Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes To Ashes. Jennifer Armintrout
forward again and wiggled her shoulder, signaling he should continue what he hadn’t even realized he’d stopped.
Trying hard to infuse every brush of his fingers against her skin with platonic feeling, he kneaded her back, then her shoulders and finally her upper arms, trying the entire time to block out her satisfied groans and whimpers.
When his hands started to ache, he tentatively pulled away. “That better?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She didn’t withdraw.
In fact, to his great and keen dismay, she leaned against him and reached back to loop an arm around his neck. “I missed you.”
“Did you?” He’d missed her. At least, part of him had.
She gave a little sigh. “Do you know you are still the only man I have ever slept with?”
“Congratulations. You went a whole month without boning someone else.” He felt her laugh, and smiled, though it hadn’t been meant as a joke. Somehow, the thought of her with another man horrified him more than the dangers posed by the Oracle and the Soul Eater combined. “Listen, I should go.”
“No.” Her arm tightened around his neck. “Stay with me.”
What would it hurt? He didn’t particularly want to travel down the road his thoughts were leading him on, but he couldn’t help it. Every moment of every day, he thought of her. Not because he wanted to, but because there was some broken pipe in his brain that kept sputtering out toxic drops of her until his head was completely polluted. Now the leak had become a flood, and his fear—a very real, paralyzing fear—was that his brain would never dry out. He’d just stagger through the rest of his life drowning in her.
But it infuriated him that he couldn’t just turn off the way he had with all those other women. She was dangerously close to becoming an obsession, and if he didn’t control himself now, he might never be able to.
He shoved her off him under the guise of clumsy gentleness, and tucked the blanket around her, pointedly ignoring the hint of dark color that peeked over the lacy edge of her bra. “You had a bad night. We both did. You’re not physically up to anything…physical.”
“Werewolves heal quickly.” She cocked her head.
“Yeah, well.” He scratched his neck, a nervous tic that seemed to emerge only around her. “I’m not up to it.”
Frowning, she crawled forward, rising to her knees to loop her arms around him again. “Did you get hurt?”
He didn’t return her embrace. “Yes.”
She finally got it. It took her long enough.
With a wounded look, she eased away from him. “You are not still angry about what happened between us?”
“Of course I am!” he cried. “Jesus Christ, it’s only been a month! What kind of inhuman bitch are you, to ask me that?”
Her eyes flew open in shock, then narrowed again. “Not a human. I did not think that was news to you.”
“Don’t change the subject!” He stood and paced angrily at the side of the bed. “You can’t do this. You can’t just decide we’re chums when you’re lonely or horny or—”
“I am scared!” she shouted over his tirade, her voice hoarse. “I do not want sex, I wanted you to stay with me. You have an annoying habit of cuddling. I thought if we had sex, you would stay, and I would not be alone here. I am sorry if I opened your wounds regarding me, but what was I supposed to do?”
She was more human than she gave herself credit for. He felt like an asshole, and he hated that she could make him feel that way. “First of all, I don’t have any wounds because of you.”
She glared at him, hurt shining in her eyes even as she prepared for another round of fighting.
He let her stew for a minute, then sat beside her on the bed. “And second, all you had to do was ask.”
The way his voice went rough, the way he had to clip his words short to get them out made him crazy. He was going to say something stupid. He knew it, and wouldn’t be able to stop it.
“All you have to do is ask for anything, and I’m not going to be able to tell you no.” He swallowed. There it was. “And that’s probably why I hate you so much.”
She smiled and kissed him, a friendly peck, thank God, and pulled him with her onto the bed.
As she arranged the covers around them, he glanced at the clock in the corner. “You know, it’s not exactly my bedtime.”
“Stay,” she implored, twining her fingers with his.
His lips quirked in a reluctant smile. “And I’m not exactly dressed for bed, either.”
“Stay,” she repeated, yawning.
He did.
During the day, while we slept, the atmosphere in the house seemed to change. If the Oracle had intended to shake our confidence by nearly killing Bella, her plan had backfired. By the time we gathered for another—hopefully uneventful—war council, we’d all found some sort of peace with each other.
Max, however, hadn’t found peace with his dining room, so we met in the library. Bella lay curled before the fireplace in a pose that betrayed her canine blood. Max sat at her side, occasionally giving her head an affectionate scratch. Each time he did this, Nathan, seated in the stiff-backed wing chair next to mine, rolled his eyes.
I gave him a warning glance and cleared my throat. “So, she can see into the Oracle’s head? Like with a blood tie?”
Bella shook her head. “No. I am not familiar with your vampire tie, but I know I cannot control what I see.”
“So, the Oracle is controlling it,” Nathan murmured pensively. He stared straight ahead, the way he always did when working out a difficult problem.
“Not necessarily.” Max tried, and failed, to make eye contact with Nathan, so he turned to me. “It sounds more like the Oracle gave Bella accidental access. Mind residue or something.”
“There are still things that are hidden to me. I know where she is going. I know someone is with her. But I cannot see who.” Bella’s smooth forehead creased in concentration. “Another vampire.”
“That narrows it down,” Max quipped. At Bella’s hurt look, he added a hasty, “Sorry.”
There was a pause. Nathan still stared into the flames of the fireplace, his steepled fingers pressed to his lips as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Max looked uncomfortably from him to me.
I shrugged. “So, where’s the Oracle going, then? I mean, we don’t have much, but that’s something.”
“Boston,” Bella answered quickly. “She is on a ship.”
“Do you know when she’ll arrive?” If she’d already come ashore, she could be anywhere.
Bella nodded. “Soon. She is still at sea, but she becomes restless. They will land in a few days.”
“That doesn’t give us much time.” Max seemed in danger of slipping into the same concentration coma Nathan was already in. Luckily, he snapped out of it quickly. “We’d better get moving.”
“All of us?” I’d just taken a long, perilous road trip, and I didn’t feel inclined to go on another one. Where I really wanted to be was back in Grand Rapids, living in skewed domesticity and half-assed reconciliation with Nathan. “I mean, shouldn’t someone stay behind and try to find the Soul Eater?”
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe you and Nathan should?” Max smiled. “Seriously, though, it’s a good idea. Bella has to go to Boston, because she’s the one who’ll be able to get clues and necessary info from the Oracle’s