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

“Bed?” I asked stupidly, checking my watch. Ten after ten. “I have to go.”

Nathan followed me to the door. “Have you thought of what you’ll do should Cyrus come looking for you?”

I hadn’t. “I’ll tell him to go away, that I gave at the office,” I said, my uneasiness at the prospect betrayed by my forced laugh.

I couldn’t stand the thought that I shared a plasma-level connection with the monster who’d attacked me. It was bad enough he’d invaded my nightmares. His blood had become part of me, too.

Nathan studied my face for a moment, and I stared back, unable to discern a single emotion. He’d probably practiced hiding his feelings for so long that even he couldn’t find them. He looked away and handed me my coat. “If you need anything, you have my number. And this,” he said. He held out The Sanguinarius.

I took the book in one hand and awkwardly tried to slip into my coat with the other. He moved behind me to help, and it took all my self-control to keep from leaning against him. What could I say? It had been a long time since I’d engaged in threatening, pseudo-sexual banter with anyone.

“Thanks,” I said quietly, putting my hand on the doorknob.

“One more thing,” Nathan said. “If you need blood, please come to me. I always have some to spare. Just don’t go outside afterward. In the daytime, I mean. In fact, you should probably start avoiding it entirely. I’m sure after a while, even if you hold out from feeding, the change will complete itself on its own. I’m always here, if you need…help.”

“Thanks, but I don’t have any desire to drink blood.”

“You’ll feel it soon,” Nathan warned as I descended the stairs.

“Feel what?” I was more concerned by the prospect of the snow on the ground outside than his ominous tone.

“The hunger. You’ll feel the hunger.”

Four

When Carrie Met Dahlia

I didn’t give Nathan’s warning much thought until the night the hunger came over me.

I’d spent the week doing my best to live life as though nothing had changed. Faced with what might be the last fourteen days of life before submitting myself to the Movement’s judgment, I was going to savor them.

Of course, I read The Sanguinarius. It was as dry and Victorian as Lord of the Rings. I reminded myself that the course of my existence was dependent upon finishing this particular book.

Nathan called to check in on me every night. I cursed myself for having a listed number. Sometimes his call came after I’d gone to work, and soon I found myself actually looking forward to the end of my shift so I could hear his voice on my answering machine. But by the end of the week, my spare thoughts—no, my every thought—had turned to blood.

To get through my night shifts at the hospital, I snacked constantly. Coffee, pizza, popcorn, anything with a substantial aroma that covered the smell of blood. A few nurses made envious remarks about my ability to eat so much and never gain weight. I barely heard them. The obnoxious thumping of their pulses was all I could hear.

Blood became an all-consuming distraction. I took numerous, drastic measures to ensure the safety of everyone around me. On my frequent breaks, I locked myself in the staff bathroom and used a razor blade to make small, shallow cuts on the inside of my arm. Then I licked away the blood that welled up. It did little to slake my thirst, but the resultant marks piqued the interest of the psychiatry resident. I spent a great deal of time avoiding him and his softly spoken invitations to talk about my “recovery.”

Despite my hunger, I couldn’t stomach the thought of drinking human blood. Once or twice, in desperation, I’d snuck a vial drawn from a patient and brought it home with me. But the threat of tiny viruses just waiting to take up residence in my body made my skin crawl. I poured the blood down the sink and destroyed the vials.

My weight dropped dramatically. I lost ten pounds in three days. I was tired and sick. Everywhere I went, the sound of human hearts pumping blood through fat, blue veins absolutely maddened me.

The Sanguinarius recommended feeding captive vampires raw steak. Whoever wrote it had obviously never seen a 20/20 expose about slaughterhouse contamination and E. coli.

My nights off were almost worse than the nights I had to work. At least at the hospital I had to force myself to concentrate on something other than the hunger. I was struggling through a particularly bad night at home when I finally gave up and went back to Wealthy Avenue. Tears streamed down my face as I shook uncontrollably behind the wheel, like a drug addict in desperate need of a fix.

