Blood Ties Bundle: Blood Ties Book One: The Turning / Blood Ties Book Two: Possession / Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes to Ashes / Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls' Night

“Yes, but you’re not a witch.” His tone was the vocal equivalent of a condescending pat on the head. “A vampire’s blood is very powerful. Combine that with a witch’s abilities and you’ve got spells to raise the dead, summon armies from hell, et cetera. But as it stands, I think it would be safe to assume Dahlia merely wants to become one of us for her own selfish reasons. Is there anything else she said that might give us a clue why she targeted you specifically?”

I thought hard, but the entire evening was still a blur. “Just my ties to Cyrus.”

He looked helplessly around the apartment, as though an answer hid in the bookshelves. “Well, if she assumes you’re dead, at least she won’t come looking for you. That’s something.”

Cold, sick realization made my stomach constrict as I remembered everything in my purse spilled all over the dirty floor of the donor house. “She has all of my identification. I left my purse behind.”

Nathan frowned. “Well, that was careless of you.”

“Yeah, I guess I should have gone back for it after she stabbed me!” I snapped. I was too tired to keep up the sarcasm for long. “What am I going to do now?”

He went to the window and lowered the shades. “The sun is going to be up soon. I don’t think you’ll make it home before dawn, and I’d rather have you where I can protect you. Why don’t you stay here until dusk?”

I looked doubtfully around the cluttered apartment. There was one dead bolt on the door. It seemed a far cry from the safety and security of a building with a night watchman. Especially since a crazed witch was out to get me.

His eyes darted to the door, then back to me. “I swear, nothing will happen to you as long as you’re here.”

As if to reassure me, he stood and opened the door of the coat closet, revealing an impressive array of medieval-looking weapons.

“Beats a night watchman,” I said in awe.

Nathan suggested I take his bed. “I’m going to wait up for Ziggy, make sure he gets in okay.”

Glancing at the couch, I realized I shouldn’t argue. It didn’t look comfortable, and since it lived in the company of two men, it didn’t look very clean, either. I didn’t mention that. “You look out for him, don’t you?”

“Ziggy?” he said the name with genuine fatherly affection. “Yeah. Well, he hasn’t got anyone else.”

“Neither do you.”

I’d said the words without thinking, but their impact was visible. Nathan’s faint, unguarded smile faded. I glimpsed a flicker of pain in his eyes before the emotionless mask was back in place and he returned to being the polite acquaintance that held me at arm’s length.

I had no idea why it bothered me, but it did.

“Listen, you’ve had a rough night, and those wounds aren’t going to heal without some rest.” He pointed toward the hallway. “The bedroom’s straight back.”

I knew a dismissal when I heard one. I was halfway down the hall when he spoke again. “There are some T-shirts in the bottom dresser drawer. You can borrow one if you want.”

I went mechanically to the bureau. I’d just met Nathan. Spending the night in his bed was intimate enough. I didn’t need to wear his clothes, too. But the thought of sleeping naked didn’t appeal to me, either. I undressed, grimacing at the pain that tore through me when I moved. When I eased into the bed, I hissed in agony.

Loud footsteps charged down the hall, and Nathan burst into the room just seconds later. “Are you okay? Do you need something for the pain?”

His immediate reaction to a sound I didn’t think he’d been able to hear unnerved me. So did the sincere concern etched on his face.

He didn’t give me a chance to answer him. With a speed that surprised me, he left and reappeared with a large metal toolbox. Sitting on the bed, he placed the box in his lap and sprung the latches. “Okay, what do you want? We’ve got morphine, meperidine, Vicodin…I’ve got local anaesthetic, but I’d really like to save that.” As he continued to rattle off drug names, I peeked around his arm. The man’s first aid kit was better stocked than the Pyxis medicine cabinet in the E.R., but I was willing to bet he didn’t come by the stuff legally. “How’d you get all this?”

“Connections in the Movement.” He lifted out a bottle of pills and squinted to read the label.

“I thought you guys were all about the extinction of your species.” I reached for a syringe and the vial of meperidine. “This should put me right to sleep. Got a tourniquet?”

