Forever Claimed

by Rachel Lee

  It was nearly ten before Dani’s mother arrived. She had to give permission to the doorman to let her come up, and was surprised when he acceded, apparently because it must be okay if she was in Creed’s condo.

  Lucinda arrived at the door a few minutes later and Dani let her in.

  “Where are all the bloodsuckers?”

  “Asleep. You know that, Mom.”

  “Yes.” Lucinda, dressed in winter gear, dropped onto the couch. “Coffee?”

  Dani felt a little like she was trespassing, but she went into the kitchen and made a pot. It was easy enough since Yvonne had left everything out, perhaps because she thought Dani might want it.

  She brought two cups out to the living room and sat next to her mother on the couch. “The pack?”

  “They’re still out searching the streets. We’ve smelled a few vampires. Not that many yet. Less than a dozen so far. But we’ve also smelled something else. There are dead in some of the buildings, Dani. They haven’t been discovered yet, and they may become newborns. We can’t be sure.”

  “Did you note where they are? Terri’s still at work. I can let her know where to look.”

  “What’s she going to do about them?”

  “She has a plan. She’s the medical examiner. Did we tell you that? Anyway, she’s insisting that the first step with each corpse that is brought to them is to remove the brain.”

  “Ah!” Lucinda’s face lightened. “That’s brilliant.”

  “At least until the rogues figure out what she’s doing.”

  “They will, soon enough.” Lucinda sighed and sipped more coffee. “We’re tired, daughter. We’re going to have to sleep for a while, but at least the vampires are sleeping, as well. And you. You look exhausted.”

  “I am. I’ve had my days and nights mixed up.”

  Lucinda’s frown was faint, but evident to her daughter who had known her all her life. “So Terri is the wife of that one called Jude? Why hasn’t he changed her?”

  “He seems reluctant. He said something about not wanting her to go through what he’s had to endure.”

  Lucinda thought about that. “You seem to have found an exceptional group of vampires.”

  “According to them, the rogues are the exception.”

  “Perhaps. Times have changed.” Reaching out, she brushed Dani’s hair back with a gentle touch. “I’m sorry we failed you.”

  “You didn’t fail me. I failed the pack.”

  Lucinda shook her head firmly. “No. Never. It happens sometimes that one of us can’t shift. That never made you any less in our eyes. But you weren’t happy. I could see that. Are you happier now?”

  Dani thought of Luc and the way he was pulling back. “I don’t know. I thought I was.”

  “You need to be among your own kind. What I sense is that you feel you don’t have a kind.”

  At that, Dani’s throat tightened until it hurt. “Maybe not. I don’t know yet.”

  Her mother gave her a quick hug. “Be careful, Dani. Don’t let loneliness lead you astray. And right now, things are dangerous. I wish you weren’t right in the middle of it all.”

  “I didn’t put myself in the middle. I was attacked and Luc saved me. That’s what put me in the middle.”

  “I’m grateful to Luc, much as it pains me.” Lucinda’s smile was crooked. “I sense he’s very troubled, though. So be careful. Not just because he’s a vampire.”

  Dani nodded. “It’s okay. He wants to avoid me.”

  “Good.” Something must have flickered over Dani’s face because her mother suddenly looked concerned. “Dani, you haven’t given him your heart!”

  “No. No. Not that I’d have a chance to.”

  Lucinda pulled back a little. “I warned you, daughter. If you follow that path, you’ll lose the pack.”

  “Did I ever have the pack?” The words burst out of Dani as anguish filled her. “Do you know what I am, Mom? I’m nothing. I’m not fully human, I’m not fully lycan, I’m not anything! I can’t run in the moonlit woods with you. Heck, I can’t run with the pack at all. At home I’m nothing but a pup sitter. Here I don’t quite fit in because I know things humans choose not to know. I smell things they can’t. I heal too fast. Well, I don’t fit with the bloodsuckers, either. I’m just baggage right now. They’re protecting me, nothing more. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  “Dani…”

  “I know all the kind things you’ll say to me, so don’t bother. I know you love me. But you know something? Sometimes love isn’t enough.”

  A few moments passed before Lucinda replied. “No, sometimes it’s not. But to fully belong with them—” she nodded toward the closed bedroom door “—you’d have to become something we can’t tolerate. Then what have you gained?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to be one of them. I just wish there was somewhere I didn’t feel like a burden. A place I felt useful.”

  “That’s why you were studying nursing.”

  “After the last few days, I don’t think that’ll be enough anymore. I know things. I’ve seen things. I can’t go back to pretending I’m just a normal, because I’m not.”

  “Then what do you intend to do?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.” She looked down for a few seconds then drew a deep breath. “I have to find my way somehow. In the meantime, tell me where you smelled these corpses so I can let Terri know. She can probably collect them all and deal with them before nightfall.”

  “And then what? Surely these rogues will figure it out.”

  “Luc and Jude thought that might actually be a good thing, because then we’ll know where to look for them. If they come to the morgue, we’ll be ready.”

  “We.” Lucinda repeated the word thoughtfully, quietly. “All right,” she said presently, switching to a brisk tone. “Give me some paper to write on. The pack will be there tonight, too.”

