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 That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

      “Wasn’t meant to.” He tossed the towel over his shoulder. “We’re not susceptible to the ravages of time or disease, and we have a healing ability that increases with age. But the list of things that can kill us is a mile long. Sunlight, holy water, hell, even a bad-enough car accident can take us out.”

      He poured some blood into a chipped ceramic mug and motioned toward the dinette table. “If you don’t want this, can I get you something else?”

      “No, thanks.” I sat in the chair he pulled out for me. “Do you keep human food in here?”

      “Yeah,” he said as he sat across from me. “I like it every now and then. I just can’t live off it. And Ziggy needs to eat.”

      I frowned. Ziggy had clearly lured me to the shop in order to kill me. It didn’t make a lot of sense, considering he lived with a vampire himself.

      “Um…does your son know you’re a vampire?”

      “My son?” Nathan looked confused for a moment, then he laughed, a deep, rich sound that warmed me. “Ziggy’s not my son. But I can see where you’d get that impression. He’s a…he’s a friend.”

      A friend? I was hip. I could read between the lines. It figured that the first decent guy I’d met in this city was gay. “He’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”

      An embarrassed smile curved Nathan’s lips. “I’m not a homosexual, Carrie. Ziggy’s my blood donor. I watch out for him, that’s all.”

      That was the first time he’d used my name instead of addressing me as Doctor or Miss Ames. In his thick accent—I was fairly certain he was Scottish—my generic, first-pick-from-the-baby-name-book moniker sounded exotic and almost sensual. I wondered if he could sense the attraction I felt, the heat coursing through my blood.

      If he did, he had the courtesy not to comment on it. I was grateful for that. “So why did he try to kill me? I mean, if you’re a vampire, and he knows it and gives you his blood and everything, what’s his beef with me?”

      Nathan sipped from his mug. “It’s complicated.”

      I glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got a few hours.”

      He seemed to consider his response for a moment. Setting his cup aside, he braced his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands. “Listen, you seem like a real nice girl, but there’s something I have to ask you, and it’s a little personal.”

      Despite the ominous tone of the question, I nodded. At this point, I wanted answers. I’d fill out a complete medical history if he asked. “Shoot.”

      “I followed your story in the papers very closely and I have some concerns. Namely, why you were in the morgue that night.” When his eyes met mine, I saw the real question there.

      “You think I did this on purpose?”

      He shrugged, all compassion and friendliness gone from his face. “You tell me.”

      I had spent the past month in a haze of depression, deprived of normal life by a mysterious illness I couldn’t shake. My bones ached twenty-four hours a day. My head throbbed at the faintest glimmer of light. If I was indeed a vampire, I certainly wasn’t living out the posh existence of a Count Dracula or a Lestat de Lioncourt. I was in a living hell, certainly not by choice.

      “Please,” he said quietly. “I need to know.”

      I could have slapped him. “No! What kind of freak do you think I am?”

      He shrugged. “There are some people out there, sick people, who want to escape their lives. Maybe they’ve had some sort of trauma, an illness, the loss of a loved one.” He looked me dead in the eyes. “The loss of your parents.”

      “How do you know about my parents?” I asked through tightly clenched teeth. I hadn’t spoken about them since the car accident that had killed them. They’d been on their way to visit me at college. Guilt had kept me from opening up about them. No one, save my distant, remaining relatives in Oregon—many of whom I’d met for the first time at the funeral—knew anything about them or the circumstances of their death.

      “I have connections,” he said, as if we were discussing how he’d obtained courtside Lakers’ tickets instead of how he’d invaded my privacy. He actually had the nerve to reach across the table and take my hand. “I know what it’s like to lose someone. Believe me. I can see why you’d want—”

      “I didn’t want this!”

      I hadn’t meant to scream, but it felt good. I wanted to do it again. The ugliness and horror of the past month seemed to swell inside me, pushing me beyond the limits of my self-control.

      “Carrie, please—” he tried again, but I ignored him.

      My knees bumped the table as I stood, and Nathan’s mug toppled over, splashing warm blood across the tabletop. The sight held a sick fascination for me, and in a flash I saw a clear image of myself leaning over and licking it up. I shook my head to destroy the vision. “I didn’t want this!”

      Jerking the collar of my sweatshirt aside, I jabbed a finger at the barely healed scar on my neck. “Do you think someone would ask for this? Do you think I went down to that morgue and said ‘Hey, John Doe, why don’t you rip my fucking neck open? Why don’t you turn my life to absolute shit?’”

      The volume of the music from Ziggy’s room drastically lowered. Good. Let him hear.

      “Do you think I wanted to sit here and watch some guy I’ve never met fucking drink blood? I just want my life back!”

      No, what I wanted was to scream until my throat was raw. I wanted to stamp my feet and throw things. I wanted to be empty of these feelings of despair and frustration.

      Instead, I cried. My legs buckled and I slid to the floor. When Nathan knelt beside me and put his arms out to comfort me, I pushed him away. When he tried again, I didn’t fight him.

      I couldn’t control my sobs as I cried into his firm chest. His wool sweater pricked my cheek. He smelled good, distinctly male and slightly soapy, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. So what if he was a complete stranger? I’d never been able to cry and let someone comfort me like this before.

      “I know you didn’t,” he said softly.

      “Do you?” I demanded, looking up at him. “Because you were sure acting like the vampire police or something.”

      He gently took my face in his hands to force my gaze to his. “I know because the same thing happened to me. At the hands of your John Doe.”

      His words seemed to magically patch the dam that had broken within me. My chest no longer heaved with sobs, and my tears miraculously dried.

      Nathan helped me to my feet. I took advantage of the moment, resting against him as long as I could without seeming weird. I pressed my hand just below his rib cage in the guise of steadying myself and felt the solid ridges of a perfect stomach beneath the wool.

      He picked up my chair—a casualty of my sudden rage—and СКАЧАТЬ