Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes To Ashes

“When she found out about us?” Bella snorted again. Max wanted to hit her. “How, exactly, did she find out?”

The uneasy feeling that maybe something was amiss, maybe some critical piece of information had slipped through their keen investigative fingers, crept into the back of his mind. “I don’t know. When she called, I guess.”

Bella only nodded.

In the eerie quiet of the kitchen, even the buzzing of the fluorescent lights could be heard, layered with the drumming of water dribbling into the sink and the ticking of the sleek steel clock on the wall. From the rest of the house, not a sound.

So, where are Nathan and Carrie, genius?

Almost the exact moment he thought it, a smug smile began to grow on Bella’s face. “I am sorry the only outlet for her troubled mind was in clumsy foreplay with an in-adequate partner.”

He threw the rest of her sandwich at the swinging door as she passed through it.

When I opened my eyes to find myself in an empty bed, my fuzzy brain snapped to alert. Okay, it snapped to panic.

You made it all up. It was a dream.

There was no way the day before hadn’t been real. No way I hadn’t spent the last few hours sleeping comfortably in Nathan’s arms.

I’d tossed back the blankets and was about to swing my legs over the side of the bed to begin a frantic search for him when he stepped out of the bathroom, a toothbrush in his mouth and a towel wrapped around his waist. He paused in his brushing long enough to give me a look implying I had lost my mind, then retreated to the bathroom again.

Flopping back on the pillows, I smiled. The curtains were open, the sky had faded to twilight and Nathan had turned on the bedside lamp. The soft, golden light shone through my eyelids when I closed them, and it felt almost like turning my face to the sun. I wondered if I’d ever woken up so happy.

The faucet turned on, as briefly as possible because, as I’d heard many, many times, water conservation is everyone’s responsibility. I slipped out of bed and padded across the thick carpet to the bathroom. Nathan leaned over the sink, spitting toothpaste into the basin.

It’s demented that you find that sexy, I told myself. I yawned and leaned against the door frame. “You know why vampires have to brush their teeth?”

He raised an eyebrow as he wiped his mouth with a hand towel.

“So they don’t get bat breath.”

Drying his hands, he considered me silently for moment. “I’m rescinding my offer of letting you come home.”

I slapped his shoulder. “Listen, don’t be too hard on Max today, okay?”

Nathan looked as crestfallen as a child who’s had his favorite toy taken away. “Why not?”

“Because I have a feeling he’s going to feel pretty foolish about all this. You know, when he finds out.” I shuffled my feet on the carpet.

“Why, because you feel foolish?” He shook his head. “Don’t you have any faith in me? Any trust?”

I raised an eyebrow in answer.

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I won’t give him a hard time. You women are so picky about these things. And by you women, I mean you and Max.”

“Get out,” I ordered. “I’m going to take a nice, long, water-wasting shower.”

With a grin, he asked, “Will you require assistance with that?”

“You’ve already taken a shower,” I pointed out, gesturing to the towel.

“I’m dirty enough to take two.” He winked.

We’d found that although the blood tie didn’t come with built-in sexual attraction, it did ramp up whatever attraction already existed. Now that we were on familiar footing again, it didn’t surprise me that he was suddenly in a randy mood.

“I don’t doubt that. But we’ve got bigger things to worry about than your libido.” I pushed him toward the door.

He went, grudgingly. “Fine. But you are in such trouble in the morning.”

I don’t doubt that, I thought, grim reality intruding unpleasantly. I’m sure by morning, we’ll all have jumped feetfirst into trouble.

We found Bella upstairs, stretched out on the leather sofa in the foyer with a book in her hands. Though I now knew the truth of what had transpired between her and Nathan, her treatment of Max still kept me from warming to her.

She sat up, her eyes moving from me to Nathan and back again. “Max is in the kitchen.”

Nathan seemed to sense the reason for her trepidation, and, because it’s the kind of person he is, he snarled, “I’m going to kill him,” before tearing toward the kitchen.

Bella didn’t look nearly as alarmed as Nathan had probably expected. She lifted one elegant eyebrow and glanced back to her book. “Is he really going to kill him?”

“No. I banned him from teasing Max. I never thought to forbid him from teasing you.” I slid my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Listen, I’m sorry.”

She looked up, mild surprise registering on her face. “For what?”

I thought for sure she knew, the way she’d been hesitant to tell Nathan where to find Max. I jerked my thumb toward the kitchen door. “Be-because I almost slept with Max.”

“Ah, I understand. You would be more sorry if you had completed the act.” Her attention once again drifted to her book.

“That’s not what I meant. He’s kind of your…territory.” I winced at the dog terminology. “That didn’t come out quite right.”

“Max does not belong to me, and I do not wish him to.” Bella closed the volume with a frustrated sigh. “I do not wish to continue this conversation, either. There is much we need to do. Tell the men we will all meet in the dining room in fifteen minutes.”

She left without another word.

I knew Max was in full-blown denial about his feelings for Bella, but I hadn’t realized the reverse was true. According to Max, she’d ended their fling, but in typical Max fashion, he was sure she still wanted a relationship with him, while he, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about her.

Maybe he was right. A definite angry vibe had radiated from Bella, the same type I’d projected to her when I thought she was competition for Nathan.

In the kitchen, Nathan leaned against the counter, sipping blood from a mug, while Max wielded a mop angrily across a vicious blood spill on the floor beside the trash can.

“Did we kill someone this morning?” I crossed my arms and eyed the mop, which was soaked pink and seemed to be doing nothing but spreading watery blood over the bright white tile.

Nathan made a snort of disagreement into his cup. He swallowed with a grimace and licked a bit of blood from his upper lip. “Max threw a tantrum.”

“You’re a guest in this house,” Max snapped, jabbing the mop at Nathan’s feet. “Remember that.”

“And I appreciate your hospitality. Speaking of which, when do I get to nearly have sex with you?” Nathan took another sip from his cup, ignoring Max’s murderous scowl.

I smiled, covering it with my hand when Max’s glare fixed on me. “Well, Bella wants us to meet her in the dining room.”