commanding.
She ground her teeth together, but she sat. “Who are you?”
A half smile curved the corner of a sensual mouth. He bowed low. “I am Quinn Donovan. Might I have the pleasure of your name?”
“No, you’re not,” she snapped at him. Her head was hurting, Bastian was groaning, and she’d just fallen into a nightmare. “Who are you?”
His glacier blue eyes went fierce. “All right. Then who am I?”
“A figment of my imagination. That man tried to butcher me, and I’m in a hospital somewhere.” She took several controlled breaths to calm herself and give herself a chance to listen to her intuition. It kept her away from the Black Rose for the last three years. She curled her lip. That feeling of wanting to crawl into his lap and make his world right grew stronger. “If you are Quinn Donovan. I need your help.”
“Anything you need, all you have to do is ask,” he said.
He had some odd angle he was playing at. He’d just—well—she wasn’t exactly sure what that just was. She could hear a hum around him, but full words weren’t forming well enough for her to get a handle on them. Quinn appeared to be part of the epic battle her grandfather warned her about, but if her intuition was to be trusted, she wanted to be on Quinn’s side. “I need a warm place for me and Bastian to stay. We need food, and he needs medical attention.” She paused as she tried to figure out what was going on behind that mask of indifference on his face. “And I need someone to tell me what he is so I can help him with the change he’s going through.”
“Done, done, done, and done,” he said with a gentle voice. “He is an orphaned Undying male child. You are not equipped to handle the type of care and training he will need to survive to full maturity.”
“What does that mean?” she snapped as her mama bear hackles raised. “You are not going to take him from me!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said with perfect seriousness. “My home has enough room for all of us. I assure you I can be trusted.”
She wanted to believe him—to believe herself. Damn Mason for screwing with her. “What are you?”
“I am Undying. Just like the boy. I can take away his pain, and I can teach him how to use the power given to him.”
Haven focused on breathing to calm the rising panic. She’d said she was going to demand that Quinn Donovan help her. As crazy as asking for help from a stranger was, she didn’t have any other options. They couldn’t go back to the emergency room they’d snuck out of to get more pain medicine for Bastian. “We don’t do doctors.”
“My brother is a healer,” Quinn said. “I will call him when you and the boy are secured.”
“It might not be—” She took a step forward when Quinn walked over to Bastian and lifted him as if he weighed nothing. “You can’t just do that. What if you cause more damage?”
Quinn gave her a fierce look that had her pulling back. “The longer we remain here the better chances we have of being discovered.”
“Don’t you have one of those wind things?” Haven challenged him.
“Of course,” he said, as if trans-dimensional portals were normal. “But then I’d have to leave my Hummer in this neighborhood overnight.”
Haven was sure he was joking, but she wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the humor. “All right. What about Vinnie?”
Quinn glanced at the dead restaurant owner. His head bowed as raw grief emanated around him. “He’ll be given an honorable funeral.”
Haven didn’t like her lack of choices. While she hoped she could trust Donovan, she still wanted options in case something went wrong. However, no one could tell “no” to a man who could make the ground shake with the force of Quinn’s power. She was stuck seeing this out to its end.
Chapter 3
The woman flitted this way and that as she went through the small motel room, gathering items belonging to her and the boy. They’d walked from the diner in the accumulating snow. Bastian had passed out on the bed closest to the door. Donovan had yet to acquire the woman’s name, and she still refused to believe he was Quinn Donovan. He could feel tendrils of her delicate, young power assessing him. She stopped in the middle of the room and looked up at him with soulful eyes. “How much of this can I take with us?”
In an instant, he was trapped by the unusual pale green of her irises. Their exotic shape enhanced each emotion as they played in the depths of her eyes. The soft elven features of her face started a stirring low in his gut. His gaze drifted to her mouth—supple lips teased him into taking a step forward to steal a taste. He willed himself to stop the motion. He swallowed hard as his unintended appraisal continued. Her delicate frame swelled and narrowed in all the mouthwatering right places, making him hard. He was positive this woman would look best dressed in only her wavy auburn hair falling down to her hips, built perfect for gripping.
His body shuddered when the treòir, his source of power within, made an odd little twitch. A giddy rush flowed through him like a jolt of electricity.
Was she?
No.
A possible greater connection with her wasn’t something he could deal with now. She needed help first. He’d sort everything out when he had time and space away from her to think logically. If she was who he thought she might be, his plans to end his days could come to a grinding halt. The entire Undying Nation would become unstable if she was his mate. That needed to be avoided for as long as possible.
He must have stood there for too long staring at her because she backed up a step. Then he forced a smile and grabbed a bag off the bed nearest the door. “Anything you desire you may have.”
Her nose wrinkled up even as a smile played in the corner of her eyes. “You’re unusual.”
“Funny coming from someone without a name,” he said as he scanned the room for any odd trinket she may have overlooked.
“Haven,” she whispered. “The boy is Bastian.” She took the last remaining bag of their meager belongings off the bed. “How do you know you can help him?”
Donovan lifted Bastian over his shoulder and stopped by the door. He glanced out the window to assure the Hummer was still where he’d left it. He had stopped believing in coincidences long ago. Standing here with an Undying child in his arms, and a woman with lifebond magic, was the exact reason fate had him choosing that parking space while he’d been hunting Kyros. His attention went back to Haven. “I am what he is.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and slowly nodded. “And what is that exactly?”
“Undying,” he repeated for the eighth time since the diner fifteen minutes ago.
She snorted at him. “I don’t understand what that means. Something like a meirlock?”
A pulse of treòir energy vibrated through the room. “When have you come into contact with a meirlock?”
Her eyes went wide as she stumbled back a step. “I-I’m sorry. I’ve only heard the term used to describe a man…my grandfather knows.”
The room vibrated again. Donovan gritted his teeth in the effort to keep his power from frightening his lifebond further. “Kyros is meirlock. The word literally means lawbreaker.”
She studied his face for a long moment. “Why would someone as powerful as you help perfect strangers?”
“Bastian is of my kind,” he said choosing his words carefully. “Without an older male to teach him the proper ways of our people, he is destined to be a meirlock and would be marked for death.”
Her back went straight as her expression hardened. “He’s a good person. There is no need for anyone to mark