  Dani’s heart squeezed again with fear. “Mom, you can all leave. I don’t want any of you to get hurt.”

  “Do you honestly think we won’t stand beside you in this? You know better, Dani. And if you choose to stand with those blood—your friends, then so will we. For now, at least.”

  Pack loyalty above all else, Dani thought as she went to the desk against one of the windows and found a pad and pen. She was still part of the pack, whether she felt like it or not.

  Just then, she couldn’t have said whether that was a good thing.

  Just a few minutes later she called Terri and gave her the addresses. At least some newborns weren’t going to awake that night.

  Chapter 9

  Dani slept most of the day after her mother left. She might as well have been drugged, so desperate was she for rest. The new schedule wasn’t agreeing all that well with her biorhythms, she thought when she finally stirred to see the condo filling with the red light of a winter sunset. She felt as if she hadn’t even rolled over on the couch, and she couldn’t remember having dreamed.

  For a few minutes she didn’t move, looking up at the reddening ceiling, trying not to think about all the night might hold.

  Somehow she suspected her new friends were going to try and keep her well and truly out of the fight. Heck, they’d probably try to lock her and Terri and Yvonne up right here.

  Damned if she’d let them. Because as dead as she’d felt in sleep, she’d apparently reached a conclusion of some kind: if she didn’t take a stand with her pack and the vampires, she would never again have a hope of not feeling like an utter failure.

  Yawning, she rose, wishing for a hot shower, but instead she went to make coffee for Yvonne. And where was Terri? Fear prickled along her spine. Wasn’t Terri supposed to return before darkfall?

  Suddenly wide awake, she quickly filled the coffeemaker with grounds and water, and turned it on. Then she went to the bedroom door that was barred to her.

  She hesitated, looking at it with loathing. It was a tangible reminder that she didn’t belong here. She glanced over her sh
oulder at the sky, noting the sun had sunk below the horizon, leaving red streaks in low-hanging clouds. Was it safe to wake them now?

  She didn’t know. She just knew Terri wasn’t here.

  So she hammered as loudly as she could on the closed door. The thud sounded dull, and she wondered if it was even penetrating to the room beyond.

  Desperate, she pulled out her cell and called the M.E. offices. A strange voice answered her. “I need to talk to Terri,” she said, her voice tight.

  “Dr. Messenger left a little while ago.”

  “Thanks.” And she wasn’t here yet.

  She turned again to hammer on the door but before her fist made contact, it swung open and Luc slipped out.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Terri isn’t back. I just talked to her office and they said she left a little while ago.”

  Luc scanned the sky. “Okay.” He turned, throwing the door open. “Jude. Terri’s not at the office and she’s not here yet.”

  As if conjured by magic, Jude appeared, a phone in his hand. “Terri? Where the hell are you?” Then, “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Luc said as Jude disconnected. “Is there trouble?”

  “Not yet. She was late leaving. She’s in her car, but that’s no protection.”

  “I’ll go,” said a third voice. Creed appeared behind Jude and closed the door. “They don’t know me yet and I can watch over the two of you from a distance. Luc, you stay here with the women. Yvonne’s still asleep, and Dani needs protection.”

  Dani needs protection. Dani, for one, was getting awfully sick of hearing that, but she didn’t know what she could offer right now. The vampires could get to Terri faster, and Dani’s paltry efforts to protect the woman would amount to nothing next to them.

  Jude and Creed departed immediately, leaving Luc and Dani alone in the living room as dusk deepened.

  “Did anything happen?” Luc asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. My pack found about ten corpses around town that hadn’t been picked up. I called Terri and she was sending people out to get them. I suppose they’ve been debrained by now, or whatever it’s called.”

  “Both good and bad news.”

  “Exactly.”

  She returned to the couch with her coffee, trying to appear nonchalant but certain she was failing. Just the sight of Luc now made her ache with longing, yet he seemed determined to keep as much space between them as possible.

  Remembering what Jude had told her, she forced herself to look away. She had absolutely no right to risk putting Luc through the kind of pain Jude had talked about, that he himself had talked about. Certainly not when she wasn’t sure of her own feelings.

  Wanting him was not the same as loving him, and she had to keep that in mind. Unfortunately, she still remembered those minutes in the snow such a short time ago, minutes when she had found a transcendence she could never have imagined without experiencing it.

  He’d ruined her, she thought. He’d evidently given her a taste for something she might never be able to experience again.

  She swallowed a sigh and sipped coffee, pretending that nothing mattered. Pretending was something she’d had a lot of practice at. She’d been doing it her entire life, pretending things didn’t matter, even when they hurt.

  A phone rang and Luc pulled it out of his pocket. Dani rose and went to stand at the windows, staring out over the darkening city. She hoped Yvonne would get up soon. She needed something else to think about and maybe someone to talk to.

  “You jest, non?” Luc said. “All right, but we could order food. Surely Creed has done enough of that.”

  A moment later he hung up, making a disgusted sound. “Terri wants to stop at the grocery. And they’re letting her.”

  Dani turned around. “Sometimes we need to feel like we have some control.”

