Ashes to Ashes-Blood Ties 3 (21 page)

"Because you won't stop harping on this death shit!" He pounded the mattress with his fist. "You're not going to die."

"You do not know that," she insisted, her tone a little too reasonable. "Neither one of us knows when death will come for us."

"You don't know shit!" He sat up in turn. "And if you think you're going to die, you don't know much about me."

"You cannot prevent everything." She put her hand on his arm. "It could be out of your hands."

"Is this something the Oracle told you? Because she could be trying to trick you." How could Bella blindly believe anything that crazy bitch planted in her head?

"I have feared her since the moment I first saw her, the day I came to the Movement." Bella gave a soft laugh. "It is not unlikely she will be the death of me. Or you." She knelt beside him and tenderly put her hands on his face, turning his head so she could look into his eyes. He didn't resist her.

"I am not lying. But she did show me something." A tear rolled down Bella's cheek. "A long time ago, when I first saw her. She showed me that I would find you." Injured knee be damned. Max pulled Bella into his arms and kissed her, hard, as if the intensity of his physical actions could keep her safe from her own mortality.

"I thought you were hurt," she whispered against his cheek when his mouth moved from her lips to her jaw. He smiled and brushed her ear with his lips. "Not so much as I let on." Trying to ignore the gentle pressure against his chest, he kissed her mouth again. She turned her head.

"What's the matter?" he asked, leaning up on his elbows. But he already knew.

"Why would you lie?"

He groaned and flopped onto his back, sucking in a breath at the surprising pain that ripped up his leg. "I didn't lie. I really am hurt. Just not as badly as I let on."

"You pretended to be hurt more than you are. That is a lie," she said quietly, accusingly.

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"No, it's not, really." How could he explain it to her? "I just didn't want to go any further on this trip before we got some concrete information. I don't want to rush headlong into something bad."

She shook her head. "We do not have to rush headlong. We simply need to get there. It is a long drive. How can you waste our time so?"

"I'm not wasting our time, I'm preserving your life!" He swore. If she wasn't going to let him protect her from the Oracle, he wasn't going to protect her from the truth. "She told me, through you, that the closer we come to her, the more power she has over us."

"I know this!" Bella sat up, uttering some angry words in Italian. "I swear you think I am a child, Max."

She rarely spoke his name, at least, not to him. He covered his face with his hands. "Bella, listen to me. You're afraid of the Oracle. You admit she's a danger to us." Bella nodded.

"Maybe, just maybe then, if we don't go find her, we won't die." He bracketed her face with his palms. "We can get in the car and drive. It doesn't matter where we go, as long as it's away from her."

Bella's hands came up to cover his, to grip his arms and gently force them down. "What about Nathan and Carrie? They are depending on us to help them."

"We can throw out the cell phone and forget them." He didn't know what shocked him more, the fact he suggested leaving his friends—and the world—at the mercy of the Oracle and the Soul Eater, or the desperation required to talk about it. Or what that desperation meant. "We can just forget everything. No one will ever find us."

"No." She lifted his hands to her lips and kissed them. "We would always be running from our pasts."

He shook his head. "I'm not going to take you to her. Not if you have this feeling of dread. Not if you're certain you're going to die. Never gonna happen."

"If you do not, I will find a way by myself!" Closing her eyes, clearly an attempt to calm herself, Bella asked, "Why does this bother you so? You used to want to kill me."

"Well, things have changed." He'd rather pull out his tongue than confess any more feelings for her, but he didn't want her to die, either. Maybe it would take some kind of grand gesture to knock some sense into her.

Maybe that was exactly what she was looking for.

He closed his own eyes, because if there was any mocking in her expression he wouldn't be able to stand it. "Bella, I—"

"I love you," she blurted, her voice hitching, as if she couldn't believe she'd said it, or she wanted to take it back. Opening his eyes, he caught a glimpse of Bella as he'd never seen her before. Frightened, not of an enemy or unseen force, but of her own actions. Terrified of rejection. Ashamed that she'd displayed human feelings.

