Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,15

take me alive. That was all Kraig needed to know. He had no idea what Ford was planning to do with me after they took me. He was just a grunt.

I wasn’t sure what to do with him after that. The domini-villani relationship is complicated. It’s difficult, if not downright impossible, for a lower vampire to resist an order from a dominus, so it was hard to entirely blame Kraig for the attack. I decided to just ask him. “Tell me if you had a choice about capturing me,” I commanded.

He paused, examining the question. Vampires can’t lie when I press them, but sometimes they need to consider before they can answer. “I could have resisted,” he said finally. “I did not.”

Quinn stepped away to report all of this to Maven. I held on to my control over Kraig, though I couldn’t really ask him any more questions while his lungs were still healing.

In the end, with Maven’s blessing, I pressed him to go to Boulder on foot and throw himself on Maven’s mercy. I also said he couldn’t feed on the way, which would make the trip very painful.

When Kraig had completely disappeared into the darkness, Quinn and I set about cleaning up the mess from the crash. Compared to dealing with thousands of pounds of giant reptile, it really wasn’t that difficult. We buried the vampires’ remains a few hundred yards away, called the police, and told them Quinn had driven the Jeep and I’d driven the pickup. Quinn pressed them into buying the story, and we called in Quinn’s favorite towing company to tow both cars. It was scary how good I was getting at this.

Chapter 6

The tow truck dropped off the Jeep at the same body shop where Maven had commissioned the custom work, and I made a mental note to call them the next morning to arrange service. When we finally got back to Magic Beans, only a couple of hours before dawn, there was no sign of Kraig-with-a-K. When we got back to her office, though, Maven was clearly pissed—but not nearly as upset as she’d been about the belladonna poisoning. An attempted betrayal was something she was used to.

“So,” I said, because I needed to make sure I understood what was happening. “We’re thinking Ford was going to make a move against you, and he decided to get rid of Quinn and me first?” It wasn’t a terrible plan—Quinn was deeply loyal and Maven’s best troubleshooter, and I could press vampires.

She sat in her office chair, her small hands steepled in her lap. “Something like that,” she said at last. “I don’t understand where the belladonna comes in, though.”

“Maybe he’s the supplier,” Quinn suggested. “When you showed signs of interfering with his business, he tried to take you out.”

“But then why poison his own people?” I argued.

A different kind of man might have been upset that his girlfriend was contradicting him in front of the boss, but Quinn just shrugged and said, “Because they found out what he was doing, and they needed to be silenced so he could usurp Maven.”

“That must be it,” Maven said, but her face was still troubled.

I told Maven what Nellie had said about belladonna, and with a sour look she agreed that the whole “flushing with blood” plan was probably Nellie messing with us. I didn’t mention what Nellie had told me about Maven’s obsession with the herbs. It didn’t seem like a great idea to antagonize her when she was already angry.

She sent us home after that, and I was more than a little relieved to leave her presence. Since there were less than two hours until sunrise, Quinn decided to head back to his apartment. He squeezed my hand. “Are we still on for tomorrow night?” he said, his voice low.

Tomorrow night. I stared at him blankly, and he grinned. “Date night, remember? An actual date? No sandworm bits, no blood, no Pellars, much as we love them. Just you and me like regular folks.”

I flushed a little. “Right. Date night. A thing which I can totally do. Wait, if we’re not hip deep in sandworm viscera, what are we even going to talk about?”

“Boring things,” he said solemnly. “Local elections. Gluten allergies. The effects of marijuana legalization on the state economy.”

“Oh, so, Boulder things.”

“Exactly.”

I stood on my tiptoes and gave him a light kiss. “You’re on.”

I was smiling when I climbed into my car to head home. But something about Ford and the attack