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my head. "It's impossible."
"I believe Nathan is alluding to another solution. One we have denied from
the very start." Ominous silence followed Cyrus's statement.
Then Nathan turned to Cyrus, his eyes hard. He spoke, and his voice was as
raw as the pain I felt through our blood tie. "Believe me, I've considered
it."
Cyrus contemplated him for a moment,then shrugged.
"I'm merely stating the obvious. You're all too eager to send Carrie out to
do your spying, but when it comes to something that might endanger you "
"Oh? I should expose her to the danger I pose when I'm under his influence?"
Nathan shouted.
His sudden change of tone startled me, and the motion sent another pain
ripping through my head. Whatever Clarence had given Dahlia, I pitied the
hangover she would have when she fully recovered. "Cyrus, he can't open up the
connection to the Soul Eater. He was possessed "
"By a spell.A spell Dahlia probably cast."When I didn't immediately agree,
Cyrus point toward the kitchen. "It's in the book. You can see for yourself."
With considerable determination, I pushed myself up and staggered to the
kitchen. There, on the page he'd left open, were the symbols I'd seen carved
into Nathan's skin, some of which he still bore as nasty scars. Next to the
neatly printed sigils, Dahlia's handwriting proclaimed, "Cannibalized from
various sources. My version works better."
I should have staked her when I had the chance, the smug bitch.
"My father isn't capable of something like this," Cyrus said quietly. "Dahlia
did it. In fact, if you look closely at this book, you'll see she's been
behind most of the magic done on my father's behalf. She even wrote the spell
that brought me back from the dead. It's all there. And I suggest we
anticipate my father's next move, as there are far nastier spells that she's
come up with."
"Nathan?" I asked tentatively. "Nathan, do you want tocome look at this?"
He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.
"We've had the best tool for tracking my father right here the whole time,"
Cyrus continued. "He just won't use it, Carrie."
What was I supposed to feel? In my heart, I understood Nathan's reluctance to
open up to his sire. The man had taken his wife from him, tried to take his
soul. Nathan's life, faith and dignity had been destroyed. Why on earth would
he want to feel anything his sire wanted to give him?
Another part of me, though, was angry. Nathan had sent me into danger. Sure,
he'd worried about me, but he'd been more worried about himself, about what
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would be easiest for him. I tried hard to keep my bitter feelings from the
blood tie, but he felt them.
"That's not it at all, Carrie." He stood and walked toward the bedroom,
adding a mental,Youshould know me better than that .
I looked helplessly at Cyrus. He touched my face, his fingertips skimming my
cheek. "Talk to him."
When I went to the bedroom, I found Nathan sitting on the edge of the bed,
staring bleakly at the wall. But I knew he didn't see it. He was in another
time, another place entirely. I knelt beside him on the bed.
"You think I was being selfish." His voice sounded hollow.
I considered. "Yes.Out of self-preservation. You don't know what he's going
to do to you."
"I shouldn't have let you got to that house tonight." He scrubbed his hands
over his face. His eyes were raw looking. "I have the perfect weapon, and I'm
too cowardly to use it."
"It's not cowardly. He has incredible power over you." When Nathan scoffed at
that, I took his palm and laid it over the place where my heart used to
be."Like you have power over me."
"What power, Carrie?" He threw up his hands. "I can't make you do anything
you don't want to."
Alarms went off in my head at that. "Why would you want to force me to do
something I didn't want to?"
"To keep you away from him," he sputtered."To keep you from constantly
running to him for solutions, for comfort.To keep you from loving him."
"I loveyou ." Stunned as I was by this unprovoked outpouring, it took me a
minute to comprise a more intelligent statement. "I feel for him what I
presume all sires feel for their fledglings. Am I wrong?"
Nathan's gaze was so intense it could burn. "And what do you think that
feeling is?"
He'd never come so close to saying the words. I was speechless for a moment.
He took advantage of my state to continue. "If I open myself up to my sire, I
don't know what will happen. Maybe he'll ignore me. Maybe we'll learn
everything we need to. But maybe I'llget lost again, and this time you won't
need me enough to get me back."
I pulled him to me, wanting to draw some of his fear into me, to relieve him
of the burden of it. "How could you think that? I love you. When you were
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