His chest constricted so painfully he wondered if it were possible for vampires to have heart attach. He didn't know what to say, didn't have any words. What could he say when faced with such an unlikely reflection of himself?

Taking his silence for rejection, she looked down at her hands. "Now you will mock me."

"No." His voice was oddly hoarse. He cleared his throat. "At least, not for this."

"You are mocking me now." Her shoulders slumped. She didn't wear defeat well. Having never been in love—at least, not this way—he found himself in wholly uncharted

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territory. It wasn't fair he had to feel so vulnerable.

"I'm not making fun of you." He slid two fingers under her chin to turn her face to his. "If I had said what you just did, would you have made fun of me?" She lifted one eyebrow in a mocking expression, and for a second the Bella he knew was back. Just as quickly, though, she grew serious. "If you had said it to me, it would have been different. Because I. would have wanted to hear it."

"I wanted to hear it" He dropped his hand and shook his head. "But something tells me you won't believe that."

"Why would I?" She laughed bitterly. "You wish me to believe that you do not love anyone. That you drown yourself in meaningless sex. That was fine, when it was what I wanted from you. But you wanted more from me than that, and I would not give it. And now, you will reject me as a punishment."

"I didn't want more then," he insisted, out of habit "I mean… I used to do the meaningless sex thing. Because I did love someone, once. He died. And no, it wasn't a gay thing. He was my sire. I know you think the whole vampire thing is disgusting, and I know you're not going to believe this, but the blood tie… does something to you. And when he died…

It was easier for me to think I wasn't lonely if I was going home with a different woman every night. Then things happened with you. And when I tried the meaningless sex thing again, it just didn't work."

He groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed, sitting up. "I better stop talking. I'm just fucking this up more."

"You are not fucking up anything." Color rose in her cheeks. He realized he rarely heard her use profanity. "Max, we must talk about this or we will not be happy."

"We won't be happy anyway. We're going to die, remember?" The bitter retort rode a wave of bile up his throat, and he choked it back. "God, this is really happening to me again. I'm gonna fall for you and some horrible shit is going to happen." She put her arms around his shoulders, rested her cheek against his. "Let's not think about that now."

He shook his head. "This isn't how I wanted it to happen."

"It is not how I wanted it to happen, either." Her voice was a whisper that tickled his ear. His mouth went dry at the thought of the month he'd spent apart from her, a month he would never be able to reclaim. "We wasted so much time."

"Then let's not waste any more." She buried her face against his neck and he felt the hot wetness of her tears "Do you love me?"

He twisted slightly to face her. "What a stupid question. Of course I love you."

"Then let's not waste any more time," she repeated softly, pulling her shirt over her head. If he had walked away from her, maybe he could have rebuilt some of his armor. Maybe he could have protected himself a little from the pain of her death. But he couldn't walk away, and he wouldn't force himself to.

I don't know how much time passed between when I blacked out in Cyrus's bathroom until I woke up in Nathan's bed, but I felt as if I'd aged twenty years. My head throbbed and the faint light in the room seemed to have a personal grudge against me. My muscles were painfully tight, like I'd done a grueling workout without stretching properly. I groaned and my throat felt as though it would crack and bleed, it was so dry. "You're awake. Thank

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God."

Nathan. I turned my head and tried to focus, but the light assaulted me. "Where's Cyrus?" Nathan stroked the back of my hand. "He's on the couch. He woke up a few hours ago, but he's still healing from what she did to him."

"He lived." I took a deep breath, wincing at the soreness in my chest. "Well, that's something."

"Are you okay?" Nathan's voice held an edge of neediness that set my teeth grinding.
Pathetic as ever.

"That wasn't me." It was Cyrus's voice in my head, criticizing Nathan.

"What wasn't?" Nathan sat beside me on the bed. The mattress dipped and the axis of my world twisted.

"Nothing, nothing."

Tell him you can hear me. It will kill him.

I covered my ears. "You shut up!"

Gently, Nathan put his hands on my shoulders, but I barely felt it "Calm down. It's just the blood tie. Take a deep breath."

