“No, she didn’t start after the Vampire New Year. That’s why I can’t imagine her purpose. But she gave me the potion the first night I was with you.” Cyrus realized too late the effect his words had on me.
I stumbled into the living room, breathing hard. I heard Nathan mutter something, and the scrape of a chair. But it was Cyrus who came to stand awkwardly behind me. “Carrie?”
“Don’t!” I marched down the hall, raging with the things I wanted to scream at him. The fact his little “pet” had tried to take away my reproductive freedom—albeit freedom I didn’t really know I’d had—should have been at the top of the list. How could he have not suspected? She’d never hidden her ambitions, from him or anyone else. So how could he have not known? And what would have happened to the child we might have created?
Another, more haunting possibility—that we could have had a child together, that I could have been a mother—tore my heart. But what kind of child would it have been? An unholy monster, like its father? Would I have lost all my humanity in protecting and caring for it?
To his credit, Cyrus didn’t try to give me space. He followed me to my room and sat on the end of the bed after I flung myself across it. Two tear tracks, tainted pink with blood, wet his face as he looked at me. “I didn’t know. Carrie, I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
He pulled his legs into the small space at the end of the bed and closed the door, shutting us in the dark. He didn’t turn on the light.
“How could you not know?” But that wasn’t what I wanted to ask him, and he knew it.
“You mean, ‘how could you take potions from her?’” His voice was thick with emotion. “‘How could Dahlia have done something you weren’t aware of, when you were the person closest to her? Didn’t you care about her? Didn’t you take an interest in her beyond what she could do for you?’ I wish I could tell you that I was forced. I wasn’t. I took what she gave me, like a common drug addict. I can’t lie and tell you that I knew all about it, or that I cared about her, or that I ever asked her a single question that wasn’t a proposition. I don’t even know her last name.”
“How could you be that way?” I hated how my voice trembled when I cried. I sounded like a seventeen-year-old breaking up with her boyfriend. “How could you treat her like that?”
“I don’t know. I’m ashamed of myself. Not because you want to hear it, but because I am. And you know I’ve changed. But I can’t change the past, no matter how much I wish it.”
We sat in silence for a long time. I measured the seconds by the beating of his heart, which sounded as loud as my own in the silence of the room.
“It would have been a lovely child,” he said finally. “We’re not unattractive people.”
I smiled, in spite of the pain that twisted in my chest. “Nursing a vampire baby might have proved problematic.”
He chuckled, then there was more silence.
“Why did she do it?” I asked, though I knew what the answer would be.
“Because my father asked it of her.” Cyrus sounded miserable, and lost. “I’ve no doubt of that.”
“But she did it before the Vampire New Year,” I reminded him.
He shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if my father had arranged my meeting her from the start. He has that kind of power. He can make anyone do anything.”
It was true. Cyrus had been so desperate for the Soul Eater’s love and approval he’d killed his own brother to become their father’s fledgling. He’d sacrificed his own happiness, his humanity. He’d even admitted he would have given Jacob Seymour his very soul if he’d required it. But why? I’d seen the Soul Eater. It certainly wasn’t his good looks and charming demeanor that commanded such suicidal loyalty.
Sensing my thoughts, Cyrus tensed beside me. “He wasn’t always like that, Carrie. You saw him at the end of a yearlong fast. He’s little more than a glorified corpse at that time. My father…my father is selfish, but he tricks you into thinking he deserves all you do for him. And he acts grateful. That gratitude is like a drug for people like Dahlia and me. For anyone who’s lived a life like mine.”
Cyrus seemed to struggle with something. His confusion and pain were evident through the blood tie. Images of Mouse, interlaced with images of a time long ago, flashed in his thoughts.
I took his hand in mine. “Tell me.”
With a sad, quirked smile, he lifted my hand to his lips. “I’ll show you.”
It was an intimate thing between us, the sharing of memories. We’d done it before, when he was the sire and I was the fledgling. Though our roles had reversed, it felt as natural as before, and comfortingly familiar. It was something I’d never dared to do with Nathan. He’d seen flashes of memories through the blood tie, and the few times he’d tasted my blood, but I’d never invited him into my head the way I had Cyrus. Maybe I didn’t trust him. Maybe I thought he would judge me for what he saw. Maybe I was trying to protect him from seeing something that might hurt him.
With Cyrus, I didn’t care. Nothing I had ever done had been more shameful than the things I knew from his past. And nothing he saw could hurt him. He knew the extent of my betrayal. He knew me better than Nathan did. Probably better than I knew myself, since he’d seen and reveled in the dark side of my personality that I denied.
We lay together on my tiny bed, our hands still twisted together. “Are you sure?”
“What do I have to lose?” he asked, drawing in a shaking breath. And then I was rushing forward, through absolute blackness, through emotions too numerous to feel, let alone name.
On the other side of the blackness, I saw a woman. For a moment, I thought she must be very tall. She towered over me, her hip bones at my eye level as we faced each other. Then I remembered I was not myself, but was looking through Cyrus’s eyes. Cyrus as a child.
The very thought of it, that somewhere, before the scheming and murder, he’d been, well, as innocent as a baby, would have choked me up, if I’d been in my body.
