"Ask him about the Soul Eater" Nathan interrupted. I'd pushed his patience too far. He sighed heavily and tossed the book aside, clearly weary of his role as phone chaperone.

I narrowed my eyes at him and clamped my hand over the receiver.

Too late. "Is that Nolen I hear in the background?"

Clearing my throat, I made an affirmative sound. "And it's Nathan now."

"I know, I know." I could practically hear Cyrus's eye roll. "So, how is Nathan.?"

Agitated. He was still looking at me expectantly, his big arms folded across his chest. "He's fine. He wants to know if you've heard from your father."

"Oh, yes. Of course I have."

Wow, that was easy. "Oh?" I asked cautiously.

"Yes. We went fishing and then to a baseball game, and after that he took me to the toy store and bought me everything I wanted. And a pony." If sarcasm were liquid, it would have dripped from Cyrus's words.

"You know I have to ask," I snapped. "Something is going on, and so help me, if you have anything to do with it—"

"How, Carrie?" He sounded tired, in the way only a human could. Physically tired beyond anything a vampire could feel, a mass of dying tissues and an inability to stand another second of bullshit. "How could I, in this failing, mortal body, be a part of anything my father has planned? Do you think I've been spending any amount of time in the company of vampires? Do you know any humans who do?"

"Dahlia," I answered, for both counts. "She hung around you."

"Like an anchor," he agreed.

"And you've been talking to her lately, if she got you the apartment." I waited a moment, unsure if I would push him too far with the question. Then I decided to hell with it, I had to ask. "You're not trying to become a vampire again, are you?"

The silence was so long I wondered if he'd hung up. When he spoke again, his voice was thick. "Do you think I would want to be one of you again? After what happened to… her?"

It stung that he wouldn't say her name to me, as if I were unworthy of hearing it, or guilty by association for being part of the species that killed her.

Not that I could blame him. When his father had raised him from the dead, Cyrus had come back human. Mouse had been his human caretaker and, as often happens in cases of desperation and captivity, they'd fallen into a warped kind of love.