The Claiming

by Imogen Keeper

  A door shut around the side of the house, and she followed.

  A basement entrance.

  Two steps down.

  A small door.

  With a smaller window.

  Did she dare look in?

  She had to.

  She ducked low, and crept to the doorway, and down the steps, peeking through the window.

  Sanger was there, leaning against his desk, facing two men at the back of the room. As always, her whole body lit up at the sight of him. Tall and strong and handsome. And good. He was good, even if he didn’t feel the same about her. Who could blame him? Look at him.

  Her heart thudded in her chest. Migane, fool, don’t fall in love.

  But the rest of her knew, body, heart and soul, it was too late. She’d already fallen for him, sometime after he’d kissed her on the stool in his kitchen, but before he told her he’d help with her sister. Maybe the moment he told he wouldn’t stop listening.

  She kneaded her fingertips into the shirt, breathing in his mouthwatering primal scent.

  The other two men were sprawling on a sofa, one looking like he was gearing up for something, muscles taut as he stared at Sanger. It was the tattooed guy from the warehouse. Not the boss.

  The guy next to him. He had a long, skinny nose, one of those beards that was only on his chin and nowhere else, like he’d dipped his chin into a bunch of choco powder, and beady little eyes.

  Sanger was looking at him like he was contemplating vicious and pitiless murder.

  The man toyed with something, stroking it between his fingers. She squinted, but she couldn’t make out what it was. He brought whatever it was up to his nose. His voice rumbled out, but she couldn’t catch the words.

  Sanger was pissed like nothing she’d ever seen, vibrating almost, some kind of innate rage swirling inside him so thick it was palpable in the tension in his back, the way every muscle in his body was clenched tight.

  It all happened too fast. She couldn’t see whatever it was.

  But that guy should be afraid. That look on Sanger’s face couldn’t be a good thing. If he looked at her like that, she’d run. Fast.

  She sucked in a breath.

  The guy kept on talking though, rubbing whatever it was in his hand, fabric maybe? She still couldn’t see it.

  But Sanger could. He kept on staring at it, his facing getting darker and darker.

  Finally, Sanger must have reached a decision. He moved around in that way he had, like he was half machine, half animal, stepping behind the sofa, behind the guy, so he couldn’t see him.

  The bald guy with the muscles moved with false sanguinity, as if he knew something big was coming, but didn’t want to tip off the other guy. Motions slow, he plucked a toothpick from his teeth and tucked it behind his ear.

  She tilted her ear toward them, hoping to catch their words.

  All she caught was one sentence. “No problem, Boss.”

  The speaker wasn’t Sanger.

  Wait.

  What?

  It was the bald guy who said it.

  She didn’t even have time to process that, before Sanger stopped walking, right behind the guy with the choco chin.

  He slid something from his sleeve so fast she couldn’t see the motion, and then he had it around the guy’s neck. It looked like a wire.

  The bald guy hopped up, out of reach just as the wire wrapped around Choco Chin’s neck, and from the angle, there was nothing Choco could do. He kicked out at the table and groped blindly with his hands at his neck, wrapped his hands around Sanger’s wrists.

  The bald guy said something she couldn’t hear. His tone wasn’t jocular, but it wasn’t anxious either. It was calm. Just a couple of guys working together, as he stretched one thick leg over Choco’s thighs and straddled him, gripped his arms, held them together, while Sanger strangled him.

  She couldn’t watch.

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horrible spectacle before her eyes.

  The twitching and bulging, the quivering vein in his forehead.

  Tessa’s heart slammed in her chest so loud, she was shocked they couldn’t hear it.

  She stared at the red face, the bulging eyes, the tongue lolling grotesquely from the dead man’s face.

  Sanger released the wire, looped it back around his palm and walked back to his desk, where he picked a cloth from a drawer and wiped it down, expressionless. Robotic.

  It all felt so rehearsed.

  Emotionless, like they’d planned it all out, done it all before.

  And they probably had.

