for life-threatening injuries, Anne would have been slowly recuperating, with no help but her body’s own healing ability. She would have been completely defenseless when the Oracle torched the place. I think Nathan was right. The Oracle didn’t seem to do things willy-nilly.
I rolled onto my side. The bed seemed bigger and oddly empty, now that my sire had arrived. I ached to lie at his side, listening to his gentle snores and occasional nonsensical sleep babble. Now, that was for someone else.
It made me feel a bit better to review their icy behavior toward each other in the foyer. Maybe Max’s idea of deliberately putting them in separate rooms wasn’t so crazy, as neither seemed inclined to crawl into bed together today.
How could Nathan have kept this from me? Despite the distance that always remained between us, I’d been honest with him, hadn’t I? And I’d put my soul on the line in order to save him from the Soul Eater’s torturous spell. In my mind, he owed it to me to be honest, even if it inconvenienced him a little.
I wish he had used that same, compassionate line of reasoning.
Nathan had Bella. She was exotic and passionate and dangerous. She was so different from plain, white-bread me. With all the sex and romance, Nathan probably just didn’t have time to think about me and how much I might be hurt.
Not for the first time, cold tears streamed down my cheeks over my sire.
I’d nearly cried myself to sleep when there was a soft knock at my door. Probably Max coming to commiserate. I wiped my eyes hastily. If he could pretend not to be bothered, I certainly could do the same. I might even start to believe it.
“Come in,” I said, hoping my voice sounded thick with sleep and not tears.
The door eased open a crack and Nathan, not Max, slipped inside.
I sat up, clutching the covers defensively to my chest as though he would be able to see through my T-shirt to my broken heart—had it been there. My actual heart was in my suitcase, removed from my chest by Cyrus, my first sire. “What are you doing here?”
He held up his hands like someone anticipating an attack. “Please, just hear me out.”
“Do you really think we have anything to say? After the way things went when I left?” I scoffed. “Or especially now?”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I should have been honest with you.” His words further confirmed my fear.
I drew in a shaking breath, forcing myself not to break down in sobs. “That would have been nice.”
“I can’t apologize enough. I know that. And I know I’ve put you through hell.” He looked down at his hands. “But I’ve missed you so much.”
“It would appear otherwise.” I would not let his wounded-little-boy demeanor soften my righteous anger.
For a second, he appeared taken aback. “I don’t want to be separated from you like this again. You belong with me.”
A sick feeling wound through my stomach, something like hope with reservation.
Though I didn’t speak, he came to the bed and sat down. “I’ve been selfish. I wanted to hang on to a past that I can’t change. But I had no right to string you along the way I did. I swear, Carrie, if you come home, that will all change.”
I blinked back tears. Here were the words I’d longed to hear from him, and yet…
“What about Bella?”
Nathan frowned. “What about her?”
“I don’t know if she’d be too keen on having me around. Maybe, if she were another vampire, she could understand, but she’s a werewolf. They don’t have any concept of the relationship between a sire and a fledgling.” Or how frustrating they can be.
A horrible scene played through my mind where Nathan replied, “You know, that makes sense. Good night,” and returned to her.
Instead, he stared at me as though I’d lost my mind. “Carrie, Bella and I… I think there’s been some miscom-munication. We’re not involved with each other.”
“She was staying at the house,” I stated stubbornly. “Why has she been there for a month then? Why didn’t she go back to Spain?”
“She did,” Nathan insisted. “She followed the Soul Eater to San Francisco, did recon, then went to Spain. She had to take commercial airlines because she couldn’t contact the Movement. When she got to headquarters, she found it destroyed, and came back to Grand Rapids, because it was the only way she knew how to contact Max.”
“But you said she wasn’t using my room…and you were shielding your thoughts the whole time.” I was beginning to feel like a total ass, and I didn’t like it. It would almost have been worth it to hear he had been sleeping with Bella, just to keep from realizing how crazy I’d been acting.
A slow smile spread across Nathan’s gorgeous mouth. “You really thought I was cheating on you?”
“It wouldn’t have been cheating, since we don’t have a relationship. ” I looked down at my hands and found them twisting the bedspread. “Nathan, I don’t want to be your fledgling. I want to be the woman you love. It’s never going to happen as long as you can’t let go of Marianne.”
I thought he would flinch or turn away at her name, the way he used to, but he held my gaze, drawing me into his steel-gray eyes. “Marianne is gone. It makes me sick to say it, but in a way, everything turned out better for us the way it did. She wasn’t the woman I married. She’d given up. I know I painted her as a saint, and I don’t mean to. But something about the illness twisted her. She was often depressed, sometimes openly hateful. She blamed me, once, near the end.”
“Oh, Nathan.” I couldn’t help interrupting.
It was as if he hadn’t heard me. “Even if she had lived— that is, if I hadn’t done what I did to her—she would have died later. If I’d made her a vampire…well, she was too scarred. She still wouldn’t have wanted to live.
“I could have given Marianne new life, could have protected her and cherished her for the rest of our time on earth, but I couldn’t have given her her soul back. She’d lost that long before I killed her. The spell Bella did…that you did…it made me realize that. It sounds melodramatic, but really, you saved me.”
Tentatively, I reached for his hand. I seriously expected to wake up when I touched him, but his fingers closed over mine, almost crushing, until he realized what he was doing and relaxed his grip.
“You’re my fledgling. No matter what else happens between us, it’s my blood in your veins. You’re the only family I have. It’s you I want to be with.” He lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss there.
My pulse pounded. “But not the way I want it to be. That’s the part you keep glossing over.”
A sad look came over his face, and his gaze dropped to our clasped hands. “If I told you now that I’m ready to…to love you, I would just be setting us up for disaster. The spell showed me the truth, but there are still parts I can’t accept, even though I know them to be true. When the time comes that I can completely let it go—and it will come—it’s not going to be some werewolf I choose. It’s going to be you.”
Instantly, guilt crashed over me. Nathan had been soul-searching, and I’d been…whoring it up. “I have to tell you something.”
A wary look crossed over his face, followed by an obviously forced smile. Trepidation vibrated down the blood tie. He thought I was going to reject him. He let go of my hand. “Okay.”
“Well, I thought you were…involved…with Bella.” I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to slap my forehead with my palm. “Obviously, I jumped to a conclusion. A stupid, stupid conclusion.”
He nodded, the oppressive fear of rejection letting