The Claimed (Sin Hunters)

by Caridad Piñeiro

  Ryan snapped the phone shut and eased it into his jeans pocket. Leaning close to her, until his warm clean breath spilled against her face, he said, “Christopher is your Añaru now. The quicker you acknowledge that and prove your allegiance, the faster you will earn your freedom.”

  “I love Christopher. I want to be his mate,” she said, which was only partially true.

  Ryan clearly sensed the lie in her answer this time. “You love only power and yourself. One day the emptiness inside you will swallow you whole if you do not change your ways.”

  Turning away, he stalked to the door, but Maya called out, “As long as I’m a prisoner here, can I least get some wine to help me numb the boredom?”

  Ryan glanced at the dry bar tucked alongside a far alcove in the room where the empty decanter sat on the surface. Looking back over his shoulder at her, he said, “I’ll send one of the maids with a bottle.”

  “Thank you,” she said to nothingness as he hurried out the door.

  Not that it mattered. He had given her the opening she needed. Positioning herself by the entrance, she waited for the maid, one of the humans the Shadows kept in their service. The young woman had barely walked through the door when Maya was upon her, one arm encircling the woman’s waist while she kept her silent with a hand on her mouth. The girl’s fear sent a wave of adrenaline through her body, charging her nerves with electrical energy.

  Fear was not her affinity, but Maya wouldn’t question a gift of power in any form. Emitting tiny pulses of her energy, she quieted the girl before freeing her hunting power. Thin tendrils of bright silver formed around Maya’s wrists and spread to her hands. She focused her mind, pointed them toward the human’s aura, and sank deep into the woman’s life force.

  Desire awoke in Maya as she sucked in the maid’s vitality, but Maya needed the woman alive. When she had drained enough for her plan, she raised her hands and cupped the woman’s skull, sending a sharp electrical surge through her brain.

  The woman’s body went limp and she dropped to the ground. Her muscles spasmed and convulsed as the Shadow energy short-circuited the synapses in her brain. Maya waited until the woman calmed and then dragged her out of the line of sight of both the balcony and bedroom doors.

  Shutting off the lights in the room plunged it into partial darkness as dusk slowly descended.

  Alexander’s men might already be here and she could not keep them waiting.

  Standing off to one side, she closed her eyes and summoned the woman’s vigor. As luck would have it, they were of a like size and height, making the transformation that much smoother, but not without some pain.

  She bit back a moan as bone, muscle, and sinew shifted, assuming the shape of the other woman. Skin tingled and her scalp almost felt as if it were burning as the darkness of her hair faded to the blondeness of the maid’s.

  Maya was sweating and nearly lightheaded as with a final pop of bone, she was fully morphed. Staggering to a nearby mirror, she stared at herself and a fresh-faced teenager stared back, wearing the maid’s simple black T-shirt and khakis which she had also copied during her transformation. She could not risk detection by having to waste time with a change of clothes.

  Grabbing the empty bottle of wine and the tray on which it sat, she headed out the bedroom door. The guard snapped a quick look at her, eyes slitted as he perused her. Seemingly satisfied, he allowed her to pass down the hall. She hurried away, pleased her plan was working so well and that she would be able to meet up with Alexander’s men.

  It was a beautiful night with temperatures in the low seventies and a clean sea breeze that brought an occasional chill. The absence of a moon secreted her in the night’s darkness and allowed her amazing views of an assortment of constellations in the night sky.

  With Light Hunter discussions concluded, Victoria sat in an Adirondack chair on the narrow expanse of lawn that opened up beyond her onto the beach. Her cadre member Mike stood about ten feet away, vigilant for any signs of trouble. Along the slight breeze she sensed tendrils of Rafael’s vigilant life force.

  He had been at the meeting of all the Desert and Ocean clans earlier, but had left toward the end of the discussion. She had assumed he was reconnoitering the grounds to make sure nothing was amiss, and the wash of his energy along the slight winds confirmed to her that he was at work, likely along the beachfront. For the moment, she could just kick back and allow herself to imagine the world of possibilities. Christopher. A truce. Possibly a romance. Maybe even a normal life with a husband she could love.

