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

Two blinks and an angry glare.

I sighed. “I’m sorry I bit you. I really am. But I couldn’t let Cyrus know who you were. He’d kill you. You know I wouldn’t have done it in any other circumstance.”

Two blinks.

“Ziggy, please. I don’t want you to get an infection I can easily prevent.”

After a long moment, one blink.

I went to the bathroom and scrubbed my hands thoroughly. Then, with the consideration I’d give a sexual assault case in the E.R., I began my examination.

“I’m going to take this sheet off of you, but I’ll rearrange it so you’re not completely uncovered. Right now, all I’m doing is evaluating the severity of your injuries.”

And some were pretty severe. Long, but fairly shallow cuts latticed his chest. Hideous, purple bruises darkened his skin, and claw marks showed where Cyrus had gripped the boy’s shoulders. When I moved lower, I saw bite marks, not inflicted by fangs, but blunt, human teeth, on the inside of his thighs. I turned my head away.

When I looked back, I saw a tear roll from Ziggy’s eye. He wouldn’t look at me.

A few hours ago, he’d been indulging in what looked like some pretty terrific sex. Then he’d run away from the only home he’d ever known, just to come here and be violated and humiliated by Cyrus. And me.

I debraded the bites and scratches and covered the worst with squares of gauze. “Do you hurt…anywhere else?”

He answered with two blinks, but croaked a barely audible “No.”

I went to wash my hands and snag an extra blanket from my bed. When I came back, I tucked Ziggy in, then dropped wearily into a chair. He spoke again, with more strength behind his voice this time. “Thank you.”

I heard the emotion in his words and tried to sound casual. “It’s okay. If you need anything else, just let me know.”

“Some aspirin would be nice. I’m sore all over.” He swallowed with a wince.

I looked through the medicine kit and found a bottle of acetaminophen. “This will have to do. I don’t want to thin your blood, with all those…wounds.”

I couldn’t say bites. I crushed the pills into quarters so they’d go down easier and got a paper cup of water from the bathroom sink. Slipping my hand behind his head, I helped him to ingest the pills. “Why did you come here?”

He choked a little on the water, and it roughened his voice. He sounded like a man, not the boy who’d attacked me in the bookshop. “You saw what happened. He kicked me out.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’d come here. You knew who lived here.”

“I knew you lived here.” His arm jerked in an effort to wipe away his tears, but he couldn’t yet control his limbs. “I thought you’d let me stay. I didn’t know you were going to feed off me and let him do w-what he did to me.” The last part came out as a shamed whisper, and he closed his eyes. “I love irony, when it doesn’t happen to me.”

He felt he was being punished. I wanted to weep for him, trapped in his prison of self-loathing, but he didn’t need that now. He would shun my pity and turn away from me. Then he’d have no allies left. “You didn’t deserve this.”

“Yeah, well. That’s your opinion.” He laughed bitterly, and more tears rolled silently from his eyes to wet the hair at his temples.

“It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact,” I told him sternly. “You didn’t deserve what he did to you.”

He looked away, and I could practically feel the blame radiating from him.

I cleared my throat softly and decided to change the subject. “Ziggy, when you got here, did you tell anyone you knew me?”

“Yeah. The guards at the door. I told them I was looking for the doctor, that I knew you from the hospital.” He sniffled. “Don’t worry, I didn’t mention the Movement. I figured they would have probably killed me.”

Rage brought me to my feet. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

With enough strength to splinter the hinges, I wrenched the secret door open and strode into Cyrus’s chamber. Two guards stood at his bedroom door, but they stepped aside and even opened it to admit me.

Cyrus was sprawled naked across the bed, the sheets and blankets in a tangled heap on the floor. Blood spattered the linen beneath him, and he snored in the depths of a contented sleep.

I could kill him right now and he’d never see it coming. The thought came before I had a chance to guard my mind from him, and I tensed, waiting for a response. His breath hitched, but he didn’t wake.

I stepped to the side of the bed, intending to wake him, but his arm shot out and caught my wrist. He pulled me down and pinned me beneath him.

“You’re mad enough to kill me, then?” he murmured against my neck. “You should have brought a weapon, because I can guarantee you won’t be able to do it with your bare hands.”

I didn’t struggle. “How could you do that to him?”

“How could you lie to me?” He twisted a hand in my hair, wrenching my head back painfully. “‘Who is he?’ you asked, as though you hadn’t the faintest clue that he’d come asking after you. As if I were stupid enough not to notice you’d cut yourself off from the blood tie, become so closed down to me that it was obvious you hid something. Who is this man to you, Carrie?”

I wanted to spit in his face. “He isn’t a man. He’s practically a child. And he’s a friend of mine. He was looking for a place to stay.”

“And I should just open my home to every derelict who wishes to show up?” He rolled off of me, and I pointedly ignored his nakedness.

“You do for your pets.” He’d grown aroused as he lay on top of me, and I clenched my teeth to fight the mirrored feeling from our invisible connection. “Why should it be different for him?”

“It isn’t.” Cyrus reached for the crystal bell that lay on his nightstand and he rung it sharply. The door opened, and the two sentries moved into the room. Cyrus pointed to the bedding on the floor, and they wordlessly began to untangle it.

Cyrus reclined against the pillows, utterly shameless in his nudity. “I only did what I would have done with any of my pets. I took what I wanted from him, and in return he’ll get what he wants from me.”

The guards laid the covers over us both, and Cyrus pulled me into his arms.

Though I was still angry, his touch felt so good that I didn’t resist him. I rested my head on his chest. “Promise me you won’t do that to him again.”

I felt his breath on the top of my head. “Fine. I won’t touch him against his will. But I won’t promise not to try to bend that will. He was a lot of fun.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” I snapped.

He chuckled and stroked the exposed skin at the neck of my robe. “You’d be disappointed, anyway. I don’t kiss and tell.”

I started to rise. “I’m going back to check on him. He’s pretty beat up. But you already know that.”

“Stay.” It wasn’t a request.

“You there,” he called to one of the guards. “Blast, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Thomas, sir,” the guard replied quickly.

Cyrus nodded. “Thomas. Go and see to the young man in Carrie’s room. He’s in your care today.”

As the guard moved to do as his master bid, I called after him. “If he complains about the quality of care you give him, I’ll kill you myself. Understood?”