Possession-Blood Ties 2 (37 page)

Max straightened instantly, looking a little disturbed by the implication. “No.”

Cyrus laughed, and I flinched at the sound. It was too much like the monster who’d sired me. “I was joking. I know you’ve got your eye on the werewolf,” he stated. Now it was my turn to laugh. “Of course he does. He’s Max, and she’s female.”

A patient smile formed on Cyrus’s mouth, and Max looked away, rubbing his neck in a classic gesture of social discomfort.

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m impressed, Max. I was beginning to think you were always going to be the love ’em and leave ’em type.”

He let out an exasperated breath. “Hey, I am the love ’em and leave ’em type. And I don’t love her. It was just…boredom fucking.”

I exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Cyrus, the ocular communication equivalent of

“thanks but no thanks for the details.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Cyrus announced, striding purposefully toward the bathroom. “I’ll leave you to your awkward moment.”

I followed Max into the kitchen, where he rooted in the fridge for blood. When he reached for the teakettle, I offered, “I can do that.”

He shook his head. “Nah. I need something to keep myself busy, or I’ll be in there waking Nathan up by worrying over him. How’d he do?”

“Fine.” I sat at the table, apologizing for the loud scrape the chair made against the floor.

“Don’t worry about waking her up, she sleeps like the dead. At least, like the dead who aren’t currently possessed.” Max winked at me as he set the kettle on the burner. “Did you get any sleep?”

“None at all. So, what’s going on with you and Bella?” At his pointed look, I raised my hands helplessly. “I’m sorry, I’m a doctor. We’re supposed to ask questions.”

“About people’s personal life?” He raised an eyebrow. Squirming under his knowing gaze, I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“You’re not that kind of doctor.”

“And what kind of doctor is that?” For a second I thought he’d respond with a smart

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assed answer about venereal disease.

Instead, he took the other chair and rested his big forearms on the cracked Formica tabletop. “A head doctor. A shrink. Just admit you have a case of nosy frienditis.”

“Fine. I have a case of nosy frienditis. Now answer the question.” It wasn’t a command, but gentle urging.

Something was warring inside Max. I could see it in his boyish, blue eyes. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I have no idea. One minute we hated each other, the next I’m finding her split open like an overcooked hot dog. I bring her back here and bam, we’re all involved.”

“That must have hurt for her,” I observed sagely.

He gave me a look that suggested I keep my mouth shut lest I enrage him further. “It wasn’t like that. I had to finished stitching up her wounds first. Thank God you have so many boring medical books.”

“I live to serve.” I drew patterns on the table with my fingertip, trying to figure out a way to delicately phrase my next question. “So…does this mean you’re…her mate or something?”

“Well, we did ‘mate,’ so to speak. And I owe you guys for some broken dishes—”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “The thing is, she thinks I’m in love with her.”

“I take it you’re not?” I chuckled. “Max, you could save yourself a lot of trouble if you just kept your pants zipped.”

“It’s not like that, this time. She thinks I love her, and she doesn’t love me, so she thinks she’s hurting my feelings or something.” The teakettle’s whistle sputtered, and Max jumped up to turn off the burner. Once blood boils, it burns, making for an unpleasant, scorched-pot-roast taste.

“Well, you’ve really got no problem then, right?” I moved past him to snag a couple mugs.

“If neither of you love each other, then you’re free and clear.”

“And she walks away thinking she dumped me?” He swore, though I couldn’t tell if it was at the idea of being rejected by another sentient being, or if he’d made contact with a hot part of the kettle.

“Is that the worst thing in the world?” I knew Max had a major pride problem, but I hadn’t realized it went so deep.

He poured the blood into the mugs and set the remainder on the back burner. I assumed he left that portion for Nathan, and his thoughtfulness brought unexpected tears to my eyes. I quickly shooed them away, blaming my overemotional state on the fact I hadn’t had any sleep.

“It’s not the worst,” Max conceded as he returned to the table with our breakfast. “But it’s not good. I got a rep to uphold.”

I reached across the table to slap him lightly on the shoulder. He laughed, but the levity was brief. “Besides, I couldn’t be with her permanently. I think of that, then I think about Marcus—”

“Your old sire?” I asked for clarity.

