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Using her peripheral vision, Reese took in her surroundings while keeping Quinn in front of her. He looked the same and yet different. Quinn had a way of being imposing no matter if he wore a suit or jeans. The hoodie might downplay him to a regular guy on the street, but only from a distance.

Anyone who got close to him would sense a level of power. Even a human would.

One look at this man, and a woman would start calculating ways to get him in the sack. Not that she was, because she’d already calculated about a thousand different scenarios.

Not one of them looked anything like this minute.

She could not use her remaining teleportation just to get away from him, but that left her few options. She’d seen enough during her trip to Atlanta to know he could back up his threat to contain and teleport her.

He probably had that blasted dragon on telepathic speed dial.

This wasn’t how she’d envisioned facing Quinn again. Not that she’d planned to actually see him in person, but in her fantasies he was so happy to see her, he declared his undying love.

Okay, not really, but there was lots of great sex.

She’d definitely envisioned that part.

Threatening to tie her up would sound a lot better in a bedroom with silk scarves, not rusty wire.

Not the time to fantasize, Reese. Why was Quinn here anyway?

Did it have to do with Phoedra?

If Quinn wasn’t here because of Phoedra, this was pretty damn coincidental.

He couldn’t be involved in her kidnapping. The idea of that made Reese sick for the split second it took her to dismiss it. The alternative was ... that Quinn came here hunting Phoedra for someone else.

That would be even more disturbing if not for one simple fact. Reese had left Kizira’s body in Quinn’s care because this man epitomized honor. He wouldn’t be hunting the girl for any bad reason.

The niggling, ugly, green-eyed monster poked at Reese now, reminding her about Quinn and Kizira’s involvement, and how much he’d obviously cared for the Medb witch.

At least she was sure of one thing. Phoedra couldn’t be his child, because Reese had spent enough time around Quinn to believe he would not have left Phoedra without a father.

Reese knew, firsthand, the kind of man who abandoned his own flesh and blood.

Maybe Kizira had somehow left Quinn a message asking him to protect her daughter.

Reese brightened at that thought. Her gut latched onto that explanation for now.

Still, her cynical side wouldn’t shut up. She had to determine whether Quinn really was hunting Phoedra, and if so, why.

Not that any reason would overrule Reese’s commitment to Yáahl, but she’d sleep better confirming Quinn was still one of the good guys.

She’d been the bigger person about Kizira’s body and walked away empty-handed last time, but not this go-round.

Quinn watched her with an expression that said he was unwilling to let her leave until he had what he wanted. “Reese, please don’t push me to do something I’d rather not.”

“Let’s put our cards on the table,” she suggested.

“I’m in no mood for games.”

“Makes two of us.” She gave him a serious look to sell her point. She’d knocked aside the damn nonhuman bounty hunter who’d tried to grab her, then teleported away. Then she’d had to fight a freaking troll when she arrived in Tulsa. As much as seeing Quinn made her heart pitter-pat, time was a wastin’ and she needed to get moving. “Tell you what. You start first because I was here first.”

Sometimes an illogical argument was the best way to go.

He crossed his arms and eyed her with confusion.

Time kept ticking away.

She finally said, “Fine. I’ll start first, but I’m trusting you to do the right thing and tell me the truth about why you’re here.”

He made no sound of agreement.

She banked on the fact that this man who had fought beside her against an army of demons, and stood in front of her when it looked like they were going to die, still had a core of honor a mile wide.

Brushing off her jeans from the tumble and shoving her hair off her face, she stood with her feet shoulder-width apart and hands on hips. “I’m looking for someone.”

His lips parted then closed into a firm line. “Who?”

“See? You’re not playing fair. You’re supposed to tell me what you’re doing now.”

“Fine. I’m here for the same reason. Now, who are you looking for?”

“A young girl who got kidnapped.”

“Why are you after her?”

Reese picked up some seriously suspicious tones from him. “If you’d just tell me—”

“You’re looking for Phoedra,” Quinn accused, clearly done with twenty questions.

Damn.

“Yes, but that must mean you’re hunting her, too. Why?” Reese shot back at him.

“I have my reasons.”

She hated this endless circle jerk. “How well do you know her?”

“That has no bearing on what I’m doing.”

Her heart sank at his cold reply that sounded like business as usual. Evidently, she didn’t know Quinn as well as she’d thought. If he’d at least indicated he was doing it for a friend, she could have lived with that, but nothing about his demeanor said this was personal.

Well, it was to her.

He’d just ruined the best fantasy lover she’d had in years.

Too many years.

Slamming her fist into her hand, she said, “Unbelievable. I help you get Kizira’s body back and leave it with you when I had a lot on the line for delivering that body to someone who wanted to protect it. But I thought I was doing the right thing. My radar for men is so far off I can’t even fathom it.”

