The Claimed (Sin Hunters)

by Caridad Piñeiro

  His Hybrid wife was pregnant. Adam’s Equinox had come and their mating was now complete in ways no Hunter traditions could usurp.

  As Victoria stood before them, she held out her hand and said, “I’m sorry about your loss, Adam. I know you cared for him deeply.”

  Adam’s emerald eyes were shadowed, haunted by what had happened, and yet they lightened a bit as his wife replied, “Thank you for coming, Victoria. I can imagine that the past few weeks haven’t been easy for you either.”

  Victoria smiled at his wife, because even in those brief moments they had shared, Victoria had come to like Bobbie Carrera. She was strong and no-nonsense. Level-headed and compassionate. Loyal. What was there not to like? she thought, and shook Bobbie’s hand.

  “If there is anything that you need, you know you can count on me, Bobbie,” Victoria said and meant it. Her parents might be spoiling to break up this union, but she was all in favor of true love.

  After all, she hoped to find some of her own one day.

  With a last good-bye and consoling handshakes with the other Carrera family members, she walked back toward her car. Sammie was leaning against the bumper of the Jeep, watching her approach.

  “Was he the one?” Sammie asked, sensing her upset, but misinterpreting the reason for it.

  Victoria shook her head and peered back over her shoulder to where only Adam and Bobbie remained by the casket. “You know how family can be. They always hoped something would happen between us.”

  With a diffident shrug, Sammie replied, “Actually I don’t know about family. Dad and I were always pretty much alone.”

  Victoria had suspected as much from what she knew of her friend. Even now Sammie kept to herself, for the most part. When she wasn’t hanging out with her and Jan, she usually occupied her time by running several different businesses and doing secret hacking stuff for people she would not mention.

  “Well, now you have me and Jan,” Victoria said and linked her arm through her friend’s.

  Sammie nodded and squeezed Victoria’s arm reassuringly. “I’m headed back to the T-shirt shop. How about you?”

  “It’s a light afternoon. Some parasailers that Mike will handle and one kayak tour for me. Then I’m going to go pack a snack and go for a long paddle. Want to come with?”

  “Maybe another day. I’ve got tons of orders to fill,” Sammie replied and with a hug, walked away to her vintage World War II Willys Jeep. She somehow kept the classic in working order, which was evidence of her friend’s ingenuity and skill with anything mechanical or electrical.

  Once again it made Victoria wonder about Sammie’s unique abilities, but she drove those thoughts back. She had other things to consider, like whether her parents were going to continue to push for a bonding with Adam Bruno.

  She had no intention of allowing them to do so, especially since the fruit of Adam’s Equinox had clearly taken root. Any mating between them now would be second best. If she could make her parents realize that, maybe they would let her choose her own mate so that when her Equinox arrived, she could bind with the right someone.

  The first hurdle, convincing her parents, would be difficult.

  But the second obstacle would be even harder: finding a suitable mate.

  She had delayed that hunt for a long time because of the uncertainty of the situation with the Desert clan’s missing heir. Now it could not wait any longer. She was approaching her first triad, and at any moment her Equinox might emerge, seeking a path to compatible and powerful energy in order to ensure the continuation of the Light Ones.

  Even though her biological clock was ticking, Victoria would not let that alone determine her fate. She wanted a partner for the future. Someone who would share her joys and her sorrows and help to lead her people. But more important, someone she could love.

  Christopher and Ryan rowed in unison, the strong pull of their arms driving the skiff through the waters, spewing sprays of seawater up and over the bow of the boat. They stroked efficiently, arms moving rhythmically until they neared the deserted beachfront of the island located in one of Jersey’s inland waterways. On such a beautiful day, it made no sense to rush and use their Hunter speed to reach the island. Besides, the physical exertion was welcome, working their muscles and strengthening the physical forms holding the Hunter core of energy.

  They slowed their strokes as they neared the shore and then stopped at the first nudge of resistance when the flat bottom of the skiff hit sand. Their momentum drove them forward until the friction of sand against the bottom of the boat halted their progress.

  Ryan jumped overboard first into the knee-high water, stabilizing the boat until after Christopher had stowed their oars and joined him. Together they easily beached the seventeen-foot skiff, a replica of those that had been used along the Jersey Shore since the late 1800s.

  From the moment Christopher entered the water he experienced the life energies swirling in the blessed liquid of Mother Ocean. So much life beneath the surface for him to sample, but also a perfect way for him to coexist with his Equinox. The intense demand and growth of energy that came at the height of a Hunter’s power and fertility had been with him for close to a year. He had balanced the need to bond in a variety of ways, including using the ocean around him as both a source of power and an energy sink.

  Ryan laid out a blanket and called out to him when he noted that Christopher lingered in the water. “Are you heading right in?”

  “I am. And you?”

  Ryan smiled boyishly, spreading his arms and raising his face to the sun. “I’m already in my environment.”

  True, Christopher realized. Ryan’s ability to store and use the power of the sun allowed him to gather very potent energy regularly, making his affinity much more formidable and lethal than that of other Shadow Hunters.

