The Claimed (16 page)

The latter seemed to please Alexander. “It’s good that my son is not making friends amongst the locals. We cannot allow him to form any kind of connection with a Light Hunter Quinchu.”

“He will not,” Maya replied with conviction. Once it was possible to grab Adam Bruno and drain his power, there would be no possibility of peace with the Light Hunters. But she could not do that without assistance.

“Christopher and Ryan are watching my every move, Añaru.”

A tired sigh greeted her statement. “What do you need?”

“The Light Hunter Rafael promised to take me to Adam Bruno tomorrow. If we can grab him—”

“You need my men to assist?” Alexander asked, and the snap of his fingers drifted across the line. It was followed by Alexander’s mumbled voice as he spoke to someone.

“Three of my men will be on the compound grounds at dusk. Wait on your balcony for them,” he said.

“What if I’m not ready yet?” she asked, uncertain if she would be able to complete her plans with Rafael in such a short time.

“Be ready.”

The aromatic smells of the coffee only did a little to erase the tiredness present in every cell of her body. The energy sharing she had experienced with Christopher last night had left remnants of his life force, creating almost painful desire that had kept her awake off and on throughout the night. No matter what she had done to try to satisfy the need, his energy had called to hers too powerfully.

The Equinox that had seemed to be still so far away had been awakened and was craving completion. Christopher was the most likely candidate for bonding despite being one of the Dark Ones. What little she had sensed of his power told her that he was a potent Hunter filled with surprisingly pure energy. Add to that the fact that they seemed to have a common affinity and a union with him would normally have been logical.

Except that he was a Shadow. A mortal enemy of her people. Someone who she was not sure was reliable, and yet he had given her no reason not to like or trust him.

As she leaned against her back counter and hugged the
mug between her hands, she considered how to deal with something she had never expected.

Just thinking of him had her sex damp and clenching for relief. She closed her eyes against the rampant need pummeling her and took a big sip of the coffee. The heat of it made her wince, but the pain helped drive away the unwanted desire.

“The coffee isn’t that bad, is it?” Jan said, yanking Victoria’s eyes open. She had been so lost in her thoughts she had not heard her two friends enter.

“Too bad we don’t have any goodies to go with our coffee,” Sammie kidded with a smile and a wink at Jan.

Victoria could only manage a low growl and another sip of coffee as her friends poured themselves mugs full of the brew. As Jan leaned on the counter and Sammie pulled up a stool and sat, eyeing her expectantly, Victoria glared at them.

“I should start charging you two for the coffee. It’ll help boost my bottom line,” she said, but there was no real bite in her words.

“Maybe you could afford some pastries then,” Jan kidded, and she and Sammie shared a high five and laugh at her expense.

Or rather Christopher’s expense.

She peered at them over the edge of the coffee cup, wishing for a moment that she was a Shadow so she could just zap them to make her point. “Don’t you guys have work?”

As both of them mimicked looking at their watches on their empty wrists, it occurred to her that they’d make a great comedy team. “Okay, Abbott and Costello. I get it. You want the dish about Christopher, don’t you?”

Jan nodded. “You were gone with him for a while, Victoria.”

“And you don’t do flustered very well,” Sammie added with a knowing smile.

Very true. Maybe because she didn’t get flustered often, much less on account of a man.

Although as that very same man walked in, carrying a white bakery box from Del Ponte’s, it took every bit of her willpower to calmly set her mug on the counter and offer up what she hoped was a neutral smile.

“Hello, Christopher.”

“Good morning, Victoria,” he replied in his rich baritone voice, coupled with a million-watt grin that was possibly much more dangerous than a Hunter energy blast.

“The cannoli thief returns to the scene of the crime,” Jan teased.

Slowly Christopher looked toward her friends, who waved almost in unison, although Sammie had anything but a friendly look on her face. Until Ryan walked in a minute later.

“I see you’ve brought your entourage,” Victoria replied, and dipped her head in Ryan’s direction as he took up a spot by the door.

“I guess you must be really really rich to need a bodyguard,” Jan jumped in, and for a moment Christopher seemed stymied as he looked at them. He held out his free hand to each of her friends and introduced himself. His handshake with Sammie lasted a bit longer and appeared to confuse him again, which made Victoria jump back into the discussion.

“My friends were just on their way to work.” Victoria
reinforced that semi-command with a glare she tossed their way.

“I hope they can take some goodies with them before they go,” Christopher replied, and flipped open the lid on the box to reveal an assortment of breakfast pastries.

Jan, who had an incredible sweet tooth, snapped up a Danish with a flourish and said, “I’m off. I need to get the shop open in time for the tourists.”

Sammie merely eyeballed the goodies and then Christopher. With a wrinkle of her nose, she replied, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, Victoria.”

A strangled chuckle came from Ryan, but Victoria wasn’t so amused. Before she could admonish her friend, however, Jan and Sammie hightailed it out the door, but not without a brief exchange of looks between Sammie and Ryan.

After the door closed, Ryan said, “I like her. She’s got spunk.”

“And she’s not totally human, unlike your friend Jan,” Christopher added.

Victoria almost jerked back, momentarily surprised by Christopher’s comment until she reminded herself that more than once she had wondered about Sammie’s unusual abilities. Besides her keen athleticism and Einstein-like way of understanding any machine placed before her, Sammie had an almost uncanny ability to judge people, which was maybe why she had been so rude to Christopher.

“You didn’t sense it?” he asked before she could say anything else.

“I did, but I wasn’t sure of what ‘it’ was.”

“Power of some kind. Is that why you keep her near
instead of a cadre?” Christopher asked as he took up a spot on the stool Sammie had vacated and plopped the box of pastries on her counter.

