“You don’t have to.” A tear slid down my cheek. “Nathan, do you—” Love me?

“No.” He knew what I’d meant to ask him. A glimmer of pain crossed his features. My heart should have turned to stone in my chest, but I knew he wasn’t denying me. He was denying himself.

We lay in silence for a few minutes, nothing but tension connecting us through the blood tie. Finally, he rolled to his side to face me. “Now, there’s still the question of where you stand with the Movement. Have you given that any more thought?”

Of course. I was about to tell him exactly where he could stick his precious Movement, but the words didn’t make it past my lips before he spoke again.

“Because I’m getting out.”

I suddenly understood the meaning of the phrase You could have knocked me over with a feather. “Are you serious?”

He laughed. “I’ve been on probation for more than seventy years now because I killed Marianne. I’ll never stop being sorry for it, and if someone walked through that door right now and gave me the chance to switch places with her, I’d do it. But the Movement will never forgive me, and until they stop throwing it back in my face, I’m not going to be able to move on.”

There was more. I felt it just below the surface of his regret. But I didn’t push. There would be other days for that.

“That’s a big change. I’ll make one, too. I’ll start looking for my own place,” I said with a cheerfulness I didn’t truly feel.

“No.” His declaration was so vehement it scared me. Softer, he elaborated. “Carrie, you’re my fledgling. I would never ask you to leave. I don’t think I could survive if you did.”

“It’s not like I can’t drop by and visit.”

He grasped my hand. “Stay.”

I knew he couldn’t say what he really felt. He didn’t know what he really felt. But I did.

A sire had to love his fledgling. It was a painful truth of vampire existence. It was what made the blood tie so unbreakable. I suppose it would have been nice if he would love me without the connection between us, but he was wounded and complicated. His emotional distance was almost a relief to me.

“You do know there will be consequences.” Nathan rested his head against my shoulder. “If I leave the Movement, I’ll be marked for death. If you don’t join, you’ll be, too.”

“So I’ll go from one death sentence to another. In fact, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to live without one.” I set the mug back on the nightstand and wiggled down onto the pillows.

“What do you say we go out tonight?” he asked suddenly. “You haven’t been out of this room for days.”

“I could really use a shower,” I admitted. “And it will do me some good to see some other people. Not that you’re not fabulous in your own way.”