Claiming Valeria (2 page)

He retrieved his knife, rinsed it off in the bathroom and returned
it to his pocket. He should get the hell out of there—but instead he hesitated,
listening to the girl’s soft, light breaths.

Drawn by something beyond his control, he stepped into the room
and stared down at her.

She was younger than he’d expected—maybe five turns of the sun.
She was sprawled on her back in the boneless sleep of a child, a nightgown twisted
around her legs, her hair braided into five stubby pigtails that stuck out at angles
around her head like an off-kilter crown. Like her father, her face hinted at fae
blood—sharp chin, pointed ears and wide, tip-tilted eyes—although her skin was golden-brown
where the half-blood was pale.

But like him, she was thin. Too thin.

As he gazed down at that small, skinny body, something in Rui
clenched. If a child of his were that underfed, he’d do anything to get her food—lie,
cheat, steal, even murder.

Which was apparently what the half-blood had done.

Delicate eyelids fluttered. “Daddy?”

Hell
. He couldn’t leave her here to find her father dead
in the hall.

“Shh,” he murmured, “it’s all right.” He lifted her from the
bed. She weighed next to nothing, her arms and legs knobby brown sticks.

Her eyes popped open and rounded in terror. Her lips peeled back
in a feral hiss. Light shimmered over her skin and suddenly he was juggling an angry,
spitting jaguar cub. She hissed again and struck out with her claws. He cursed and
tried to hold onto her, but she twisted out of his arms to the floor where she shook
off the nightgown and dashed into the hall. She crouched next to her father and
raised her upper lip in warning.

He ruefully rubbed his wrist. The little devil had drawn blood.
Not that those tiny claws had done much damage, but still…

He followed her into the hall and crouched down on his haunches.
“Easy, little one. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her ears flattened and her mouth opened to bare small canines.
She growled, a high, baby growl that would have been cute if it weren’t aimed at
him.

He put out a hand, palm out. “Everything’s going to be all right.
I just want to help you.”

She snapped at his hand, her little tail whipping back and forth
in agitation, but he kept it near her face, allowing her to take in his scent. She
took a cautious sniff, then growled again, her eyes flashing the green of her jaguar.
Keeping her gaze glued on Rui, she inched backward until her head was next to her
father’s.

He remained still, knowing she needed a few moments to come to
terms with what had happened, even as his animal urged him to grab her and leave—now.

The little jaguar licked the dead man’s cheek, trying to heal
him in the way of a cat.

That’s when he realized she’d shifted to jaguar, which meant
she was a fada, a shapeshifter—but not a river fada like him, or even some other
form of water shifter. No, she was an earth fada.

He briefly closed his eyes. Could this night get any worse? Water
and earth fada didn’t get along at the best of times, but Rock Run and the Baltimore
earth clan were longtime enemies. At the moment, the Baltimore shifters were in
disarray, wracked by a brutal internal war. But it was only a matter of time before
they regrouped and tried—yet again—to wrest control of Rock Run.

He had to take the cub and get out of here.
Now.
The last
thing Rock Run needed right now was war with another clan.

He seized the little shifter by the scruff of her neck, grabbed
the nightgown and loped down the stairs.

She yowled the whole way. In desperation, he snatched up the
clown and stuck it in her face. To his relief, she snagged it with her front paws
and quieted.

He gripped her neck lightly and stared into her eyes, letting
her see his dominance. Water or earth shifter, he was her superior in size and strength,
and her animal needed to recognize that. Her gaze dropped and she whimpered, all
the fight leached out of her.

He reached the back door and then halted. Someone waited on the
other side, someone who smelled of metal and decay.

The cub’s tawny head jerked up, sensing the danger. She whimpered
again, a small, heart-rending sound.

He swore under his breath and dashed back upstairs. Thank the
gods, there was an open window in the human’s room that let out onto the roof at
the front of the house. He stuffed the nightgown in his back pocket, hefted the
cub in one arm and climbed out.

Setting her down, he inched up to the peak and risked a look
down. Night fae had eyes like a cat, but the two men below had their gazes trained
on the back door.

