Morgan visibly flinched for the first time, which made Mary cock her head with interest.
“No,” Morgan said, her voice edged with panic. “You can’t do this. You can’t torture me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I told her.
“Just shoot me,” Morgan begged.
Mary gave a little shrug. “If you insist.”
She lowered the barrel and pulled the trigger. The silver slug hit Morgan in the soft tissue just above her hip, and she collapsed to her knees. Then she began to wail, and Mary darted forward and punched her in the side of the head. Morgan slumped to the ground, unconscious.
While I was still standing there with my mouth open, Mary held out her hand to give me the revolver, now hanging from her finger by the trigger guard.
“I’m starving,” she said. “Wanna get breakfast?” She raised her voice. “Hey, Katia! Breakfast?”
Chapter 47
The sun was rising on an overcast haze as I drove the hell out of Wyoming.
The radio was playing a sickly-sweet Christmas song, so I reached over and clicked it off. I adjusted the rearview mirror to check on Tobias, who lay sprawled across the back seat, snoring gently.
When we had finally climbed out of the fucking tunnels, with me supporting Katia and Mary carrying a still-unconscious Morgan Pellar, Alex and Tobias had been on the stairs in human form—along with Lindsay and Nicolette, the two younger werewolves who’d sat out the earlier fight. The rest of Mary’s pack had been on their way to rescue her.
Instead, Lindsay and Nicolette retrieved Barlow’s body, carrying it to a more concealed tunnel exit, while Alex and Tobias helped the rest of us get out of there. Then Mary and Alex had personally escorted Morgan Pellar to a doctor Alex knew in Fort Collins, who would stitch up the bullet hole, no questions asked. I was a little wary about leaving Morgan in the hands of Alex and Mary, but in the end, I had to trust they wouldn’t kill an injured, sedated woman.
Yeah, I may have given Morgan some of the morphine from the emergency kit before they took off.
Tobias was coming along to Boulder to retrieve the Ventimiglias’ vehicle and hopefully collect Dunn’s body, assuming Maven could pull strings to get it released. Mary and Alex would bring Morgan to Boulder that night, to hand-deliver her to Maven. I had already left messages for Maven and Quinn explaining the situation, and I’d called Lily and arranged for Hazel to drop the barrier preventing Morgan from coming into the state. The witches could set up a meeting with Maven and the werewolves later that night. It was about time all these people got in a fucking room and figured things out.
Which left me. As far as I was concerned, I was out of it. At the moment I had no standing at all in the Old World, and I was sort of grateful for that. When the dust settled, I planned to go to Maven and beg for my job back, but I was just as happy not to be around to complicate her negotiations with the witches. Most of them hated me, and I didn’t want to distract Lily and Simon when they needed to focus on family.
Also? I wanted some fucking sleep.
Putting the mirror back where it belonged, I glanced sideways, to the passenger seat. Katia was sitting with her forehead pressed to the cold window, and for a long time I couldn’t tell whether she was asleep. Then she turned her head to look at me, and I winced again at her bruised and swollen face.
“Stop looking at me that way,” Katia said. Her words were still slightly distorted from the puffy lip. “I have had worse.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
Katia began to stretch her arms, but it must have hurt, because she stopped almost immediately. “Did you talk to Lily?”
“Yes. She’s going to meet with Maven and the werewolves tonight, and Simon’s going to be fine,” I assured her. “He was just a little banged up.”
“Is Lily okay?” she persisted.
Something in her tone . . . I glanced over again and took in the very casual, innocent way she was staring at the road in front of us.
“Oh. Oh,” I said stupidly. “It’s Lily.”
I felt stupid.
“What is Lily?” Katia was still trying for innocence, but she didn’t pull it off.
“You said you liked someone, romantically. It’s Lily, isn’t it?”
There had been signs—nothing huge, but now that I thought about it, Katia never asked after the Pellars—just Lily. When she’d asked me about Morgan, she’d called her Lily’s sister. For crying out loud, Katia had blushed when Lily complimented her hair.
