Blood Ties Bundle: Blood Ties Book One: The Turning / Blood Ties Book Two: Possession / Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes to Ashes / Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls' Night. Jennifer Armintrout
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you finished?” I asked.
He sighed angrily. “Yes, dammit. But you should have waited.”
“Maybe I should have. But I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.” I scooped up the picture. “Do you know her?”
“Who?”
I rolled my eyes and held up the photo. “Dahlia.”
When he sat beside me, he seemed to take up more of the couch than before. I didn’t want to give him the impression that I was intentionally trying to be close to him, so I moved to the armchair.
“I know of her,” he said, examining the notebook. “She’s a very powerful witch.”
“A witch?” I laughed.
Nathan stared at me in annoyance before turning his attention back to the notebook. He laced his fingers together and brought them to his mouth, and his eyes glazed in deep concentration. Watching him, I realized why I’d been so disappointed to hear he wasn’t centuries old. Everything about him seemed anachronistic, as though he’d stepped from the Middle Ages into the present. He would look less out of place standing on a blood-drenched battlefield than sitting on a secondhand couch in an apartment full of musty old books. I imagined him charging into battle, face grim with purpose, his strong arms wielding a sword with both hands, his muscular thighs—
“See something you like?” His voice jolted me from my lusty historical imaginings. I was caught.
Nathan smiled that arrogant, knowing smile all males produce when their ego has been thoroughly stroked.
“Sorry, I guess I just zoned out.” Even I wasn’t buying that lame excuse, so I quickly changed the subject. “Why do you think she attacked me?”
He pushed the book aside. “I have no idea. She’s been trying for years to hook up with different vampires in the area, without much success. She isn’t someone to be trifled with. She has a lot of power.”
His grave expression worsened my growing unease. I didn’t know just how powerful Dahlia really was, but she’d been violent and dangerous enough without the aid of any spells or tricks. “She was really pissed at me. For taking Cyrus’s blood. Do you think she’s, you know, with him? Or just bat-shit crazy?”
“I’ve known Cyrus for a long time. He likes people who are easy to manipulate, and she definitely has powers he could exploit.” His brow furrowed as he considered his statement. “But I don’t think he would turn her. He’s not that stupid.”
“She said it wasn’t time. Or that he said it wasn’t time.” I threw up my arms in frustration. “So, how, exactly, do we proceed from here?” I glanced nervously at the window. “Can you kill her? Or is she off-limits because of that human thing?”
“Off-limits,” he answered automatically. “Besides, I don’t have any reason to kill her. I keep an eye on her, sure, but nearly every vampire hunter around here does. I’ve seen her around, but the vampires I’ve seen her with usually disappear after a while. As long as they don’t turn her, I don’t care where they go.”
“She kills them!” I triumphantly jabbed my finger in the air. “She said she’d killed Cyrus’s other fledglings before, so you’ve got to be able to—”
“No, Carrie, the goal of the Movement is to rid the world of vampires. She’s actually doing us a favor.” He looked away from me. “But it does trouble me to hear he’s been making fledglings we haven’t heard of. If Dahlia were a vampire…but I can’t imagine Cyrus would be foolish enough to turn her.”
“He was foolish enough to turn me,” I reminded him.
“Yes, but you’re not a witch.” His tone was the vocal equivalent of a condescending pat on the head. “A vampire’s blood is very powerful. Combine that with a witch’s abilities and you’ve got spells to raise the dead, summon armies from hell, et cetera. But as it stands, I think it would be safe to assume Dahlia merely wants to become one of us for her own selfish reasons. Is there anything else she said that might give us a clue why she targeted you specifically?”
I thought hard, but the entire evening was still a blur. “Just my ties to Cyrus.”
He looked helplessly around the apartment, as though an answer hid in the bookshelves. “Well, if she assumes you’re dead, at least she won’t come looking for you. That’s something.”
Cold, sick realization made my stomach constrict as I remembered everything in my purse spilled all over the dirty floor of the donor house. “She has all of my identification. I left my purse behind.”
Nathan frowned. “Well, that was careless of you.”
“Yeah, I guess I should have gone back for it after she stabbed me!” I snapped. I was too tired to keep up the sarcasm for long. “What am I going to do now?”
He went to the window and lowered the shades. “The sun is going to be up soon. I don’t think you’ll make it home before dawn, and I’d rather have you where I can protect you. Why don’t you stay here until dusk?”
I looked doubtfully around the cluttered apartment. There was one dead bolt on the door. It seemed a far cry from the safety and security of a building with a night watchman. Especially since a crazed witch was out to get me.
His eyes darted to the door, then back to me. “I swear, nothing will happen to you as long as you’re here.”
As if to reassure me, he stood and opened the door of the coat closet, revealing an impressive array of medieval-looking weapons.
“Beats a night watchman,” I said in awe.
Nathan suggested I take his bed. “I’m going to wait up for Ziggy, make sure he gets in okay.”
Glancing at the couch, I realized I shouldn’t argue. It didn’t look comfortable, and since it lived in the company of two men, it didn’t look very clean, either. I didn’t mention that. “You look out for him, don’t you?”
“Ziggy?” he said the name with genuine fatherly affection. “Yeah. Well, he hasn’t got anyone else.”
“Neither do you.”
I’d said the words without thinking, but their impact was visible. Nathan’s faint, unguarded smile faded. I glimpsed a flicker of pain in his eyes before the emotionless mask was back in place and he returned to being the polite acquaintance that held me at arm’s length.
I had no idea why it bothered me, but it did.
“Listen, you’ve had a rough night, and those wounds aren’t going to heal without some rest.” He pointed toward the hallway. “The bedroom’s straight back.”
I knew a dismissal when I heard one. I was halfway down the hall when he spoke again. “There are some T-shirts in the bottom dresser drawer. You can borrow one if you want.”
I went mechanically to the bureau. I’d just met Nathan. Spending the night in his bed was intimate enough. I didn’t need to wear his clothes, too. But the thought of sleeping naked didn’t appeal to me, either. I undressed, grimacing at the pain that tore through me when I moved. When I eased into the bed, I hissed in agony.
Loud footsteps charged down the hall, and Nathan burst into the room just seconds later. “Are you okay? Do you need something for the pain?”
His immediate reaction to a sound I didn’t think he’d been able to hear unnerved me. So did the sincere concern etched on his face.
He didn’t give me a chance to answer him. With a speed that surprised me, he left and reappeared with a large metal toolbox. Sitting on the bed, he placed the box in his lap and sprung the latches. “Okay, what do you want? We’ve got morphine, meperidine, Vicodin…I’ve got local anaesthetic, but I’d really like to save that.” As he continued to rattle off drug names, I peeked around his arm. The man’s first aid kit was better stocked than the