Ashes to Ashes-Blood Ties 3 (22 page)

I gave Nathan a brief, openmouthed look of dismay before rushing to my fledgling's side. I'd heard that new mothers, after enduring the prolonged pain and exertion of labor, feel oddly detached from their offspring. I'd always thought there must be something profoundly screwed up in these people that they didn't feel an instant connection with the child they'd brought into the world. I could definitely sympathize with them as I knelt beside the bed. All my former notions of Cyrus—John Doe, my sire, a wounded, grieving human—fled. Though the blood tie connected us, he was a stranger. When his cold blue eyes raked over me, I shuddered.

"Why?" His demand scraped from an obviously dry throat. Rather than answer Cyrus's accusation, I turned to Nathan with one of my own. "You didn't feed him?"

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"You're lucky I didn't stake him."

"It's true," Cyrus stated in a voice that was at once chillingly familiar and repulsively alien.

"He stood in the doorway for a good twenty minutes, trying to work up the nerve."
He's the same. He's exactly the same
. My dream words mocked me with their truth.

"What did you expect, Carrie?" Nathan turned from me, disgusted. "I'll get him some blood. Stay clear of him, in case he breaks free."

"I can get it," I offered, backing away from the bed. Nathan's tone warned me against arguing. "Stay clear of him."

Stay clear
? There wasn't enough room to stay clear of anything. But his warning proved unnecessary. Cyrus didn't struggle. He lay perfectly docile, fixing me with an accusing stare.

I could remain silent only so long. "Listen, Cyrus, I'm—"

"Spare me your self-serving apologies." His voice was flat, emotionless. Stunned and hurt, I brushed away unexpected tears. "If I hadn't done it, you would have died."

"That crossed my mind, yes." He looked away, up at the ceiling. "If I had died, I could have been with her again. I think I tried to tell you that. In fact, I distinctly remember trying to fight you off."

My stomach churned at the memory of his dying words "I had to. Not for me. Only you can tell us where your father is." It sounded as lame as it had when I'd said it in my dreams. Was that really the reason I'd forced my blood down his throat?

"A brothel in Nevada. Now give me my mortal self back," he snarled, baring his fangs. I'd never really been afraid of Cyrus before now. When he'd been my sire, I'd feared my reactions to him and what he might manipulate me to do, but I'd never considered he'd physically harm me. He was different now. This Cyrus wouldn't seductively lead me to a destruction of my own making. He'd destroy me outright.

"You know I can't do that," I whispered, my tongue like lead in my mouth. I moved toward the bed, drawn by some strange instinct to be near him.

"Get away from him."

At Nathan's frighteningly calm warning, I turned. That was all it took. Cyrus tore free of his bindings. One arm, empowered by rage and reborn vampire strength, locked around my neck. The other grasped my forehead. He intended to break my neck. Nathan didn't let it get that far. A stake flew from his hand. It missed Cyrus completely and embedded in the wall. He pulled another from his back pocket and flung it. This one struck Cyrus in the arm. With a sickening crack, the long bones of his forearm separated and he released his hold, screaming.

I dropped to the floor, my head spinning from shock and the force of Cyrus's hatred rocking through me. Nathan pinned him to the bed, a knee in his chest.

"Just like old times, Nolen?" Cyrus laughed. "I remember you liked it rough." I squeezed my eyes shut tight. There was a thud, like someone dropping a side of beef onto wet pavement, and Cyrus was silent.

Nathan stood over me, nursing his sore fist. "Why did you do it?"

"I couldn't let him die." The admission came from numb lips. It hurt, but the pain was distant. "I still… "

Nathan was silent for a moment, considering. When he spoke again, I wished I hadn't

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heard him. "Get out."

"What?" The shock and hurt were almost overwhelming. But what had I expected? That he would welcome Cyrus into his home with open arms? "I don't have anywhere to go. You know that."

"And you knew it before you turned him. That means you made an informed decision." Nathan turned away from me, and when he did I felt the blood tie between us seal shut. I tried a new tactic. "If we leave, where do you think he'll go? He's going to end up with his father again. Maybe I will, too."

Nathan seemed to consider this a moment. No matter how he tried to block it, I felt his panic and his primal need to protect me—his fledgling, not his pseudo girlfriend—from his sire. After a long moment, he sighed wearily and gestured to the stake jutting from Cyrus's arm. "Get me the medical kit. It's in the living room." It certainly wasn't the reaction I was expecting from him. I stumbled out and retrieved the heavy red toolbox that contained our medical supplies.

