Blood Ties (Book 3 of The Blood Bond Series)

42. Carpathian Mountains

Quinn walked across the campus with Michael and Viv, both of them listening to her explain what had happened the week before at Cleo's. Even in January, temperature in Southern California wasn't especially cold, so they were dressed for typical, 60-degree weather. It wasn't too bad, and even Quinn's yoga pants started to stick to her after her active day. She'd had a dance class and then a lab, so it was a good mix of active and sedentary. She had made sure that her last semester wasn't too stressful so that she could put some time and effort into the spring musical. It wouldn't be Into The Woods, like in New York, but Wicked would be epic. She didn't care if she didn't have a huge part, but if she had her choice, she'd want to play Elphaba.

Michael was taking everything in that she said. He'd heard it all from Adam before, and snippets more from Eli, but it was always good to have all takes from all sides, and since Quinn was the one that had spoken to Marcus, he wanted to get her view. Viv was quiet, but Michael, who usually was the silent one, asked question after question while they walked to the car. Viv had parked in the same area of the parking lot, because Quinn was afraid—especially after meeting Marcus on New Year's Eve—that he would do something to her friend since she was always with her. Highly paranoid and taking this much more seriously on this side of the holidays, she kept Viv close when she could.

"And it seemed threatening to you, right?" Michael was asking her. "Did he sound like he was certain something was going to happen? Does he have any connections in the city?"

Quinn shook her head. "His entire family is from the East Coast except for an uncle who lives in Colorado. He wanted to live on a sheep or horse ranch or something. Black sheep of the family is kind of what I got from that conversation. Otherwise, I don't think he has anyone out here unless he's made friends since the beginning of the year. At NYU, tons of law students would stick together. It was like the Mob, except less criminal."

Michael nodded. His face looked like an emotional typewriter taking notes in accordance to what Quinn was saying. "Did you see him at all after you left the hallway? Have you gotten any suspicious emails, texts, or anything like that? Something that didn't come up as spam on your phone?"

"Nope. Same usual bullshit spam callers and robocalls. It's like every time the mobile companies find a solution for one, another comes within a matter of months. Stupid fucking hackers!" She'd gotten even more of them since changing her number, and that only added onto the irritation she felt having to change her number at all. Fortunately, Adam's secretary had sent out a group message from her phone one day to inform all in her contacts list of her new number so they wouldn't think she was some random calling them.

"I see." Michael was quiet, thinking. Since he was security-minded, it was his job to drive Quinn, so he opened the car remotely with his key fob and made sure Quinn was inside the car before moving over to the driver's side to get in. It was instinct. He didn't really think Quinn would get snatched up so quickly as that, but it was ingrained in him because he worked with both the human and vampire populace. Though Marc didn't know that Adam or he were immortal with skills far beyond his imagining, it didn't mean that Marc wouldn't run across someone with connections to vampires and he wouldn't unknowingly hire one. His family had some cash, and he was well compensated with a monthly stipend from them at the beginning of every month, or so Quinn told him. If that was the same now as it was before, then he was going to be very cautious.

Michael started up the car and watched as Viv got into her own before pulling up behind her. There were a few other cars in queue to leave, but it was still early enough in the day that traffic wasn't too bad. He thought Quinn seemed irritated with him, like he was her overbearing father instead of guard, so he changed the topic.