The Claiming

by Imogen Keeper

  The Prime didn’t speak. The guy was a damned robot or something, his face gave away nothing.

  “Where can I find him?”

  “No one finds him.”

  “I will.”

  “I doubt that.”

  He could doubt it. No problem. She lived to prove people wrong. She would find the Boss. When she writhed against him, trying to tear her hands free, he only pushed in closer, so their bodies were flush from breastbone to boot tip.

  “Wriggling is only making your situation worse.”

  She yelped, suddenly aware of the hard pressure against her belly. It hit her like a knife to the gut. Pure lust barreled its way out of her brain, tangoed down her spine, and coiled low. Was he reacting to her smell like she did to his?

  Before she could stop herself, unable to resist the call of her own biology, she leaned into him, and nuzzled her cheek bone against the hot skin of his neck, arching her back, and inhaling deeply, rubbing against the thick bar of his cock between them.

  Did she just scent him? Big time.

  Abysmos, what was wrong with her?

  She jerked away.

  He shook his head, and the light flickered over sharp cheekbones and his strong nose. She tried to look away, but she was caught.

  “Felana,” he whispered. With his thumb and forefinger, he pulled her hat off her head, and tossed it away. Her ponytail fell free, the strands of hair tickling her neck. He trailed his nose along her hairline, his body shuddering against hers.

  She shivered despite the heat of the night, and the heat of his body. She wanted to deny the curse of her genetics, but there was no point.

  The silver of his eyes intensified, as his hand around her neck skimmed its way down her body, around her hip and up the back of her shirt to palm the bare skin of her lower back, the pads of his fingers pressing in deep. He touched his nose to her temple, his lips not quite kissing, but coasting along her skin, over her jaw, down her neck, breathing her in.

  He was scenting her, and a low growl sounded in the back of his throat that had her blood pounding and racing straight between her thighs. His palm pulled her closer. She could feel him, hot and hard and madria di abysmos, it had been so long since she’d been anywhere near a Prime cock but this one was calling to her, and she bucked her hips against him, wanting him closer. Needing him closer. Inside her. Filling her.

  They both growled.

  The muscles of his chest tightened under her fingers. When had her hands moved? He’d released her?

  His mouth hovered over hers. She was shaking. Hard. A rush of heat pooled between her thighs. No good. Nothing good would come of this. But reason had retreated. Her body took over. His lips touched down on hers and her mouth just fell open, letting him thrust his tongue in deep. He tasted good. So good. Like Prime man and in that moment her starved felana-body just wanted more.

  She wrapped her arms around him, tightening the grip of her thighs around him, riding him, mindless, but for the single burning compulsion that demanded, commanded, pleaded that she fuck him. Now. Right there in a back alley, no matter that he was the Boss’s lacky.

  And from the ravenous growl he made, he was game.

  A shout sounded a few alleys back.

  She jerked against him. And he froze.

  He stepped back so suddenly she staggered when her feet hit the ground. “Run, felana.”

  “Where is the Boss?”

  “Run.”

  “How do I find him.”

  “Now, you idiot. Go.”

  She had taken a single step, when a hard hand to her upper arm, holding her still, his big body inches behind her. “If you need help, go to the Yellow Palm. Ask for Sanger.”

  3

  there’s something

  about you

  SANGER took one last breath of felana scented hair. It was unmistakable now that he knew it was there. Unmistakable and disruptive.

  She’d hidden it under a few layers of charcoal cream and sasprilla spray.

  A felana, hiding in plain sight.

  She looked back at him, dark eyes widening. Her lips parted like she was about to ask where the Boss was again, so he gave her an ungentlemanly shove right in the small of her back that nearly sent her sprawling.

  He didn’t want to be anywhere near a felana. If Shane saw her, they’d have to deal with her like they dealt with all hiding felanas, and they didn’t have time now. Things were finally getting close. They didn’t need the distraction. Not now.

  Scrabbling across the pavement like a crab, she grabbed her knife and hat and took off. She didn’t look back.

