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. Jennifer Armintrout

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СКАЧАТЬ the bottom of the stairs was old and wooden, with a window in the top half that bore the name of the shop in gold paint. Bells jingled when I entered.

      The sights and smells of the place immediately overwhelmed me. Incense burned, a particularly noxious scent, and the air of the place was hazy with it. New Age music played softly, some peaceful Celtic harp composition punctuated with birdsong. I didn’t know if it was the smoke or the flaky music that made me gag.

      The shop wasn’t horribly bright, but enough candles were lit to cast flickering shadows along the rows and rows of bookshelves.

      I covered my nose with my sleeve to avoid the heavy smell of incense that rapidly formed a metallic taste in my mouth. I looked toward the sales counter.

      The shop seemed empty. “Hello?”

      I heard the heavy thunk of the door scraping shut. When I turned toward the sound, something struck me hard in the chest. Lifted off my feet, I landed flat on my back on the unfinished wooden floor.

      Muscles all over my body that still weren’t used to movement after such a long recuperation screamed in agony, but an instinct completely foreign to me forced me to move. I quickly rolled to my side just as an axe blade splintered the floor right where my head had been.

      With strength I hadn’t realized I possessed, I arched my back and pushed off the floor with the palms of my hands, springing to my feet in a move like something out of an action movie. Only then did I come face-to-face with my attacker.

      If I had to guess, I would have placed him at about fifteen years old. But the tattoo on the back of his hand and his multiple ear and eyebrow piercings told me he must have been at least eighteen. His long, greasy-looking hair was shaved into a thin strip down the middle of his head, and despite the temperature in the shop, he wore a heavy overcoat.

      I held my hands up to show I meant no harm, but he swung the axe again, this time breaking the glass display window of the counter. “Die, vampire scum!”

      Like any sensible person would, I ran. Though he was fast on his feet, I managed to get past the baby-faced psycho and gained the door just as it swung open. I couldn’t raise my hands in time to protect myself. The heavy wood door smashed into my face and knocked me off balance. I hit the floor again in time to see the axe sail through the space I’d just inhabited.

      “Nate, look—”

      Two thoughts went through my mind when I saw the man who’d stepped through the door. The first was holy crap. He’d stopped the axe that was just centimeters from striking his very broad chest, catching the blade between his palms before the juvenile delinquent who’d thrown it could finish his shouted warning. My second thought was also holy crap.

      The man was sex walking. Wide shoulders, flat stomach, wavy, dark hair…I suddenly realized the appeal of those firefighter calendars that the nurses ogled in the coffee room.

      “I’m so, so sorry,” he said to me.

      I took the hand he offered, nervous electricity zinging up my arm at his touch, and got to my feet. I almost said “It’s all right,” before I realized it definitely was not. My hands shook as I reached for the door.

      “What the hell were you thinking, Ziggy?” he raged at the younger man before turning back to me. “Are you hurt, do you need anything? An ambulance?”

      He put his hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged it off angrily. “Do most customers leave in an ambulance?”

      Ziggy pointed his finger accusingly at me. “She’s a fucking vampire, man! Don’t let her out of here!”

      With a ferocity that startled me, the man yelled at the boy. “Get her a compress for her head!”

      Ziggy sputtered in disbelief. “Maybe I should get her a cup of my nice warm blood, too? Sprinkle some marshmallows in it?”

      “Upstairs, now!”

      The kid pushed past us as he mumbled furiously under his breath, slamming the door behind him so hard the glass in the window rattled.

      “I don’t think he’s coming back with the compress,” I observed dryly.

      “No, I don’t, either.” The man laughed quietly, holding out his hand. “I’m Nathan Grant.”

      “Carrie Ames.”

      Get out of here, you moron, my brain screamed. He’s still got the damn axe! Yet my feet stayed rooted to the spot, completely under the control of the morbid curiosity that had brought me this far and the ruthless attraction that urged me to stay as close to this man as possible.

      Nathan cocked his head and regarded me with sparkling gray eyes. Clearing his throat, he leaned the axe against the doorpost and crossed his arms over his chest. “Ames. You’re the doctor from the newspaper?”

      His voice was deep and seductively masculine, his words pronounced with a distinctly Scottish accent. I had a hard time concentrating on his question, distracted as I was by his perfect mouth. “Uh…yeah. That would be me.”

      He smiled, but it wasn’t the friendliest expression I’d ever seen. It reminded me of the way the dentist looks right before he says you have to come back for a root canal. “Then we’ve got a lot to talk about, Doctor. I apologize for Ziggy. He’s got it in his head that he’s a vampire hunter. How’d he find you?”

      “Find me?” Zigmeister69. I’d been set up. “E-mail.”

      Nathan chuckled. “Figures. Nightblood.com?”

      I coughed deliberately to hide my answer. “Yes.”

      He shook his head. “Rule number one, don’t go public.”

      “Rule number what? What are you talking about?”

      As if he had all the time in the world to explain himself, he turned away. He stepped behind the counter and pressed a button on the CD player, cutting off the annoyingly soothing New Age droning.

      “What are you talking about?” I demanded, tagging after him as he walked through the shop and snuffed the candles. “Would you stop and talk to me?”

      He sighed and dropped his head, bracing his arms on a table that looked far too dainty to support his weight.

      “The rules you have to follow. The rules every vampire has to follow.”

      My hand was on the door before I realized I’d intended to run.

      “Wait!” he called after me. He caught my arm and gently turned me around to face him just as my hand found the lock. “If you run out of here, this will only end badly.”

      His grip on the sleeve of my coat unnerved me, as did the tension in his voice. My words sounded thick and strange as I spoke. “Is that a threat?”

      “Listen,” he began, some of the urgency of his tone gone now. “I know you have some questions. Otherwise you wouldn’t have run into Ziggy.”

      “Yeah, I have questions.” I spat the words in my anger. “Who the hell are you? Why did I get attacked when I walked through that door? And what the hell makes you think I’m СКАЧАТЬ