I took advantage of the moment to study the woman. She wasn’t an adult so much as a girl. Rail thin, with limp, dirty blond hair and dark circles under her eyes, she looked like she would drop from exhaustion as she stirred the huge iron cauldron that hung over the hearth. A chubby hand tugged on her skirts, and she looked down. A genuine smile lit her tired face, then a look of alarm replaced it. “Simon, no! Very hot. You’ll burn yourself, mark me!”
It was something young Cyrus heard often. She was terrified of the children burning themselves. Lifting him up, she kissed his forehead and wiped his nose with her apron. Setting him on his feet, she handed him a wooden bucket. It was heavy, and the rope handle made his palms itch, but he was a good boy. He knew how to get the water and bring it back for his stepmother.
“Out with you,” she said, giving his backside a pat. From his halting gait, I imagined he was three or four years old. He stumbled through the oiled canvas flap over the doorway, tripping a bit on the hard-packed earth, and I was rushing forward again, to the spot where Cyrus, with no way to brace himself from the impact, smacked his forehead on the ground.
Young Simon Seymour was a hardy child, despite his surroundings. He stood, brushed off his scraped knees and took a few steps before he heard his stepmother’s voice.
“Simon? Are you all right?”
Dropping his bucket, he plopped down in the dirt and summoned the best fake tears a three-year-old could produce. When the girl ran from the broken-down cottage, her face showed only concern. No annoyance that her work had been interrupted, no resentment that she had to tend a child that was not her own. She scooped him up, holding his probably dirty face close to her own, kissed him and murmured reassurances that he’d be all right.
I was touched to the core to see that, no matter how the rest of his life had gone, he’d had at least one person who’d loved him unconditionally.
The scene changed. Cyrus was still a child, perhaps a few years older. His footing was surer, his thought
s more sophisticated. He carried a wooden bucket, probably the same one from the earlier memory, toward the river. It was hot, and the water level was low. He’d have to climb down the bank to get any at all.
He’d set the bucket down carefully and was about to begin his descent when he heard the screams. It wasn’t uncommon to hear a woman shouting in the village. Women screamed at their children, screamed when giving birth, screamed when they were being beaten. Women screamed all the time over the smallest things, in his opinion. Except his mother.
That’s why he didn’t recognize her voice right away.
He realized it was her when she burst onto the lane, wailing in pain and terror. Flames consumed her clothes, burned away her hair. She beat at her blazing skirts with bloody hands. The skin fell away in huge chunks.
She was trying to get to the river, he realized, his small heart beating furiously in his chest. She needed water, needed help. Without a thought for the sharp rocks and protruding roots, he grabbed the bucket and slid down the bank.
It seemed to take forever, while the screaming went on and on. The bucket filled slowly, as if with tar instead of water. The weight was insubstantial, though, and he bounded up the slippery bank faster than he’d ever managed before. His legs and arms should have ached from the exertion, but he gained the top and raced to where his mother had fallen, her body still smoldering, blackened skin indistinguishable from her burned garments. When he threw the water over her, steam rose.
She didn’t move. She made no sound. Made no sound, but he couldn’t stop the screams in his head.
Men and women from the village had crowded around. More ran toward them. And there was his father, fists clenched so hard blood ran from where his nails bit into his palms, though his face was an impassive mask. “Go home, Simon. Finish making supper.”
In an agonizing second, like pulling off a Band-Aid, I returned to the present. Cyrus looked at me with pity. After what I’d seen him go through, he pitied me?
“For having seen it.” He stroked the side of my face, and I realized it was wet with tears.
Sniffling against the threat of more, I asked, “How old were you?”
“Seven, as far as I know. I’m not sure when I was born.” His hand stilled, coming to rest on my hair. “She was my father’s third wife. He didn’t love her, but…I think it was the horror of it. It changed him. Very shortly after that he met the man who would sire him. The man bought our bond and we moved away from the village to live in fealty to him. Father told us to forget everything before. It was a new start.”
“How did it happen?” If someone had told me even an hour ago that I would feel something other than hatred for the Soul Eater, I wouldn’t have believed it. But the look I’d seen on his face, the suppression of emotion that was clearly intended to hide his pain from his son…
“She was hanging the pot over the fire, and her skirt brushed the embers. That’s all it took.” Cyrus cleared his throat. “It wasn’t uncommon, then.”
“Whether common or not, it was horrible.” I couldn’t stand it anymore. I put my arms around him. “For you and your father.”
It didn’t absolve Jacob Seymour of all the sins he’d committed, but it did explain them a bit. It also explained why Cyrus was so desperate for affection from any female at all, regardless of whether she was willing to love him in return, or was even capable of doing so.
Our eyes met. His were red, from unshed tears. “The only women who ever loved me were taken from me. Once by fate, the rest by my father. I can’t forgive him that.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” I wanted badly to tell him how much I’d loved him, but it would have been a lie.
“You didn’t love me.” Even though he was now on the opposite side of the blood tie, my emotions were still transparent to Cyrus. “But I believe you wanted to.”
“I did.” I couldn’t hold back my tears. Not over this. “I did.”
