Boundary Crossed (Boundary Magic #1)(57)

“I can smell it in your blood,” he whispered, his face clouding over. “It’s . . . it’s like it’s singing to me.”

I shrunk back from him. An affinity for vampires. You got that right, Simon. Apparently death magic was coursing through my veins, and that affinity worked both ways. Great.

Quinn reached into his pocket and pulled out the car keys, holding them out and staring at them. “You should probably drive yourself back to Boulder. I’ll catch a bus or something. Please, Lex, I . . . I don’t want to hurt you.”

His gaze flicked toward my face for an instant, vulnerable and begging, and I forgot my anger. Quinn’s eyes were full of pain, some sort of raw wound that hadn’t healed, that probably never would.

He had hurt someone, once.

Compassion surged inside me. I looked around quickly, but I didn’t have a tissue or anything, and my purse was still locked in the car. Without thinking, I peeled off my long-sleeved shirt and wound it around my hand as tightly as I could. Then I checked Quinn’s face. “Better?”

He nodded and dropped his arm, his relief evident. “Thank you.”

“Who did you hurt?” I said abruptly. I’d meant it in a supportive way, like I’m here if you need to talk, but I was out of practice with talking about real things, and it came out all wrong.

He met my eyes, pain still raw on his face. “My wife,” he said softly. He shuddered. Actually shuddered, although I seriously doubted that vampires needed to react physically to emotional stimuli. It was so . . . human.

“Quinn . . .” I whispered. “It’s okay. You’re not going to hurt me.” I reached up with my right hand and touched his cheek, leaning into him. He bowed his head, and I touched my forehead to his. Neither of us moved, and I felt something stir in me, something I’d put to sleep a long time ago. Quinn’s hands wrapped around my waist, and he pulled my body forward, which drew my mouth closer to his . . .

“Hey, dude, you gonna give her your jacket or what?”

Quinn and I jerked apart. The voice had come from a laughing girl of about twenty-five, who was tottering past us on spiky heels, heading toward the apartment building. She was on the arm of a dumb-looking jock of a guy, all muscles and gold chain necklaces, and he gave my chest a frank stare as they went by. I was suddenly very aware that a) it was all of forty degrees outside, and b) I was wearing a soft jersey camisole Sam had gotten me for Christmas and no bra.

I shivered, still clutching the shirt around my hand, hugging it in to my chest to cover my erect nipples. It didn’t do much to hide my embarrassment, though. I’d almost just kissed him, for God’s sake. I couldn’t trust myself, couldn’t trust that whatever I was feeling for Quinn wasn’t the result of my swelling connection to magic. I took a deep, shuddering breath.

Quinn mumbled something and shrugged out of his leather jacket, leaning forward to wrap it around me. “Thatta boy,” the party girl called over her shoulder. “Whoops.” She wobbled on her heels and for a second I thought she was gonna go down, but the jock caught her, sending Quinn a wink. “Have a good night,” he yelled.

“Take me home,” I muttered to Quinn.



Quinn insisted that I couldn’t come along to talk to Maven and Itachi. We argued about it for most of the trip back from Denver, but he was adamant. He thought I was too emotional about the whole thing to deal with them directly, but he promised to call me after his conversation and fill me in.

But he didn’t call me that night. At sunrise, I went to bed, now worried that Maven or Itachi had decided to punish Quinn for what they might have seen as his failure to catch Charlie’s kidnapper. I meant to nap for just a couple of hours, but was awoken by the ringing of my phone a little after seven I’d been asleep for more than twelve hours. I grabbed my cell and saw Quinn’s number in the display.

“Hello?” I said cautiously.

“It’s me.” Quinn sounded fine, and I felt a momentary sense of relief before I remembered to be irritated with him. “Sorry I didn’t call last night.”

“What happened?”

“Hang on a second.” There was a pause, and I heard the sound of a door closing. Then another. Then a third. “I’m at Magic Beans,” he explained. “Just trying to get some privacy.”

“What did they say?” I said, more insistent this time. “Can we keep looking for the kidnapper?”

“No,” he said heavily. “I was right. They agreed that three out of the four is good enough for now.”

I kicked at a pillow in frustration, sending it flying off the bed. Dopey looked up from her spot beside me, bewildered. “Shit.”

“I know. If it helps, though, your niece is now considered permanently under Itachi’s protection.”

“What about me?”

He paused. “I swear, I told them you did a good job.”

“But?” I prompted.

“But . . . they want to think about it a little more. They’re vampires, so ‘we need to think about it’ could mean for a night or a month. Meanwhile, no one’s gonna touch Charlie.”

I flopped back against the remaining pillow. “They can touch her,” I said coldly. It wasn’t enough for Charlie to be safe from every monster but two. I wanted her to grow up safe, period.