  “I’ll be back,” Christopher advised and grabbed the floating red and white scuba diving flag he would toss out over where he hunted. It provided an explanation for the extreme amount of time he spent below the surface.

  He swam out until he was in about thirty feet of water, released the diving flag, and then sank below the surface. As luck would have it, a small school of brown-green weakfish were spawning along the estuary floor. With a gush of energy, he formed a vortex and directed it downward. It acted like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up a large fish and bringing it up to his grasp through the swirling tunnel of water.

  Two feet of angry fish squirmed and flailed in his hands until he sucked in a bit of its life force and it weakened. Focusing his gathering, he took only a smidgen of the fish’s vitality within him. He needed the weakfish’s energy to partially shapeshift so he could stay below the surface long enough to do the exchange needed to rein in the demands of his Equinox.

  He forced the fish’s life force through his body, and his power drained while he directed it toward his throat. He gritted his teeth and battled the pain as his skin tore open and the muscles beneath the surface reformed, developing gills. Blood vessels rerouted themselves to those new organs, creating an avenue for the oxygen to flow from the gills throughout his body. He grew lightheaded for a moment, but then the outpouring of oxygen flooded through his gills and revitalized him.

  With the skill of a surgeon, he dissected a piece of the power he had absorbed and directed it to his eyes. He created a thin membrane with the life force to protect them against the salt water.

  Satisfied with the adaptations to his eyes and lungs, Christopher stopped his shapeshifting. He released the fish and expelled as much air as he could from his lungs. With nothing to keep him buoyant, he easily drifted down to the sandy bottom, scattering the swarm of fish when he settled in the midst of their school. Crossing his legs, he assumed a traditional Lotus position and opened his eyes. Looking around, he savored the sights around him.

  The bright sunlight streamed downward in muted lines through the clear waters, which shimmered and moved with the sway of the ocean. When he remained motionless, the weakfish returne
d, swimming around him, bumping him every now and then as they came close to check him out.

  Along the rough pockets of sand and rocks near the shore, sea grass and patches of seaweed provided protection for other species. Smaller fish swam in and out of the waving sea grass, while a few feet away, a lobster picked an ungainly path across the floor of the ocean. On the surfaces of the rocks, huge colonies of mussels filtered the water for food and grew so plentiful the rocks appeared black.

  Now and again Christopher heard the distant calls of dolphin pods and experienced the vibrations from an assortment of motor engines and the thump of speeding vehicles pounding against the surface of the water. Jet Skis, probably.

  Christopher ignored the intrusions of the humans, fixating instead on the peace of nature and the potential in the water. From the minute energies in the plankton to the physical movement of the tide and currents, Christopher had everything he needed to restore his life forces. But he also had something even more important: a sink where he could balance the ever-demanding power of his Equinox, which was seeking a strong Hunter life force with which to unite.

  Visualizing the forces within him, he let them flood through every fiber of muscle and tendon to the tips of his extremities. His toes and fingers tingled and the sexually-charged power created by his Equinox filled his sex, reawakening the painful state in which he’d been earlier that morning.

  Rising, he wiggled his toes until he was firmly grounded in the sand. Using the water surrounding him and the numerous minerals in the sand, he allowed some of his energy to course outward from his body, while also taking in some of the vitality from the sea around him. The give and take of power, like the ebb and flow of the tide, slowly restored balance to his system and contained the demands of his Equinox.

  When his core was stabilized, Christopher shut down the circuit and was about to surface when the angry drone from man-made engines beat against his ears. The sound was followed by a solid and rather nasty thunk, whose vibrations carried across the waters.

  He quickly pivoted toward the direction of the disturbance.

  A boat rocked at the surface while a smaller object bobbed nearby—one of the Jet Skis he had detected earlier. Within seconds a growing pool of crimson drifted across the water from a swimmer floating on the surface.

  Blood.

  A human, and badly wounded judging from the blood trail he was leaving. The swimmer slowly submerged beneath the surface in a slick of bloody water.

  Christopher was about to jump into action when out of nowhere a gleaming whirlpool of water emerged. Stunned into inactivity, he watched the swirling waters encircle the wounded swimmer and in a surge, propel him back to the surface.

  Another Hunter had been nearby in the water and he hadn’t noticed? Impossible, he thought, determined to discover who he had failed to perceive and how that had been possible.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Christopher snared the energy of the waters around him, creating a spiral of liquid to propel him upward. Just below the surface, he opened his arms to brake his motion. He took a moment to morph back to his human form, restoring normal circulation and allowing the skin at his throat to knit closed. He also quickly lost the thick gel membrane that had been protecting his eyes. With two immense strokes he broke the surface and immediately heard the frantic cries of the people onboard the boat.

  “He came out of nowhere,” said a woman hysterically, fear alive in her voice.

  “Call the Coast Guard,” another woman instructed, voice even and steady. The Hunter? he wondered, detecting the glint of power in her tones.

  Christopher swam over, grabbed hold of the railing along the side of the boat, and hoisted himself over the edge. Watery streaks of blood stained the stern of the boat and as he stood on the deck, the smell of blood nearly overwhelmed him.

