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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I be?”

      “Because Zi—” I couldn’t say it. “Because of what happened last night.”

      “People die.”

      “Yeah, they do, but he was kind of your only family.”

      “Let’s not talk about it right now. I’ve got other things to worry about.”

      The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

      I left the bathroom without another word. The clothes Nathan had bought me were still at Cyrus’s. I swiped a pair of Nathan’s jeans and a sweater that required some maneuvering to put on over my injured arm.

      I listened as the water cut off in the bathroom. Nathan came in to retrieve some clothes, a towel wrapped around his waist. He didn’t speak to me, but eyed my attire with an expression that would have been amusement had his eyes not looked so sad.

      I’d never felt so in the way in my entire life. If not for the dim light outside, I would have just made some excuse to leave. As it was, I had to settle for a different part of the apartment.

      The living room looked cold and alien. A pair of Ziggy’s shoes sat by the door. A stack of heavy metal CDs took up the corner of the coffee table, and a backpack full of college textbooks leaned against the couch. It was like a pharaoh’s tomb, a museum of my failure to protect him and of Nathan’s loss.

      I went to the kitchen and pulled a bag of blood from the refrigerator. I was looking for something to cut the top of the bag with when Nathan’s hand gripped my arm.

      I jumped, dropping the bag. He caught it and cradled it against his chest as if it were a priceless artifact.

      “What?” I demanded, rubbing my offended arm.

      “It’s the last one. I don’t want to drink it.” His voice was tight and he strained to get the words out.

      My heart lurched at the full import of his statement. “Oh. Oh, God.” I stared, mesmerized by the shimmering liquid contained within the dull plastic. The millions of cells were the last physical evidence of Ziggy’s life on earth.

      Nathan opened the freezer door and unceremoniously dumped the bag inside. “How about we talk about this?” I said without thinking, and I was glad. I might not have said it otherwise.

      “How about you mind your own business?” Nathan didn’t exactly hide his face from me, but he didn’t look at me, either, as he went through the cupboards, taking out pans, bowls and pancake mix. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

      I planted my hands on my hips, cringing at the sting the motion caused. “It’s kinda tough to be a vegetarian vampire. Unless you’re Bunnicula.”

      He actually laughed at that.

      I arched an eyebrow. “You know Bunnicula?”

      He grew serious again. “I read it to Ziggy when he was younger. Will you get the bacon out of the freezer?” He turned away from me in an effort to hide his suffering. I couldn’t believe that after all we’d been through together that he would continue to shut me out. I walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, and he immediately jerked away from it.

      Tears of anger sprang to my eyes. “You asshole.”

      Nathan turned around, his expression dark. “Fine. I’ll make sausage instead.”

      I clenched my good fist. “You know what I’m talking about.”

      He opened the fridge and pulled out eggs and milk, pointedly turning the side of the carton labeled Z away from himself. “I do. And I told you before, I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “Well, I do!” I stamped my foot.

      Nathan poured the milk and the pancake mix into the bowl without measuring, the way a mother would after years of preparing breakfast for her family. Except I’d never seen a mother with such a murderous scowl. Nathan suddenly threw down the wooden spoon in his hand. It bounced off the rim of the glass bowl and splattered half-mixed batter everywhere. “Just because I don’t want to stand here and have a Hallmark moment with you doesn’t mean I didn’t love Ziggy. I cared about him more than somebody like you could ever understand!”

      “Somebody like me?” I hated the shrillness of my voice when I was mad. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

      He folded his arms across his chest. “You tell me. What exactly did you have to do to keep him safe, Carrie? And so I can appreciate how indebted to you I should be, how much did you enjoy it?”

      His remark twisted like a knife in my heart, just as he’d intended. Rage set my limbs trembling. I lashed out. “I did what I had to do! Unlike some people in this room!”

      “What are you talking about?”

      “Why didn’t you give Ziggy your blood? You could have saved him. All it would have taken was a little of your blood! Why didn’t you do it?”

      The question had hung between us since the moment we left the mansion. It had been the cause for the tension we’d felt all morning.

      Nathan looked at me, his eyes filled with confusion. “You think I let him die?”

      The pain in his voice stole my will to fight. “Do you think you let him die?”

      With a growl of fury, he shoved all the dishes and utensils off the counter. The glass bowl shattered at his feet, and the clang of metal nearly deafened me as the pans collided with linoleum. Nathan stalked forward, and I took a step back out of reflex more than fear. He wouldn’t hurt me. No matter how tough he tried to appear, he wasn’t the type to abuse someone weaker than himself.

      “I would rather have him dead than be one of us!” he shouted, so close to my face that his cold breath stirred my hair. “You only know your change. You got to stay the same person you were before. Not everyone is so lucky. The blood has different effects on people. It does something to you, it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

      I looked down, all too aware that I could have just as easily saved Ziggy with my own blood.

      “You saw that, that thing.” Nathan spat the word, as though no reference to his sire could ever accurately describe his hideousness. “His blood is in mine. How could I put that into my son? How could I make him…”

      He was running out of anger, and all that was left for him was despair. “How could I make him like me?” On the last word, his face went ashen and his shoulders sagged in defeat. He crumpled to the floor with a cry of anguish.

      Faced with a man’s tears, I reacted much in the way a male would to a woman crying. I stood silently and watched his misery, feeling helpless in the awkwardness of the moment. Then I realized I had to do something, so I knelt on the floor of the tiny kitchen and put my arms around him. “Nathan, you’re nothing like them.”

      I thought he’d push me away, but he returned my embrace, clinging to me like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. “You don’t know me, Carrie. You don’t know what I’ve done.”

      I wondered how long it had been since he’d let СКАЧАТЬ