Page 40 of Claimed

I could take her here. Now. Keep her pinned and, as she intimated earlier, ask one question against her skin and feel every answer she refuses to speak.

Instead, I lift my head. Because I gave my word. And I have Rowan upstairs. And because if I become the monster she once ran from, I will deserve every lie she has ever told me.

Eira stares at me, lips parted, eyes too bright as I step back, and she releases a breath that sounds deliciously close to disappointment.

‘Later,’ I say.

Her laugh is unsteady. ‘That sounded like a threat.’

‘It is a promise.’

‘Very villainous.’

‘Very accurate.’

She rolls her eyes and turns towards the Vault doors, but I see the stiffness in her shoulders, the way she gathers herself around whatever secret she protects.

I let it go.

For now.

I am learning that my little hunter becomes more honest when she is horizontal.

And if she will not give me the truth before Rowan extracts it from her, then I will make certain she has every reason to wish she had.

Kessler’s estate sits on carefully manicured land, flaunting fountains, a long drive lined with lanterns, every inch of it screaming wealth at anyone unfortunate enough to mistake volume for taste.

Nothing can hide new money and desperate ambition.

Inside, a string quartet attempts elegance while guests sip champagne that costs more than most mortals earn in a month. The gala is plush and artfully curated, packed with politicians in gleaming suits, donors in silk and diamonds, women laughing too loudly and men grinning too hard.

Power here is social, performative and hungry.

They think they are predators.

They are not.

Eira glides beside me, her smile sharp enough to cut glass, her posture relaxed while her eyes catalogue exits, angles and threats. A beautiful hunter in a room of peacocks. She looks as if she belongs nowhere near this place, which only makes every eye in the room want to follow her.

That displeases me. Even more that I am aware of every pulse that changes when we enter. Every quickening heartbeat, subtle intake of breath and drugs under expensive cologne. I growl at the warm salt of desire where eyes linger too long on Eira’s mouth, her throat, the shape of her body beneath all that black leather and defiance.

The restored strength in my blood reacts too quickly.

Too violently.

It would be nothing to cross this room and make each one of them look away permanently.

Control is becoming a more challenging sport than I prefer.

Kessler approaches with the practised ease of a man who has shaken ten thousand hands and meant none of it. He is handsome in the way politicians are handsome: clean, polished, empty at the centre until one looks too long. Then one wishes one had not.

His eyes keep darting, and I smell the rancid mix of recreational drugs, alcohol and fear sweating through his pores as his wife clings to his side like a prop.

He bows slightly when he reaches me, as if reverence will do what money has not. ‘Don Moretti. I’m so honoured you came.’

‘Honour is a flexible concept, I’ve discovered.’

Eira’s mouth twitches.