Page 49 of Claimed

Despite her flippancy, I hear apprehension in her voice. She’s just watched a man die because a secret was locked inside his skull. And there my hunter stands, carrying a secret in her blood. When her beautiful eyes flick to mine, I raise my brow.

She looks away. And I swallow a snarl as my senses flare wide as someone thinks ‘witch’ again.

I do not know who and it does not fucking matter. The cell bars buckle under my hand before I realise I have moved.

Every vampire in the room freezes as, once again, Eira steps into my line of sight. ‘Hey.’

My fangs are down. Her pulse jumps and I hate that part of me wants to press my mouth to her throat and let her blood drag me back from the edge again.

‘Valentin,’ she says, more firmly. ‘Look at me.’

Her eyes are steady. Too steady for someone standing between a corpse, a dungeon full of vampires and a monster wearing Italian tailoring.

‘You’re here,’ she says through the tether, softer where the others cannot hear. ‘Not wherever your head just went. Here. With me.’

I drag in a breath I do not need as the bars groan beneath my grip. Then I release them. ‘Leave us,’ I tell the Twelve.

Tonight, no one hesitates.

Malachi’s eyes meet mine for one measured moment, concern and caution held behind absolute discipline. Then they go, and silence falls.

I snatch my hunter and zip away from the dungeon and the congressman’s mangled body.

For perhaps ten seconds, I stand unmoving in the centre of my office, fighting another infernal, alien bout of dizziness. The skyline glitters beyond the windows. My Tower hums around me. And Eira remains near the door, watching me as if I am a loaded weapon.

‘You hurt Luca,’ she says.

‘I know.’

‘Because of me?’

‘I think we have well established that you drive me insane in incredible and terrifying ways that test my control, little hunter.’

‘Yippee. But also I vote no for homicide. Or… vampire-cide? They’re annoying, yes, but I don’t want them dead. Deader.’

‘My people are alive because I have not lost all control.’

‘Haven’t you?’

I cross the room before sense catches my throat. Close enough to touch her, to scent venom’s fading ghost beneath my blood in her veins, and to remember her pulse faltering, my power answering with a violence that had nothing civilised left in it.

I stop just in time.

Her gaze drops to my hand, suspended between us. ‘Valentin,’ she says, and the softness of it is worse than fear.

‘When you bled tonight, proportion ceased to interest me.’ My voice comes out too low. Too honest. ‘A blood brother tested my territory. A mortal betrayed me. Assassins struck inside my city. And all I could see was poison in your veins. Your heart beating too fast for my liking.’

A fine tremor seizes her. ‘That should scare me.’

‘It should.’

Her eyes dig into me, searching for something I know is unwise to give. ‘Does it scare you?’

I look at my hand, still empty when all it wants, craves, is her. ‘Yes.’

I take out my phone before she can speak. Before either of us can dissect this insanity.

Lord Dorian Vale answers on the second ring, as if he has been waiting for the chance to offend me.