He gave an affirmative nod. “I think about the fact that he’s gone, and all I’ve been carrying around is this yearning for him, wanting to feel what I felt with him. You know, in a totally not gay way. But then I think, wow, love. That’s a thing I have no power over,

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and it might feel good to know I’m not alone, and it’s like I’m betraying him.”

“You’re not betraying him by moving on.” I spoke so vehemently the sound of my own voice startled me. Embarrassed, I cleared my throat and continued more softly. “What is it with you men, you think you have to hang on to everything.”

“What do you mean?” He took a swallow of blood, his eyes meeting mine in a silent question over the rim of the mug.

“You know exactly what I mean.” And if not all the details, well, it wasn’t my place to spill Nathan’s personal beans. “Nathan thinks he has to carry around a sack load of guilt over Marianne, and because of that, he can’t just get over it. You’re doing the same thing. Your guilt over the way your sire died is so precious to you, you refuse to give it up for even a second in case you might actually get over it and move on.”

“You should have been a head doctor,” Max said in a way that didn’t quite sound like a compliment.

We sat in silence, sipping our breakfast and doing our best to ignore the conversation we’d just had. Occasionally, Max would look up at some imagined sound from the living room, but when Bella didn’t appear he settled down in a disappointed funk. I thought he was imagining things again when he swore and shot up from the table, nearly toppling it as he tore from the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

Despite the fact Bella still slept, he raced through the living room, turning on lights and lifting books, swearing repeatedly.

Bella sat up sleepily, a crease on the side of her face from the blankets she’d slept on.

“What’s going on?”

“Where’s the book you were reading last night?” Max tossed aside an expensive-looking volume with gilt-edged pages.

Rubbing her eyes, Bella frowned. “Which one?”

“Max, what are you doing?” I saved a particularly prized text from knocking over a glass of water on the coffee table.

“You said Nathan is carrying around loads of guilt over killing Marianne. Who, besides you and me, know about that?” He grabbed the book Bella held out to him and began flipping through the pages with such force I worried he would rip them from the binding. A lock of golden hair fell across his forehead, accentuating the madness that seemed to have gripped him.

“Well, Cyrus knows. He was there. And so was the Soul Eater.”

“Max, you don’t think that has something to do with…” My stomach roiled. I had a feeling the blood I’d drunk would soon be wasted.

Strong hands closed over my shoulders, and I realized belatedly I no longer heard the water running in the shower.

“Has something to do with what?” Cyrus’s breath stirred the hair at the back of my neck. Max coughed and I stepped out of Cyrus’s proprietary embrace.

“Do you remember the name of the spell Bella told us about last night?” Max asked, the proverbial look that could kill on his face.

Cyrus and Bella answered at the same time, in two different languages. Cyrus’s words were the ones I could understand. “Dark Night of the Soul.”

Fully awake now, Bella stood beside Max and tried to take the book. “You are going the wrong way, it is in the back!”

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I turned to Cyrus, dismayed to see he wore only a towel draped low across his hips. “We think we know what your father is doing to Nathan.”

“I told them exactly what he’s doing. They didn’t believe me, until she ran across it in that blasted book.” He rolled his eyes. “Apparently, my word is only good if I can back it up with written proof.”

“What is he doing?” I took his hands in mine, not caring what Max would think. “Please, Cyrus. I have to have him back.”

“Do you love him?” The words sucked the air out of the room. Even Max and Bella stilled.

I swallowed what felt like a ball of razor blades. “Does it matter?”

We stared at each other a long moment. In Cyrus’s eyes, I saw the hurt he felt at losing the girl in the desert, and the hurt he would feel if he thought there was no chance I’d ever return to him.

I felt the word leave my lips before I thought to say it. “Yes.” The admission sliced something open inside me, and I felt the poison that had festered there for the past two months spill free and evaporate. “Yes, I do love him.”

Whatever had opened in me corresponded to something closing off in Cyrus. He shrugged as though indifferent to the entire conversation, and looked away. “Dark Night of the Soul goes way back. It started out as a spell to test the faith of a shaman or mystic. Basically, it forces them to live the most troubling, painful moments of their life over and over. The only thing that keeps them from going mad is the strength of their mind and their belief in the training they’ve received. For example, a very religious person might call on the Judeo-Christian God for strength when enduring such a trial, and their very faith would break the spell.” He stopped, a hard set to his jaw, but the emotion in his eyes was unreadable.