  She’d had a taste of the latter this afternoon when she had accompanied Sammie and Jan to the local bridal shop. In a whir of silk, satin, and taffeta, Victoria had tried on one gown after another as Jan had attempted to decide which bridesmaid’s dresses would look best on her two friends. None of them had seemed to please her, and the search would continue, but there had been no doubting Jan’s choice for a wedding gown.

  The combination of cream satin with the modest V neckline paired with a fine floral lace coverlet was stunning on her tall and slender friend. The matching floral brocade over the train and hem of the gown would have been fit for a princess. It was the look in Jan’s eyes, however, that had truly made the gown come alive.

  There had been no doubting the love there. Love that had only a small part to do with the dress and more to do with Josh, her fiancé.

  Victoria leaned back in the chair and glanced up at the myriad stars, imagining lying beneath them with a loved one. Sharing a kiss or more beneath the glittering night sky. It brought to mind her plans for later that night and had her contemplating whether she was crazy for considering another meeting with Christopher.

  There was definitely attraction there. Hunter synergy. Man-woman desire. But love like her friend Jan had?

  While she hoped for that, only time would tell if Christopher could bring such joy into her heart.

  She was about to rise to go inside and call him when the hackles along the back of her neck jerked to attention.

  Shadows, she thought, and came to her feet in a defensive stance. She searched the area around her for the source of the disturbance, but only caught a faint whiff of Rafael’s energy once more, making her wonder why her cadre captain was still away from the compound. She had expected him to return well before now.

  From the edge of the lawn, Mike suddenly raced in her direction, small balls of energy in the palms of his hands. Victoria likewise armed herself as in the distance, the murky glow of several auras, at least three Victoria thought, became visible.

  “No, wait,” she said, afraid that it might be Christopher or some of his people. But just to be on the safe side, she called forth her own affinity and focused on a spot about ten feet from the unidentified Shadows. With a surge of her power, she commanded the molecules of water present in the air and surface to merge. Focusing on the sand beyond the edge of the lawn, she directed the moisture there, creating a line of quicksand as a protective barrier.

  But as one of the three Shadows moved forward, there was no question that they were not here for a friendly visit and were ready to fight. Small orbs of power glimmered in their palms while streams of silver, blue, and red light twined around their wrists and arms like angry vines, building yet more energy for battle.

  “Go inside and warn the others,” Victoria instructed, but Mike held his ground beside her.

  The first mortar of energy landed barely a foot before them, almost like a warning shot, and maybe it was.

  “Give us Adam Bruno and the rest of you may go,” one of the Shadows called out.

  Adam was likely long gone now that the meeting was over, but just in case he was still in the house, Victoria once again commanded Mike to leave. “You must go and make sure the Quinchus are safe,” she whispered. Adam and the other Quinchus had too much power for them to fall into the hands of Shadows.

  “I cannot leave you alone to face them. You will die if they open fire,” he said, anxiously glancing between the
Shadows and the two of them up on the higher patch of grass.

  “Draw them in toward the quicksand I created. Maybe we can contain them so no one gets hurt,” Victoria said beneath her breath.

  With an abrupt nod, Mike faced the Shadows and called out, “Come closer. We want to see who wants Adam before we agree to anything.”

  There was hesitation, but then one of the Shadows, a female on the left of the two men, motioned for them to proceed just as a fourth Shadow came running up to join the group. The low murmur of voices, seemingly in argument, drifted up to where Mike and she stood. After some shoving and pushing, the group proceeded toward them, but moments later two of the men started shouting and warning the others as they hit the edge of the quicksand.

  Victoria watched the two men slip in and begin to struggle as the watery slurry threatened to pull them under. The third man who had just arrived went to assist them and with that delay, Victoria urged Mike to action.