  A man stood at the wheel, radio in hand as he frantically called for help. A woman paced beside him, wringing blood-soaked hands. “I don’t know what happened,” she wailed again.

  “He’ll be okay,” said the other woman, and he peered to where she worked on the body of a young man. The injured swimmer sprawled limply in a pool of seawater and blood.

  So much blood. Maybe too much for the man to survive, he thought, and dropped to his knees opposite the woman. “How can I help?” he asked, although he knew that the kind of assistance he offered would be unexpected.

  The woman finally glanced upward.

  Shock registered in her gaze and he knew why.

  He recognized her from the roller derby match. He had been intrigued and wanted to approach her, but had unfortunately been pulled away to deal with a problem at the clan’s compound.

  Clear gray eyes held a great deal of suppressed distress and that surprise, but she drove it away. She had her hands pressed along the young man’s neck and part of his clavicle. Pink bone and muscle were visible beneath a vicious gash, probably from the boat’s propeller.

  “Press there,” she said and moved her hand for only a moment to point to the gash. A bright spurt of arterial blood squirted across her body from that momentary lapse in pressure.

  “Got it,” he confirmed. He laid his hands across the wound, applying pressure to try to stem the flow of blood escaping from that injury. Warmth seeped from between his fingers despite his efforts. Although he loathed having to use his power in public, he had no choice if there was to be even a remote chance to save the young man’s life.

  Reaching deep within, he yanked energy from his core and sent it down through his fingers into the wound. Heat grew everywhere his skin met the human’s and he centered his attention on that healing warmth to seal the injury.

  The sudden and unexpected tendrils of energy seeping through the wounded man’s body registered against Victoria’s senses. Like vines along a trellis, they twined together with the filaments of healing force she had been carefully discharging to try to knit shut the horrendous wound at his neck. The outboard engine’s propeller had cut through the man’s throat and shoulder area, nearly decapitating him and severing the man’s carotid.

  The pulse beneath her hands was weak and thready, but her power had slowly sealed portions of the wound. As her healing vitality joined with the energy coming from the man beside her, the young Jet Skier’s pulse stabilized.

  She took a moment to glance at her mystery man out of the corner of her eye, examining him for signs of any kind of aura. A faint hint of silvery-sapphire limned his body, too weak to be that of a full Hunter, although he could be masking his power as she was. Thankfully the aura lacked the muddying patches of darkness that would identify him as a Shadow. If he wasn’t another Light Hunter, he was likely a Hybrid and unaware of the unique powers he possessed.

  His gaze met hers for the briefest moment, but no hint of the bright iridescent glow of a Hunter’s eyes existed. Although that, too, could be hidden by a well-trained Hunter.

  Strident sirens yanked her attention to the Coast Guard rescue boat speeding toward them. It would be there within minutes and with it human help, but Victoria wasn’t sure that alone would do it. Increasing the energy she was pumping into the young man would risk exposing her to those nearby, but she couldn’t let the Jet Skier die.

  Opening the portals she normally guarded so closely, she let loose a larger wave of power, and beneath her hands came heat as blood vessels, muscle, and skin knitted more securely.

  Beside her the man jumped and muttered a low curse. She met his shocked gaze for only a second before the gray and orange Coast Guard boat pulled up beside them. The crew members were immediately in action, coming over the gunwale to care for the injured youth.

  Victoria moved to the side, allowing the men to work, but her gaze was locked on the swimmer who had come to assist. He stood across from her, examining her as well. There was no hiding that he had experienced her use of power, much as she had detected his energy. Because of that, she carefully observed her mystery man’s every move, trying to figure out just
what he was.

  “Miss? Miss did you hear me?” someone asked. She had been so focused on the swimmer that Victoria had not heard the Coast Guard crewman.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a little… shocked,” she replied, and rubbed her hands together. Sticky blood made the action a too vivid reminder of what had just occurred.

  “Did you see what happened?” the crewman repeated and stepped into her line of sight to make sure she was paying attention solely to him.

  Victoria gestured to the damaged Jet Ski and the stern of the boat. “I was kayaking and noticed the teen. He was jumping the boat’s wake. Got a little too much air and lost control when he landed. He was too close to the boat and fell forward, into the boat’s outboard motor.”

  The crewman looked toward the swimmer. “Did you see the accident?”

  Christopher didn’t shift his gaze from the bloodied woman as he answered. Until he figured out whether she was a threat, he had to remain attentive. “I was snorkeling. Heard the engines and a collision. When I saw the blood, I swam over to see if I could help.”

  And I saw a vortex that only a Hunter could create, he thought, though the woman across from him seemed nothing other than human. But Christopher could not ignore the wave of power that had washed over the injured young man and melded with his. Or maybe he had misread it. He had been so engaged with balancing his Equinox, that maybe this was a side effect. Maybe he had sensed a rebound of his own energy rather than a second source of Hunter power.

  A sudden burst of activity from the Coast Guard crew blocked his view of the woman as they lifted the injured youth onto the larger rescue boat. Before he could say a word to the woman, the captain was asking for their names and contact info.

  “Victoria Johnson,” she replied and then provided a telephone number that Christopher repeated mentally over and over again to memorize it.