Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  He sighed, and the pain in it cut my heart to ribbons. Then, with forced cheerfulness, he pointed out, Actually, it might be a blessing. Having no reason to question it. If we were human, we might not agree and then where would we be? Not together.

  Did that ever bother you with your human girlfriends? I felt a little curl of jealousy, ridiculous as it sounds. He’d mentioned having a girlfriend before, but I’d never questioned him further. I mean, did it ever create a problem?

  The only woman after Marianne—besides you—was Linda. And she…ugh, what a mess that was. Under my cheek I felt his laughter, a low, dismayed sound deep in his chest.

  Still, I wondered if he was right, if we would still be together even without the bond that held us. Nathan and I might have been through a lifetime’s worth of emotional woes, but our relationship stood the chance of lasting far longer than a single lifetime.

  The thought struck me like a hammer. Nathan was my sire…as long as he lived and I lived, we were stuck with each other. And if our romantic relationship didn’t last that long—and so far things looked bleak—what then? But if it did last that long, what then? For the first time, I very seriously considered what was involved in vampire relationships, and it scared me more than any monster I’d faced thus far. Nathan and I could, for all intents and purposes, end up together forever, literally. And would it be because we truly wanted to be, or because some mystical force made it that way?

  Clearly picking up on my freaked-out vibe, he cupped my jaw in his palm, stroking my face with his index finger. That relationship ended because she was ready for something I wasn’t. Bad timing. That, and it was a hardship trying to pretend that I wasn’t a vampire. Neither of those reasons apply to us.

  My face scrunched up in embarrassment as I laughed at myself. “I know that.”

  “And you love me?” he asked, running his thumb over my bottom lip as he leaned forward to kiss me.

  Those momentary fears—and the ones that had stacked up on me for months—seemed so ridiculous now in the face of nearly losing him. I smiled against his mouth. “Yes. I love you.”

  He kissed me, so long and gentle and thorough that I lost track of time before it ended and yet it seemed torturously short when it actually did.

  Ziggy stirred. “You guys aren’t making out, are you?”

  Nathan reached over and smacked the back of his head, playful in that rough way men have. “Go back to sleep. This is grown-up time.”

  Ziggy’s back shook with laughter we couldn’t hear. “Yeah. Just don’t let it get too adult. I’m a kid, remember.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass, is what you are,” Nathan said, his voice full of relief and love and happiness despite the fact that so much still lay ahead of us. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  I heard Ziggy’s rustling movements, then a small noise of approval. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?” Nathan asked.

  Ziggy yawned. “You two. I knew you’d hook up.”

  “Ah, well, I knew that, too,” Nathan said offhandedly. “Just wasn’t sure how it would happen.”

  “I’m glad somebody let me in on it,” I said sleepily, my eyes drifting closed. “But you’re forgetting, there’s a very large piece of information Ziggy doesn’t know.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, suddenly alarmed and eager all at once.

  “Nathan’s my sire,” I responded on a yawn.

  Before Ziggy could respond, Nathan interjected, “It’s a very long story. Best saved for another time.”

  “Whatever,” he replied amid more rustling of his coat. “Wake me when the sun is down.”

  Try to get some sleep, yourself, I mentally nagged Nathan, and he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. If he responded, I didn’t hear it.

  Six:

  Reconnection, cont.

  O ur first order of business when we emerged from the shelter was to make things more livable in the apartment. It didn’t take as long as I had expected, though Nathan was dismayed every time we turned up another ruined notepad or book that was too damaged to be salvaged.

  Something about the apartment had changed in our absence. Nothing physical, but the atmosphere had shifted. After I’d first been changed, I’d seen Nathan’s home as a fortress, a refuge. Sanctuary. And then, after I’d become a permanent resident, as home. Now it was cold and unfeeling, as if the walls were living things who would just as soon give us all up to our enemies and be done with us as abide us living within them.

