"Gee, and just a few minutes ago, you sympathized with him." I jerked against his hold. "Let go of me!"

Nathan growled a warning, his face flashing to vampire form, but he released my arm. I rubbed my wrist as he stalked toward the door. "Where are you going?"

"To the shop," He barked.

I glanced at the clock. It was only a few hours until sunup. "What for?"

He disappeared from view at the end of the hall, and I heard his keys jingle. "For the day."

The slam of the door punctuated his statement.

I spent the day in the bedroom with the door locked but I wasn't able to sleep. Alternating between my anger toward Nathan and my fear that Cyrus would burst in and stake me while I slept, I watched the light behind the blinds grow stronger and brighter.

Once, a knock on the door startled me out of a light sleep. I threw back the covers and stood, calling, "Nathan?" before I realized he couldn't have come back upstairs without first walking through broad daylight.

"No." Cyrus's voice was uncharacteristically timid. "Are you all right?"

Let me in.

"I can hear your thoughts," I told him. "You know that." My palms itched to open the door, but I didn't know what his intent was. Why didn't I tie him back up? My reasoning that I would be safe and secure while he healed seemed insubstantial now.

"I know. I want to be near you." I heard him swallow a sound of disgust, even through the door. "Never mind."

A vision of Cyrus and me lying beside each other in bed, not in a sexual embrace but a comforting one, assembled in my mind. It took me a moment to realize I hadn't dreamed it up on my own. It came from him.

I listened to his footsteps retreat down the hall as I stood with my palm against the cool wood of the door, pretending I could feel him on the other side.

Chapter Twelve
Back to Not Normal

The nights after Cyrus's rebirth into vampire form were almost unbearable. After my first and only rejection of him, Cyrus became even more sullen and difficult. When he wasn't verbally antagonizing me, he abused the blood tie to his advantage, sending graphic visions of us performing lurid acts. The first few days I could tolerate it. After a while, the joke—and my resolve to resist him—wore thin.

Nathan came back to the apartment. I didn't kid myself that it was because he'd forgiven me. There wasn't a bed in the storage room of the bookshop anymore, and the floor probably wasn't very comfortable. We barely spoke, and with Cyrus equally frosty, I found the apartment a chilly place to be, indeed.