Right now, focusing on him is all that's keeping me from walking out of here. Nathan handed me a clean towel so I could wipe away some of the blood.

You're supposed to hate him. I clipped the thread and moved on to the next site that needed my attention.

I know what he's going through.

I didn't need to ask what Nathan meant. He'd become a vampire against his will, just as I'd made Cyrus a vampire against his will.

Nathan gave me a pointed look and went to his bedroom.

I finished my work in stony silence. Occasionally, I glanced at Cyrus, to find him staring with grim fascination at the needle sliding through his flesh. My arms broke out in goose bumps. I'd seen that expression on him before. In his vampire days, when pain—it didn't matter whose—gave him satisfaction unmatched by anything else in his life. I avoided looking at him again.

When Cyrus was patched up, I didn't bother to tie him again. He was angry, but not stupid, and he'd been a vampire long enough in the past to know his limits in the present. We heal, but it takes time. He wouldn't be able to effectively attack again tonight.

I washed up and went to Nathan's bedroom. He lay on the bed, a book in his hands, but his thoughts were so jumbled I knew he couldn't possibly be reading. "A little early to turn in, don't you think?" I tried to make my tone light.

I failed miserably.

He looked up, said nothing, and returned his gaze to the page.

The argument hadn't even begun, and I so didn't want to be at the shrieking point yet, but I couldn't control myself. "He knows where the Soul Eater is! We need him!"

"Oh, come on, Carrie!" Nathan tossed the book angrily aside and threw the covers back, swinging his feet to the floor. "We could have found the Soul Eater on our own and you know it."

"No, I didn't!" I stalked toward the living room, then remembered Cyrus was in the apartment, and slammed the door instead. Lowering my voice so he wouldn't be able to hear me as easily, I advanced on Nathan, jabbing my finger at him accusingly. "We can't use your blood tie to find him, we've been over and over this! You could become possessed again. He could find you and then be one step closer to completing his ritual. As usual, I had to make the choice between doing something easy or doing something that was going to screw up my life! That's what it always comes down to, and I'm sick of it because it's not fair! But it's just how things happen."

With shocking speed, Nathan seized my wrist. "Not fair is having the guy who sodomized you and bled you dry, while your wife lay dying not two feet away, sleeping down the hall."