Nathan hadn’t called me that night, and it hadn’t occurred to me to call him before I showed up at his doorstep. I needed blood. I needed it badly. My hands trembled as I rang the bell to his apartment.

There was no answer. The window of the shop was dark, and no one responded to my frantic knocking.

Young men and women hurried up and down the sidewalk. The pumping of their blood drowned out the words of their conversation. Most of them looked young enough to have a curfew, but some could have been college students.

College students from other states, perhaps, with few acquaintances in their new surroundings. Like me, if they went missing, no one would look for them for days, possibly even weeks….

I was horrified at the thought, but I needed blood. Since I wasn’t up to hijacking a bloodmobile, I would have to find a donor.

I didn’t go back to my car. I needed to walk in the fresh air and open space.

I don’t know how long I searched. I was selective. One bar looked too dank and blue-collar for my tastes. It would be crowded with middle-aged men in flannel shirts watching sports on television. I wanted someone young. Someone beautiful.

I spotted her on the street.

She crossed against the light. Her pale, blond hair flew behind her like a banner in the wind. The way she clutched her coat to her chest accentuated her skinniness.

I had never felt this sort of attraction toward anyone before, let alone a woman. It was not an attraction in a sexual sense. It was an animal instinct, as pure and natural as breathing. I wanted her blood.

The girl in the black coat pushed through a small cluster of young men and women loitering on the sidewalk. As I approached, I read the name of the building she ducked into.

The covered windows of Club Cite were framed by blue neon tubes. The brick building had been painted black, but the paint job had not been kept up, revealing flecks of the original red brick. The place was dirty and run-down.

Once inside, I followed her down the stairs. The walls around us vibrated with a muffled bass line. She pulled open the door at the bottom and the entire corridor flooded with noise. The club was packed with young people, all dressed in black. Some were Dickensian, with top hats and walking sticks. More were swathed in torn fishnets patched with electrical tape. They all looked at me as though my blue jeans and freckled face disgusted them.

I couldn’t have cared less. I’d lost sight of my prey. Finding her tragic figure in this writhing mass of self-pity would be impossible.

“She went into the bathroom,” a voice said close to my ear. “But I wouldn’t go after her if I were you. She doesn’t know what you are.”

My heart could have stopped beating. My chest tightened, and the excitement of the chase vanished. I was caught.

I turned slowly, expecting to face a uniformed officer. Instead, I found myself looking down at the smirking face of a very confident young woman. She wasn’t slender by any means, and she swayed to the music with an innate grace that erased any notion she found her body bulky or unwieldy. The standard Robert Smith makeup of heavy eyeliner and deep red lipstick decorated her pale face, and a thick riot of red curls hung to her shoulders.

“You’re surprised?” she asked, putting her hands on her ample hips. “You were being so obvious.”

“Obvious?” My mouth felt dry.

She looked me over with her head cocked to one side. Her curls bobbed as she laughed. “Yeah, obvious. But don’t worry, most of the kids here wouldn’t know a real vampire if one came up and bit them on the ass. They’re here because their parents just don’t understand.”

The pulsating music, combined with the sound of beating hearts all around me, made me feel as if a speed metal drummers’ convention was getting into full swing in my frontal lobe. I squinted against the swirling light and movement of the room. “How did you know what I am?”

“You must be new to this whole vampire thing, huh?” she asked. She smiled a perfectly mischievous smile, as if she’d practiced it in a mirror for years. “That girl over there, she’ll scream like a banshee before you get two drops out of her, and then where will you be? In a whole heap of trouble, that’s where.”

Before I could protest, she grabbed my arm. Under her hand, my skin felt warm and alive, as though I’d absorbed her energy. Over the din of a hundred human pulses I could hear hers loudest of all, but I didn’t feel compelled to feed from her. She was warm and alive, but she didn’t seem wholly human.

Danger was here. Tension seethed beneath her sweet words. She moved like a dancer despite her round shape, her every movement charged with urgency.

The hunger gnawed at me, so I followed her.

As we walked, she told me her name was Dahlia. She led me from the club and down a few alleys, through an abandoned rail yard adrift with snow.