Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,29

fanned out around her, like a princess in a fairy tale. Except usually the princess’s hair isn’t orange, and she’s not wearing bag-lady clothes, with blood splashed all over her mouth, neck and face. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t breathing, although vampires didn’t technically need to.

I looked back at Quinn. “What—”

“Belladonna.”

I cursed and darted forward, ignoring the blood that was pooled on either side of her head as I crouched down. Behind me, Quinn stumbled forward and dropped gracelessly to his knees on the other side of her. “How could this happen?” I asked.

In answer, Quinn stuck out the arm that wasn’t bleeding and opened his hand, revealing two small, clear-glass cylinders, each with a needle on one end and fins on the other, like a pool dart. A dart gun. Someone had shot her with a dart gun. Dammit, I should have thought of that.

“I tried to give her my blood,” Quinn continued, looking woozy. “Had to keep opening the vein . . .” He trailed off.

“Can vampires even drink vampire blood?”

“For a quick fix, not long-term,” he mumbled. “Worked for a bit, but she started choking. Spit it out . . .” His eyes lost focus, and I knew he’d given too much blood. I didn’t think it would kill him anytime soon, but he’d be weak until he fed again.

“Sit down,” I ordered. Quinn sort of half-nodded and leaned back against the Dumpster. “You have a knife?” Vampire teeth are sharp enough to cut through skin, but most of them prefer to use a blade. Easier to explain the wounds later.

He pointed to Maven’s body, and I leaned forward to see a large Swiss Army knife tucked against her arm where he’d dropped it. I picked it up and, trying to not give myself enough time to get grossed out, made a cut on the back of my right hand, like I’d seen Simon do once.

“Drink,” I told Quinn, starting to move my hand toward him.

“No!” He lurched to his feet, slower than usual but still faster than most humans. “I can’t.” He pointed at Maven. “Help her. She’s dying.”

“Quinn—” I was planning to argue with him, but then I glanced down at Maven, just for a second, and realized something was seriously wrong. Her face seemed to be . . . not aging, exactly, but her skin was going gray and papery, like . . .

Like it was beginning to decay. Which happens when vampires die. Panic jolting through me, I slapped the back of my hand over her open mouth, praying she could drink it. Vampires can feed off witchblood, but if she couldn’t swallow Quinn’s . . .

Blood dribbled into her mouth, and for a long moment she remained completely motionless. The decay didn’t progress, but it didn’t reverse, either.

I cursed under my breath. It wasn’t working. I looked to Quinn for help, but his eyes had drifted shut again. “If you’re wrong about this, Nellie, so help me . . .” Wincing, I turned one of Maven’s wrists over and used the knife to make a deep slash down the main vein. It was clumsy and I had no idea if I’d gone to the right depth, but blood erupted out of the cut like it was evacuating her body, spraying straight up. That didn’t seem normal, but then again, what did I know about vampire baselines?

I reared my head back and managed to avoid most of the spray, but some of it got into my hair and jeans. A voice in the back of my mind started chanting ew-ew-ew, but I didn’t have time to listen. I clamped down on Maven’s cut with my left hand and positioned my bleeding wound back over her mouth. “Come on,” I urged. “Please, please drink.”

Maven didn’t stir during the cut or the gushing of blood, and she didn’t stir now. But after only a few seconds I saw her throat work, once, twice. I blew out a relieved breath.

Slowly—agonizingly slowly—her skin lost the papery cast and looked . . . well, it was still whiter than was humanly possible, but at least it looked like skin. “It’s working.” I dared to lift my left hand a little, and saw that the cut on Maven’s wrist wasn’t bleeding anymore. Thank goodness. I pushed back a strand of hair from my eyes, not caring that I was probably smearing more blood on my forehead.

I looked up at Quinn, but he had slumped sideways against the