Forever Claimed

by Rachel Lee

  He lowered her feet to snowy pavement, but kept his arm around her shoulders.

  Then Jude said, “Damien! Good heavens, man, where did you come from?”

  “I got your message, but I was in Cologne. Do you have any idea how devilishly difficult it has become to cross the Atlantic? The damn customs people are even opening coffins these days because their dogs alert. Now, I ask you, do I smell like an illegal drug or explosive?”

  Jude sniffed then laughed. “Not in the least.”

  Damien moved out of the shadows, showing himself to be about just a couple of inches shorter than six feet. He had raven-black hair, a Teutonic nose and somehow reminded Dani of pictures she had seen of knights engraved on old tombs in European churches.

  “I suspect,” Damien said, “that I’m too late. I wandered around the city a bit before I came here, but you don’t seem to be overwhelmed by other vampires.”

  “We took out a number of them tonight. At this point we hope we’re only dealing with a small handful of newborns and one or two adults.”

  “Any newborn is a handful,” Damien remarked. “More than one is a catastrophe.”

  Jude let them all into his office and turned on a dim light in deference to Dani.

  “It’s good to see you again, Damien,” Luc remarked. “How is Cologne?”

  “As beautiful as ever, though getting a bit too big for my taste. I did get to enjoy the Cathedral bells a few nights ago.” He looked at Dani. “Have you ever been there? Well, they ring the bells only on very important occasions these days, maybe four to six times a year. But when they chime… Heavens! First the Dom bells begin…that’s the cathedral…a very deep bell at first. And over the next ten minutes or so, other bells chime in and then other churches until the sound is coming from everywhere. It’s quite magical.”

  “It sounds like it.” She smiled politely, wondering how Damien fit in, whether he might potentially be a threat and how he would react to her. She was relieved when Luc sat beside her on the couch.

  “You must take her there,” Damien said to Luc.

  Dani caught her breath in astonishment. What did Damien know and how did he know it?

  “I’ll think about it,” Luc agreed. “I’ve been yearning to get back home, but if travel is as difficult as you say…” He shrugged.

  “You can always travel in the wheel well of a plane.” Damien chuckled. “It avoids the entire customs problem.”

  “That’s how I crossed last time.”

  “I wish you had told me. I’d have been here sooner and wouldn’t have missed all the fun. I was sorry to hear about Natasha.”

  Dani looked quickly at Luc, fearing the reminder would cast him down or make him uncomfortable. But he didn’t seem to react at all.

  “She made some unwise choices” was all Luc said.

  Before Damien could pursue the subject, Jude swiftly turned the conversation back to the rogues. “We still have to clean out the city. If you want to help, then we should get right to it. I don’t expect we’ll finish tonight, but the longer we wait, the more humans will die or be changed.”

  This time Dani didn’t even suggest she accompany them. From what Luc had told her of newborns, she’d be worse than useless; she would be a hindrance since she was exhausted. Without complaint, she accepted Jude’s offer to use his bed behind a locked door. She barely had energy left to wash up and change into a nightdress before she dove under the warm covers. She wiggled her toes in pleasure, tried not to think about Lucinda’s harsh words and her father’s anger, and fell into a sleep so deep she was hardly aware of it when Luc slipped in beside her and wrapped her in his arms.

  “Je t’aime. J’ai un amour fou pour toi.”

  The husky murmur drew her out of sleep and she found herself looking into the inky eyes of night. Luc’s head was on the pillow beside hers and he looked straight into her drowsy eyes.

  “Huh?” she managed groggily, astonished to be waking to find him alert. She seemed to remember him crawling into bed a while ago. Had the entire day passed already?

  The question snapped her awake.

  “I said, ‘Je t’aime, j’ai un amour fou pour toi.’”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He smiled. “Je sais. I know. But when you have grown up speaking a certain language, some things seem to have more meaning in your mother tongue.”

  “Okay. But you still haven’t explained.”

  “Ma belle dame, my little wolf, I said I love you. I said I am crazy with love for you.”

  Her heart slammed into high gear so fast that she suddenly couldn’t breathe. “Crazy?” she repeated, her voice cracking.

  “Crazy.”

  She tried to restrain a wild surge of emotion, tried to retain some sense in a brain that just wanted to melt. “Is that bad?”

  “It doesn’t feel so. Unless you tell me to go away.”

  She sat bolt upright, suddenly frightened. “You said you never wanted to claim anyone again. Is that what you’ve done?”

  His expression changed, but he reached up to touch her cheek with a fingertip. “Does that frighten you?”

  “Does it frighten me?” Much as she wanted to fall into his arms, she had a bigger concern. She scrambled away from him to the edge of the bed. “It frightened you. Why wouldn’t it frighten me?”

  Now he frowned. “I’m sorry. I have upset you.”

  “Aren’t you upset?”

  “Not in the least. Yet.”

  Oh, this was too much to absorb before she’d even gotten her feet under her. “Did you finish cleaning up the city?”

  “We may have another newborn or two to hunt tonight, but as of dawn this morning, no others were left.” His frown grew darker. “Dani, what frightens you? That I will follow you everywhere you go? I can swear not to do that.”

