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 were craving blood,” he explained, prodding his arm where the needle entered his skin. I cleared my throat noisily, and he jerked his hand back with a grin. “It’s like if you were craving chocolate cake, and you just kept eating SpaghettiOs. The SpaghettiOs aren’t going to do it for you, you know?”
I hadn’t even known that vampires existed until I suddenly became one. Now some smart-assed kid was telling me, a doctor, the ins and outs of my own physiology.
The collection bag filled. He kinked the tubing and switched to an empty one. I motioned to the bag. “Do you want me to put that in the fridge?”
He nodded. “So, how long have you been a doctor?”
“Less than a year.” I hesitated. “I’m not sure I’m going to be a doctor much longer. Because of the vampire thing. After I worked so hard for it…I can’t believe it’s over.”
“That’s a bitch.” He sounded genuinely sympathetic.
The sound of the water stopped, and my mind briefly diverted to a vivid flash of Nathan emerging from the shower. I tried in vain to force the image from my thoughts.
A loud crash, followed immediately by a yelp and a dull thud, snapped me back to reality. For a moment, I thought Nathan had fallen out of the shower. Then I noticed the brick rolling awkwardly across the floor. The window behind the armchair was broken. Sunlight streamed in, and Ziggy slumped to his knees, unconscious.
Nathan rushed from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. He hurried to Ziggy’s side and felt frantically for a pulse.
“What happened?” he shouted, looking from Ziggy’s lifeless form to me.
I tried to focus on the emergency at hand, but it was hard to ignore a half-naked man standing in front of me, regardless of the circumstances.
His chest was well defined and droplets of water still clung to his broad shoulders. I felt heat rush to my face as I imagined gripping those strong arms and raking my nails across his back.
Yelling from the street snapped me back to the present. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
I knew that voice.
“I know you’re up there! So does Cyrus! If I were you I’d come down here and burn before he gets to you!” She laughed. It was the same crazy sound she’d made the night before.
“Nathan?” I whispered, paralyzed with fear.
Ziggy tried to stand. As soon as he was upright, he crashed back to the floor and clutched his head.
“What the hell happened?” He looked the room over through barely opened eyes.
Nathan raised a hand, shiny with blood, and motioned frantically for me to help him. “I don’t know where he’s bleeding from.”
“Oh, shit!” Ziggy’s eyes grew wide at the sight of his blood on Nathan’s hands. He struggled to his feet. The window shade had nearly been torn down during the brick’s dramatic entrance. A few rays of sunlight spilled into the room. Ziggy was careful to keep those beams of light between Nathan and himself.
When the smell of the blood hit me, I understood his reaction. I felt the muscles and tendons of my face rhythmically clench, and my fangs began their aching descent.
“Not now, Carrie!” Nathan snapped.
His sharp tone surprised me, and my transformation stopped instantly.
Ziggy looked from Nathan to me, as if trying to judge the best escape route. Nathan approached him cautiously. “Remember who you’re talking to, Ziggy. I would never hurt you. I know you’re not food.”
Dahlia was still in the street, but she appeared to be running out of steam. “Are you waiting for sunset so you can come out and kick my ass? I’ll have a lot of backup by then.”
“Get out of here, Dahlia, or I can’t be responsible for my actions!” Nathan roared.
“Oh, I’m so scared,” she yelled back. “What are you gonna do, bookstore man? Read me to death? I’m going. I was just supposed to deliver the message.”
“What message?” Nathan asked.
Just then the shade fell completely from the window, flooding the room with sunlight. Nathan cursed and dropped to the floor. My reflexes weren’t as good.
Words can’t accurately describe how sunlight feels when it hits vampire skin. The worst sunburn couldn’t compare with the searing pain that rocked through me. My skin bubbled then burst into flame anywhere the light made contact with it. My shirt caught fire from my incinerating skin, spreading the flames to the rest of my torso. The only thing I could think of was that my burning flesh smelled like hot dogs. Nathan leapt up and grabbed me, smothering the flames as we tumbled to the floor.
Ziggy grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it across the window. “I’ll try to rig this up so it doesn’t fall again.”
“Are you all right?” Nathan asked, his face hovering mere centimeters above mine.
“I’m fine,” I wheezed, unable to take sufficient breaths. “Except for the third-degree burns.”
Nathan actually smiled at that. He didn’t seem in much of a hurry to move, and despite the fact that I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t really mind. Until I remembered Ziggy had an open head wound.
“And I can’t breathe. Will you let me up?” I squeaked, shifting slightly beneath him. I realized too late what effect my wriggling might have on a half-naked man.
He looked embarrassed and apologetic as he rolled off me, clutching his towel closed.
While Nathan tended Ziggy, I sat up and gingerly inspected the burned patches on my arms and chest. The skin was blackened. When I ventured an experimental poke it flaked away, revealing tender new flesh beneath. “Why didn’t I burn up?”
“Because I saved your ass with my mad blanket-throwing skills,” Ziggy answered.
Nathan made a sound in the back of his throat. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed at Ziggy’s comment or upset by the gash in his skull.
“This is going to have to be stitched up,” he said with a sigh of resignation as he examined Ziggy’s wound.
“I can do that,” I offered, but Nathan shook his head.
“I don’t have the supplies on hand, and you don’t have enough control yet to be around this much blood.” He turned to Ziggy. “It’ll be safer if you go to the hospital. Do you mind?”
“Better than hanging around here,” he said with a shrug. “It’s like swimming in a pool of sharks with a paper cut in here.”
Nathan went to his room. He returned with pants on his body and a roll of cash in his hand. “Take this,” he ordered. “Go straight to the E.R.”
Ziggy stuffed the money in his jacket. “Where else would I go? Denny’s?”
“Knowing you, anything is possible. But I’m not kidding,” Nathan warned. “Stay off the street tonight. I want you in by curfew.”
“No problem,” Ziggy said. “They’ll probably give me some wicked pain medication at the E.R.”
Nathan watched him descend the stairs, then closed the door and turned to me. “Here we are again. Just you and me, alone together. Not completely dressed.”
The comment was so playful and unexpected, I didn’t know what to say. I wrapped my arms around my chest to cover the burn holes in the T-shirt and tried to force a laugh. “I’m not having much luck with shirts lately.”
“Well, I’d loan you another but I saw what you did to the last one.” His voice sounded weary, but he smiled, anyway. “Besides, I like the view.”
I rolled