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 up a bit. “And?”
“And?” I bit my lip, deciding the best way to do this was quickly. “I almost slept with Max.”
I mentally counted to three, waiting for Nathan to explode. He did, but not as I expected. With a howl of laughter, he fell sideways off the bed.
“Nathan! It’s not funny!” I pounded the mattress. “I almost slept with Max!”
Peering over the edge of the bed, I saw Nathan wipe tears of laughter from his eyes. “Oh, I heard you. I bet it was dead romantic, too.”
“Oh, shut up,” I admonished with an involuntary laugh. “I can’t believe I thought you slept with Bella.”
“I can’t believe you did, either. I can barely stand her. Do you know she chews her toenails? I mean, she doesn’t clip them off like normal people, she puts her foot in her mouth and chews them!” He shuddered in disgust. “I thought you’d give me a little more credit.”
Our laughter subsided into charged silence. Nathan sat up, resting his forearm on the bed as he studied me. “Carrie, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. If you don’t want to come home, tell me.”
Home. Our home. My chest squeezed as though it would suddenly collapse. My mind raced for some proof that this was an elaborate trick to break my heart again. “I do want to come home. But I can’t promise I’ll wait for you. It’s too unfair to ask that of me. So…”
“So?” he asked, a reluctant smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
I hated to kill the happy expression that might grow there. “So, I’ll think about it.”
His smile held the promise of happiness. Realistic happiness, but still, more happiness than we’d had. “Carrie?”
The way he said my name, the way it sounded heavy and meaningful on his lips, gave me chills up my spine. “What?”
“I’ve been dying to kiss you.”
At those words, the chills ran straight from my spine to my stomach, raced down my arms and pulled a soft, “Oh,” from my throat. I swallowed thickly and