Quinn’s eyebrows shot upward, but she wanted answers, dammit. On a roll, she demanded, “Who’s paying you to hunt down this girl? Must be big money considering they sent the Belador Maistir. I will not let anyone mess with Phoedra so just back off and go home.”

“You think I’m here to kidnap her?”

Reese offered her duh look.

Quinn snapped, “I’m not here to harm her.”

“Oh, really? Then give me one reason to trust why you’re here right after she’s been kidnapped?”

His face lost its stern countenance. “Phoedra is my daughter.”

Ah, hell.

Just ... well ... hell.

Reese’s mind had been connecting dots between Kizira’s ghost and Quinn being so possessive of Kizira’s body, trying to show her this had been more than a quick tryst. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t suspected something intimate between Quinn and Kizira, but to be honest she hadn’t wanted to accept that a powerful Belador had been actually having an affair with a powerful Medb. An affair based on real, deep, one-of-a-kind love.

She’d seen the evidence of his love for Kizira by the way he’d put his life in jeopardy to protect the witch’s cold body.

But ... he’d had a child with her?

And he had clearly not been in Phoedra’s life.

How many times am I going to allow a man to make me feel like an idiot?

Quinn crossed his arms. His eyebrows dropped low over his eyes and his voice had a chilling sound when he asked, “Did you know Phoedra was Kizira’s daughter the whole time you were in Atlanta?”

“No.”  What happened? A minute ago she’d had the upper hand, but now Quinn was on offense, questioning her. If Phoedra really was his daughter, and she doubted he would say that if it weren’t true, he might tune up his mind lock trick and dynamite Reese’s head.

“Who are you working for, Reese?”

“No one.”

“You show up again, with that medallion you use to access your powers, and want to convince me you answer to no one?”

“I’m here on my own. The situation with my powers is my personal business.”

“You showed up in Atlanta with some kind of blood that draws demons. Phoedra’s safety is more important to me than anything in this world. How am I supposed to trust what you are when all I know is that you apparently have demon blood?”

That made her sound like a preternatural skank. “I can’t help what kind of blood I have, but I’m not a freaking demon, if that’s what you’re implying.”

Her short tone must have gotten through to him. Quinn said, “I have no issue with you as long as you don’t get between my child and me. Stand aside. I’m going after Phoedra.”

She would not let him see how he’d hurt her. “Oh, you’re going all fatherly now when you haven’t been around for the past thirteen years?”

His eyes flared at that hit.

Too bad. He had no reason to treat her like some demon that would kill Phoedra when he hadn’t been around at all. “You do what you want, but I’m heading out, too.”

A thought crossed his face. “Do you know where Phoedra is?”

“Oh, now you want information? Really?”

He cupped his chin as if processing something. “Do you know anything about her kidnappers?”

“Why, yes, Mr. Belador Maistir. I was the one who fought them to get her back. I can identify two of her kidnappers and the van they were in when they went through what looked like a bolthole.”

“It was a bolthole.” He said that as a statement, not a question.

Reese recalled how Quinn had needed her help in Atlanta to find Kizira’s stolen tomb. How did he know it was a bolthole, and furthermore, how had he known Tulsa was the place to find Phoedra without Reese’s remote viewing help?

She glared at him and rattled off, “Yes, that’s exactly how they escaped and I was there to observe it, but I’m just some lowly grunt with demon blood, so you might not want to take my word for it.”

He muttered something that sounded like a curse in Russian. “If you truly care about Phoedra’s safety, let’s put our differences aside and share information.”

She started to point out that there had been no differences until he’d treated her like a second-class citizen.

Reese scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to wash away her anger, because he had a point, damn him. “I’ve been here almost an hour.”

“How’d you get here so quickly?”

“I have friends in low places,” she shot back at him. “Anyhow, I’ve been covering the area around BOK Center to find the van, because I saw it go past the center.”

“You used your remote viewing ability like you did in the cemetery in Atlanta?”

“Yes, but it wouldn’t work as clearly because of these guys using the bolthole. It messed with my ability to see.” She considered his extensive resources. “What kind of being can open one of those for escape?”

“Depends. A powerful mage or druid might be able to, but more often than not it’s a gift passed through a family. Does that fit the kidnappers?”

“Not really. They seemed below that level. If it was a family connection, why have them land here and go to a decrepit building? I would have thought they’d go right to their superior and deliver Phoedra.”

Quinn said, “I agree. In that case, they might have bought or traded for a majik-infused object that would open the bolthole. If we don’t find Phoedra here, I’ll put someone on tracking down a trade of that kind.”

Reese’s heart stuttered when he said we.

Then her brain bitch-slapped the unreliable organ so she could stay on track.

