Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  I considered. It probably did make more sense to take him with me than leave him behind with Nathan. God knew what could happen.

  “Fine. But you’re staying in the car.”

  I dressed and took Nathan his breakfast while Cyrus got ready—he took the longest showers of anyone I’d ever met—so I could discuss the plan with Nathan alone.

  “Mmm, O negative,” Nathan murmured appreciatively after a long sip. “To what do I owe this treat?”

  I smiled, swallowing the sudden knot in my throat. “Cyrus and I are going to find Clarence.”

  “By yourselves?” From his tone of voice it was clear Nathan was trying to be nonchalant. He failed miserably.

  I let him have his delusion of fooling me. “Is that a problem?”

  “Maybe.” He straightened when the bells above the door jingled, and gave a wave to the customer who entered.

  I waited until the man disappeared behind a bookshelf to clear my throat and recapture Nathan’s attention. “So, is it a problem?”

  “A bit,” he answered, keeping his eye on the shop. “That’s a dangerous part of town.”

  It’s not, I shot back mentally. Nathan, stop treating me like a teenage girl who can’t be trusted with her boyfriend.

  After your dream this morning? He glared at me as he thought it.

  “Well, I’m not going alone,” I reminded him, trying to keep my voice light for the sake of our charade. The customer’s shoes scuffed on the floor. Humans might not be aware of the blood tie, but they were certainly aware of the tension it created. “I’ll be going with Cyrus.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” And who’s going to protect you from him?

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s right.” I don’t need protecting from him. He’s my fledgling. And I’m not going to do anything stupid.

  That doesn’t mean he won’t try something stupid. At least take a stake with you. “Have a good time.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, a good time.”

  The customer came to the register with a book on summoning spirits, and I quickly made my exit while Nathan was too busy to argue.

  When I got upstairs, Cyrus was in his room, probably still getting ready. I considered what Nathan had said, that I should arm myself when alone with Cyrus. Though I doubted my fledgling—wow, that was still weird—would try anything, I admitted to myself it would be stupid to blindly trust him. I slid open the door to the closet that contained Nathan’s weapons and pulled a crudely carved stake from the duffel bag on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Cyrus sounded curious and amused, but his face fell when his gaze dropped to the stake in my hand. “Oh.”

  “It’s nothing p-personal,” I stammered. Sighing, I dropped the stake back into the bag. “It is. I’m sorry. Nathan just thought…”

  With a rueful chuckle, Cyrus nodded. “Of course.”

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot. The moment was painfully, stiflingly awkward. “It’s just, when you were a vampire before—”

  “Stop!” Through the blood tie, his shame and anger washed over me. “It will never be enough for you, will it?”

  “What?” My fingers itched for the stake. Not that I would be able to use it against him. The thought of killing my own blood sickened me. Still, it would have been a comfort to have some means of self-defense. “What will never be enough?”

  “Anything I ever do. You’re always going to see me as the monster who attacked you that night in the morgue, the vampire who manipulated and degraded you. But I was a man since then, Carrie, a good man. And now I’m your fledgling. Anything I’m capable of doing now, it’s because of you.” He clenched his fists impotently at his sides.

  I looked away. “And if I did to you what you’ve done to me, you wouldn’t trust me, either.”

  I heard his footfalls on the floor as he came closer. When I looked up, his face was a breath from mine. My heart pounded with uncertainty as he leaned closer. “If I wanted to kill you, I could do it anytime. We wouldn’t have to be alone.” His voice was a deadly whisper. “And you did do to me what I did to you.”

  He stepped around me, and I swallowed hard.

  “I’ll meet you in the van.” His words were clipped and he left no room for another feeble apology from me, slamming the door resolutely to punctuate his sentence.

  I sagged against the wall, willing all the tension from my body. Then I realized it wasn’t my agitation, but Cyrus’s. I closed my eyes, my chest aching with the knowledge that I’d hurt him.

  Still, before I went to the car, I slipped a stake into my purse, just in case.