  “Find Rafael and get the rest of the cadres,” she whispered.

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” Mike insisted as the Shadows continued to fight to escape her watery trap.

  Their female leader hung back, still ready to battle even though two of her men were mired in the quicksand while the third attempted to pull them out.

  How long they could stand there in this standoff Victoria didn’t know. But then a shout came from far up the grass near the house. Adam was racing down the lawn with some of the other members of the combined cadres to protect the Quinchus. At least half a dozen energy-charged Light Hunters. They burst from the house with super speed, the trails they left like bolts of lightning in the dark.

  Before they reached Victoria, one of the Shadows managed to escape the quicksand. With two of them now on dry sand, they were about to pull the last man out, but Victoria couldn’t allow one more Shadow to be able to fire upon them.

  Raising her hands, she called up the waters again, more forcefully than before and the sand beneath the feet of the four Shadows began to wave and then splattered upward, almost as if boiling.

  The woman shouted something at the two Shadows who had freed themselves and then, to Victoria’s surprise, they stepped away and allowed their companion to sink into the bubbling vat of quicksand.

  “What the hell?” Mike muttered, distracted for an instant by their actions, but then he was suddenly throwing himself in front of her.

  A blast of energy slammed into him and sent them both stumbling backward from the strength of the blow.

  “Mike,” she called out as he slowly slumped to the ground, immobilized by the shot of energy.

  A second blast followed quickly, but fell short of reaching her. The three Shadows were running down the beach to escape the Light Ones streaming down to the beachfront, and the distance was too great for their rounds of energy to reach where she was.

  In the slurry of sand she had created, all that remained of the fourth Shadow Hunter was part of an arm, grotesquely sticking out of the ground where he had been sucked down by the mix of water and sand.

  She knelt by Mike, whose sightless eyes stared at the night sky. Tiny filaments of energy skittered over his almost nonexistent aura. The blast had short-circuited his weakened energy gateways. What little life force remained in his system was bouncing around ineffectively, keeping it from sustaining his vital functions.

  Victoria couldn’t allow Mike to die. Laying her hands on his chest, she focused on pushing out the ribbons of Shadow power that were racing through his body while pulling Mike’s energy back to his center. If she could stabilize him, she might be able to get his energy traveling back over the right paths in his body, restoring his life forces.

  As she experienced the slight shift of power beneath her hands, obeying her will, she added her own vitality, forcing it down into him.

  The first hesitant beat of his heart came against the palm of her hand, but then stuttered.

  A second later, Adam knelt beside her and laying his hands over hers joined her in trying to jump-start their fallen comrade. Adam’s power passed through her and she jerked from the force of it. So clean and strong. Powerful.

  She focused that potential downward, but with no luck. A Hunter body was so different from the human body. Flesh wounds and broken bones could heal quickly, but sadly, a Hunter’s essence could not be repaired so simply. Unlike a human heart which could be kicked back to life with a blast of energy, a Hunter’s core hid far deeper beneath the physical surface of flesh and bone. It was an almost inexplicable vessel that held the seat of vitality. More like an organic battery of sorts that wove through every fiber in a Hunter’s body.

  A battery that seemed to finally absorb the energy she and Adam were pumping into it, starting up Mike’s heart again. In his eyes came the neon light of life, but then it faded swiftly, his gaze dimming. His heart stilling beneath her hands.

  “Again, Victoria,” Adam said, and once more an immense current of energy came from him and she joined hers with it, reigniting precious life, but for only seconds. Over and over they repeated the process until Victoria grew lightheaded and a sharp buzz began at the back of her skull. At her core, intense heat made her feel as if she was burning up from the inside out.

  Her own life force was overheating because she was expending too much of her energy in too short a time on her warrior.

  “I cannot continue,” she said to Adam, and eased her hands from beneath his, needing to restore herself in the hope of stabilizing her power.

