Boundary Lines Read Online Free PDF Page A

no reason to send us on this little quest.”
    “True,” he conceded. “I think that’s a pretty safe assumption, yes.”
    Great. So that was one person who probably didn’t kill them. “Did Travis and Allegra . . . er . . . know each other?”
    He shot me a wry smile. “You mean like, biblically?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “No. Travis was a bit of a dandy, and Allegra was really down-to-earth. I can’t see her spending more than two minutes with him.”
    There was something in his tone—admiration, maybe? He glanced over at me, and discomfort crossed his face. “Listen, Lex, there’s something else you should know. Allegra and I, we used to . . . date. Years ago.”
    “Date,” I repeated.
    He sighed. Vampires, I had discovered, don’t technically need to breathe, but most of them do out of habit, and to blend in. “We used to sleep together. Recreationally.”
    “Oh.” I mulled that over for a moment. Quinn was a relatively new vampire—we had never discussed the specifics of his turn, but I knew it happened between five and ten years ago, in Chicago. I also knew that he had been sold to Maven against his will . . . and that sometime in between getting changed and coming to Boulder, he had attacked his human wife. In that context, it made sense that he’d want to sleep with another vampire: he was wary of hurting humans. Which was pretty ironic given his job as Maven’s fixer.
    But then, I knew better than anyone that there was a big difference between hurting someone on orders and hurting someone because you couldn’t make yourself stop.
    Still, it was hard to picture Quinn—or any of the other vampires I’d met—craving sex or intimacy at all. They seemed so remote, so detached from their emotions. Yeah, Quinn had shown a little interest in me, and we had kissed, but in that moment, I realized I wasn’t sure how far that interest extended.
    I groped for something to say, but what came out of my mouth was, “I wasn’t sure you guys . . . did that.” Oh, great recovery, Lex.
    “What, have sex?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m a vampire, Lex, I’m not dead.”
    “Well—”
    “You know what I mean,” he replied, a little irritated. “Our bodies can do all the same things human bodies can; we just choose whether to prioritize them. It takes energy—blood—to turn on biological functions, but it can be done.”
    I thought that over. “So you get to decide whether or not you’ll . . . um . . . crave intimacy?”
    “Yes. Just like I can devote energy to having a heartbeat, sweating, or even eating, although I can’t digest food the way you can,” he said matter-of-factly. “Our bodies adapted to power our basic functions first—hunter instincts, feeding capabilities. Everything else depends on how much blood we drink, how often.”
    “Huh.” Science was never my particular interest, but that made a lot of sense, in terms of how vampires had managed to stay hidden within the human race for so long. It also said something about Quinn that he’d chosen to devote energy to human emotions when he didn’t have to.
    We rode along in silence for a few minutes, and then I couldn’t help but ask, “Did you love her?”
    “No.” His voice was weary. “We got along okay, and we both needed somebody. I care about what happens to her, but I mostly just thought you should know about it since you and I are . . . you know.”
    “Interested in each other?” I suggested. It made my heart pound hard in my chest, but I was too goddamned old to play games.
    “Yes,” Quinn said simply.
    I didn’t know quite what to say after that, so we rode in peaceable silence for quite a while. I was just starting to doze off in my seat when we saw the sign for Julesburg.
    “Where exactly are we going?” I finally asked.
    “Maven keeps these little chambers buried underground for us to hide in if we get caught away from home,” he explained. “They’re safer than a hotel. We’ll start there,