now I had a broken jaw and rib cage, too, but when a hail of bullets sailed over our heads instead of into them, I didn’t mind.

“Bloody sods,” I heard him snarl over the gunfire. “Let’s see how they enjoy their own trap.”

I couldn’t move with a furious Master vampire holding me down, but I could still see as the guards who’d come out of hiding to shoot us abruptly became airborne and hurtled toward the laser net. They screamed, high-pitched and panicked as they tried to fight the unseen force yanking on them. Then their screams were cut off, followed by sickening thumps around and on top of us.

When that stopped, Bones pulled me to my feet.

“All right, Kitten?”

I made sure not to look around. Sure, I was no stranger to the ugliness of death. Today alone, I’d killed lots of people and intended to add to that tally, but this was . . . gross.

“Fine,” I said, keeping my gaze on him. “Can you take down that laser net, or do we need to find a way around it?”

Bones closed his eyes, his brows drawing together in concentration. The lasers disappeared moments later.

I shook my head, torn between awe and irritation. He hadn’t graduated to mega-Master abilities overnight, which meant only one thing. He’d been hiding his increasing power from me.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” I muttered.