Katia craned her head around to check on Tobias. When she turned to face front again, she began to study her fingernails in silence.
Why hadn’t I seen it? True, I hadn’t known Katia was into women—but then, I hadn’t known she was into men either. Katia was so self-contained, she often came off as cold. And maybe because she’d witnessed—and possibly been the victim of—so much sexual assault, I guess I hadn’t . . .
I felt ashamed of myself. Hadn’t what, Lex? Hadn’t thought Katia could enjoy sex, or have feelings? I spent a few more seconds berating myself, then realized Katia was sneaking glances at me, and I had to take care so she didn’t misinterpret my expression. “Why didn’t you say anything?” I blurted.
She gave me a look. “She’s your best friend, and you are the only family I have left,” she said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t think you would approve.”
“Why not?” I asked, though I suspected I knew the answer.
“Because of the things I’ve done,” she said simply. Unspoken were the words because of what I am.
I had no idea how to respond to that. “Katia . . .”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean,” she said, her voice still subdued. “I pressed a vampire to kill innocent women. I stood by and watched as those vampires Oskar had imprisoned were tormented and raped, then I forced them to forget their pain, just so they could go through it again. I told myself I was helping them—but I never tried to save them.”
“Do you think you could have?” I asked. “Could you have pressed Oskar?”
She shook her head. “I tried to press him once, but he was too strong for me. It . . . didn’t go well.” One hand lifted to rub her collarbone. Katia always wore crew-neck shirts, usually with long sleeves, but this one was ripped, and I could see the beginning of scar tissue. I forced my eyes back to the road. “But I could have done something else,” she went on. “Found a witch to release them from their bonds, or pressed them to run as far as they could. Reported him to a cardinal vampire. Anything. But I was scared, and I did nothing.”
My heart ached for her. She sounded . . . well, she sounded like me, really, when I’d first returned to Boulder after being blown up in the desert. Only Katia hadn’t signed up for the army; she’d been kidnapped and victimized by a monster. He had literally killed her when she was fourteen, in order to activate her boundary magic. And yet she couldn’t stop blaming herself for everything that had happened afterward. If I were a betting woman, I would put down every penny in my savings account that she had night terrors, just as I did.
“You’ve heard the stories about boundary witches,” she continued, with the smallest tremble running through her voice. “There’s death in our blood, that’s what everyone says. But what if it’s not just death? What if it’s darkness?”
I had to admit, I’d had similar thoughts. Doing serious boundary magic, the kind where you played around with another being’s soul, it felt way too good. Someone could get addicted to that kind of high, and if I hadn’t had Simon and Lily and Quinn to keep me grounded, I probably would have gone . . . well, what Scarlett would call “full dark side.”
“I raised the dead last night,” I blurted.
Katia sat up straight. “What? When? Why?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. I did it, and I can’t go back. And I’m still here, Kat. I’m still breathing.”
She let out a soft grunt that suggested she was unconvinced.
I sighed. “Look. I’m the wrong person to judge good or bad. I’m definitely in no place to judge your actions twenty years ago. But one thing I’m pretty damn sure of is that you get to decide who you are and what you do now. And it never would have crossed my mind that you might not be good enough for Lily.”
One corner of her mouth instantly tugged up, as though just thinking of Lily made it impossible not to smile. Then her frown returned. “Anyway. Nothing will come of it. I couldn’t do that to her.”
“Do what to her?”
She gestured helplessly at her chest, like there was an airborne toxin inside her. “Lily is like . . . sunshine in human form. I could never risk that out of selfishness.”
“Well, that’s just horseshit.” That got a tiny smile out of her. “Lily is a grown-up. She has the right to make her own choices without you deciding what’s good and bad for her.”
Katia relaxed back into her seat and stared out the window again, her face betraying nothing. “I will think on it.”
