Forever Claimed

by Rachel Lee

  The only thing that told her he had left the room was the closing of the door. She hadn’t even been able to see him move.

  For a long time she couldn’t seem to gather her wits or her strength. Eventually anger came to her rescue. How could he treat her like this and cast her aside? And what the hell had she been doing in the arms of a bloodsucker?

  Anger gave her all the propulsion she needed. She jumped from the bed, washed and changed into fresh clothes. And all the while she vowed that she would find a way to put Luc St. Just in his place.

  Out in the front room, she found everyone gathered. Chloe and Terri were eating something, and they pointed her to the kitchen to help herself. Coffee and some freshly baked cinnamon buns awaited her, and she realized she was absolutely famished. She hadn’t finished her dinner last night and had eaten nothing since.

  As she turned around to rejoin the group, however, she saw both Jude and Luc at a laptop computer. Luc stood looking over Jude’s shoulder, and both of them were as still and stiff as rock.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Luc turned his head. “We’re alone with this.”

  “What?”

  “The others have decided to wait before involving themselves. Creed will be here tomorrow night, but no one else is coming.”

  “Some friends,” she remarked, her stomach sinking. All of a sudden her legs felt a little wobbly, and she made her way to the small table with difficulty.

  “We have few friends,” Luc said flatly. “You live in groups, but we are more solitary. Our inclinations and nature require us not to congregate.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if too many of us live too close, we can’t escape notice.”

  Chloe turned her coffee mug around aimlessly. “They don’t get along all that well, anyway. Territorial or something. The kind of friendship that’s best at a distance.”

  Territorialism was something Dani understood perfectly. “But surely this is different?”

  Luc answered her. “Not yet. Not enough. They want to wait and see. Three of us can occupy the same city. We’d have to make a very strong cause to gather many more.”

  Jude spoke. “They think the three of us are enough, since there are only three rogues.”

  “That we know of.” Luc’s gaze was black as night. “There were almost no murders last night. We’re trying to find out if there are reports of missing people. But right now we have nothing at all to justify the intervention of others. If there are three rogues, the three of us should be enough. If there are more…we shall have to prove it first.”

  “Yes, prove it in blood,” Terri said. “How nice.”

  Jude answered her. “You don’t have to tell me, my love.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  Luc crossed the room and perched on the edge of a couch. “So we must plan accordingly. We must ensure the safety of the women. Then we’ll have to wait another night to see if the murders multiply because of newborns.”

  “Why isn’t Creed coming tonight?” Chloe asked.

  Jude answered. “He’s seeking information. As far as we know, the rogues have no quarrel with him.”

  Dani finally managed to sip coffee and eat her roll. Strength was important, and she was feeling entirely too weak for it to be good. But the infusion of calories began to make her feel better, and to clear the cloudiness of her brain brought on by a mixture of disappointment, desire and worry, not to mention such a long sleep.

  As the mental gears began to function smoothly again, she had an idea. She struggled with it, knowing how dangerous it could be. And she certainly didn’t know how she could act on it.

  But it was beginning to seem necessary.

  Chapter 6

  The moon was bright, still nearly full. Jude and Luc decided they could all use some time outside while they waited to see what kind of news Terri could dig out of the medical examiner’s office.

  Luc slipped outside alone first, then returned to say there wasn’t a whiff of vampire anywhere. “I think it’s safe, but not everyone should go out at the same time.”

  “Dani first,” Chloe said. “I’ve never been keen on tromping through deep snow. Too bad we don’t have skis.”

  Dani went to get her jacket and gloves, and stepped outside with Luc, who was once again wearing the leathers she had first seen him in. No hat, no gloves. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “I can’t feel temperature anymore. Hot or cold, it’s all the same.”

  “But you said…” She trailed off, reluctant to recall the intimacy he’d cut so short so suddenly.

  “I can feel your warmth. Human warmth. It’s the only kind that reaches me any longer, and it’s delightful.”

  “Wow.” She waded through untrammeled snow beside him and looked up at the just-past-full moon. Right now it hung only a little above the trees, a huge silvery disk.

  “What would you be doing if you were home tonight, little wolf?”

  She kept her gaze on the moon as sorrow encompassed her. “Sitting beside the fire. Or maybe on the porch watching the youngsters romp.”

  “Why do you sound sad? You miss them?”

  “Of course I miss them. What I don’t miss is… Well, right now the adult pack is out running. Nights like this call to them. They’ll cover fifty or sixty miles before the moon sets, howling to each other in beautiful harmony.”

  “And you couldn’t go with them.”

  “No.” She shook her head, trying to push away the sadness. “I never changed. Never. Most change by the time they are twelve or thirteen. I kept waiting for it to happen, but it never did. So all I could do was watch the ones who had recently changed. They weren’t yet ready to travel such long distances with the pack. I was left to keep an eye on them because they are more adventurous than wise at that age.”

  “And the rest of the time? Did they leave you out of everything?”