The goodies were too tempting and she reached for one at the same time he did. Their hands brushed together, only for an instant, but even that simple touch jolted alive the energies between them, awakening all the dark emotions and desires of the night before.

When Christopher’s gaze met hers, it was clear he was experiencing them as well.

His voice shaky, he said, “Can you give us some privacy, Ryan?”

His friend arched a brow in a warning kind of way, but then dipped his head, saluted, and walked out the door.

When he was gone, Victoria confessed, “I hadn’t expected to see you quite so soon.”

With a shrug and a bite of Danish, he replied, “I hadn’t intended it either, but I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“Neither could I,” she admitted and grabbed a doughnut to have something to do with her hands and mouth other than touching and kissing him again.

“I came on a little strong last night with the whole need to bond thing,” he said with a wry smirk.

Victoria laughed harshly. “Just shy of beat me over the head and drag me to your cave kind of strong.”

“I know, and that’s why I’m here. So we can start over. Get to know each other a little better before—”

“I come to your cave? What if that’s not possible?”

“Because you’re Light and I’m Shadow?” he questioned and arched a midnight brow.

She didn’t have a chance to answer since as if to prove a point, he released his control over his aura, allowing her
to see it in its raw splendor. It was bright and clear for the most part, without the dulling eddies of the smallpox virus riddling most Shadow auras, although she detected its lingering presence. The contaminated energy that remained, however, was no different than the traces of the pox in Light Hunters whose descendants had survived the plague on their people.

“I need to understand how you’ve done this,” she said, embracing the outermost edges of his life force with her hands, trying to comprehend what it could mean that after so long, a Shadow possessed such unadulterated power.

“My cadre and I returned to the ancient gathering practices nearly a year ago. It wasn’t easy at first to hunt only from nature and not from each other or the humans. We avoid their energies as well,” Christopher explained, raising his hands and lacing his fingers together with hers, creating a link of sharing rather than gathering.

As had happened the night before, the conduit opened between them and the power streamed as if they were one. Desire rose and with a blistering curse, she ripped away from him. She was obviously confused and her agitation harshened her features. “I cannot do this now. Others will be arriving soon for work. Other Hunters.”

“I understand. What about tonight?” The sooner the two of them could make sense of what was happening, maybe even come to develop an understanding, the better it would be for their clans and for them.

Victoria shook her head vehemently, her shoulder-length hair swaying with the movement. “I have a meeting tonight.”

“After the meeting then,” he pressed, fearing that the longer things between them remained unsettled, the
greater the risk of his father interfering or worse, discovering Adam Bruno’s location. Christopher had no doubt that Maya had somehow communicated with his father to tell him the news about Bruno. If Alexander had not yet found the unique source of Light Hunter power, much as Christopher had not, he might change his plans and decide to go after Bruno once more.

Victoria narrowed her eyes and considered him. Her aura, which had become visible thanks to their joining, shimmered with vibrant threads of crimson and navy, a testament to the concern that remained. Long seconds passed before she said, “You asked me to trust you last night. I guess that’s the least I can do if it will end centuries of our people fighting one another.”

He smiled, pleased with the outcome. Leaning close, he dared what he had wanted to do all morning—brush a kiss across her lips. “Midnight then. I’ll—”

“Wait for me to phone you.”

He understood. She wanted to call the shots and while a part of him was annoyed another part of him appreciated a woman strong enough to stand up to him.

“Until you call.”

Christopher had successfully ignored the almost sullen glances Ryan had been shooting him all day. Not even a trip to their favorite place to collect energy had lifted Ryan’s spirits. But as they sat down for dinner, his friend’s silence through the first course of the meal destroyed the last remnants of Christopher’s patience.

“What have I done to piss you off?” he asked his friend and second-in-command.

Thoughtfully, Ryan laid down his knife and fork and
then wiped his mouth with his napkin. Facing Christopher, he said, “It’s not anger, but concern.”

“Concern? About what?” he pressed, even though he knew the cause of his friend’s anxiety.

“We have yet to find the power source, but we have a way to reach Bruno.”

“I’m hoping that by ‘reach’ you mean that we have a way to open a dialogue with him,” Christopher said while carelessly pushing around what was left of the excellent foie gras on his plate. He had lost his appetite thanks to Ryan.

“I believe in your theory about the pox which, I guess, means that I don’t want to suck him dry of energy,” Ryan confessed with a negligent shrug.

Christopher dropped his utensils with a noisy clatter. “But you want to do something else with him? Take him hostage? What about his wife? Should we grab her as well?”

A dull flush worked across Ryan’s cheeks. “I would not hurt a pregnant woman.”

“But you would hurt her husband? Deny a child its father?”

Ryan surged to his feet, hands balled at his sides. Christopher had callously struck a sensitive nerve with his friend. Rising, he laid a comforting hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, my friend. I spoke rashly.”

“And your father might already be acting just as thoughtlessly, or has that not occurred to you?” Ryan pressed and raked a hand through the short strands of his hair.

One of the reasons Ryan was his second-in-command was that he never left anything to chance. “I know both my father and you too well, Ry. By now my father already
has a plan in place for Bruno, but I suspect you are on the job to make sure nothing happens.”

“Alexander will likely work through Maya. I have men watching her and ready to act.”

“Then why the anxiety?” he asked, squeezing Ryan’s shoulder to offer additional comfort.

Ryan brushed off his hand and stalked away to the balcony door where he jammed his hands on his hips and stared outside, clearly marshaling his thoughts. With a brusque shake of his head, he pivoted on one heel and said, “Your father and Maya will stop at nothing to get what they want including killing you and every one of the Hunters who are here with us.”