  Because evidently, Sanger had been lying all along.

  He was the Boss.

  23

  waving panties like

  a surrender flag

  GRITTING HIS TEETH, Sanger forced his heart to slow back down, as he wiped the garotte clean on a cloth, then carefully wrapped the cloth, clean side out, around the garotte and tucked it into his pocket.

  Draggor had plucked the panties from the table, Tessa’s panties. His thumb stroked the gusset of the pale white panties, right over the spot where Tessa’s pussy would have been only a few days prior.

  Sanger’s vision had honed in on it like he was staring down a long skinny tube the color of blood.

  It wasn’t just Tessa’s panties he’d seen, or her sister’s.

  It was Plaia’s, Reyanne’s, Leen’s, Sapeeri’s, their panties tugged haphazardly down their pale thighs. Too pale. Deadly pale.

  And the blood. So much.

  They hadn’t just been killed. They’d been slaughtered.

  The children too…

  And he’d been too late to stop it.

  He shuddered.

  Breathe. Just breathe through it.

  “You good?” Shane asked from across the room, where he was still peering at the grotesque bulge of Draggor’s tongue.

  “Fine. Did he shit the sofa?”

  “Nah. Pissed it though.”

  “Grab some guys out of the tunnels and clear it up.”

  Shane nodded absently, his lips twisting in a grimace as he took a final, lingering look at Draggor’s tongue. “What happened?”

  Sanger forced a shoulder to lift up indolently. “This way we know he’s not feeding information to Vangeline.”

  Sanger trailed his tongue along his teeth and used the toe of his boot to kick the panties across the floor, under a sofa and out of Shane’s reach.

  Shane cocked his head. “What’s the plan there?”

  “She knows I knew she was fucking Draggor. Let her take this as a warning. Dump the body on her back steps tonight. She’ll know what it means.”

  “You seriously think she’s giving intel to Manivietto on us?”

  Sanger dropped his head back. Sucked in air. Let it fill his lungs, broaden his chest, sing through his veins. Tessa was safe. She was fine. No one would touch her. Vaniiya, his body had already claimed her. It was just waiting for his head to get in line. “Yes.”

  “What can he do with what she knows?”

  Sanger’s mind skidded through everything he’d said to Vangeline, everything Draggor knew. “It depends on what he gave up to her and what she gave up to Manivietto.”

  “You shouldn’t have killed him.”

  Sanger sent a long, scathing look at Shane. He was right, of course, but that didn’t mean it had to be said out loud. He’d killed him because he was sniffing Tessa’s panties when he should have tortured out of him every last word he’d said to Vangeline.

  Shane laughed.

  “Worst case scenario…he told Vangeline about the tunnels. About the businesses he knew about…” He let that dangle. If Draggor gave up all that information, Manivietto would know their avenues for moving weapons out of the city and around the country.

  Shane shook his head. “If he knew about the tunnels, he’d have already sent in his own armies.”

  “Unless he’s watching them.” The thought sent his blood churning like a million of Shane’s t
oothpicks jamming along his veins.

  He blew out a long breath of air. “I want her scared. Too fucking scared to make a move.”

  Scared like he was. Because the whole city now knew what Tessa smelled like. They knew she was in heat. And they knew she was with a big-ass Prime. Shane wouldn’t be the only person to put one skinny felana in heat together with one big-ass Prime and reach the same conclusion. The Boss had the missing felana.

  If Manivietto knew the Boss had his sister, this would catapult them toward civil war ahead of schedule.

  His hands formed fists.

  He glared at the panties. Are these yours? He’d known the answer then.

  Maybe this was the universe’s way of saying he’d suffered enough.

  There was a tiny, barely perceptible sound on the other side of the door. Soft. Like a breath, or a scrape on the stones.

  Shane didn’t even so much as flinch.

  Sanger crossed to the door, looked outside. No one was there. He sniffed the air, but the breeze was strong enough that all he smelled was his own Prime scent and the traces of Tessa not even the bath had been able to wash off.