  “Of course not!” Angry, she stopped and glared at him. “They included me as much as they could. In fact, I think some of the members of my pack even stopped shifting as often so they could keep me company. Do you know how that made me feel?”

  “It should have made you feel loved and accepted.”

  She almost gasped, that stung so hard. “Who are you to talk about love and acceptance?”

  “I loved once,” he said simply. “For a long, long time. And then she died and I went insane. I know about love.”

  She felt about two inches tall then. Turning, she resumed her tromp through the snow, feeling like a bitch, feeling sorrowful because it was a moonlit night, and moonlit nights had become the gauge for how she measured her inadequacy. Snow crunched beneath her boots, her tread was heavy, and all she could hear in her mind were the calls of her parents, siblings and cousins as they joyously bounded into the woods under the brilliant silver light.

  An arm closed around her shoulders. “It’s all right,” he said.

  She jerked away, blinking back tears she couldn’t quite explain. “It’s not okay. Nothing’s okay. I’m caught up in a war I don’t understand, I was nearly killed just two nights ago, I’m living with vampires, and you keep…you keep… Damn it, St. Just, don’t touch me anymore if you don’t mean it!”

  “If I don’t mean it?” He sounded astonished.

  Then, much to her amazement, he seized her and the next thing she knew he was lying in the snow with her above him. Their hips met through leather and denim with excruciating intimacy. His hand held the back of her head so that their faces were separated by only inches.

  “Let me tell you something, little wolf. I haven’t touched a woman since my Natasha died. Not in that way. I swore I would die before I ever let another woman take the liberties she took with me, or before I ever took them with another.”

  “Luc…” Some part of her heart shrieked that she had to stop him now, before she learned things she didn’t want to know. Things that could change her in ways she didn’t want to be changed.

  “Yet you draw
me,” he said roughly. “I break my own vow every time you are near me. But you don’t understand the kind of fire we’re playing with. We might escape unscathed, but I’m not sure I could stand it if we didn’t.”

  “Then stop it,” she whispered.

  “I can’t.”

  He pulled her head down and thrust his tongue into her mouth. Then, without any preamble or warning, he plunged his hand between her legs, making space for it and rubbing her most sensitive parts through denim.

  There was no preventing the tide of need he unleashed in her. His knowing hand, his knowing tongue, held her in thrall. Her body ached helplessly, and she groaned into his mouth as her hips helplessly answered the rhythm of his hand.

  Electrified, she could only give in.

  The ache grew, everything else vanished. She was riding him to the stars like Pegasus, to a paradise she had never visited. All she knew for certain was that she needed more, and more....

  Dimly she felt the zipper of her jacket lower, felt the neck of her sweater tugged aside. He dragged his mouth from hers and she tipped her head back, sucking in the frigid night air as the pressure built closer to a crescendo.

  Vaguely she felt him lick the skin just below her collarbone. Another shiver of absolute delight filled her and then something beyond imagining happened.

  She felt him as if he were her. She could feel his hunger, every bit as huge as her own. She felt his heart as if it were her own, and felt them fall into exactly the same rhythm.

  His desire became hers and fueled her pounding need until she thought she would shatter before it was fulfilled.

  His hips thrust up against hers, crushing his hand between them, and at that moment she exploded like a supernova, every bit of her being flying out among the stars.

  Slowly she came back to herself. She was still lying on him, but now his arms were wrapped around her. She could feel cold snow melting into the knees of her jeans, but she didn’t care. Her head rested on his shoulder, and she wanted to keep it there forever.

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he agreed, but there was something in his tone that didn’t sound quite as happy as she felt.

  “What happened?” she asked weakly, not at all sure she wanted to know.

  “I did something wrong.”

  “How could anything that good possibly be wrong?”

  “I drank from you,” he said baldly. “Without your permission.”

  “What?” Adrenaline flooded her, driving away all the wonderful magic he had just given her. She sat up, hardly caring that she sat on him, and looked down at him. His eyes were as golden as any wolf’s. “You drank from me?”

  “Yes. Only a little, but yes.”

  Fear clutched her. “Will I change?”

  “You didn’t change when you were attacked. Drinking from you is nothing but drinking from you. It harms you in no way.”

  She felt she ought to get furious. He had taken her blood without asking. That was wrong, definitely. Somehow. But she couldn’t quite figure out how, considering what they had just done. Just that in some deep way, she felt it was wrong. But…

  “Is that…is that why I felt as if you were part of me?”

  “Yes. I felt you in the same way. It multiplies the pleasure.”

  “Whoa.” She lifted her hand to her head, feeling as if the world were turning upside down again. She should be spewing rage, but she wasn’t. How could she be when she had enjoyed every single moment? But she ought to be.

  Shouldn’t she?

  Struggling with herself, she tried to get to her feet. At once Luc sat up and helped her. Standing facing him in the snow with the moon rising overhead, feelings ping-ponged around inside her like a mad game of table tennis.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said sharply. Except that she was sure it had enhanced the incredible experience. Never before had she heard of two hearts beating as one except in sappy songs.

