Boundary Crossed (Boundary Magic #1)(14)

Quietly, I moved to put myself between Darcy and the bedroom door. Apparently satisfied with her find, Darcy collected the keys and started back toward the bedroom, which is when she spotted me.

“Oh, great,” she yelled, over the sound of Charlie’s wails. “The girl with the weird blood. Of course you’re here.”

She took a few steps toward me. “Hey, Darcy.” I stalked forward to meet her, which she wasn’t expecting. “Rough night? Me too.”

She opened her mouth to yell something back, and I slammed my left fist into her nose.

It collapsed with a very satisfying wet crunch, and Darcy shrieked with pain, staggering backward, away from the bedroom door. I shook out my hand discreetly, but my own pain wasn’t bad. I’d gotten my weight behind the punch. Her eyes went wide with shock as she held her fingers up to her nose, then examined them in disbelief.

That stopped me for a moment and seemed to confirm my suspicion that the vampire thing was bullshit. I’d broken someone’s nose before, and Darcy’s had felt just like anyone else’s. And now she was bleeding like anyone else. Liberally.

Regaining her balance, Darcy swung at me, a clumsy roundhouse that I easily blocked with my right forearm as I jabbed with my left. Same spot. She screamed in pain and frustration and kicked out at me. I turned my body to take the kick in the side. It stung, but no more than any other kick would. No, she wasn’t some superpowered creature of the night. She was just a deranged kidnapper. And that I could fight.

Encouraged, I launched myself at Darcy, throwing my upper body into her chest and riding her to the ground. I pinned her with a forearm under her throat. Her eyes bulged as she reached for my hair. I slapped her hand down with my free arm. Blood streamed from her nose down her cheeks and into her expensively highlighted hair. “Let me be clear,” I said coldly. “I will always come for that baby. Always. And if I ever see either you or your boyfriend again, I will not hesitate to break your f*cking necks. Do you believe me?”

Darcy made another grab for my hair. I slapped her down again and dug my forearm harder into her neck. Adrenaline churned in my bloodstream. “I said, do you believe me?”

Glaring at me, she nodded.

“Why her?” I demanded. “What do you want with Charlie?”

Her cold facade broke, and she let out a surprised laugh, disturbing because it sounded so completely normal. “You don’t know?” she asked, genuine amazement in her voice.

There was a shout from outside, and I automatically glanced toward the back door at the other end of the kitchen, half expecting someone to burst through it. In that instant, Darcy wriggled hard enough to free one arm. She grabbed the nearest thing within reach—a plastic baby toy with animals that popped out of little doors—and swung it at my head.

I saw the hit coming and flinched away, managing to soften the blow a little. The hard plastic still crashed into my skull, staggering me enough so that Darcy could throw me off her. She scrambled toward the back door.

When she reached the exit, she turned to look at me, straightening up. My mouth dropped open. Before my eyes, her nose was healing: the bleeding stopped, the swelling went down, the bones wriggled into place. All the bruising on her face and arms faded away, and she suddenly glowed with life. She opened her mouth and snarled at me, “This isn’t over.” Then she turned and fled into the night.

Weakened from shock or the hit to my head, I managed to slump against the bedroom door before I collapsed.

What the hell was happening?





Chapter 7



After I caught my breath, I raised my fist to rap on the door behind me. “It’s Lex,” I yelled over Charlie’s cries.

“Lex?” John’s voice was baffled.

“Yeah, it’s me. You can open the door. She’s gone.”

After a moment, the heavy wood door popped inward, dumping me over the threshold to the bedroom. “Whoops,” I said out loud. Probably should have moved aside. John stared down at me, utterly confused. Charlie hiccupped with surprise, her screams turning to whimpers.

“Hi,” I said from the floor, realizing that I might be in mild shock. “Maybe you could help me up.”

John slung Charlie onto his hip in a practiced move, then reached his hand down to help me up. I let him pull me to my feet. “What the hell is going on?” John demanded. He didn’t get upset very often—I’d probably seen him truly angry three times in all the years we’d known each other—but when he did, his temper was awe-inspiring. “You could barely move your fingers the last time I saw you. How are you here? Why are you wearing scrubs? Who were those people?!” By the end he was nearly shouting.

“John,” I said softly, “you’re scaring the baby.”

He looked down at Charlie, whose face had crumpled again. Before she could start crying, he cuddled her to his chest and murmured about getting her a ba-ba. “Come with me,” he said to me over the baby’s head. “We need to talk.”

I followed him into the kitchen, where he pulled an empty bottle out of the cupboard and began to fill it with whole milk from a carton in the fridge. The doorbell rang, and John looked up in alarm. “Hang on,” I said, raising a hand. “I think that’s for me.”

Before John could answer, I trudged back through the house, stepping around an explosion of baby toys that had nothing to do with the break-in, and looked through the peephole. Quinn was standing alone on the front porch. I opened the front door. There was blood spattered over most of his suit jacket, but he wasn’t even breathing hard. “Victor?” I asked in a low voice.