  “I hate to point this out, but you guys kind of destroyed my car and put a giant kink in my livelihood,” Bill said, sliding a stack of mutilated notebooks onto a shelf. “The least you can do is give me a ride back to Chicago.”

  “Not right now.” Nathan’s reply came out as if it had been at the ready for most of the night. “I’m sorry, but you’re too much of a liability to us. We don’t know you that well, and we don’t know what kind of people you work for.”

  “So, he’s a hostage, then?” Ziggy asked, something bloodthirsty and eager in his voice that strangely suited him.

  Nathan shrugged. “For all intents and purposes. But we’ll find a way to compensate you for the time and income you’ll lose. I just can’t think of a way now.”

  Bill considered, plainly unhappy. “I guess I can think of worse places to be stuck. But I can’t say I’ve ever been a hostage before, and I’m not entirely cool with this idea. I’m not here to help you with some grand, world-saving plan.”

  He had a very valid point, and every right to be angry with us. We’d never asked him to help us this far, and we’d definitely taken advantage of the little assistance he’d offered us. Now, he was our hostage. I wondered again if there was a family waiting for him at home that we were keeping him from.

  “Thank you so much, Bill, for all your help.” Of course, my thanks seemed too little too late, considering he’d just been told he was a prisoner, but I wanted him to know he was at least appreciated. “Really, you’ve done more than necessary.”

  “And will continue to do,” Nathan said cheerfully. “He’s a good man.”

  Ziggy wandered to the bottom of the stairs that led to the street. “So, how are we going to secure this place? It’s not exactly the Reichstag here.”

  “Two men awake, two men asleep, take turns on four-hour watch,” Bill answered quickly. “One up here, one down in the bookstore seems reasonable. Do you guys have walkie-talkies?”

  “You used to be in the A-Team or something?” Ziggy quipped, and I smiled to myself. He was beginning to sound like the kid I remembered.

  “Bill used to be in the Marines,” Nathan said in the same patient tone someone would use to explain the bizarre behavior of a mentally handicapped relative.

  I picked up the spell book, which I had snagged from the car on the way up to the apartment. “What about something out of here? She has all sorts of protection spells. There has to be something that will work on the building.”

  Nathan took the book from me with a frown. “Probably nothing useful. Dahlia seemed to be more concerned with destructive magic than anything that would do anyone any good. There might be some lesser wards worth checking into, though.”

  “Good. We’ll do that, and Bill and Ziggy can go look for blood.” I turned to the door and wrenched it open. “We’ll do it in the bookstore.”

  “Kinky.”

  The voice came from the bottom of the stairs. My mouth went dry and my throat closed up. Which was unfortunate, because my heart had just leaped into it.

  “Aren’t you even going to say hi?”

  “Max!” My voice came back before he reached the top of the stairs, and once he stood in the doorway, my reflexes returned, as well. He stiffened, bracing for the impact as I lunged to embrace him, but relaxed as my arms closed around him.

  “I’m glad to see you, too.” He laughed, giving me a gentle squeeze. “I would have been even happier to see you in Chicago. It would have saved me five hours in the car.”
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br />   Nathan was right behind me, and, to my surprise and Max’s, I’m sure, hugged Max as soon as I stepped back. “We’ve been worried about you, friend.”

  Slapping Nathan on the back, Max stepped away. “I should disappear without saying goodbye more often. You guys are in a better mood when I turn up.”

  “Don’t you dare ever do that again,” I admonished, aching to hug him again. “We were so worried.”

  “I called. I left a message. If you would ever check your voice mail—” He paused and looked into the living room. “Bill?”

  “And Ziggy. He’s alive,” Nathan said, his brow furrowing. “You don’t seem surprised to see him.”

  The friendly vibe fled the scene, replaced by something electric and cold. Something ready to escalate, like the feeling of doom right before you grab the doorknob that gives you a wicked electric shock.

  “Like I said, you should check your voice mail.” Max shrugged, then half smiled, but I could tell from the nervous glint in his eyes that he knew he’d said the disastrously wrong thing.