  Luc’s brows lifted as he tucked his phone away again. “Is that what is wrong?”

  “I didn’t say anything was wrong.”

  “You hardly need to say it when I can smell distress all over you. Your muscles are coiled. I can see the heat in them.”

  She just shook her head and turned away.

  “Talk to me.”

  “Why? You don’t give a damn anyway.”

  “Ah.”

  In an instant she felt him standing behind her. His deep voice was little more than a breath in her ear. Despite her upset, she responded as she always did to him, with a warm quiver of passionate longing. “Is that what this is? I’m trying to protect you but you think I don’t care? I told you that’s not true.”

  “And I’m sick of being protected. All my life I’ve been tucked away in places so I would be safe. All except the months I lived here, at least until I was attacked.”

  “What is so bad about that? People only protect you if they care about you.”

  “I’m sick of feeling useless. Feeling like a failure. Like I don’t belong anywhere.”

  “Now, that I can understand.” His hands found her shoulders, gripping gently. “Perhaps you have just not yet found your world, Dani.”

  “I’m quite sure I haven’t. I’m not a lycan and I’m not a human. And what do you see me as? A threat of some kind? Well, how can I possibly be a threat to anyone? I apparently can’t even protect myself. Or help protect those I care about. If my mother had her way, I’d be back up north tending pups, and she’d take the car keys away because I couldn’t…couldn’t…” Her voice broke and she had to fight for control.

  “You couldn’t what?” he asked gently.

  “I couldn’t even run through the woods far enough to reach a road and hitchhike out of there. So I’d be a prisoner. And that’s what you and the others are planning to do tonight, isn’t it? Keep Yvonne, Terri and me prisoners while you and my pack go face the rogues. How the hell do you think that makes me feel, Luc?”

  “Not good, I can tell.”

  “Someone attacked me and I couldn’t even defend myself.”

  “Four someones,” he reminded her.

  But she wasn’t listening. It was as if everything, every single thing in her life that had made her feel less valued, less important, less useful, was coming to a head.

  “I was attacked,” she repeated, “and I couldn’t protect myself. I needed you for that. And now you and the others, including my pack, will be attacked and I’d just be a distraction, no help at all, so once again I have to stay in a cage and out of the way.”

  He turned her around and wrapped her in his arms, holding her close. She wanted to sag against him, drawn by his scent, by memories of what they had shared and by a desperate need for comfort.

  “I understand,” he said and ran his hand along her back as if petting her. The touch had a quite unintended effect, she was sure, as she seemed to liquefy and heat began to pour into her groin. But he was afraid of that, evidently with good reason. She forced herself to remain stiff.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to ponder not belonging,” he said. “We vampires don’t seem to need it as much as your kind, probably for our own safety.”

  “My kind? Just what is my kind, Luc?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But maybe you should find cause to rejoice in just being you, and stop worrying about things that make you different. So you are not fully lycan. So you are not fully human. These are not the best metrics to use.”

  “No? Then what is?”

  “That you are loved. Love is what makes us belong. Love is what creates our place in the world. In all my centuries, I belonged only with Natasha. I think the feeling you have is more common than you realize.”

  “Maybe. But what about being useless?”

  “You compare yourself to things you are not when you define yourself as useless. We all have different contributions to make.”

  “Oh, that’s so much crap!”

  “It’s not, little wolf.”

  “I told you not to call me that.”<
br />
  He sighed. “All right. Feel sorry for yourself. But you never know at what instant you may become the most important being on the earth for someone. Keep that in mind.”

  His words stung and she wanted to pull away even though she knew he was right. She was indulging in self-pity in the midst of a situation where her only concern should be the safety of those she cared about. And if keeping them safe meant staying locked up, then she should consider that the right thing to do.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered finally.

  “Don’t be. I understand. On this, I understand. There was a day when I awoke out of the maddened haze of being a newborn and I realized I could never again be the man I had once been. I lost my friends, the remains of my family, everything I cared about. I would never belong with any of them again. I had become different.”

  “Yes,” she admitted quietly.

  “We had expectations of what our lives would be, both of us. And in the end we were both disappointed, set apart. But I finally learned to stop loathing myself. Everything you say, Dani, speaks self-hatred. And for you, at least, none of it is your fault.”

  He tipped her head up and kissed her, long, hard and deep. Instantly she melted, her heart and body began to throb in time with his as if they were one. Stars whirled behind her eyelids, her entire being pulsed with need—then just as quickly he reappeared across the room.

  “Luc…” Her head was still spinning.

  “You tempt me, Dani. You tempt me in ways that make me concerned for my self-control.”

  “Then don’t control yourself.”

  He made a smothered sound. “You don’t know what you invite.”

  “Then tell me?”

  “Already you crave me. Do you have any idea how much I could make you crave me? I could ruin you for anyone else. I could deprive you of any semblance of a normal life. Because of me you could spend the rest of your life hunting for another to give you the same experience. That is why I control myself. I will not harm you in such a way.”

  What in the world did he mean? Dani wondered, struggling against the yearnings he awoke, trying to find sense in his words. She had gotten the part about claiming being dangerous for him, but what was this about craving him so much that no one else would satisfy her?