A Kiss of Blood (Vamp City #2)(11)

Arturo made a sound like that of a jealous male. As if he had any right. But Micah ignored him. Instead, he lifted his hands, touching her cheeks with cool fingertips. She wondered if his vampire coolness was the reason he’d never touched her or made a single move on her when she thought he was Mike. Would she have realized what he was if she’d felt how cool his skin was? She’d like to think so, but she just didn’t know.

As he stroked her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, he watched her with kind eyes. Mike’s eyes.

Her gaze fell to his cheek. “That scar didn’t come from a sliding glass door, did it?”

“No. It was a gift from the Gauls who slaughtered my family and enslaved me when I was twelve.”

The Gauls. She stared at him, feeling bludgeoned all over again by the reality of who he was. He might have Mike’s eyes, but this male was a centuries-old vampire. And she’d do well to remember that.

Slowly, his eyes closed. Cool hands splayed across her cheeks, barely touching her, and suddenly her flesh began to tingle. The feeling spread into her scalp and down her neck, into her body, a sensation that felt odd but not particularly unpleasant.

“Fuck,” Zack breathed.

Micah pulled his hands back, the tingling dying away as he opened his eyes and began to smile.

Quinn turned to where Zack stared at her wide-eyed.

“You don’t look like you. You look . . . weird, sis.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Arturo, watching her intently as he did so often, gave a satisfied nod.

The suspense was killing her, so she found Micah’s bathroom, flipped on the light, and stared at the brown-haired stranger in the mirror. She was no beauty, though she hardly considered herself a beauty in her true form. The woman staring back at her looked, as Zack had said, a little weird. Her features were off. Too small, too close together. The only things that hadn’t changed were her eyes.

She felt Arturo’s presence a moment before he stepped behind her. “Micah made your features just unbalanced enough to make the eye draw away, which is precisely what we want.”

“This is all a game to you, isn’t it?”

His gaze met hers in the mirror. “It has never been a game with you, tesoro. You confound me. You have, in a matter of weeks, upended my well-ordered life.”

Quinn snorted. “I’ve upended your life?”

Humor leaped into his eyes, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “Touché.”

His scent, one that had always reminded her of almond liqueur, wafted over her again, reminding her of heat and passion, of strong arms and desire beyond bearing. But that was another time. And she was another woman. One who, please God, was no longer fully dependent upon him for survival. In either world.

“Explain something to me,” she said, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “Why did you free me when doing so put you in such a dangerous position with Cristoff?”

His mouth tightened, then twisted. “I could not bear to see you in pain. I did not think past that.” His hands rose to cup her shoulders, his long fingers cool against the skin bared by her tank top. But as he started to pull her back against him, she pulled away, shrugging him off.

“Cara . . .”

She whirled on him. “Don’t, Vampire. Just . . . don’t. Don’t cara me. Don’t try to pretend you have feelings for me. Over and over you’ve warned me not to trust you, and I’ve finally listened. I’ll work with you to renew Vamp City and to save my brother, but that’s all. We’re not friends anymore. And we’re not going to be lovers again.”

She turned away, and he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“You are wise to doubt me, tesoro. I have given you little reason to do otherwise. But I will win your trust. I will do whatever I must to keep you safe. You will see.”

She met that intense gaze, then turned and left the bathroom without replying. What was there to say?

Arturo followed her back to the living room, where Zack sat, looking far too sick.

Micah stood. “It’s time to go. I’ll get the Jeep.”

Arturo tossed Micah the keys, and her onetime neighbor left the apartment, vampire-fast. Zack rose slowly and Quinn joined him as they started for the door, Arturo close behind. Quinn stepped into the hallway, eyeing her closed apartment door, and wondered if she’d ever come back here.

It would take a miracle to get them all out of Vamp City alive.

But she’d never been one to give up. And she wasn’t about to start now.





Chapter Four

Quinn sat rigid in her seat in the back of the Jeep Wrangler as she prepared for yet another return to Hell. Zack sat beside her, asleep against the window. Arturo drove with the top up to hide his passengers as much as possible while Micah rode shotgun as the vehicle sped through the D.C. streets toward the Kennedy Center and the Boundary Circle that separated the real D.C. from Vamp City.

The scientist in her began to frown as she tried to understand how the two cities occupied the same physical space. Magic, she knew. But still . . .

She glanced at Arturo. “If you’re outside the Boundary Circle, say crossing into the District from Virginia, how do you choose whether to drive into Vamp City or remain in D.C.? Clearly, the magic doesn’t automatically pull you into V.C., or you couldn’t have reached my apartment.” Or anyplace within the space occupied by both.