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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      “Yeah. I’ve got a question.”

      “Well, are you sure you wish to ask, or would you prefer to sneak around in my mind while I sleep tomorrow?”

      “Are you still upset over that?” I walked slowly toward him. Taking the book from him, I insinuated myself into its place. “If I had known it would make you so mad, I wouldn’t have done it.”

      “Why do I have difficulty believing that?” But he smiled, anyway, pulling me against his chest. His skin seemed colder than usual.

      I sat up. “You haven’t fed.”

      Only then did I notice the dark circle beneath his visible eye, and the tired, pinched look of his face. He was weak, and it alarmed me.

      With a shrug that came off more theatrical than carefree, he urged me to lean back against him. “I wasn’t in the mood.”

      “Was it because of me?” The question came out before my mind could consent.

      It seemed to take him off guard, as well. Maybe if he’d been feeling better he would have lied to me, but he nodded wearily. “There are things in my past that…put me off my appetite when I dwell on them.”

      He nuzzled my neck as though seeking comfort, and I couldn’t deny him. I stroked his hair and tried to quiet my pounding heart. The contact was more emotionally intimate than any of the times he’d touched me before. I suddenly couldn’t remember why I’d been angry with him.

      It felt right, holding him like this. As if someone finally needed me. Not because I was going to save their life. Not because I was going to fulfill some long-held parental expectation. Cyrus needed me because I was me.

      “You wanted to ask me something?” His words were heavy with sleep.

      Did I? The question drifted lazily to the surface of my consciousness. “Right. What’s up with Vampire New Year?”

      He let out a low rumble of laughter. “Where did you hear about that?”

      “Around.”

      To my relief, he didn’t question further. “Vampire New Year is a tradition created by my father. You’ll enjoy it, if you let yourself.”

      Cyrus gently moved me from his lap and stood, then walked to an intercom box beside the door. “Send for Clarence. Tell him I’ve changed my mind about breakfast.”

      Static crackled, followed by a “Yes, sir.”

      Cyrus smiled at me, but it was clear he’d wasted much of his energy getting to the door. I made a move to help him, but he refused me. “So you want to know about the New Year?”

      I did, but his weakened state worried me. “You fed from Ziggy. Why are you having such a hard time?”

      “I didn’t feed enough. I didn’t want to anger you,” he said, supporting himself on the heavy wooden arm of the sofa. “As you get older, you’ll find you need more blood to function. It makes life rather difficult if you have to go a day or two without feeding.”

      I shifted into doctor mode. “If you don’t feed, will you die?”

      “Not right away.” He eased onto the couch and patted the seat beside him. “But it’s very uncomfortable after a while.”

      I joined him, fitting familiarly to his side. “How many days has it been for you?”

      “The last time I drank my fill was the night we first met.” He kissed my forehead. “I’ve been a bit distracted since.”

      And he hadn’t fed tonight because of what I’d uncovered as I’d snooped through his brain. To assuage my guilt, I changed the topic. “You were going to tell me about the New Year.”

      “Oh, yes. A fitting topic, actually. You remember what I told you about my father?”

      I nodded. How could I have forgotten?

      Cyrus seemed to draw strength from talking about his father. “Though he hasn’t been a vampire much longer than I have, the blood of the elders he drained seems to have sped up his—blast, what’s the word for it?”

      “Metabolism?” I supplied.

      “Yes, exactly. Within fifty years of turning, he needed to feed from two, sometimes three bodies a night. It was too hard to keep his identity concealed for long. We moved from village to village, but suspicion followed us everywhere. Father discovered that if he ingested vampire blood, his hunger was sated longer.

      “For a while, it was easy. I would turn them, and Father would feed from them. We left them with enough blood to live, but we didn’t provide them with the guidance they needed to survive. We didn’t expect so many of them to last as long as they did.”

      Clarence entered without knocking, but Cyrus didn’t acknowledge him. “Carrie, would you be so kind?”

      I poured him a glass from the decanter Clarence handed me, then returned to the couch. “If your father kept making vampires, there would be a lot more of them by now. What stopped him?”

      Cyrus didn’t answer until he’d gulped down the first glass and handed it back to Clarence for a refill. “Fear, I suppose. My father was a brave man, but he wasn’t stupid. I think he knew that someday, one of his fledglings would do to him what he’d done to his sire.

      “Now my father feeds only once a year. In the meantime, he goes into a sort of hibernation. The day will come when he can walk the earth again, but until then, I serve him at the New Year.”

      “Walk the earth again? What does that mean?” All this information overwhelmed me. “Where does he live?”

      With a knowing smile, he waved his index finger at me. “It’s a heavily guarded secret. For the time being, all we need to do is make sure Father is fed every year.”

      “Cyrus, that doesn’t make sense. You’re weak after a few days without feeding. If your father’s metabolism has accelerated beyond that, how can he survive drinking blood only once a year?”

      “Oh, he doesn’t just drink their blood.” A cruel spark of the Cyrus I recognized returned to his eyes. The blood he’d consumed flushed his cheeks. “He takes their very essence. Carrie, my father is the vampire other vampires fear most. My father is the Soul Eater.”

      Fifteen

      Consummation

      Cyrus’s proclamation shook me to the core. Once I was sure he’d fully recovered from his fast, I left him alone to finish his reading or whatever the hell he did when he was locked away in his study.

      The Soul Eater. Though I’d never heard the name, it struck fear into my heart.

      Cyrus had given me a brief rundown of the New Year’s festivities. They’d picked January thirtieth because of its proximity to Bride’s Day, an ancient Celtic holiday celebrating the young Sun God’s courtship of the Virgin Goddess.

      “It’s all СКАЧАТЬ