This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(78)

That was my wedding day. Pretty much the exact opposite of everything I’d ever dreamed, but I wouldn’t try to substitute it with something else. The image I’d had of myself as a child was someone I’d never be, and it was only recently that I realized it was okay to be who I was. That bride might have worn a slutty black dress instead of a beautiful white one, or had blood in her hands instead of holding a bouquet, but no woman had ever been as lucky as I was the day Bones held out his hand and declared me to be his wife.

“This isn’t about circumstances,” I replied, continuing to fight back tears as I tried to sum up everything I’d only recently learned. “It’s about family.”

Don hadn’t been there on that day. Neither had my mother, and my grandparents had been dead for years by then. But both of them could be here for this. It wasn’t a new ceremony for my sake, but a reenactment of the previous one for theirs.

“Will you do it?” I went on.

Don’s eyes misted. Through his thoughts, I heard how much the request meant to him even though he only spoke a single word in reply. “Yes.”

“Tate.” I turned toward the doorway, knowing he’d lingered in the hall this whole time. “You think you could bend the rules to let that disobedient new recruit back up on the floor for a little while?”

A grunt escaped him; half laugh, half disbelief as he filled the door frame. “Jesus, Cat.”

“Actually this won’t be a religious ceremony,” I replied with a faint smile, “but feel free to offer blessings anyway.”

Tate’s gaze moved over Bones and then down to our clasped hands. “Since when have you two ever cared about my blessing?” he asked dryly.

“I never asked for it and I don’t need it,” I replied in an even tone. “But you’re my friend, Tate, so I do care.”

I watched his face, waiting to see if he’d take the olive branch I’d extended, or throw it back at me like he had so many times in the past. Those dark blue eyes met mine, emotions skipping across his expressive features like waves on a pond. First regret, then resolve, and at last, acceptance.

“I hope you’re very happy,” Tate said, the words quiet but sounding sincere. Then, to my surprise, he walked over and held out his hand, but not to me. To Bones.

Bones accepted Tate’s hand and shook it without letting go of mine; easy enough since I held his left hand with my right one. When they let go, Tate glanced at me, smiled slightly, and said, “Don’t worry. I won’t bother asking to kiss the bride.”

Then he looked over to Don, whose eyes had closed during this exchange even though I could hear from his thoughts that he wasn’t asleep. His chest hurt too much for him to sleep, and he had a new pain radiating down his arm that he recognized from a few hours ago. Still, I knew what his answer would be even before Tate asked, “You up for this?”

My uncle didn’t know I could hear his thoughts. Didn’t know that I picked up on every word of his thinking this was a far better way to die than before, when he’d been alone, hearing only the steady flat line of the EKG machine before everything had gone black, then awoke to Tate screaming at my mother for what she’d done. I heard all of this, and though my throat burned from stuffing back the tears that relentlessly came, I said nothing. Did nothing even though the very blood running through my veins could possibly prevent the next heart attack that I knew was coming.

This was his choice. I hated it—oh, so much!—because it was taking from me the only real father I’d ever known, but Tate was right. I had to respect it.

“Let’s do this,” Don replied. His voice was raspy with pain, but the smile he flashed me was genuine despite that.

Tate picked up the phone by Don’s bed, telling whoever was on the other line to “get Crawfield, now, and bring her up here.”

To distract myself from falling all to pieces as I heard Don’s heartbeat become more erratic and listened to his mind try to shelter him from the increased squeezing in his chest, I began to explain the intricacies of a vampire marriage ceremony.

“So, if a vampire couple wants to get married—which they’d better be damn sure about, because with vampires, it’s till death do you part or nothing—it’s kinda like those old handfasting ceremonies. One of them, usually the guy first, gets a knife, slices it across his palm, and then says . . .”

By the time my mother arrived, I’d repeated all the words and described my prior wedding to Bones, leaving out the more grisly details. She looked at the four of us with slight confusion, but Tate didn’t give her a chance to say anything. He grasped her arm and took her into the hall, telling her in a voice too low for Don to overhear what was about to happen.

I was glad Don’s eyes were closed again, because that meant I didn’t have to fight the tears that burst out of me. Tate liked the idea of witnessing my rededication of vows to Bones even less than my mother would. Yet here he was, sternly telling her to act pleasant, dammit, and not ruin this for Don because he didn’t have much time left.

That was excruciatingly evident. My uncle’s breathing was increasingly labored and he was thinking that it felt like he had a car pressed on his chest, but he was fierce in his will to last long enough to do this one final thing. The EKG machine began to make warning noises, as if I couldn’t tell from his thoughts and his skipped heartbeats what was happening. More tears coursed down my cheeks in a steady stream that wet my top and stained the floor an ever darkening pink where they fell.