  He sank his teeth into his lower lip, where he could still taste her. He hadn’t tasted felana in a long time.

  Not since the blood. So much blood and carnage. He flinched at the onslaught of wretched memories. Nearly a decade. He’d sworn he’d never taste one again.

  She ran down the alley on quick, quiet feet, all long legs and dark ponytail. Her scent lingered in the air. Spicy-sweet.

  When she disappeared into the anonymity of the busy public street up ahead, he rolled his shoulders, blowing out a thick gust of air, clearing away the blast of fire she’d ignited in his blood, the memories that had boiled to the surface as a result.

  Dropping his hands into his pockets, he adjusted his cramped cock and headed back toward the warehouse and the tell-tale sounds of Shane’s boots running toward him. The man had no subtlety, but he did have his uses.

  Sanger rounded the corner.

  He tilted his chin in Shane’s direction when his bald head came into view. “You find them?”

  Shane shook his head, rolling the toothpick left and right. “You pick up a trail?”

  “Would I be here, if I had? Get up on the roofs. See if you find anything.”

  Shane grunted and loped back toward the fire-escape, while Sanger headed for the back entrance of the warehouse.

  Three-hundred-and-fifty guns. That was the latest take.

  They needed so many more for what he had planned.

  He blew out a frustrated breath and headed in the warehouse to finish up with Vangeline. The humani woman had a prickly temper at the best of times. Illegal gun running brought out the worst of her.

  Forcing his customary calm to settle around his shoulders and neck, he tucked his hands in his pockets and whistled, slow and steady, strolling back to Vangeline and her goons.

  She raised her brows, sucking in her cheeks in silent question.

  “Street kid, maybe.” He shrugged.

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We won’t use this place again. Whatever they saw, they don’t know who we are, how to find us, or what we’re doing.”

  She pursed her lips and shifted her angle so her tits pushed together.

  “Let’s just get the deal over with,” he gritted out, tired of all the lies, and all the acts.

  Tired of it all.

  It would be over soon.

  And then he could get the fuck out of this hellhole and back to his real life, not that there was anything left of it.

  4

  stars are stupid

  AS THE constellation of the huntress rose in the southern sky, and the largest of the Vestan moons dominated the western horizon, Tessa cut a path through the city, straight for home.

  She walked with her head down, hands tucked in her pockets, in a gait that mimicked a boy’s. Not too fast. Not too slow.

  No one followed, but still, the back of her neck burned as if she had a target painted there.

  A Prime. A Prime had not just found her, he had caught her. And he’d let her go. She’d been lucky. Maybe he hadn’t had the time or the inclination to sell her to the stalls. But the way she got away was nothing short of luck. And luck was one unreliable bastard.

  Only once she was off the public streets, did she shift to a steady ground-eating jog home to the aerie, a sweet spot she and Leyla called home in the attic of a residential building in the city’s
seventh arondi.

  She jumped high, kicking off the wall, and gripped the fire-escape ladder.

  Twenty stories to the top.

  Just an empty windowed room with a roof, surrounded by six feet of deck, a two-foot lip, and a sheer drop to the pavement below. It wasn’t much, but the view was something special, and the building was abandoned. They were safe there. Well worth the climb.

  She sniffed at the air as she rounded the fifteenth story. Wood smoke burning in their fire pit, and orria spices with grazer.

  Mouth salivating, stomach cramping with hunger, she hopped over the edge of the rim that skirted the perimeter of their home.

  “Leyla?”

  No response.

  She moved around the dining table. The deck was empty. A fire smoldered in the little stove. A few candles were scattered at random. But no Leyla.

  Just a quiet ruffle from behind the patterned curtain where she slept.

  Tessa froze, dropping down to a crouch, sniffing, reaching for the knife on her hip.

  She couldn’t smell anything unusual, but still. “Leyla?”

  The curtain rippled again, the printed pink flowers and turquoise leaves wriggling in the low light.

  The ripples intensified. A scuffing noise sounded, and Leyla poked her head out, her dark eyes wide with surprise. Her hair was pulled up in a thick bun on the top of her head.