Just two of them. The S.O.B.s were damn sure they could take
him. If he hadn’t had to get the little earth shifter to safety, he’d have enjoyed
allowing them to test that theory.

He jerked his head at the jaguar, knowing she could easily keep
up in her cat form. “This way,” he said in a subvocal voice only she could hear.
The half-blood’s rowhouse was a few from the end. The two of them moved soundlessly
down the roofs in the other direction.

The second-to-the-last house had a small dormer jutting out of
its roof. Rui dropped to a crouch on the far side, the cub hunkered next to him,
her small body shivering despite the warm night.

He passed a hand over her fur.
Deus
, she was young. She
felt as thin and breakable in this form as she had as a girl.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured in the same low voice. “They won’t
find us here. But you have to be very quiet. Don’t move. Can you do that?”

Night fae were like vampires, but rather than sucking blood,
they sucked energy. The only way to hide from them was to freeze, slowing your heart
rate and breathing, so they couldn’t track you—and pray like hell that it worked.

The cub nodded solemnly and pressed against him. To his relief,
her shivers slowed and her breathing calmed. It occurred to him that she’d done
this before, and the ice around his heart cracked open enough for him to feel a
stab of pity.

Although it was nearly midnight, the sidewalks were dotted with
people enjoying the cooling night air. He heard the murmur of voices, the sound
of footsteps. From somewhere nearby a cat in heat screeched, and somebody threw
open a window and hollered for it to shut the fuck up.

The noises quieted again. Then the sound of a door being kicked
open shattered the night. The night fae had gotten impatient.

Now was their chance. He told the little shifter to climb on
his back. “We’re going down.”

She took the clown between her teeth and obeyed. He shimmied
down a drainpipe to the ground, where he took the cub into his arms and dashed the
few hundred yards to the alley where he’d stashed his motorcycle.

He set the cub on the pavement. “Shift,” he ordered.

She shifted. It took her a long time, her small reserves nearly
depleted.

When she was a girl again, he dropped the nightgown over her
head. It was pink, with a cartoon princess on the front, and something about that
detail brought home how very young she was.

He felt another unwelcome stab of pity, and it made his voice
gruffer than he intended. “Tell me where your mama lives.”

She screwed up her face. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “I
don’t have a mommy.”

Rui tensed, knowing he wasn’t going to like this. But he softened
his tone. “What do you mean,
menina
?”

“She died. The bad men hurt her and she died.”

Hell.
Rui stared down at the girl, flummoxed. He could
leave her near a Baltimore earth fada’s den—the earth shifters had dens scattered
all over the city, unlike his clan, who preferred living together in a single underground
base. They would know who her mother was.

But with her mother dead, would the earth clan accept a mixed-blood
child, especially one with night fae in her? Hell, for all he knew, her mother had
been caught up in the savage internal war the Baltimore shifters were fighting,
one that had left whole families dead. It would explain why Silver hadn’t asked
the earth clan for help hiding his daughter.

Handing the little girl over to the Baltimore shifters could
be signing her death warrant. And apparently the night fae were after her too.

That’s when it hit him. The half-blood hadn’t stolen a
thing
from Tyrus. He’d stolen this child.

Which meant that Rui had killed a man simply for protecting his
own daughter.

His whole body went rigid.

The little shifter gave a moist sniff.

He scraped a hand through his cropped black hair. “What’s your
name?”

“Merry Jones,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “M-E-R-R-Y.
Like Christmas.”

He swung her into his arms. “Well, Merry Christmas Jones, I guess
you’re coming home with me.”

* * *

Rock Run was about an hour north of Baltimore at the
top of the Chesapeake Bay. The clan owned a large, pie-shaped piece of land edged
on one side by the bay and on the other by the Susquehanna River, with Rock Run
Creek running through the center. The clan base was deep underground in the caverns
that ran along Rock Run Creek.

By the time Rui had reached Rock Run, Valeria had already gone
to bed. But as he entered his quarters, she emerged from the bedroom, rumpled and
adorable in one of his T-shirts, her dark hair tumbling around her shoulders.