  Thirteen:

  Triangle

  “T hat’s him, it has to be.”

  I ignored Cyrus’s declaration of certainty. He’d spotted Clarence at least five times since we’d parked a discreet distance from the mansion.

  “That’s not him.” I barely had to open my eyes to tell. “What is the matter with you? Did you never look at the man?”

  “I looked at him,” Cyrus admitted a little sheepishly. “But not often.”

  “Because you’re a stuck-up, imperialistic bastard.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. It wasn’t because I hadn’t had enough sleep. It just made it easier to ignore Cyrus if I could pretend to be unconscious.

  The dream had really screwed up my head. Even he, shameless though he was, felt it. Now that I was blood tied to him again, the old attraction returned with a vengeance. But it hadn’t ever really gone away. I suppose it had just lain dormant during his brief stint of humanity.

  There was no chance of a return to that relationship. I loved Nathan, and he almost loved me—at least he had until I’d fucked that up again. Even if we weren’t on the best of terms, sleeping with Cyrus would be a slap in Nathan’s face.

  Cyrus looked more petulant by the minute. “Why not let me go in and speak with Dahlia on my own?”

  “Because she filleted you the last time you were alone together and…” I blinked. “You’re just trying to get sex from anyone, aren’t you?”

  “Well, someone has been bombarding me with pornographic dreams.” He pointed down the street. “That’s him!”

  “It’s not him. That man is six feet tall at least, and probably twenty years younger than Clarence.”

  “At least,” Cyrus repeated, giving me an unreadable look. “I’m sorry, he just looked so similar.”

  “Why? Because he’s black?” Of course I’d have to sire a white supremacist.

  “Because it’s dark and I can’t see that well. Apparently, losing both eyes in a past incarnation has that effect.” He raised his hands helplessly. “I’m as surprised as you.”

  “We should get you some glasses,” I mused, scanning the sidewalk. “That’s him!”

  I could tell by the way the figure hunched over and kept close to the wall. His clothing was anachronistic to say the least—in the mansion, he didn’t seem out of place when paired with antique furnishings, but on the street he looked positively Victorian—and he scurried like a spider toward the house.

  “That is him,” Cyrus observed. “I never realized how very strange he looked.”

  “You stay here,” I commanded, pushing open the door. “I’ll be back.”

  I didn’t give him a chance to argue before I slammed the door. Clarence had nearly reached the gate to the servants’ lodgings, and I had to jog to catch up with him.

  “Clarence!” When I called his name, it was as if a shock went through him. He saw me, and for a moment I thought he would bolt. Something in his servant’s nature seemed to stop him, and he waited patiently until I reached him.

  “Doctor, what are you doing here? Are you trying to get killed?” He cast a worried glance at the house. “She’s out of her head over something you did. I can’t tell what, but she is not happy.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” I explained. “I need to speak to her.”

  Clarence’s deep brown eyes widened. “Didn’t you hear what I said? She’ll kill yo
u. She’s been ranting and raving and doing God knows what. If you go into that house, you’re dumber than I thought you were.”

  I ignored the implication that he’d apparently thought I was dumb before. “That’s why I need your help.”

  “What kind of help?” He eyed me suspiciously. Then the meaning became clear as glass, and he started to turn away.

  “No, I don’t want you to kill her! Just waylay her a little bit. Cyrus said—”

  “Cyrus?” His voice leaped with fear. “He died.”

  “He’s back now.” I wasn’t supposed to let that slip. I might as well have let Cyrus spring out at Clarence in full vampire face. But then, maybe someone coming back from the dead wasn’t that weird to him. After all, he did work for vampires. He’d probably seen worse.

  “He can’t come back here.” Clarence shook his head as though his denial could stop it.

  “I hope he doesn’t.” This could be a bargaining tool. If Clarence feared Cyrus…“It’s really Cyrus who’s sent me to do this. He wants to know how Dahlia is involved with the Soul Eater.”

  A visible shudder went through him. “They’re tangled up. I don’t know how.”