He handed me the stretchy strip of latex. “The rules state we can’t save a vampire’s life, not even our own. If our healing abilities don’t take care of things, that’s the end of it. Nothing in here is going to save me if I get in a bad way. There’s no rule against keeping yourself comfortable for your last few hours. Do you need a hand?”

I had the tourniquet between my teeth and tried to wind it around my arm the way I’d seen them do it in Trainspotting. I’d started enough IVs in my time that it should have been a piece of cake, but doing it yourself wasn’t as easy as it looked. When I shook my head no in answer to Nathan’s question, the stretched length of rubber shot from my lips, snapping me painfully in the face.

“Here, let me.” He chuckled as he deftly tied the tourniquet and thumped the fat vein on the inside of my forearm. “That looks like a good spot.”

I watched as he carefully filled the syringe. This obviously wasn’t the first injection he’d given. “Did the Movement teach you how to do this?” I asked.

He tapped the air bubbles toward the needle. “I picked it up somewhere. Now, hold still.”

I felt the needle slide into my unsterilized arm. I remembered what I’d read in The Sanguinarius regarding disease: The humors that delight in causing sickness and death will not touch the vampire. He will not be affected by the plagues of Pandora.

I could only assume the same went for modern-day germs and bacteria.

The medicine stung as it entered my vein, but Nathan’s touch was gentle and reassuring. Even so, I fixed my gaze on his face to keep from looking at the needle in my arm—I was never good at being the patient. “So we can heal from serious injuries on our own?”

“The depth of severity is determined by age. If someone had done to me what I did to Cyrus, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I would’ve healed from your stab wound in an hour, whereas you’re lucky you didn’t need stitches. By the time I found you, though, you’d already started to heal. It’s a good thing you’d fed some.” He held his thumb over the injection site as he withdrew the needle, then reached for a Band-Aid. “There. That should take the edge off, and it will help you get to sleep.”

“What about me? How long will it take until I’m completely healed?” I really hoped the answer wasn’t two months.

“You’ll be fine in the morning,” he said as he recapped the needle.

I snatched it from him. “Don’t do that. It’s a universal hazard.”

He looked amused. “A what?”

“A universal hazard. It’s been in contact with body fluids, which transmit diseases that cause death. You could stick yourself in the process and end up dead. It’s a universal hazard, and not recapping needles is a universal precaution.” Realizing I sounded like one of my old professors, I pinched the bridge of my nose in embarrassment. “I can’t believe how easily I just rattled that off.”

“It was very educational.” Nathan laughed. He had a great laugh, deep and genuine. It was the best thing I’d heard all day.

He shrugged. “But I’m not worried about diseases. I’m more worried about a stake to the heart or an axe to the neck.”

“Is that all?” I teased. “I would have thought a strapping lad such as yourself would be concerned about his cholesterol levels.”

Suddenly serious, Nathan caught my chin in his hand and forced me to look at him. “Your heart and your head. Lose either one and you’re dead.”

How will you kill me? I thought. “What about burning? Can you die from burning? Or drowning?”

As if horrified by the morbid conversation—or the realization that he’d started it—he removed his hand apologetically. “The short answer is yes, you can die from anything that causes more damage than you can heal in a feasible amount of time. But let’s not talk about this now. You need to rest.”

I wanted him to tell me more, but I just cried gratefully. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do all this.”

He didn’t look at me as he began gathering up the medical debris from the bed. “No one ever died from being too polite. Besides, you need help. The next couple of months will be rough.”

“I can’t imagine it will be any worse than it already has been.”

“You’re going to have to say goodbye to your family, your friends. Everyone.” He stood. “It’s lonely being one of us.”

“I don’t have any relatives I talk to anymore. I mean, my parents are dead, and I haven’t seen any of their family since I was little, except for at their funeral. I only moved here eight months ago, so I haven’t had time to make any friends.” I stopped myself. “Well, except for you, I guess. You’re the closest thing to a friend that I’ve got so far.”