  Nathan grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pushed him against the wall. Some plaster fell from the ceiling, and the wall creaked ominously. “You called me to tell me that my son was still alive and instead of talking to me you left it in a voice mail?”

  We all stood silent in the dying echo of Nathan’s shouted accusation. If everyone was on the same page as I was, they were trying to figure out a way to end this confrontation without Nathan hurling Max down the stairs.

  “Nate,” Ziggy said cautiously. “It’s not like he had another option.”

  “He had another option. He could have gotten you out of there and brought you home!” He shoved Max again, and something fell somewhere in the other half of the apartment.

  “He didn’t want to come with me,” Max said. He wasn’t angry, and that only infuriated Nathan more.

  I felt his rage spike through the blood tie, and scolded him mentally, Not quite as fun when the person you’re beating up just sits there and takes it.

  Stay out of it, Carrie, he warned, turning his head to glare at me. “Of course he wanted to come with you. He was scared out of his mind when he called me!”

  “When I called you, it was a trap.” Ziggy stood and shrugged his jacket on, not making eye contact with any of us. “Don’t blame him. I’m the fuckup.”

  Nathan tried to hold on to his anger at Max, but it was a losing fight. He let go, and Max dropped a few inches—I hadn’t realized that Nathan had managed to lift him off the ground—but he quickly recovered, brushing himself off. There was a sizable dent in the wall behind him. “I tried to get him to come along, really, I did. But I had Bella with me—”

  “Bella!” I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to ask about her, regardless of the dustup I’d just witnessed. “Is she with you?”

  “No, she had to stay behind,” Max said, his gaze flitting distractedly from me to Nathan, keeping alert to another possible attack. “She’s not able to walk yet.”

  “My God, what happened?” I asked, but I didn’t get an answer. Ziggy pushed past us without a word and charged down the stairs. A person would have to be blind to miss the anger in his posture. I can’t say I wouldn’t have reacted similarly to see Nathan behave the way he was on my behalf. As if I were helpless or something.

  “Ziggy!” Nathan moved to go after him, and I stopped him, gripping his arm.

  Let him go. His moodiness would pass. He’d been through a lot and needed time on his own. And Nathan must have agreed with me, because he let him go.

  He turned to Max and held out his hand, unable to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, I don’t have tact.” Max took Nathan’s hand and shook it, then gestured to the sofa. “Maybe we should catch up a little. I’m here for a reason, and I’m betting it’s a little project you’re going to want to help work on.”

  “Listen, guys,” Bill said, his words swallowed by a yawn. “I need to go to bed. Your schedule is killing me. Is there someplace semiprivate I can sleep?”

  Nathan eyed him suspiciously, looking for a split second in the direction where Ziggy had just departed. “You know, the best way to adapt to it is to just tough it out.”

  I sent Nathan a warning vibe to go with my arched eyebrow. When I managed to catch his eye, he looked away. Do you know how old he is, Carrie?

  Do you know how old “Jacob” is? It was a low blow, but we didn’t have time for Nathan to play protective father. I smiled at Bill and said, “You can crash in the back room of the bookshop. We’ll leave you alone there. Just don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  “Or anything else,” Max said with a snort, which he immediately squelched at Nathan’s angry glare.

  “Before we start discussing battle plans—” Max knew Nathan almost as well as I did “—there’s something I need to tell you guys.”

  As he gestured, I noticed something strange about his hand, out of the corner of my eye. I reached for his wrist and brought his hand up easily. He was missing two fingers.

  “And a toe,” he said, before I could say anything. “It was a torture thing. That’s not important.”

  On that grim note, we settled into the living room—Max on the couch, Nathan in his chair and I on the arm of it—and listened, trying not to ask too many questions as he told us what had happened with the Oracle.

  I was able to accept that he’d gotten Bella pregnant under the influence of one of Dahlia’s potions. We’d figured that much out on our own. I was able to accept that Bella had been maimed in a horrific car accident and that she’d turned Max into a lupin. But I was a little stuck on the part where Max could walk around in broad daylight.