When I brought it to Nathan, he didn't bother with so much as a thank-you. He focused solely on Cyrus, who twisted in pain on the bed as he slowly came to some watered-down form of consciousness. "You're going to be all right. Hold on a minute and we'll take care of the pain."

Throwing me a worried look, Nathan filled a syringe with a local anesthetic. "This is going to need stitching. Can you do it?"

I wanted to say,
Can you refrain from embedding more projectiles in my fledgling
?

Instead, I folded my arms across my chest, tightening them to hold in my anger. "Do you have a needle driver?"

Nathan made a sustained suspense noise as he dug through the tool kit, then pulled out the shiny, scissorslike implement. "This?"

"Yes. I need to go wash my hands." When he rolled his eyes, I threw up my arms helplessly. "It's a habit. My parents didn't spend the better part of their stock earnings putting me through med school for me to just
forget
simple sanitary precautions." It would also give me some time to get my head together. I'd expected Nathan to be difficult about this whole situation. I loved him, but I wasn't living under the delusion that he was abnormally selfless and cooperative. Still, a part of me had held out hope that this wouldn't destroy any slim chance we had together.

It couldn't be over. Not because of this.

And yet, did I really care? I had Cyrus.

I knew it.

Firmly, I shoved the thought—mine and his—from my mind. I didn't
have
Cyrus. He was my fledgling, and I had a duty to do by him, and that was it. At least I thought I had a duty toward him. I wasn't exactly sure what a sire was supposed to do. Cyrus had manipulated and tortured me. Nathan had given me a place to live and protection from the numerous dangers of an undead life. It seemed as if I should try and do the latter, not the former. At the same time, I understood the seductive power I held. Cyrus had abused the blood tie, and now I had the opportunity for the sweetest kind of revenge—to give him a taste of what he'd done to me. And I understood, too, why he'd done it. Because he could. Because the ability was there.

I dried my hands and returned. Nathan stood silently outside the door: Cyrus lay on the

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bed, seemingly unaffected by the fact that he was bleeding all over the place. Nathan had a dark look on his face, but I ignored it and set to my task, still able to go on autopilot months after abandoning my medical career.

And oddly, as I worked, Nathan's feelings of anger subsided, giving way to… pity?

You pity him? What, I'm the big, mean sire and you're on his side now
? I made a face and blocked the resentment I felt from flowing through our tie.

I'm not on his side. There aren't any sides.

I looked up at Nathan. He stepped into the room, his arms crossed as he watched me repair Cyrus's wounds.

Pursing my lips, I looked back to my work.
You act like you're more worried about him
than I am
.

Right now, focusing on him is all that's keeping me from walking out of here
. Nathan handed me a clean towel so I could wipe away some of the blood.
You're supposed to hate him
. I clipped the thread and moved on to the next site that needed my attention.

I know what he's going through.

I didn't need to ask what Nathan meant. He'd become a vampire against his will, just as I'd made Cyrus a vampire against
his
will.

Nathan gave me a pointed look and went to his bedroom.

I finished my work in stony silence. Occasionally, I glanced at Cyrus, to find him staring with grim fascination at the needle sliding through his flesh. My arms broke out in goose bumps. I'd seen that expression on him before. In his vampire days, when pain—it didn't matter whose—gave him satisfaction unmatched by anything else in his life. I avoided looking at him again.

When Cyrus was patched up, I didn't bother to tie him again. He was angry, but not stupid, and he'd been a vampire long enough in the past to know his limits in the present. We heal, but it takes time. He wouldn't be able to effectively attack again tonight. I washed up and went to Nathan's bedroom. He lay on the bed, a book in his hands, but his thoughts were so jumbled I knew he couldn't possibly be reading. "A little early to turn in, don't you think?" I tried to make my tone light.

I failed miserably.

He looked up, said nothing, and returned his gaze to the page. The argument hadn't even begun, and I
so
didn't want to be at the shrieking point yet, but I couldn't control myself. "He knows where the Soul Eater is! We need him!"

"Oh, come on, Carrie!" Nathan tossed the book angrily aside and threw the covers back, swinging his feet to the floor. "We could have found the Soul Eater on our own and you know it."

"No, I didn't!" I stalked toward the living room, then remembered Cyrus was in the apartment, and slammed the door instead. Lowering my voice so he wouldn't be able to hear me as easily, I advanced on Nathan, jabbing my finger at him accusingly. "We can't use your blood tie to find him, we've been over and over this! You could become possessed again. He could find you and then be one step closer to completing his ritual. As usual, I had to make the choice between doing something easy or doing something that was going to screw up my life! That's what it always comes down to, and I'm sick of it because it's not fair! But it's just how things happen."

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