“If it makes you feel any better, it’s a credit to your character that you couldn’t.” He smiled a little, but it faded quickly. “I know that now.”
“You hated me for it.” I leaned my forehead against his. Our lips were so close to touching. My mouth went dry. I touched my tongue to my lips, and he was on top of me, smothering my mouth and crushing my body beneath his.
I still do. But his thought was swallowed up in a tidal wave of longing and…fear?
Cyrus leaned back and gave a curt nod to the door. “The last time I did this, your boyfriend beat me up.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I paused at the sound of the door in the living room closing. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”
I did, just not to Cyrus. It’s just a kiss, I projected to Nathan through the blood tie. The cold that met my thought from the other end forced a tangible shiver down my spine.
“Forget him, Carrie.” Cyrus’s arms tightened around my back. “You’ve given him so many chances.”
“What is it to you how many chances I give him?” I snapped, pulling away.
“It doesn’t mean anything to me.” There wasn’t malice in his words. “I know you’re mine, whether I want you or not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” This was a side of him I hadn’t missed, the possessive, arrogant side.
He sat up, but not beside me. “Let’s look at this reasonably. After I attacked you, when you knew I was a monster, you sought me out.”
“Because of the blood tie,” I reminded him.
“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “After that, when you needed help with Nathan, you turned to me.”
“I needed your pet to undo what she’d done to him.”
He sighed. “You’re rationalizing. In the end, you kept coming back to me. Even to kill me, you wanted it to be between us alone.”
He was right. There was no arguing that. When something concerned Cyrus, I wanted to be the only one involved. Whether I was fighting him or rescuing him.
“I’m not laying claim to you, Carrie.” His elegant hands kneaded my shoulders. “But it seems you’ve already laid claim to me.”
I turned and leaned into him when he curved his body around me. “But you let me.”
“I did.” His lips brushed my jaw, my ear. His mouth came to rest on my throat, the opposite side from where the scar of his first attack still marked me. “I suppose it’s meant to be, then.”
His fangs pricked my skin, threatening to break through and asking permission all at once. “What about Mouse?” I asked, stopping him.
“What about Nathan?” he retorted, lifting his mouth. “There is a part of me that is still in the desert with her. While I was there, a part of me was still with you.”
“I seem to have a gift for falling in love with men who are in love with their pasts.”
My admission seemed to freeze him in place. I didn’t apologize for it or explain it away. I’d been in denial for far too long.
He faltered a little when he tried to speak, cleared his throat, then started over. “Well, that may be true. But I’m no fool. I know who’s here now.”
In the past, I might have looked for a trick or a trap in his words. Now, they brought tears of relief to my eyes.
This time, when he asked me if I loved him, I could say the words without fear of what I would become.
Eighteen:
Crash
“G et them inside and get them restrained!”
The words came to Max as through water, garbled and hard to decode. When he understood them, he struggled. Nothing held him down, but something definitely pinned him from the sides. Canvas, if his eyes weren’t fooling him.
“Bella!” He thrashed in his hammocklike prison, but he couldn’t quite get his arms free. “Bella!”
“We’ve got her. You’re going to be okay.” A pale face peered over the edge of the litter. “What’s your name?”
“She’s pregnant. Is she okay? She’s pregnant.” He closed his eyes, willing himself to focus on the noise around him. If he c
ould just hear her voice…“Bella!”
“She’s fine. What’s your name?” the medic repeated.
What the hell had happened? Where was he? What were these people doing?
The car. Rolling down the embankment. Blood. Everywhere, there had been blood.
Oh, God, he wasn’t with the paramedics, was he? They could put him in the hospital, sedate him, stick him in a nice, sunny room with an eastern exposure….
“I’m allergic to sunlight!” he shouted, finally freeing his hand to reach for the face before him. “I can’t be in the daylight!”
The woman’s face twisted into a demonic vision. Max had never been so happy to see something so nightmarish in his entire life.
“We know,” she said with curt efficiency. “What’s your name?”
“Max Harrison. I’m—” He’d almost blurted, “I’m Movement.” That would have been smooth.
What the vampire said next was music to his ears. “Max Harrison, by authority of the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement, I’m placing you under arrest.”
“I’m Movement.” He gave a tired laugh. It was increasingly difficult to stay awake. “When there was one.”
“What?” The woman’s pale face went paler. “What did you say?”
“Leave him alone, he’s not in any shape for interrogation,” another voice admonished. “Get him into the van.”
“Bella. Where’s Bella?” Max’s stomach turned. Why wouldn’t they tell him anything? “I need her. I need to see Bella.”
“You will,” the male vampire assured him. “You will.”
Something pricked Max’s arm. Sleepy warmth spread through his veins, and everything went dark.
When Max woke again, he was in a hospital bed. He started, scanning the room frantically for a window. When he didn’t find one, fragmented memories came back to him. He was with Movement. He was fine.
He tried to sit up. His arms were tied to the bed rails.
With a frustrated groan, he tugged futilely at his restraints. Leather. Not too shabby. Nothing he couldn’t break free from on a good day, but this was definitely not a good day.
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