  “Maybe you could help me figure it out. It might keep Cyrus from coming back to find out for himself.” I wielded the name like a weapon.

  Clarence saw through the ploy. “You can’t keep him from doing anything. Don’t even try to play that hand.”

  I’d always underestimated this man. “How about the ‘I’m your friend, you should help me’ card?”

  He laughed. “How about you ain’t my friend and why don’t you come back when you’ve got something to bargain with?”

  He moved toward the gate, and I stepped forward as if to stop him with a hand on his shoulder.

  Bad move.

  He whirled before I could lay my palm on him, his eyes flashing rage. “Vampires don’t ever get to touch me.”

  I remembered the second night I’d spent in Cyrus’s house, when Clarence had displayed his scars from a past attack. I should have remembered.

  He walked into the shadows between the stone columns, and the gate began to creak closed. I thought it was a lost cause, until his voice drifted back to me from the darkness. “I know how to take care of myself. And your friend up there. You come back tomorrow night, you’ll get your answers.”

  I stood on the sidewalk, my mouth gaping like a carp’s. “So, you’ll help?”

  “I won’t repeat myself!” he snapped. I heard his quick steps up the paved drive, and turned toward the car.

  Cyrus stood on the sidewalk, his arms folded arrogantly over his chest. “That went well.”

  “Get in the car before I run you over with it.” What the hell did Clarence mean, that I’d get my answers?

  Cyrus was quiet on the ride home, but he kept his smug smile. I parallel parked in front of the building, then turned to him to ask what his problem was. That was a big mistake. He lunged—no, more like launched himself—across the car, and I found myself pinned between the door and his body.

  “What the hell are you—” My outrage was smothered beneath his lips. I was too shocked to fight him.

  He pulled back and smoothed my hair from my face. “You still have feelings for me. You wouldn’t have had that dream—”

  “It was just a dream!” I insisted. “You know, those pictures in your head you can’t control?”

  “That come from your subconscious and betray your deepest desires?” He paused. “And fears. Do you still fear me, Carrie?”

  A thrill of frightened excitement raced up my spine. “No. I don’t fear you.”

  “You’re lying.”

  He was coming in for another kiss when the door behind my back released. I tumbled onto the sidewalk in a heap. My head collided painfully with the concrete and bursts of light blurred my vision.

  Before I could register what had happened, Cyrus exited the car as well, clearly not under his own power. I heard him offer up a feeble excuse—or was that an apology?—then he was silenced by the dull snap of flesh pounding flesh.

  I struggled to my feet. I must have bitten my tongue in the fall, because I tasted blood. My vision cleared as I swayed in place, and I saw Cyrus pinned to the raw brick of the building, with Nathan’s thick forearm across his throat. Nathan’s fist connected with Cyrus’s nose, and a sickening wet snap crack through the air.

  I stood transfixed by the sight of Nathan losing control, lashing out. I’d never seen him like this, even when he’d been fighting Cyrus for my life. Cyrus’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped in Nathan’s grasp.

  The pain in my head was unbearable. Cyrus’s bleak thoughts entwined with my own dread, and I screamed at Nathan to stop. I hated the pleading in my tone, but I would have bargained, offered anything, to keep him from hurting Cyrus further.

  On my knees, I wept and begged for his life. For Cyrus, the man who’d tortured and abused me, who’d wanted to kill me, who’d sent my heart like takeout to his deranged father.

  A change came over Nathan. He released Cyrus, letting him slide to the ground, unconscious. Nathan’s face held a mix of emotions, and for a second I thought he felt real remorse for his actions. It disappeared as he came nearer and seized my upper arm, his fingers digging into my flesh. He dragged me toward the door and I resisted, unwilling to leave Cyrus behind. My legs twisted and I couldn’t get on my feet as Nathan hauled me up the stairs, every step digging painfully into my back when I slipped and fell. I finally stopped resisting, letting him pull me into the bedroom. He shoved me through the door and slammed it shut. I yanked on the knob, but Nathan held it from the other side.