  He shook his head, trying to focus, but those panties were shredding it. “I’ve got to get back inside.”

  Shane got to his feet warily, holding his hands up in front of his body, waving the panties like a flag of surrender, and dropped them in Sanger’s outstretched palm. “Guess that answers that.”

  Sanger jerked his chin toward the door, half affirmation, half get-the-fuck-out.

  “Tell the men to move a level down in the tunnels in case Manivietto does a search.”

  24

  a stolen wheelbarrow

  for a hearse

  HE’D CALLED Sanger Boss.

  He’d called him Boss.

  And Sanger had strangled that man, as coolly as he laced his boots, or scrambled eggs in the kitchen.

  His face had been empty.

  Robotic.

  And the bald guy, the toothpick in his mouth, straddling his thighs, holding down his arms.

  Tessa pressed her hands over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.

  The Boss. The Boss.

  Sanger’s forearms rippling, his biceps bulging.

  The dying man’s face mottling red. That tongue. And his choco-dipped chin.

  She couldn’t think. It all kept spinning around in a tangle.

  Sanger.

  Strangler.

  The Boss.

  The man who gave her choco, who’d made her writhe and cry and beg and moan, who’d kissed her cheeks, and stroked her lip, who’d told her he’d never stop listening, who’d made her melt.

  Her stomach tightened, an angry line of nausea and fear slicing through it. She’d never eat choco again.

  Jonan’s murderer.

  She staggered back from the doorway, tripped on the steps. Her fingers slipped on the dewy stones, her knees sliding as she crawled. The lawn was wet, and she couldn’t make her feet work. They kept sliding out from under her as she staggered to the kitchen door.

  The Boss.

  She’d been fucking the Boss.

  All this time. He’d touched her body. Her heart twisted.

  Something cracked inside, like a great tear, a hard line from sternum to belly. She’d actually started to trust him. Started to care.

  Be honest, Tessa, you fell in love with him, you dumb felana.

  She tugged open the door and left a smear of turquoise grass and dark mud. A cloth sat beside the sink. She grabbed it and wiped up the smear. A tammin leaf stuck to her elbow. She tossed it back out in the yard and pulled the door shut quietly.

  She had to leave. No fucking way could she possibly stay here with him.

  But her body wouldn’t allow it. Already, a familiar ache had settled between her thighs, her body calling out to her Prime.

  He’d feel it, too, which meant he’d be back soon. She couldn’t leave him yet.

  It would be bad enough when the heat was over, but to leave in the middle…dangerous.

  She’d need his body until the end. Then maybe she’d stab him in the gut so he could bleed out like Jonan.

  Still struggling to breathe, vision blurred down to just a speck of light, she staggered up the staircase like a blind person and threw herself into the bed.

  Her skin crawled, the bed imprisoning her in the stench of him. The monster. He’d known. He’d known how much she loathed him. He must have been laughing to himself all along, the stupid, stupid, felana in heat. Begging for him.

  She’d done more than beg. She’d hugged and cuddled and licked and writhed and screamed his name.

  And he knew. All this time, he knew she was looking for him.

  He was evil in Prime form, packed in one beautiful lying body.

  Holy mother of the darkest Abyss, what was she supposed to do now? Fuck, she wished she actually believed in a god, any of the gods, something, so she could pray.

  All the thoughts spilled around her mind, and all she wanted to do was the one thing she couldn’t do, and that was run. Her whole body coiled, wanting to move, flee, escape, but even now, she knew that running would only make everything worse, running now could kill her.

  Fuck. Think, Tessa, think.

  She scrubbed at her mouth, trying to rid the taste of him from her lips.

  Jonan had been so young, too. Not even a full beard, just sparse hairs, scattered on his face like weeds. A boy on the cusp of manhood. Young. Full of hope. Stupid. Brave. Proud. And so, determined to protect his two felana sisters.

  She buried her face in the sheets. She should never have let him take them away from their brother. They should have just stayed. How bad would it really have been to be sold away to some Prime’s seraglio?