  Tessa let out a protracted breath. Her run in with that Prime had her stupid with the jitters. She slid the pack off her back.

  “You look awful.” Tessa angled a glance at Leyla’s gaunt but pretty face. Even in the limited light, the shadows beneath her eyes were obvious, and her shoulders were uncharacteristically stooped. It was written all over her face, clear as the starry sky above. Her heat cycle was close. “How long?”

  Sucking in her lower lip, Leyla rubbed her abdomen. Cramps would be spreading there, hot and irritating. Headaches. Fatigue. Nausea. So annoying and unfair.

  “Tomorrow night, I think.”

  Tessa nodded. Poor Leyla. Her last heat had been only three months ago.

  “Dinner smells good.” The last time they ate hot food was when Tessa stole a whole bird out of a rotisserie. She’d burned her hands on the grease but it had been worth it. Three months ago? That was the last time they’d had meat, too. She’d dropped the whole bird right in her bag, and had to run when the vendor chased after her, his fat chins wobbling, belly bouncing. The bag had been ruined, but she and Leyla had gone to bed full that night.

  “The cook at the market on Chambrell Street ducked out this afternoon while I was picking. Even got a bottle of wine.” Her grin was wide, and for a second, she looked like she had back at the seraglio, carefree and happy.

  Before they’d run away to keep Tessa from getting traded. Before she’d gotten too thin. Before Jonan had died.

  All of it, Tessa’s fault. If they hadn’t run, she’d be stuffed in a harem of some rich fat man. Leyla too. And Jonan would be…somewhere. Anywhere. Alive.

  They sat down to eat, side by side, on an old tufted sofa they’d relieved from an empty condo, feet propped up on the ledge.

  “I’m getting close, Ley,” she whispered, around a greasy bite. “So close.”

  Leyla faced away from the flames of the nearest candle, but she went still in the way of someone biting their tongue.

  “I met someone who knows him.” Tessa tried to let her faith show, color her words, sway Leyla. This was the closest they’d ever come. She’d actually spoken with someone who knew how to find the Boss. And she knew how to find him. The Yellow Palm. All she had to do was go there, watch for the big Prime who’d let her go, and follow him. Eventually he’d lead her to the Boss. And after that, they could leave.

  “We’re so close,” she whispered into the night.

  Leyla didn’t even twitch.

  With Leyla, silence always spoke louder than a thousand words.

  “I’ll find him. I will.” Tessa took a sip from her glass. The wine was warm and cheap. It tasted filthy going down, like wet rats and cat piss, but it burned nicely in her belly, helped her forget the disappointment of having Delsanthio slip through her fingers, and the lingering tingles of the touch of a Prime on her lower back.

  They settled into the quiet, finishing their plates and glasses without further discussion. She topped off her own glass, and held out the bottle for Leyla.

  The Prime who’d let her go wouldn’t leave her. Her brain kept circling back to him like water in a drain. He probably had a harem packed with a handful of dutiful wife-slaves to rub his feet and drool all over his...

  She shook the bottle at Leyla.

  A breeze blew straight across her hand, toward Leyla’s face.

  Leyla turned. The light touching her face, her eyes sharpening.

  Her tiny, snub nose twitched.

  Shit.

  Tessa tried to snatch it back, but it was too late.

  Leyla’s fingers wrapped around her wrist, and dragged her hand to her nose, the wine bottle going with it. “Tell me I’m wrong.” Her voice rose. Leyla’s voice never rose. “Tell me that’s not Prime I smell.”

  Tessa snatched her hand back so fast the wine sloshed, the dark liquid spraying out, sour and thick in the air.

  “Tessa?” Leyla was deadly still beside her. “Tessa!”

  Dark drops spread across her fingers. She wiped them on her trousers. In the morning, she’d smell like a drunk. “I’m fine.”

  A long pause. So long, she started to hope Leyla might drop it.

  She didn’t. She surged to her feet. “You don’t smell fine, Tessa. You smell like a Prime. What the hell happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Leyla had the sort of low shaky voice people get when they try really hard not to shout. “Why the hell do you stink of Prime if nothing happened?”

