“I’ve already explained. He’s human now, and we needed to keep him away from the Soul Eater.” Nathan was never one to see the big picture if it didn’t suit him. I added that to the list of reasons I should be glad we would never have a relationship other than the blood we shared.

Max lifted an ax and handed it to me. My arm fell under the weight and the mug in my other hand tipped, sloshing blood onto the floor. Max steadied me and took the ax back. “You’re not going, you’re still too weak. Bella and I will handle this.”

“Nobody is going,” Nathan growled, pulling the weapon from Max.

I was of the opinion somebody was going to get killed if they didn’t stop recklessly tossing axes around, but I didn’t interject that into the conversation.

“You’ve been off the scene for the duration of this mess, so maybe you don’t understand what will happen if the Soul Eater gets ahold of Cyrus.” Max got right in Nathan’s face, so they were almost nose-to-nose. “We don’t have a lot of time to go over it in detail again, so I’ll give you a brief summary. Bad things will go down if the Soul Eater eats tonight!”

Nathan dropped the ax to the floor with a clatter. “I don’t care, you’re not going to go save him!”

“No one is going to be eaten tonight,” Bella pointed out, not helping our cause at all. “We do not know that the Soul Eater is here in this town. His minions are, though, and I agree with Max and Carrie that we should not let Cyrus fall into their hands.”

“Cyrus is reformed,” I said, hating the way I sounded—as if I was defending his past actions. “But his father is persuasive. If he turns him—”

“I’ll kill him and I’ll make damn sure he stays dead this time.” Nathan spun away. “This isn’t a discussion. I’m telling you, we are not going to save him.”

“Fine. I won’t save him. I’ll go kill the Soul Eater’s guys.” Max grabbed a larger ax from the closet and hefted it over his shoulder as if daring Nathan to make a wrong move.

“Are you nuts?” Macho posturing was one thing, but the Soul Eater had a seemingly endless retinue of guards. Even Max, Bella and I together couldn’t take out all of them. “We’ll get killed.”

“It is not a bad idea,” Bella said, shocking us all into silence. “If you kill them, it might draw the Soul Eater out of hiding. Then we can exterminate him.”

Nathan stood in front of the door. “I’m not going to let you risk it. Any of you.”