Page 61 of Claimed

‘Don’t fool yourself. You would have handed him Lyra Hannigan wrapped in guilt, lust and misplaced nobility, then stood there shocked when a starving vampire king took what you didn’t offer.’

My fury flashes white-hot. ‘You don’t get to decide that for me.’

‘I already did,’ Selphine says, cold as moonlit steel. ‘And you are alive to resent me for it. It prevents a predator from dragging your name out of you before you choose to give it.’

‘And if I choose?’

Her answer comes too late. ‘Then we will address that when choice becomes safe.’

I laugh once, cold and ugly. ‘That’s not an answer, and it’s absolutely not your call.’

‘It is the only answer you are capable of surviving.’

The room seems to shrink around me. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’

Offended silence. Or the performance of it. Then, ‘How dare you. After all I’ve done for you?’

I close my eyes. The apology nearly comes but I swallow it.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Do not do that. Don’t put your sometimes-kindness on the table like a weapon and ask me to kiss the blade.’

When she speaks again, her voice is softer. More dangerous for it. ‘Where’s your vampire?’

The phrase slides under my skin.

Your vampire.

Instead of irritating me, my face heats, which makes me want to hurl the phone at the wall. ‘He’s around. In the Tower.’

‘Are you certain he hasn’t connected the truth?’

‘Yes.’ Then, because fear makes honesty leak through inconvenient cracks, ‘But he’s off. He keeps falling into these states. He wakes stronger, then starts fraying again. Tonight I felt something through him. Something dark. I don’t know what it was.’

Selphine makes a small sound. But it’s interest, not sympathy.

Before she can speak, Valentin’s voice slides into my mind like a hand closing at the back of my neck.

Where are you, little hunter?

Gods, he’s awake. And he still sounds like… him. Relief hits first, bright enough to be embarrassing. Then apprehension follows with teeth.

In my apartment, I answer silently.

His response is immediate, a low mental sound that manages to be both displeased and obscene. We should do something about that.

Meaning?

You should relocate permanently to my suite. Better access for both of us.

My nipples tighten.

Traitors.

The thought of giving the most dangerous being in the world greater access to me shouldn’t make any part of my body perky, and yet here we are, apparently living in a biological betrayal buffet.

Selphine snaps, ‘Are you listening to me, child, or daydreaming about bed sport?’

I snort before I can stop myself. ‘No one this side of the Civil War calls it that any more.’