“Rui?” She yawned. “What—” She froze, hand still covering her
mouth, as she saw the little girl.

“This is Merry. I—” He licked suddenly dry lips. “I found her.
In Baltimore.”

Valeria’s brows lifted but the look she turned on Merry was kind.
“
Olá
, sweetheart. Are you lost?”

The little girl shook her head.

“She’s part earth shifter.”

“
Sim
?”
Valeria’s brow furrowed. “And a bit fae
as well, no? But why—” Merry whimpered and Valeria’s face softened. She gathered
the child into her arms and sat down in a nearby chair, rocking her gently back
and forth. “It’s all right,
menina
. It’s all right.”

Merry had been mute the whole way up from Baltimore, perched
before Rui on the motorcycle, one hand clutching his arm around her waist, the other
fisted around her clown. She hadn’t even complained when he brought her through
the narrow tunnel that was the only way for a land dweller to enter the base.

But now she burst into tears. “I…want…my daddy.”

“Shh,” murmured Valeria. “Of course you do. Don’t worry, we’ll
find him for you.”

“Can you?” Merry sniffed. “Please?”

“Of course.
Senhor
Rui will help me. He’s the best tracker
in the clan.”

Rui swallowed something sharp as glass. “I can’t,” he said, and
switched to Portuguese so the girl wouldn’t understand him. “
Ele está morto
.”

Valeria sucked in a breath. She glanced at Merry and replied
in the same language. “Does she know?”

“She was there. She didn’t see it happen but she saw him after.”

“Poor baby.” Valeria pressed a kiss to the little girl’s head.
“But why bring her here?”

“She’s mixed—human, night fae, earth fada. I asked about her
mother, but she told me she’s dead. I was afraid to leave her with the Baltimore
shifters.”

Valeria nodded. She’d only been at Rock Run a couple of months,
but she’d heard about the local earth fada and their problems.

Then her full lips pressed together. “Her papa.” Her gaze was
accusing. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

He looked away. “
Sim
.”

“
Madre de Deus
.” The words were a horrified whisper.
“How could you?”

The bond between them was still tenuous, not complete until both
of them accepted it during the mating ceremony—but he felt her recoil from him.

It sliced at the deepest part of him. Valeria had grown up in
a prosperous clan in Portugal—an old, rich clan, where the warriors didn’t have
to hire themselves out as assassins and mercenaries just to survive. She didn’t
understand that he’d had no choice.

“
Querida
—” He reached out a hand.

She ignored it to murmur to Merry.

His animal rumbled, puzzled and angry. She was the mate. She
should know that if he killed, it was for the good of the clan.

“Valeria,” he said, louder this time.

She stiffened but resolutely kept her gaze on Merry. He let the
hand drop back to his side.

Merry lifted her head from where she was cuddled close to Valeria’s
heart to scrutinize him with hazel eyes slashed with shards of green, her jaguar
very close to the surface.

“Are you a bad man?” The question hung in the air.

Rui opened his mouth, then shut it again. He shook his head and
took a step back. At the door, he said, “I have to report to Dion.”

Valeria finally lifted her head to look at him. He blinked. His
warm-hearted, sensual,
maternal
woman looked as unforgiving as the harshest
judge.

“You do that. And then don’t come back. Not tonight, anyway.
She needs time.”

He stared back, despair an icy sludge in his veins. It was then
that he realized how much he’d counted on her warmth to balance the coldness in
him. He glanced from Valeria to the tearful little girl and then wrapped the familiar
chill around him like a shield and with a curt nod, left the apartment.

He made the walk to the alpha’s quarters encased in that same
chill gray ice. Despite the late hour, Dion answered on the first knock. He took
in Rui’s tension with one sharp look. “What happened,
irmão
?”
He waved
him inside and closed the door.

“It’s done. But—” Rui explained about Merry Jones.

“She’s our clan now,” his friend said immediately. “I’ll go to
her, mark her with my scent so the others know she’s under my protection.”

Rui nodded. He’d expected Dion to see it that way, even though
the last thing they needed was another mouth to feed—and an earth shifter at that.