“Got it,” she replied. “Here’s what I’ve covered.”  She told him of the half-mile long streets fanning away from the center and he gave her his progress.

He hadn’t covered nearly as much area as she had, but then he’d been going out a mile.

She acknowledged, “Based on where we’ve both been and the fact that you went further than I did, we only have two more streets to check. If she’s not there, we’ll have to fan out farther.”

“Agreed.”

She led the way back to Denver Avenue and watched for traffic to clear out before she dropped the twenty feet to street level.

She hated to jump this far. If she broke something, healing would cost time and medallion energy she didn’t want to spend. But the medallion had helped her jump up here, so maybe she wasn’t as limited—

An arm hooked around her waist just as she started to leap.

She went airborne, landing softly, and stood there a moment, enjoying the feel of Quinn’s body against hers.

He removed his arm before her hormones got out of hand. With a touch of his hand lightly against her back, she got moving.

As she walked, she tried to convince herself not to be nice and thank him.

Damn. She wanted to stay pissed at him, but guilt weighed too much to tote around. She quipped, “Thanks for saving my knees.”

“You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure if you had kinetics since you didn’t seem to last time.”

“No, but I have more of my powers this time.” She kept searching the area as she walked. The possibility that the kidnappers had parked the van inside remained a constant worry since she’d arrived.

“What are your powers?”

Should she tell him? Why not? “I have this raw energy inside me that I can wield. You probably saw when I used it on the troll back there. It’s what I used to crack that energy canopy over the gorge when we were in Atlanta. I have a remote viewing ability, which you also know about, but it’s not a perfect science. If I’m not distracted by something like fighting to stay alive, I can hide the pull of my blood from demons, but it takes effort to do that. Sometimes my powers work great and sometimes they just confuse me, because I never had training or enough time to become confident in wielding them. Other than when I saw you in Atlanta, I haven’t used any of them in a long time.”

She expected Quinn to ask again who had locked away her powers, but he surprised her by returning to Phoedra.

“About not seeing Phoedra before now, I didn’t know she existed until Kizira told me as she bled out in my arms. Kizira died before she could tell me where she’d hidden our daughter. She said only that I must find her and protect her, and now some very dangerous people are hunting my child.”

Reese tried to swallow the giant lump of guilt that formed instantly in her throat. She’d chastised him for being an absentee father. “Is the Medb queen hunting Phoedra?”

“Possibly, but we’ve had a powerful witch escape from VIPER lockdown who is looking for her as well. I have to find Phoedra first. I can’t live if I let her down, too.”

The pain in his voice hurt to hear.  

Did Yáahl know about Quinn? Of course, he did. Why hadn’t Yáahl helped Quinn find Phoedra after Kizira died?

Reese wanted to pluck a few feathers right now. She turned at the next left she could take and Quinn stepped up beside her.

She had to deal with her guilt before it ate a hole in her chest. “I’m sorry about busting on you, but I’ve known Phoedra for over two years and I never saw Kizira or anyone else nonhuman around her until now. I didn’t know Kizira was her mother until today.”

He gave her an odd look. “Who told you?”

“Someone who helped me get here.” When Yáahl had offered Reese sanctuary when she was pregnant, he had required her agreement to never share anything about his existence without his permission. Holding up a hand, she said, “There are some things I can’t tell you, Quinn, but this person is not a threat to Phoedra.”

“Is it the same person who sent you for Kizira’s body?”

“Yes, but he only wanted me to bring Kizira’s body back to keep it from the Medb.” Before he could prod further, she added, “I made a choice to leave Kizira’s body with you and explained to him that you were the Belador Maistir and had a personal interest in protecting it from the Medb.”

At the next corner, which was quick to reach since they were cutting from one long street to the next, Reese turned left again and grumbled, “If they parked the van inside the building, we may have to backtrack and look through all the windows.”

“Actually, we won’t.”

“Why not?”

“My cousin has a different type of viewing ability. She located Phoedra and the kidnappers near BOK Center. She said to look for a two-story, pale-yellow building with boarded-up windows on the ground floor and NO TRESPASSING signs. Look up ahead on the right.”

Reese paused and realized she would never have found that building without Quinn.

She understood Quinn’s investment in this, but she’d made a promise to Yáahl to bring Phoedra back to him. She’d speak up for Quinn to see his daughter, but she could not let him leave with Phoedra, who didn’t even know Quinn.

Thankfully, Reese had one teleportation left, which meant all she had to do was get a hand on Phoedra and she could vanish.

Quinn would hate her, but Reese could not let her growing—and unrealistic—attachment to him get in the way like last time.

Yáahl hadn’t been joking when he said to return with Phoedra or don’t come back. Until someone convinced her that doing anything else was in Phoedra’s best interest, Reese was sticking to her plan.