“Normally, I’d enjoy carving up the bastard’s chest, but right now, the thought doesn’t appeal.”

Bones tapped the large knife he’d confiscated from the compound’s operating room against his thigh.

“Can’t afford to wait. With each day, the blood loses power.”

Dave’s brow went up. “You raised me after I was in the ground for over three months.”

“She forced a lot of vampire blood into you as you were dying,” Bones said, with an approving glance at me. Then he kicked Madigan’s prone form. “This sod barely drank a drop.”

Dave let out a sigh of concession before pulling off his shirt and handing it to me with a sardonic smile.

“You were there to watch this put into my chest. Guess it’s fitting that you’re here to watch it cut out, too.”

“It was Rodney’s, then yours, so it’s a good heart,” I replied, preparing myself for what was to come. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

Dave grunted. “And I don’t want his, but here we are anyway.”

So saying, he accepted the knife from Bones and knelt next to Madigan. Instead of undoing buttons, he sliced through Madigan’s shirt, exposing the older man’s pale, gray-furred torso.

“Any trick to this?” Dave asked, resting the sharp tip over Madigan’s chest.

Bones let out a slight snort. “No, this is the easy part. Putting it back properly is where you need delicacy and precision.”

Dave drove the blade through the center of Madigan’s chest. Then he hacked away a section of rib cage, exposing the former operative’s heart. A few slices later, and Dave was holding it up like a grim trophy.

“Would’ve sworn it would be black,” he muttered.

If evil left a stain, it would have been, but Madigan’s heart looked like everyone else’s. That didn’t mean I wanted closer contact with it, yet when Dave extended it to me, I took it. As unsettling as this was, it didn’t compare with what was coming.

Dave handed the bloody knife to Bones and visibly braced.

Bones didn’t hesitate. He shoved it to the hilt under Dave’s rib cage. Then, just as quick and brutal, he cut a space wide enough for his hand and plunged that in next. Harsh noises escaped Dave’s tightly closed lips, but he didn’t scream. I would have, if it were my heart being cut out of my chest. Repeatedly, yet those ragged sounds were the only indication Dave gave of how much it hurt, let alone the mental trauma of seeing Bones withdraw his heart from his chest.

“Now, Kitten,” Bones said in a clipped tone.