The Mortal Bone Read Free Page A

head saw a vision of golden thread burning bright.
    Our very real bond, linking us, soul to soul. My strength, his. His strength, mine. Married, in more ways than one.
    He made a small, contented sound. “Good to be alive, Mrs. Kiss.”
    Byron, mostly out of sight on the other side of the massive station wagon, murmured, “I didn’t drive that bad.”
    “Even the road tried to get out of your way,” Grant retorted, and opened the door with a groan. I grabbed his cane before it fell out, and held it for him as he swung his bad leg from the car. A hammer-wielding schizophrenic had crushed those bones some years back, but even with that old injury, my husband kept up with me better than anyone else in this world.
    My husband.
    Two words that made me warm and goofy. I had never imagined I would have this kind of relationship. It was not done. It was not safe. No woman in my family, to my knowledge, had ever tried to make a life with a man.
    Of course, there was a lot I didn’t know about my ancestors. My bloodline was ten thousand years old. Assumptions were stupid. People fell in love. My grandmother had. So had my mother. But neither of them had stayed with her man, for better or worse.
    For better or worse, I had .
    Grant winced as he got out of the station wagon. Tall, broad, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt that strained against his hard chest and shoulders. He radiated warmth and light, in ways that everyone felt, from young to old. He had a strong, masculine face, and eyes that could see right through a person. Or a demon.
    Grant could see souls.
    Souls, which were nothing but energy. Energy that could be manipulated, altered . . . and transformed.
    With nothing but his voice.
    My mother would have killed him, just for that. No hesitation. No second thoughts.
    Byron slid from the driver’s seat and walked around to the station wagon’s rear hatch. I saw grocery bags inside and began to go and help him. Grant, though, touched my arm. The boys stirred beneath his hand, straining to be closer to him.
    “Something happened,” he said, with a slight frown. “Your aura is . . . tense.”
    I didn’t know what a tense aura looked like, but that possessed woman had been terrified—her demonic shadow fluttering like hummingbird wings. I could only imagine Grant was seeing something slightly more low-key around me.
    “We had a visitor,” I told him quietly, while Byron wrestled with plastic bags. “She left a gift. It’s on the porch.”
    Grant’s frown deepened. I kissed his cheek and went to grab some groceries.
    Byron was still trying to load up on bags, like he was aiming to carry all twenty at the same time. I nudged him aside with my hip and a grin, and he smiled back, shyly.
    “See any cute girls?” I asked him, watching from the corner of my eye as Grant limped to the porch.
    The boy shook his head and touched the dangling earring. “I’m not sure I quite fit in, anyway.”
    “You miss Seattle?” We still had a home there: a warehouse loft that sat above a homeless shelter that Grant operated out of his own deep pockets. It had been a month since we’d left it behind. There was too much death inside those walls. We needed time, not just to let the memories fade but to air out the stink of blood.
    “Maybe.” Byron hesitated. “But this is nice. I like it away from the city. It’s . . . quiet.”
    “Quiet feels safe,” I murmured, wondering if that was why my mother had made us live here after years on the road.
    “Yeah.” He gave me a thoughtful glance. “How safe are we?”
    I hesitated a heartbeat too long. Byron blinked, and looked away. I nudged him again and ruffled his hair.
    “Safe,” I said. “You’re safe with us.”
    He didn’t say anything, wrestling instead with grocery bags—jaw tight, eyes dark and far away. I wondered, sometimes, if he remembered anything of all the lives he had lived—those thousands of years lingering somewhere in his cells, despite all attempts to