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
broke the rules.”
His back went straight at my accusation. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
I scooted up, wincing at the soreness in my unused muscles. I propped a few pillows behind me and drew the covers to my neck. “Why?”
I had a suspicion he rummaged a bit too long in the dresser for another T-shirt so he could think of an excuse. “I like to live dangerously?”
Of all the vampires I’d met so far, Nathan was the most serious, the biggest stickler for the rules. In the two weeks I’d been deciding whether or not to join the Movement, he’d called nearly every night with some new bit of information I’d never use, but that he felt was vitally important for me to know. He’d held Ziggy, the person who’d mattered most in his life, and watched him die when he could have easily turned him and spared himself the pain of loss. But he hadn’t, because of his affiliation with the Movement.
Yet, he’d saved me.
“Why?” I asked again.
When he looked at me, his expression was somber. “I can’t explain it.”
“Let me know when you can.” I made a move to get out of bed, but Nathan gruffly pulled the covers back over me.
“You need rest.”
“I’ve had plenty of rest. I want to get up.” I tried again, and he gripped my arms.
“Will you just listen to me and lie back down?” With a frustrated curse he handed me a clean T-shirt and turned his back.
“Something on your mind, Nathan?” I quickly slipped out of the soiled shirt and into the fresh one, pausing at the sight of the bumpy scar that bisected my chest.
His shoulders sagged with exhaustion. “This isn’t the first time I’ve gone against the Movement. I’m on probation as it is.”
I arranged the sheets around my bare lower half. “You can turn around now.”
When he did, I saw him eye the scrap of bare leg that peeked out from beneath the covers. He quickly averted his gaze.
“Are you sorry?” What would I do if he said yes?
Nathan didn’t answer immediately. “Carrie, when I found you, my only thought was to stay with you until you died. But it took so long. Just when I thought you’d actually…you’d pull right back. Honestly, I’ve never seen anyone fight so hard. But the damage was too much. There was no way you could have healed yourself. Not as new as you are.” He sat on the bed, facing me.
“Did you look at the scar?” He touched the front of my shirt, just below my collarbone, and a jolt went through me.
“Yes.” I couldn’t manage more than a whisper.
He closed his eyes and didn’t remove his hand. “He cut you from here—” His fingers slipped down, passing between my breasts and coming to rest on the hollow of my rib cage. He opened his hand and rested his palm against my stomach for a moment before tracing back to my neck. “To here. But it wasn’t just a cut, it was like—”
“How a book opens?” I knew what it must have looked like to someone not used to such a sight. “You can pry the ribs apart pretty wide. But I’m in one piece now.”
“I helped you along.” He smiled and pointed to the nightstand where a stack of surgical texts rested. “Like I said, you’re too new to heal something that serious.”
“Nathan, how on earth—”
“If I told you, you probably wouldn’t want to know. I didn’t exactly have high-tech surgical instruments here.” He motioned to the folding table, where the handles of rusty pliers jutted out from the first aid kit.
My stomach churned, but it could have been leftover nausea from the morphine. “Humor me.”
“I used wire to hold your…sternum?”
I nodded at the correct terminology and let him continue.
“To hold it together.” He looked away. “I had to wrap it around and around. I wouldn’t go through any metal detectors, if I were you.”
Wanting very much to change the subject, I cleared my throat. “Well, thanks for the advice. But if I couldn’t heal the damage myself, why am I better now?”
He squinted at me. “You really don’t remember that night?”
“No. I know exactly what happened. I just want to hear it from your point of view. You know, just to waste time.” I leaned back against the pillows. “If there’s something you need to tell me, I think you should just say it.”
“You’d lost too much blood. Even if you had been conscious enough to feed, it would have just run straight through you. And you did die, Carrie.” He sighed in frustration. “If I had known what would happen….”
My pulse throbbed in my ears. But more disturbingly, I could hear his, as if I had a stethoscope against his chest. “Nathan, what did you do?”
He looked me straight in the eye, and heat flashed through my body.
“I revived you the only way I knew how. I gave you my blood.”
“What does that mean?”
“At first, nothing. I was desperate, Carrie. I thought my blood might speed your healing, that’s all. Then, when I’d touch you to change your bandages, I started to see things, your memories. That’s how I knew.” He took a deep breath. “When you first became a vampire, you ingested some of Cyrus’s blood. Your heart must have stopped at some point—”
“After one of my surgeries.”
“That’s when you became a vampire. When I gave you my blood, your heart—” He looked away and cleared his throat. “You were already gone, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. The process repeated, as if you’d never been a vampire in the first place. I think I’m your sire now.”
My mouth went dry, and for the first time in my life, I was rendered speechless. But not for lack of trying. I had plenty to say, but too many thoughts whirled through my head. One was relief that Cyrus’s blood no longer pumped through my veins. But that wasn’t much of a comfort when, a second later, I remembered I knew just as little about Nathan as ever. And even he didn’t have a very high opinion of himself.
Of course, I knew it wasn’t in Nathan’s character to play the manipulative games Cyrus seemed to live for. But there had been attraction between us since the night we’d met.
That time seemed far away, and Nathan had almost become a complete stranger. He’d been guarded then, but I’d been able to glimpse the real Nathan at times.
But now he was my sire.
“I don’t understand.” My throat felt as if I’d just crossed a desert without a single drop of water. “Cyrus flatlined in the E.R. How did he survive without being re-sired?”
Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and closed his eyes. “Depending on our age and power, we can be dead for several hours while we heal, as long as our heart stays intact.” He stumbled over the words, then cleared his throat. “If you were as old as he is, you’d have been able to survive on your own without a problem.”
“So that’s it, then?” I took a deep breath, my chest tight and achy. “You’re my sire?” My tears were so sudden I didn’t have time to hold them back.
Unfortunately, Nathan, not having been privy to the inner dialogue preceding them, misinterpreted my hysterical sobs. He swore and stood, and before I could stop him, he charged out of the room.
I threw back the covers and followed him, grateful for the length of the T-shirt. The hardwood floor of the hallway was cold, so I tried to tiptoe across. After two weeks of barely moving them, my legs had a hard time keeping up. I tripped over my own feet and