"The only person who could pull it off would have been an assassin," I interjected. "Someone who could take on three vampires at the same time."

Cyrus made an affirmative sound. "And convince your friends to go with them."

"What are you talking about?" Nathan whirled, his face twisted with rage. He stabbed his finger through the air in Cyrus's direction. "First of all, you've never been part of the Movement, so you don't know anything about how we operate."

"I know how we infiltrated and subverted it time and again," Cyrus replied calmly.

"He has a point." Why did I suddenly feel as if we were ganging up on Nathan?

A moment later, I didn't care. Nathan glared at me, his eyes cold. "You certainly wouldn't have any clue about the Movement works. It's a group of vampires loyal to a common ideal. The key word being loyal."

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. "What did you say to me?"

"You heard me." Across the blood tie I felt a wave of shame at the way he was acting, but his anger was too great to suppress.

"That is enough!" Cyrus shot to his feet, and for a moment I thought he would try something stupid, like punching Nathan. Instead, he swallowed audibly, unclenched his fists and spoke in a calmer tone. "We are not in an ideal situation. I will seek to rectify that as soon as I can get my house back from my formerly human former girlfriend. But we have larger problems at hand than the issue of your romance with Carrie."

My heart ached at his words. I did love Cyrus, now that I was morally free to do so. But I loved Nathan, as well, and I hated causing him pain after all he'd been through for me.

Cyrus shot me a cold look. You'll never know what you want. Now is not the time.

Nathan looked from Cyrus to me and sighed. "What's our next step, then, oh wise one?"

Thankfully, Cyrus let the jibe slide. "We go back to our only source of information. My father."

"Oh yes. Your father. The one who controlled you for how many centuries? Let me drive you right over there." Nathan laughed.

"Nathan!" I clutched my head, unable to bear another moment of this pointless bickering. "Max and Bella are clearly in danger. We need to find out where they are, so we can keep the Soul Eater from getting his hands on the baby. We know him well enough to know whatever he wants with it probably isn't good. And what he'd do to Bella and Max wouldn't be good, either. Can we all at least agree on that?"

"Of course we can," Nathan grumbled. "But I' in sick of sitting around talking about it. We've been stuck here for days just reading and researching and waiting, while they're off getting killed."