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

His pointed gaze added including you.

My heart constricted painfully in my chest. Did he really hold such a grudge? I’d thought we’d built a friendship of sorts.

That was before you left.

I cleared my throat. “That sounds dangerous.”

“It will be.” Still, he offered no assurance of my safety.

“Would it be easier to just sneak him out before the party? I could go get him. We could just boost him over the fence right now.”

“That has crossed my mind,” Nathan replied bitterly. “But I’m not allowed to do anything that might compromise the integrity of the mission. Movement orders. They think Cyrus would step up security if the compound was breached this close to the event.”

“Compound? You make it sound like I’m in some weird religious cult.”

That at least brought a half smile to his mouth, but it died quickly. “I’ve been playing host to a couple of full-time Movement guys. The terminology starts to creep in after a while.”

“Is that why you haven’t been showing up?” I sounded jealous, like a spoiled child whose playmate has made friends with the neighbor kids. It just crept into my voice on its own.

Nathan didn’t appreciate it. “I’m sorry, but you’re not a priority for me anymore.”

Anymore. That stung. Not because his feelings for me were gone, but that he’d confirmed he’d had some in the first place.

It was much easier to be angry with him than regretful over our lost friendship. “So you’re going to march in here on the night of the party and kill me, then?”

He shook his head. “Not me. I’m going to find Ziggy and get him out. But watch out for the other guys. We’ve been ordered to kill any non-Movement vampires on the premises.”

“You’re not going to tell them about me?” I hated the fear in my voice. “I took care of Ziggy, that has to be worth something.”

“It was worth the advance warning I gave you,” he snarled. “You put yourself on the losing team, Carrie. It’s a little late to back out now.”

“You know what, I didn’t come here because I wanted to!” I spat.

“What are you talking about?”

I hadn’t wanted to tell him, but there was no avoiding it now. Some deranged part of me demanded honesty, as brutal as it might sound. And really, if I stood a good chance of dying on Saturday, I didn’t have much to lose. “It was a trade, asshole. Your life for mine.”

He stepped back from the gate. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t want to believe me. “No.”

I wasn’t going to soften the blow. “I couldn’t reverse Dahlia’s spell on my own. So I went to Cyrus for help. This is what he asked for in return.”

He ran a hand through his dark hair, mussing the strands. “I don’t believe you.”

“Fine, don’t believe me.” I was too tired to convince him of a truth I hadn’t wanted to reveal in the first place. “Ziggy will tell you. He drove me here to get the antidote. And he’ll tell you what I’ve done in here to keep him safe.”

Whatever I’d said to make him change his mind, Nathan clearly felt like the jackass I thought he was. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it was something I had to do. I didn’t want you to die, and I didn’t want you to get killed barging in here as if I needed rescuing.” He looked so penitent, I couldn’t help but ease his guilt a little. “Besides, I wanted the chance to know my sire. There’s a reason he became the way he is.”

I thought of the scar his father had inflicted on him and the pain he’d felt. Yet Cyrus still wanted to please the Soul Eater. Could he have been a good person before his father had tempted him with the promises of wealth and power? Then again, he did kill his own brother in his sleep.

Nathan blew out a long breath as he scratched his head. There were things I wanted to say, but I didn’t know where to begin. Although I’d suffered abuse at Cyrus’s hands, I didn’t hate him. I certainly didn’t want him to die, and a part of me desperately wanted him to pursue me again.

Wow, it has been a lonely couple of weeks.

But despite what I felt for my sire, I didn’t want Nathan to leave without some sort of resolution between us. Perhaps what I’d dismissed as lust-at-first-sight had been a deeper connection than I’d been willing to admit. That terrified me more than the prospect of looming death.

Finally, Nathan spoke. “I’ve kind of been a jerk.”

“Kind of. But maybe I should have trusted you. I mean, if I had said, ‘I made this deal with Cyrus, now I’ve gotta go live with him,’ you’d respect that, right? You wouldn’t just come charging in to save me.”

He arched an eyebrow sardonically in answer.

“Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you.” With every passing second, I became more aware of how much I’d missed Nathan, and more afraid that I’d made a mistake in coming to live with Cyrus. There was no blood tie between Nathan and me to inspire my feelings for him. Did that mean they were stronger than what I felt for Cyrus?

As if in slow motion, Nathan reached through the gate, and I lifted my arm toward him. When our hands touched, a current leapt through me, different from any I’d felt from the bond I shared with Cyrus. There was no darkness in these feelings. Nathan’s thumb stroked the back of my hand as our fingers entwined, and we stared at each other for some time before he spoke.

“Carrie, do you want to leave?”

My head snapped up. “For real?”

“For real.” He laughed softly. “I can get you out the same time I get Ziggy.”

I looked back at the house. The light in Cyrus’s room was on. “I want to go, but—”

“But the tie is holding you back.” Nathan gave my hand a squeeze.

A tear fell from my eye and landed on the back of his hand, freezing almost instantly on his cold skin. Why was I crying? I wanted to escape this place, didn’t I? “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to walk away from him, Nathan.” I couldn’t meet his gaze. “When I’m not near him, I don’t miss him, but when I’m with him…I feel like he needs me. It probably doesn’t make sense to you, but I like to be needed.”

“It makes perfect sense. Why else would you have become a doctor?”

Nathan’s words brought back the memory of sitting beside Dr. Fuller in the cold, impersonal staff locker room. My mentor’s voice resounded like a requiem bell in my head.

“Why did you want to be a doctor?”

I’d thought I’d wanted power. Now I had that power and I didn’t want to use it. Was Nathan right? Had I become a doctor not out of some heartless quest for control, but from a desire to be indispensable and valued by complete strangers? Did I only feel complete when other people needed me?

The most annoying part of this revelation was that someone else had made it before I had. I must have been the most naive twenty-eight-year-old on the planet.

“Carrie, are you all right?”

I looked up at Nathan. “I want to leave.”

He cocked his head, uncertain. “You mean that?”

Leaving such sure things as shelter and regular meals should have struck me with fear, but it didn’t. When my parents died, I’d survived on my own. The only difference was this time I wanted to be an orphan.

“Yeah,” I answered finally. “You’d run like hell, too, if you saw the window treatments in there.”