  “I know, I’m as mystified as you are.” He shrugged helplessly and stood, prowling around the living room like, well, a caged animal. “You have no idea how much it changes you, after all those years of not seeing a sunrise or, hell, even being awake at the same time everyone else is.”

  There was something sad in Nathan’s eyes as he nodded, even though he smiled. “Congratulations on the baby. There’s something that will change you.”

  Max turned serious then. “If I can get back to her. That’s kind of why I came to find you. My father-in-law has more or less banished me from the pack until this unseemly business with the Soul Eater is taken care of.” He made a noise of disgust. “Because I’m going to be held personally accountable for the actions of every vampire on the planet until the day I die, apparently. Probably beyond that.”

  “Well, we’re not going to be much help.” Nathan looked at me as if to reassure me he was okay, but I felt his sadness and even a little bit of envy through the blood tie. The thing he’d wanted most in life was a family, and if the Soul Eater hadn’t taken it from him, his wife’s fragile condition already would have. I knew how much it must have stung to find out that Max was going to be a father. “We haven’t gotten very far, ourselves. But Carrie has some experience in working magic that could prove handy.”

  “If I don’t die of starvation first.” My stomach grumbled loudly to illustrate my point.

  Max laughed. “I have some blood downstairs. It won’t keep us going for long, but we’ve got enough that we won’t starve for a couple of days.”

  Max and Nathan went downstairs together to grab the blood, which I warmed up for us and managed not to guzzle down on my own. Before Max fell victim to our “weird” schedule—though from his drooping eyelids and the six-hour time change he’d endured, I believed he was actually tired—we filled him in on the Soul Eater’s new minions and all that had occurred with Ziggy.

  “I know he’s your kid,” Max said, his voice full of genuine sympathy. “But we need to keep an eye on him.”

  Nathan agreed easily. “I hate to say it, but it hasn’t been far from my thoughts.”

  “Well, I think I need to find a place to sleep, myself.” Max stood and stretched, and I found my gaze following his maimed hand.

  “Max,” I sa
id, meaning to tell him thank you for helping us, thank you for being horribly tortured in the line of duty, but that wasn’t the kind of thing he would have wanted to hear. “You could take Ziggy’s old room.”

  He cracked a reluctant smile. “No, I think the kid will need it. I’m a dog now. Just dig me a hole out back and throw some straw in it and I should be good to go.”

  “Well, there is the emergency shelter under the counter,” Nathan said, and I elbowed him. “What?” he protested loudly, cradling his bruised ribs. “He said all he needed was a hole.”

  “Hey, at least that one has a sleeping bag in it. It’s one up from straw.” Max slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and started down the stairs. “If I see the kid, I’ll tell him to get up here and grab some chow.”

  When Max was gone, and we were left alone in the apartment, Nathan opened a book and settled into the chair, but I could tell from the look on his face that he wasn’t reading a word.

  “Strategizing?” I guessed, sitting on the arm of the chair he occupied. I ruffled his hair and kissed his forehead.

  “No. I was actually thinking of which of my rebellious children to discipline first.” He closed the book and looked up at me, dismay giving his face a tired expression.

  “Don’t do that, it’s gross. Calling me your kid,” I added for clarity.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, as if the oxygen would clear his head. “I suppose you’re going to tell me to go talk to him?”

  I shook my head. “No. Give him time to cool down.”

  “Am I a bad father if I say that I’m very glad you suggested that?” He leaned his head back, eyes closed. “Where did this go all wrong?”

  “Six months ago. Six hellish months ago.” I laughed. “And it’s getting better every moment.”

  His hand slid up my arm, under the sleeve of my T-shirt to my shoulder, where he slipped his fingers under my bra strap. “It hasn’t all been bad.”

  He pulled me into his lap, and I didn’t resist him. The spells and protection wards could wait twenty minutes, and I refused to feel guilty or wary about ignoring them for the moment.