I drove straight to the hospital in Boulder, where I would check on John and Katia could go to the ER to get checked out. She thought this was unnecessary, but I badgered and insisted until she gave in. I was not going to be in another situation where I didn’t find out about internal bleeding in time.
We pulled up to the ER entrance and I put the Jeep in park, watching the EMTs bustling in and out of the building. Katia and I both glanced into the back seat, but Tobias was still out.
“You should really come to the ER too,” Katia said quietly. “I saw your arms and legs before you changed your clothes.”
“They’re just scratches,” I said. It was true that the claw marks hurt, but they’d all stopped bleeding very quickly, and I didn’t think they required stitches. I would have Lily take a look at them tomorrow, after I’d gotten some sleep and she’d finished meeting with Maven and her mother. “They look a lot worse than they are.”
Katia let out a dubious grunt, but dropped the subject. Then she gave me a serious look and said, “Lex . . . thank you.”
“For what?”
“For coming to get me.”
I looked over in surprise. “Um, first of all, you saved my life just the night before, and secondly, it was my fault you were at Simon’s place to begin with. If you hadn’t been there, they would have taken me.”
“And I would have happily paid that price, for Valerya’s child,” she said primly.
It hit me then, really for the first time: I was Katia’s Charlie.
I had never really thought about it that way before, and I felt tears well in my eyes. “Katia . . .”
But I choked on whatever I might have said. She gave me a small smile and a nod, then turned and said very loudly, “Lex, look! Is that . . . a mailman?”
“That’s not funny,” Tobias said without opening his eyes. But I could tell he was fighting a smile.
Chapter 48
I told Tobias he could take the Jeep on to my house, but he insisted he was happy to keep napping while I went into the hospital to check on John. Apparently werewolves didn’t mind the cold.
I walked Katia into the ER first, to make sure she actually signed in. The intake nurse dropped her eyes when she saw Katia’s face, and I knew I’d made the right call to bring her in despite her protests.
When they came to get her for the exam, Katia gave my hand an awkward pat and told me to go see John. “Fine,” I said, standing up, “but no lying to me about how bad your injuries are later.”
Katia just raised her eyebrows in a way that said I promise nothing.
I knew BCH pretty well, after so many years of sustaining minor injuries while working for Maven, plus visiting various family members. I stopped at the intensive care unit first, but they told me John had been moved to a regular room, and he would likely be discharged that afternoon.
That thought cheered me as I made my way through the hospital to the correct wing. When I approached the room, I could hear talking and laughing, and I recognized Sashi’s voice. I quickened my step, pushing the door open gently.
John was sitting up in bed, smiling. His color looked miles better than it had the night before, and although he was leaning his head back on pillows, he seemed to be lucid and alert. I felt my chest loosen.
“Lex!” he called as I walked in. “Welcome to the party. We’ve been shushed twice.”
There was a guffaw from a strange man sitting on the glider chair in the corner. Sashi, who had been sitting on a folding chair pulled up to the bed, rolled her eyes and stood up. My friend was in her late thirties, with glossy, dark hair and a mild British accent. Her mother had emigrated from India to England, then from England to America, when Sashi was a little girl.
“Ignore him,” she said, coming toward me with a smile. “They gave him more Vicodin than he strictly needs at this point, but he didn’t want me to say anything.”
“To protect her cover,” John announced, still too loudly.
Sashi sighed and gave me a hug. I held on to her for an extra moment. “Thank you so much for coming,” I said into her hair. “I can’t tell you how . . . well. Thank you.”
“Of course. You were right to call,” she said as she pulled back. Her voice was light, but I understood her meaning and fought to keep my expression neutral. If Sashi hadn’t gotten there in time . . .
Sashi held me at arm’s length for a moment, inspecting my face. “What?” I asked, touching my cheek. “It’s nothing, just a bruise.”
“Not that,” Sashi replied, shaking her head a little. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She stepped back and held out her arm to the stranger. He was tall and handsome, in a cheerful, open way, like a great bartender or maybe a therapist. “I’d like you to meet my husband, Will.”