  “No,” he agreed.

  “Promise you won’t do it again without asking.”

  “I promise.”

  But she saw amusement in the curvature of his mouth and snapped, “What’s so funny?”

  “I won’t have to ask you,” he said. “Now that you know, you’ll ask me.”

  That was just too much. “Over my dead body,” she snapped, then turned to storm back to the house.

  Every single step of the way she was aware of him right behind her.

  And aware that he was right. She already wanted him again.

  Consternation grew. There was only one murder that night.

  “They’re building an army,” Luc said. “An army of newborns.”

  Terri spoke. “You can’t be sure of that, Luc. Given the weather, a lot of people are staying at home. It may be that some of the killings haven’t been discovered yet.”

  “Perhaps. But if I were them, I’d build an army of newborns if I truly wanted to unleash terror.”

  “How long will it take?” Dani asked.

  “There’s some blessing,” Jude answered. “It can take one or two nights for a newborn to fully change. But more important, no vampire can change more than one human a night.”

  “Why?”

  Luc looked at her. “Because we must give our own blood to those we would change. No more than one a night. Sometimes no more than one every two or three nights.”

  “So it would take time?”

  “I think,” he said drily, “that we can still breed faster than rabbits.”

  “Understatement,” Chloe said sarcastically. “It would be a geometric progression, wouldn’t it? Each new vampire makes another one each night?”

  Jude shook his head. “No, because newborns drink their victims dry and almost never think to change them. They’re too voracious.”

  “Small mercies,” Chloe muttered.

  “Even supposing the rogues can change only one a night,” Luc said, “it still results in a large crop of maddened vampires rather quickly. And we don’t know how many rogues we’re dealing with. It could be more than three.” He looked at Jude. “There must be more murders. They need to replenish after each change.”

  Jude frowned. “True.”

  “Unless they’ve found their way into a blood bank,” Terri said, “we can expect increasing reports of victims found at home.”

  Silence filled the room. Apparently no one wanted to contemplate what they might learn over the coming nights.

  “I need to call my family,” Dani announced, seizing the moment.

  “Why?” Jude asked.

  “Because they’ve got to be hearing about this. I need to reassure them, and it’s been too long since I called. But my cell doesn’t work here.”

  “There’s a landline,” Jude said, pointing. “Go ahead.”

  “Not before dawn. On a night like this, they’re out running.”

  “Help yourself whenever.”

  So that was taken care of, she thought. After everyone went to sleep at dawn, she could make her call. She just hoped she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.

  But one thing she knew for sure: if other vampires wouldn’t come, and this thing kept snowballing, a lot of people were going to die. Regardless of the enmity between her kind and vampires, she hoped her pack wouldn’t want to stand by while humans were being slaughtered and changed. Her strongest argument was that a world taken over by rogue vampires would be the worst possible outcome, even for lycanthropes.

  She just hoped she could make them understand.

  Luc gave her a rueful look but didn’t say a word when he headed off to bed and she made no move to follow. Terri and Jude went at the same time. Chloe spent a few minutes making sure Dani could keep track of the news on the laptop, then wended her own way to her bedroom.

  Dani waited, on the edge of her seat, until she was sure not only the vampires had fallen asleep. Then she picked up the phone and called her mother.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Lucinda Maka
r sounded drowsy, as was to be expected after a full night of running with the pack, but delighted to hear her daughter’s voice. “I’ve been thinking about you so much, Dani. What kind of city did you move to?”

  “A really nice one until a few days ago.”

  “There must be some really horrible gang running around down there. Do they have any idea when they’ll catch them?”

  Dani bit her lip and squeezed her eyes closed. “That’s what I called about. Mom, I need your help. I need the pack’s help. And you’re not going to like it.”

  “Have you been hurt?”

  “I’m fine.” True, but not the whole truth. “Mom, please, you’ve got to listen and you’ve got to listen carefully before you start getting mad or yelling for Dad to talk sense to me. Please.”

  A silence greeted her, but finally Lucinda sighed. “I’m sure I’m not going to like this, but yes, I’ll listen first.”

  “All the way through?”

  “All the way through.”

  With her heart in her throat, Dani explained, beginning with the fact that a vampire had saved her life and had killed the bloodsucker who had come to kill her. She could hear her mother almost spluttering with the effort of keeping quiet.

  “Just listen,” she begged again. “Please, just listen.”

  “You should have come straight home.”

  “I can’t. And that’s why you have to listen.”

  She had known it wouldn’t be easy. Given her family’s beliefs about vampires, she had to keep coming back to the fact that a vampire had saved her and that two of them were protecting her. Then she had to explain the rogues and the difference between them and Jude and Luc, and apparently many others.

  Her words seemed to be falling into an abyss of silence.

  She pressed on anyway, making her point as forcefully as she could: either these rogues were stopped or tens of thousands of humans would eventually die, and the world would become a much more dangerous place for the packs.

  “I need your help,” she finished. “We need your help.”