Page 45 of Claimed

The world blurs. When it steadies, we are in the cold night air beside the lake. Estate lights scatter across the water like broken coins. The quiet is deep enough that I hear her pulse change when fear tries to rise and she refuses it.

Perched on the stone edge, I cradle her injured arm and bring my thumb to my mouth. One sharp bite, and my blood wells. ‘Drink.’

Her eyes flick up, stubborn even now. ‘Bossy.’

‘Remain alive and irritate me later.’

That startles her. Softness always does, when a person is not used to being offered it.

She leans in, lips closing over the cut, and the moment she drinks, the thread between us tightens. Heat sparks and her shoulders ease as my blood hits her system. Terror recedes, but a different knot forms. One that spells out just how important this woman is to me. How… significant in ways I cannot fathom.

She swallows, tongue swiping at the split skin, then murmurs, almost grudgingly, ‘Thank you.’

‘More,’ I say, watching the slash on her arm with an intensity I would deny to anyone else. ‘Drink until it heals.’

She sighs like I am an inconvenience, then drinks again with snark on her tongue and gratitude in her eyes.

I watch the demon venom lose its hold, the dark veins retreat from her beautiful skin and the wound knit closed under the steady insistence of my blood.

The pain leaves her expression by degrees. Only then do I breathe properly and allow myself to wonder what the fuck this woman is doing to me.

Why my insides twist each time I look at her. Why that twist deepens when she smiles, argues and bleeds, opens her thighs for me and says yes like it costs her something precious she’s willing to give.

Why this one woman in a billion others can reach inside the parts of me I believed had gone cold centuries ago and pull.

I grip her face.

Kiss her.

Hard.

Bloody and furious and possessive, a kiss that tastes of danger and promises I have no right to make. She makes a soft sound against my mouth, and my body responds too fast, too violently, the restored power surging again as if her mouth is another wound I can drink from.

I tear myself back before I forget where we are.

Her eyes are bright. I’m okay, Valentin.

Her voice in my mind steadies something I had not realised was shaking. Thin, yes. But still a balm.

I press my mouth close to her ear. ‘Next time, they will not reach you.’

‘So there’s a next time? Yippee.’

I almost smile.

Then, rising with her in my arms, I return us to the pool house.

My Twelve stand at the front, solemn sentinels with their backs to the carnage.

I set Eira down but keep one hand at her back, the reluctance to let her go tossing another log into what I am recognising is a deep obsession.

I push that intensely unsettling development away and approach the surviving demon. It senses my vicious intent and scrabbles backwards, slicking the tile with black blood. I seize him by what remains of his throat and lift him.

He gurgles, but his vocal cords remain intact enough to spare me the vile, time-consuming process of sifting through his mind. ‘Who sent you?’

He spits blood, and the ruined holes where his eyes used to be swim with black hate. ‘What makes you think you deserve answers, Moretti?’

‘Show some fucking respect,’ Iskander snarls.