“Husband?” I echoed as the man came over and held out his right hand to shake. His left arm, I realized, ended just below the elbow; he had pinned up the sleeve so it wouldn’t flop around. “You got married and I wasn’t invited?”
Sashi threw back her head and laughed. “It was a quickie Vegas thing,” she assured me. “We only invited Grace, and she didn’t want . . . Well. You know how kids are.”
“Get this, Lex,” John said, with great animation. He had lifted his head to see me better. “Will is Grace’s father! That’s why Sashi didn’t want to marry me! She was still hung up on this dude!”
“John!” Sashi hissed at him, but he looked comically smug, like he’d just been found innocent of a crime.
I couldn’t help it; I cracked up. It felt good to laugh, even if my voice had an edge of exhaustion. To my surprise, Will joined in the laughter. He gave off kind of a calming, easygoing vibe, not unlike John—at least, when he wasn’t high on painkillers. I entertained myself for a moment with the thought that Sashi had a type.
“I’m glad you’re doing so well,” I told my brother-in-law.
John shrugged, smiling. “Eh. I was too good for her anyway.”
“I meant physically,” I told him.
“Yeah, I know you did.”
Sashi rolled her eyes again, but now she was laughing too. Will smiled at her, and the look she gave him back was something else. Simple, pure love.
Now that I knew, I could see Grace in Will’s posture, his movement. There were about a dozen questions I wanted to ask Sashi, but I was just too exhausted at the moment. For now, she looked happy, and John seemed comfortable and mostly healthy, and that was all I cared about.
“Lex,” Sashi said, pushing her hair behind her ears, “I want to hear the whole story, if you’re allowed to tell it, but could we take a walk first? There’s something I need to ask you.”
“Well . . .” I eyed John, then Will.
John flapped a hand at me. “Oh, we’re cool. Will’s cool.”
The corners of Will’s mouth twitched, but he looked at me and said very solemnly, “I’m cool.”
“Okay then.” I turned to Sashi and gestured to the door. “After you.”
We ambled down t
he long hallway toward the cafeteria, where Sashi could get a cup of coffee. I had already had plenty—we’d stopped on the way back from Cheyenne—and suspected that more might actually make me start to vibrate.
“What did you want to ask me?” I asked after a group of gossiping nurses had passed us.
“First,” she began, “did you do something to John?”
“Uh, yeah.” I fingered the bandage on the base of my thumb. I’d had to apply a fresh one from the first aid kit. “I sort of . . . bled into his wound.” It sounded so gross out loud.
Sashi stumbled and almost went down, but I caught her arm. “Sorry, sorry,” she exclaimed. “I’m just . . . why on earth would you do that?”
I explained about the boundary magic in my blood, and how I was willing to try anything when I knew I was going to lose him.
Sashi nodded thoughtfully. “I see. I felt something strange in his bloodstream, but I couldn’t seem to get at it, which usually only happens with others in the Old World. That explains it.”
We turned into the cafeteria, and she looked sideways at me. “Just out of curiosity . . . now that John knows about the Old World, have you told him you can talk to Sam?”
I shook my head. “She asked me not to. She wants him to be able to move on, and she doesn’t think he could if he knew.” I shrugged. “It must be tempting for Sam to use our connection to interfere with John’s parenting, but she knows it would be an abuse of our magic.” I didn’t say, “And that’s not allowed.” I may not have understood the strange powers that restricted Sam’s communication, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t want me telling others about them.
“That sounds complicated for you,” Sashi observed.
“Sashi . . . when is family not complicated?”
She sighed. “Quite. And I’m afraid that leads me right into my next question. I need a favor.”
“Anything,” I said immediately. Sashi had saved John’s life, not to mention Simon’s, and plenty of other people’s. “Name it.”
She held up a cautionary hand. “Hold on now, this is big. I want you to ask Maven if I can move to Boulder, at least temporarily.”
Boundary Broken (Boundary Magic Book 4) Page 30
