Page 42 of Claimed

My eyes flick to my hunter. Her face is unreadable to everyone else but not to me.

‘Where?’ I ask Kessler.

He gestures immediately. ‘I would suggest my study, but I know your kind have excellent hearing. So if we don’t want to be overheard, let’s use the pool house. It’s quiet and away from the house.’

Wow, Eira says in my head. Over-explain much?

I feel her alertness sharpen as we leave the ballroom. Malachi steps in behind us. Iskander, Luca and Aaron are a steady shadow, and I know the remainder of my Twelve are nearby, folded into the darkness around the house.

As we follow Kessler across the grounds, Eira’s hand shifts subtly towards her thigh holster.

The pool house door opens and we step inside. Immediately the temperature drops by degrees, and the atmosphere curdles around us. Falsely benign wards peel away, revealing old blood, darker residue and the faint burn of stripped glamour.

Kessler’s face collapses into something slick and terrified. Then he is gone, surprisingly agile, through a disguised panel in the wall as black-clad vampires detach from the shadows.

Mercenaries.

Luca’s livid snarl scrapes through the bond. Then another smell hits me. Not only vampires.

Eira’s breath catches. ‘Shit. Are those⁠—’

Demons, yes. Two of them.

The thought I share with her is grim even in my own mind.

The creatures stare us down, blood-red eyes tinged with cesspool green that gives their species away. Six-inch claws protrude from gnarled fingers. Their skin is dark and plated in places, wet-looking in others, as if their bodies cannot decide whether to be armour or rot.

Be careful, little hunter.

Always a— Before she finishes the thought, one lunges for her.

She is already moving, Widow’s Fang in hand and Mercy Pin in the other. She slashes at the arm reaching for her throat, but while she is fast, this demon reeks of age and experience, and he is faster.

And I lunge before thought as the room erupts into chaos.

6

VALENTIN

Deal with the vampires, I snap to my Twelve. I will handle the demons.

I catch the attacker mid-strike, snap his wrist, and drive him backwards hard enough to punch through wood and wedge him into concrete.

Eira’s blade flashes again, Widow’s Fang singing as it meets murderous intent, and the second demon staggers, surprised by a human who fights like death taught her personally.

The scent of blood and gore floods the room as my sireds go to work. I move out of the path of clawing demon hands and return an instant later, ripping out the first demon’s throat with one hand while I drive the fingers of the other into both eyes.

He will heal. Eventually.

If I allow him that long.

I drop him and leave him clutching at the wet ruin of his face as I turn to the second demon circling Eira.

‘Come on, hot stuff,’ she says, bright and breathless. ‘Let’s dance.’

He snarls, displaying sharp, inch-long teeth dripping with venom.

A pulse of fear wedges beneath my breastbone, vicious enough to enrage me. I calculate the distance between us, but before I can move, a vampire comes at me with a silvered blade. I take his arm off at the elbow. His howl ends when I break his neck.