  “So…” She hesitated, confused and very afraid of the answer. “So,” she said again, clearing her throat, “you haven’t claimed me?”

  He sighed. “I think I am messing something up.”

  “I think I can’t think yet. I need coffee. I need to wake up. I’m confused, Luc!”

  “The coffee, I can manage. Terri has a passion for it.” He slipped from the covers, naked from head to toe, and went to the far corner of the bedroom where a drip coffeemaker stood on a table. “Or maybe I can’t manage it. I have never made the stuff.”

  “Oh, let me.” Dani scrambled off the bed and went over. Immediately Luc withdrew, which caused her a sharp pang, but she ignored it while she got the pot going. She rubbed her eyes and turned to find him propped up against pillows in bed, his lower body covered by the comforter.

  She stared at him, still trying to comprehend what was going on here. “Did you claim me? Do I have any say?”

  “You have every say. Sadly, I am the one who has none. For me it is done.”

  “Oh.” She furrowed her brow, then forced herself to smooth it for fear he might mistake her expression as anger. “How did it happen?”

  “It just does. I felt it coming, but I could not walk away.”

  “Because of the rogues.”

  “Because of you.”

  “Oh.” Well, that didn’t feel so bad, she thought. “Have you eaten? Should I get you a bag?”

  A snort that was almost a laugh escaped him. “I am neither sick nor weak. Nor am I injured. What I am is in agony.”

  Oh, she didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Agony? Why?” She stepped toward him, her impulse to help in any way she could. She couldn’t stand the thought of him hurting.

  “Because I am—how do you say?—on tenterhooks, awaiting your disposal of me.”

  “Disposal?” She didn’t like that word. She drew even closer. Behind her the coffeepot burbled.

  “Disposal,” he repeated. “I have offered myself. I love you. If you don’t want me, you will never see me again.”

  “What would you do?”

  He shrugged.

  But she knew. He had told her a
s much when he had explained claiming. Now that he had claimed her, if she didn’t want him, he would…well, she couldn’t bear to even think of it.

  “You are under no obligation,” he said quietly. “I have survived this before.”

  Barely, she thought, remembering the things he had said. Barely.

  “All that matters now,” he continued, “is what you want, ma belle.”

  She drew another step closer. Her heart thudded now, not the rapid patter of fear, but the heavy drumbeat of something very important.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “Really sure? Because, well…” She couldn’t say it.

  “Because you’ve been rejected often enough? You don’t want to risk it again. Of course I am sure, Dani. I have never been more certain of anything. I only question whether it is good for you and whether you want it. I am, after all, a vampire. You were raised to loathe my kind. Being with me would change your entire life, even if I don’t change you. You can never have a child, for one thing.”

  “Newborns aren’t exactly something I want.”

  He laughed, but it didn’t sound quite humorous. “I would be jealous. I would not share you. I would never leave your side except for the briefest of periods. Can you stand that much of me?”

  The reality had begun to sink home. Comprehension was arriving. Dani felt herself melt inside and her knees began to turn to rubber.

  “Luc…” Then it hit. Fully. A sudden strength filled her limbs and she hurled herself at him. His arms caught her from the air and drew her tight and close.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “I will be every bit as jealous,” she warned him. “I’ll want to be with you every minute.”

  “Ah.” His eyes began to lighten to that incredible gold as tension seeped from his body. “So you feel good with me?”

  “For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m home.”

  His expression lightened with delight. “You cannot know how happy that makes me.”

  “I love you,” she said. “I really, really do.”

  He cradled her face with one hand. “Be sure. Because if I take this last step, there will be no going back for me. None.”

  “You’re going to change me?”

  “No. Not until I am very certain that you are very certain. But I want to make love to you and drink from you at the same time. In that instant, we will truly become one. I will no longer be able to entertain a single thought of life without you.”

  “I don’t want a life without you.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. Then, just as she was wondering what he was deciding, he slipped her nightgown over her head and covered her nakedness with his own.

  She should have felt shy or nervous, but all she felt was an incredible sense of freedom. She had chosen her path, and it felt so right.

  He kissed her deeply, then followed that kiss with more all over her body until she was melted and cried his name. Only then did he slide up over her.

  She gasped as he entered her. No one had ever claimed her that way before, and there was a brief searing pain.

  “It will pass, mon amour, it will pass.”

  It did as he kissed her again, driving everything out of her mind but the bliss of being filled by the one she loved.

  He moved gently at first, testing, but her body responded as if it had been waiting for this moment to burst free of its bonds. It ignited as if she were gasoline touched by a match. Reaching out, she grabbed his shoulders and arched up against him, demanding more.

  His head lowered to her neck. He licked her, coolness against her heated skin. She never felt the prick of his teeth, but she knew the instant it happened.

  Suddenly they were one again, hearts beating in unison, pleasure careening through them. She felt his as if it were hers, a rhythm of such intensity and power that she wasn’t sure she could bear it.

  But she bore it. She held his head close as he drank, felt as if a hot wire of need ran from his mouth to the place where he entered her and moved. She was his and he was hers, and together they climbed to paradise as one.

  She had been fully claimed.

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 9781459223370

  Copyright © 2012 by Susan Civil Brown

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.Harlequin.com