  My reason fled. I needed to get to Cyrus. The certainty that if I didn’t get to him, if I didn’t protect him, he would die, consumed me. “Let me out!”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Nathan, let me go to him! He’ll die out there!”

  “Let him burn!” I heard the floorboards creak as he settled with his back to the door.

  I’ve never felt more helpless than I did at that moment. It was terrifying to me that my hands were tied while my fledgling lay defenseless on the street. My frustration exploded from me in a series of cruel accusations—that Nathan didn’t care for me, that he was incapable of caring for anyone, that he would let Cyrus die the way he’d let Ziggy die, the way he’d let Marianne die.

  Though I knew the effect my words would have on both of us, I couldn’t stop them from coming. I couldn’t even summon the strength to apologize for them. Until that moment, I’d thought I understood the power of the blood tie. I’d grossly underestimated it, and found myself destroying my relationship with my own sire in an effort to protect my fledgling. And there was no doubt in my mind that destruction was absolute.

  Nathan remained silent on the other side of the door, but I could feel his rage as I gave one final, futile shove. There was no strength left in me, so I lay on the floor, drifting in and out of sleep, until I woke enough to realize time had passed. The door was open. Nathan was gone.

  It was still dark out. I checked the clock in the kitchen and saw it wasn’t long until sunup. There was still time for Cyrus. I jerked the door open and was about to tear down the stairs when I saw the note taped there for me to find: “Check your room.”

  There were no other words, no explanation of where Nathan was or what his intentions were. I went to my room and stood in the doorway. Cyrus lay on the bed, on top of the tangled covers, his bloodstained clothes twisted on his body. His face was wiped clean, but the damage Nathan had inflicted would take more than a day to heal.

  Nathan had done this. He’d done it to hurt me, to hurt Cyrus. He’d done it to ease some murderous need for vengeance in himself, without thought for how it would affect anyone else. I was torn between rage and admiration. I’d been waiting for so long to see Nathan act on his volatile emotions after repressing them for so long. My only regret was that he’d acted out on my fledgling.

  My only r
egret is that he isn’t waiting on the corner for the sun to come out and burn him to a crisp. He has no moral compass. Cyrus opened one swollen eye in an attempt to punctuate his thought with a matching sarcastic expression, but the motion made him whimper. He was so pathetic, I couldn’t help but pity him.

  The part of me that was Cyrus’s sire agreed with him. I wanted to feel badly for the things I’d said to Nathan, but all I could think was how he’d separated me from my fledgling, and how would he feel if someone beat me and left me on the sidewalk to die? I eased into the small space between the door and the foot of the bed and knelt beside Cyrus.

  I don’t want your pity. His voice filled my head again.

  I pulled off his shoes and socks, and he wiggled his toes gratefully. “I know you don’t,” I said with a smile. “But you’re my fledgling. I’ve got to look out for you.”

  He reached for the button of his fly and I pushed his hands away to do it for him. “Let me take care of you, okay?”

  Thank you. He clasped my hand briefly, then sagged against the pillows. I think he might have lost consciousness again.

  I finished stripping him of his blood-stiffened clothes and drew the covers over both of us as I maneuvered myself beside him on the tiny bed. I kissed his forehead and stroked his hair, feeling nothing but absolute, unconditional love for him.

  The floorboards in the hallway creaked, and I looked up to see Nathan watching us. He didn’t apologize in words, but the look on his face told me everything I needed to know. He felt remorse for his actions, and that remorse sapped much of my anger.

  He gestured toward Cyrus like someone swatting a fly. “That’s how I feel about you, you know.”

  “No. I didn’t.” I turned back to Cyrus and let all my relief at his survival and my love toward him—some of it residual from the time I actually did love him—cross the blood tie to Nathan. “Because you never tell me.”

  I don’t know if he hesitated from surprise at my words or because he’d underestimated my feelings for my fledgling. When he spoke again, his voice was low and hoarse. “I feel all of that for you. More.”