  “It’s nothing. He caught me for a second. That’s all. I got away.”

  “He caught you?” Leyla’s shoulders lifted and felt, fast and jerky, with every angry breath. “How did you get away?”

  Tessa sat forward and set the bottle down on the ledge beside their plates. A little too hard. It clanked, glassy and hollow in the darkness. No way could she tell Leyla the truth, that he’d nearly fucked her an alley, that she’d wanted him to.

  “He let me go.”

  “Primes don’t let felanas go. Not ever.”

  “This one did.”

  “Vanniya di mammia.” Leyla turned away toward the city, where the spiraled minarets of a sanctuary had been lighted in pink and blue tonight. As if on cue, the bells rang out the time.

  “You’re out of control.” Leyla turned back to her. “You want to mess with your own life, fine, but don’t mess with mine. They catch you; they catch me. Remember that.”

  “I do. That’s why I’m doing this.” She was shouting. She always seemed to shout by accident. Too loud. Too stubborn. Too difficult. Her mother had said that all the time.

  Leyla laughed out, but it was the way people laughed when they see a fool, full of hope in a world with none of it. “No, it wouldn’t. Someone else would take his place. And then they’d kill you. It’s not the Boss who makes the rules. It’s the Primes. It’s our brother. After him, it’s the Alliance. The Boss…he’s just one man. All you’d be doing is clearing the way for the next asshole to take over.”

  “Maybe. But at least I’d be doing something worth doing. All you do is hide.”

  Leyla’s hand slashed through the shadows. “Hiding is the only thing we can do. If we get caught, we are done. If we’re lucky, they take us home. Manivietto sells us to a friend. Or we end up in the stalls.”

  “Fuck luck.” Tessa had been making her own luck for her whole life.

  Leyla sighed again. “I don’t make the rules, Tessa, but I do choose to hide.”

  “I hate hiding.”

  “Me too.”

  It was too dark to see her face. There was no need, anyway. Leyla’s brows would be lowered
, a little frowny line between them.

  Tessa stuck her arms out, taking in their miserable squalid dwelling. The shitty wine, the partial roof, the damp clothes, the meals that sometimes didn’t come, her own gaunt body. “Nothing I do could possibly make it worse than this.”

  Leyla laughed again, hard and sharp. “It can always get worse. Always.”

  Tessa made a face. Maybe. “If that’s true, it could also get better.”

  Leyla just shook her head, long and slow.

  Tessa took another sip of the crappy wine. She’d never stop going after Delsanthio. Not until he paid for what he did to Jonan. “He was my brother.”

  Leyla sighed, her shoulders relaxing. “Mine too.”

  And then she was gone, behind her curtain, leaving a wake of cranky and disapproving. And Tessa was alone with the twinkling night.

  The curtain flickered angrily in the starlight as Leyla made her bed.

  Tessa slumped against the couch and took a long swig of the garbage wine.

  The stars gazed down, unflinching, mute and pitiless.

  What did they know, anyway? The stars were stupid.

  Millions of years old, probably dead already.

  Stuck in the past.

  She rammed the cork back in the bottle and stomped to her bed.

  5

  suck with a little

  more passion

  BRIELLA FOLCROT was an anomaly on Vesta. Technically, she didn’t exist. Her own family was far away. They didn’t care anyway. They were the ones who’d sold her. They’d needed money, her own mother had pleaded with her to understand. And she fetched a high price for her unusual coloring. Hair and eyes as white as snow.

  It was an arresting combination, she knew. Even on Argentus. But especially here where everyone had dark hair and dark eyes. She hated it because it was the very thing that had attracted the attention of slavers and men like Manivietto.

  She crouched on the floor at his feet.

  Her hands weren’t bound. There was no need for that. She’d been thoroughly broken by the slavers. If she ran, they’d hurt her, as they’d hurt her for months on the spaceship as they brought her here—an Argenti woman on the hated enemy planet of Vesta.