This
was the blood tie? Oh, I had plenty, and I mean
plenty
of experience with the fledgling end of things, hearing projected thoughts and viewing selected images, maybe even sharing a memory or two. And I'd instinctively shielded my thoughts from both my sires. I didn't realize how crystal clear they would have come through to them.

"Is this what you felt when you accidentally sired me?" I forced my eyes open so I could see Nathan as he answered. At the sight of him, a curl of disgust and shame wound through me. I couldn't tell if it was mine or Cyrus's.

Nathan nodded. "That's how I knew we'd formed a blood tie between us. Your babbling."

"I do not babble," I snapped, raking my hair back.

"You did to." He pointed to the bedside table, where his pet fish had lived before its peaceful demise from old age. "A lot of it was about Shish's tiny goldish memory span."

"Mmm. That was my pet metaphor for a while. I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my arms on them. "How long have I been out this time ?

"Probably not as long as you think. About twelve hours. And you weren't completely out When I found you, I was able to rouse you enough to walk to the van. He wasn't as lucky." Nathan looked away. "Why did you do it?"

"I had to." At the memory of Cyrus's wounds, I felt my hands clench to fists. Nathan had saved me in the alley when I'd been damaged beyond repair, but he wouldn't understand this. If it were anyone else but Cyrus, he would know exactly why. "He has information about the Soul Eater."

Nathan shrugged. "We could have found him on our own. So, why?"
Tell him why.

"No." I clutched my pounding head, fingers digging into my skull like daggers. But Cyrus was relentless.
Tell him I begged you not to. Tell him you took me when I was
so close to death it almost killed you. Tell him you'd rather have me than him
.

"He's the same. He's exactly the same." I looked hopelessly to Nathan, but any trace of pity was gone from his face.

With cold resolve, he stood. "This isn't real, Carrie. But it's real enough that I won't sympathize with you over your bad choices."

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"Not real?" I asked, hating the plaintive whine in my voice. But he stalked from the room. I stood to follow him, but I couldn't find the door. That's when I realized I was dreaming. I stumbled, my legs twisting, and fell. Unable to catch myself, I hit the bare wood floor head-on, my face shattering like glass.

Then I woke up.

I gingerly felt my face. Still there, but I was alone. I eased out of bed, every muscle in my body protesting, and stumbled to the dresser for support.

"I packed your bags." Nathan stood in the doorway. His clothes were rumpled and dark circles ringed his eyes.

"Why were you in my dream?" I asked, hating the tremor in my voice.

"I could talk to you there without… Well, it was just safer to discuss what we had to in here." He tapped his temple with his forefinger, stopping midmotion. "I'm your sire. I have a duty to help you when you need it. And you're going to need it. But I didn't trust myself with you. I' in too angry."

My throat constricted. There were so many things I wanted to say, but there was no point. I'd known, I must have known, that Nathan wouldn't just blindly accept this. Cyrus had been a monster. The extent of his cruelty toward Nathan was such that even he didn't know the whole of it.

But I loved Nathan. Things had just become right between us, or at least close to right.

"You fucked it up, Carrie." He read my thoughts as easily as I'd heard Cyrus's in my dream.

Nathan jerked his thumb toward the hallway. "When you're ready, he's in there." I looked toward my old bedroom. "Is he awake?"

"Has been for a while. I've got him tied down. He's been out of control." Nathan's tone implied he hadn't exactly appreciated having to deal with my problem.

"Thank you." I took a few, wobbling steps forward, forcing myself to ignore the shakiness in my limbs. My clothes, stiff with dried blood, rustled as I moved. I knew Nathan was behind me, and I made a conscious decision not to react when I saw Cyrus. That decision flew right out the window the second I stepped into my room. Sometime in the night, Nathan had moved my bed up from storage. With the new bookshelves in place, the bed took up the entire floor space, except for a small square near the doorway. It was like a mausoleum crypt, and Cyrus lay on the bed, wide-awake, bungee cords and loops of duct tape securing him there like Hannibal Lecter on his little cart. All he needed was the muzzle.