  Horrible.

  But Jonan would still be alive then.

  If only she could go back and change it. Make them turn themselves in before it happened.

  They’d been squatting in a hovel on Regus street. She and Leyla had been playing with a set of cards they’d stolen the previous night, while Jonan went off to work for the Boss. He’d been dealing low-level zafa. He didn’t earn a ton of money, not by the standards they were used to, but it was enough for them to eat. And they didn’t need anything more.

  Laughing. She couldn’t remember why now, but she remembered distinctly the trill of Leyla’s laughter, dancing on the hot breeze, and fading away when Jonan lurched through the door, his hand clasped over his stomach.

  Leyla never laughed like that again.

  The white of his shirt, dark around his palm, all five fingers spread out like a fan, and dripping down his pants.

  Leyla’s laugh had faded, but Tessa’s had come, a single loud burst of nervous hysteria.

  It looked a bit like he’d wet his pants, only pee wasn’t that dark.

  She laughed, not because it was funny, but because it couldn’t possibly be real.

  It had to be a joke.

  He collapsed, knees buckling, dropping to the floor. She’d just frozen, immobile, right there on the spot, incapable of doing anything because nothing bad had ever really happened to her before, and she just plain didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do.

  And then, finally, she’d started moving, and Leyla too, doing a whole bunch of useless crap that didn’t make a bit of difference while Jonan blabbered on, words spilling from his lips. Nonsense words. Snippets of sentences. Nothing that made any sense. All the felanas… The Boss…Controlling the trade of guns… The Boss…The drugs are only the beginning…he’s got an army…The Boss. Don’t trust anyone. The Boss. Over and over again on replay.

  The Boss. That was the only coherent thing he said the entire time, the only answer he gave.

  Jonan, who stabbed you? Jonan, who did this? Jonan, who hurt you?

  Every single time.

  The Boss. The Boss. The Boss.

  Delsanthio. Delsanthio. Delsanthio.

  The fucking Boss.

  They’d trie
d everything they could, but Jonan screamed and ranted and bucked and raged when they tried to take him to a healer. Leyla had snuck away when he was sleeping to find the other pack of felanas, one of whom was an older woman with some medical knowledge.

  She had taken one look at Jonan’s pale face, the shadows beneath his eyes, the bloated, blackened skin of his abdomen.

  By then, she’d known, and so had Leyla. They’d known. But that didn’t mean they were ready to admit it. Or accept it.

  The woman’s palms had been buttery smooth as she slid them over Tessa’s and slowly pulled her hands away from where they held the padding they’d packed around his wound. Even now, Tessa could feel the smooth glide of the woman’s death-bringing palms. She’d stared down at her hands.

  Fingers wrinkled up if they’d been in water for too long.

  The same thing happened with blood.

  The felana healer hadn’t needed to say anything. It had been there, written in the fine lines around her eyes, the way her eyebrows tilted up in the center of her forehead, and how her mouth had turned down in the edges. Kinder to let him die fast than prolong it.

  It had taken less than an hour for him to bleed out. His eyes just lost focus slowly. She’d always thought it happened in a blink, like one second someone was there and then their soul would be gone, like blowing out a candle, or stopping the flow of water when you turned off the tap.

  That wasn’t how it was for Jonan. His soul had just drained away, red drop by red drop, spreading across the floor of a shitty dump in the worst part of a fucked-up town, until there was so much blood, she and Tessa, and all their innocent hopes and dreams had drowned too.

  Bodies didn’t cool, not in the heat of swampy Didgermmion, they stayed hot and grew fetid, drew flies.

  They hadn’t had any yenna to pay for a proper pier for him. So, they’d stolen a wheelbarrow for a hearse, covered him in sheets, and pushed him to the only place they could.

  Up the long hills to the back of her brother’s seraglio, to the rear garden wall with its quatrefoil cutouts, sneaking past sensors and sticking to the shadows behind scrubby trees to avoid being found by the guards.