“But if you used it on someone who had no hope to begin with…” I knew instantly what Nathan’s Dark Night entailed. “He’s killing her.”

“Over and over again,” Cyrus agreed grimly. “Father wouldn’t let him off too easily.”

“But why?” Bella asked, looking up for a moment from the book. “What purpose does it serve to make him insane?”

“He’s not insane,” Cyrus explained. “He’s sane enough to know what he’s doing, but he can’t control the memory. It’s already happened, so he’s helpless to repeat his actions. He knows who is responsible, at least who is responsible for making him kill his wife in the first place. Father needs to gather to him the souls he’s corrupted. What better way than enrage and torture them until they seek him out to end it?”

“If we kill the Soul Eater, will the spell stop?” Good old Max, always ready to hack and slash his way out of any problem. Not that I blamed him. At this point, I wanted to kill Jacob Seymour myself.

Cyrus shook his head. “That’s the beauty part. Even after the caster is dead, the spell continues.”

“The sigils,” Bella interjected. “They are the anchors.”

Cyrus nodded, looking a bit too impressed with his father’s cleverness. I turned away, disgusted. “Well, then what, he’s just screwed?”

“No.” Bella’s golden eyes scanned the pages. “It will not be easy, but there has to be a way to fix this.”

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“Does there?” Max laughed, a weary sound despite the fact he’d just gotten up. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Everything has an opposite. No spell exists that cannot be broken.” She sniffed derisively and snatched the book from his hand. “I will be downstairs. I assume I have the supplies there at my disposal?”

“Of course.” I was fairly certain Nathan would have given away his entire inventory to escape the hell he was in.

Bella closed the book and slipped it under her arm as she walked toward me with unnerving grace. “Do I have you at my disposal?”

“Of course,” I repeated, though this time I sounded less certain. “What will I have to do?”

She tossed her hair and gave a thoroughly European shrug. “Maybe nothing.”

As she passed Cyrus she paused to give his near nakedness an appreciative once-over. Then she took the keys from the hook on the wall and left.

“Don’t you have any clothes?” Max growled.

An antagonistic grin twisted Cyrus’s mouth. “They are, unfortunately, the same ones I’ve been wearing for nearly a week now.”

“I’ll loan you some of mine. And keep them on.” Max shoved past us and went to the foot of the couch, where his duffel bag lay open. He pulled out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and tossed them to Cyrus. With an angry glare my way he added, “I’m going to go feed Nathan.”

“Stay away from my girl,” Cyrus muttered in an exaggerated American accent when Max emerged from the kitchen and stalked down the hall.

“Leave him alone. He’s kind of having a rough time.” I turned my back as Cyrus let the towel drop. He’d been naked in the desert, but those were extenuating circumstances. I didn’t need to see it every chance I got.

“Having a rough time? Is that emblazoned on some twisted family crest you people wear?”

His words were muffled, indicating the shirt was going over his head. I turned in time to see him hitch the jeans up his hips. They were at least an inch too big around the waist.

“The way you people are intermittently feeding me, my weight won’t be a problem,” he quipped.

“I’m sorry. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen.” If there was anything in the kitchen. I hadn’t even looked since returning home. Funny, that when I was a human woman food had seemed to dominate every facet of my life. Was I eating too much? How many calories were in that slice of pizza? Were eggs good or bad that particular week? Now that I was a vampire, the necessity for food had completely slipped my mind. Not the enjoyment of it, though. Nathan kept a huge stock of junk food. I looked forward to the nights the supply seemed to be waning, as it often resulted in a manic trip to the twenty-four-hour grocery store. We’d load up on all the bad-for-humans treats we could find, from Doritos to birthday cake, head back to the apartment, snack ourselves into a sugar coma and fall asleep watching videos. Nathan preferred war movies and intense psychological dramas. I always voted for romantic comedies or historical movies with sumptuous costumes. Inevitably, our disagreement would be settled with a screwball comedy like Young Frankenstein or Half Baked.