need to feed from my daughter. I’m sorry. I meant from Daniel’s daughter.”
Summer sighed. “I’m Fae, Green Man. I do understand the relationship. If you are married to my mother and in a partnership relationship with my father, then you are my father, too. And I was in your head back then. You were terrified that night. I doubt you would have actually allowed the demon to take me. Even when you told Zoey to give me up to fulfill her contract, you were already trying to find a way out of it.”
I stared at Quinn. “You tried to give away a baby?”
He frowned my way. “Zoey’s soul was on the line. She’d signed a demon contract and the only way to fulfill it was to give him what she’d stolen. Unfortunately, what she’d stolen turned into Summer.”
“Yes, we all know the queen signed a contract. It’s precisely why no one else is allowed to.” There were now all kinds of laws and regulations concerning when a vampire, or one considered vampirekind, are allowed to sign contracts. “But back to the issue of Marcus going crazy due to lack of sustenance. Marcus, Quinn’s blood is fine. If the idea of putting your mouth on his neck and sucking is too homoerotic for you, we’ll do it the toxic-masculinity way and find something for Quinn to bleed into. I don’t guess anyone brought along a travel mug.”
Summer stepped around Dean. “I said I would help him and I will. He saved me, and he didn’t kill you when he could have. Now that I know he hasn’t fed in days, I’m grateful for his self-control.”
Control was Marcus’s stock-in-trade, and it was probably why he hadn’t been feeding. He’d stayed in Dallas for my wedding. I’m not saying he was fading due to my marrying someone else. That’s not it at all. But we’d had something, something Marcus hadn’t found in a long time, and it had been over before he’d wanted it to be. I think in some ways, Marcus had hidden away in our relationship. Before meeting Summer, he’d believed Evangeline was potentially his fated companion, the one he’d waited millennia for. As she was a child, he feared he would never be able to see her as a woman. He’d thought he might be able to avoid the whole thing if we stayed together. We hadn’t, and I think Marcus had been mourning that safe place. He could get mopey.
“Awesome,” I said. “Summer is going to give Marcus some blood and then we can figure out where we’re camping for the night. Someplace far from the undead, right? But not too far. I think we need to stay here until we figure out how to get back, and pretty damn quick.”
Something Gray had said to me whispered along my brain. Never leave the path.
Was I already off the path? What had he meant by “path”? Sometimes words meant different, not so literal things in prophet speak. I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me I might have already fucked things up.
“She’s not giving him anything,” Dean declared. “I won’t have her caught in a marriage she doesn’t desire.”
Before Summer could speak, Marcus held up a hand. “I would not trap her. That is why I shall go into the woods and find a creature to feed off of.”
Was he thinking at all? “A creature like the water horse who made you sick? That kind of creature? We’re in a weird-ass place where we don’t know how you’re going to react to things. I do not need a psychotic Marcus to deal with.”
“And I do not need to deal with the withdrawal I will feel when she refuses to feed me next time,” he said savagely.
“An excellent reason not to do this,” Dev pointed out.
“Sure, that’s your reason,” I shot back.
Marcus turned. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He stalked off toward the woods.
I turned on Dev. “Are you trying to kill him?”
“Of course not.” Dev’s shoulders straightened and he went toe to toe with me. “You heard him. He doesn’t want to risk getting addicted to a woman who might not want to have anything to do with him in the future. She’s made herself plain.”
“What are you talking about?” Summer asked.
But I was busy arguing with Quinn. I’ve gotten to like Quinn over the years. He can be one of the nicest men in the world if you’re in his circle.