  She staggered away from the Hunters who had gathered around their fallen comrade, nearly blinded by the alternating rush and drain of energy. Struggling against the forces warring within her, she somehow avoided the pitfall of the quicksand at the end of the lawn where that damning hand still rose up. Racing to the water’s edge, she sloshed in until she was knee deep and then dove beneath the surface, enveloping herself in the eddies of the life forces in the ocean.

  She stayed below until her lungs almost felt like bursting and then sped to the surface in a weakly formed vortex. Sucking in deep breaths of air, she then dove down again, extending her arms to take in even more energy and restore balance. All along her extremities, tiny pinpricks of light emerged and joined, forming a net of energy-gathering vessels that were feeding power back to the network woven through her body.

  An inquisitive dolphin approached, enticed by the display of myriad colors, and she stroked her hand along its side, absorbing some of its energy. Using its unique signature to shift, her legs and arms melded to form the sleek black trunk of the dolphin.

  Racing through the waters, she fed from its vitality until the drone in her head had dissipated and her core cooled as equilibrium was restored. She summoned the waters around her and propelled herself toward the shore as a swift-moving dolphin, transforming back to human form as she neared the water’s edge.

  When her knees brushed sand, she rose and, pulling the shoulder-length strands of her hair off her face, slogged through the surf back to the lawn where now only the Quinchus remained with Adam and Bobbie. Adam, his mother, and her mother were working on Mike, but as she neared, she watched them rise.

  Mike remained on the ground, his body still. Despite all their efforts, he was gone.

  She stood there, dripping wet, anger threatening to overwhelm her, but then she schooled her emotions. Losing control would not help.

  “Is there any energy left to share with the others,” she asked, since every drop of power was precious. If any remained within Mike, it should be disbursed to other Hunters like him, who could not gather it on their own.

  “None, Victoria. You know he has been weak for some time,” her mother replied, and laid a consoling hand on Victoria’s shoulder.

  “I know. I will go tell his wife.”

  “We will go together, daughter,” her father said, and faced Adam, Bobbie, and Adam’s parents.

  “You should clear out of this compound. It is no longer safe if the Shadows know you are here,” he w
arned.

  “How did they know? We’ve been careful to stay to ourselves and guard our powers,” said Adam’s mom, Selina.

  “Except for last night,” Victoria said, thinking about Christopher and his people. They’d had no problem identifying Adam last night and also knew where she could be found. It sickened her to think that she had maybe led them here.

  “Victoria?” Adam asked, but she shook her head, unable to voice her suspicions.

  “You should go to a more secure spot. I’ll speak to my cadre captain in the morning about investigating this breach.”

  Which made her think about where Rafael might be. She surveyed those gathered around, nervous about why he had not responded when needed. He could not have failed to know of the danger. She had sensed his presence nearby and now she worried about whether he, too, had been harmed during the conflict.

  Raising her face, she sought out any traces of Rafael’s energy, and suddenly picked up a stronger signal. She glanced in the direction of the scent of power and noticed a streak of blue-white racing along the sand. A second later, Rafael materialized along the beachfront before the compound and strode her way.

  Strange, she thought. Rafael was supposed to have been guarding the perimeter of the compound. She hoped he had a good explanation for being away from his post.

  “What about the Shadow?” Bobbie asked, motioning to the remains that were still visible at the edge of lawn.

  Victoria peered at the fallen warrior and was about to unleash yet more of her power when her mother stepped forward. “Let me,” she said, since they shared the same affinity. Hands outstretched, her mother directed her energy toward that spot. As had happened before, water and sand became almost liquid and the last remnants of the Shadow slipped below the surface.

  A sickening feeling filled her gut at the loss of life, both Light and Dark, making her want to vomit.

  As Rafael continued up toward their position on the lawn, he paused a moment to examine the spot where the sands had swallowed up the Shadow warrior. Even in the moonlight she could discern the disgust on his face, but there was something else. Something that niggled at the edges of her consciousness, giving her pause.