The Claimed (4 page)

“And how can you be so glowing and full of energy after last night?” Sammie groused, arms wrapped around herself to ward off the morning chill.

For a moment Victoria was taken aback, wondering if Sammie’s comment about her energy meant she had
somehow failed to hide her Hunter aura. Most humans usually failed to see even their own energy fields, but on occasion, and especially after a full feeding, Hunter life forces were powerful enough to be seen by humans. Snagging a quick glimpse at her hands and arms, however, she could barely detect a hint of her aqua aura.

Sammie hadn’t seen it either. It had just been one of those regular human comments with no ulterior meanings.

“It’s the caffeine and sugar rush,” she answered and pointed up the back stairs to her home. “Run up and grab yourselves some coffee.”

“How about I just crawl up?” Jan said, and Sammie playfully added, “Or limp up?”

In truth, a slight hitch marred Sammie’s steps, probably from one of the shots she had taken during last night’s roller derby match. As one of the jammers, she had avoided the other team’s defenders to snake by them for points quite a few times. Unfortunately, Sammie had gotten nailed more than once during the later rounds last night, when she had been beginning to lose steam.

“How about I give that ol’ body of yours a massage when you come back down?” she called up the stairs as her friends went for the coffee.

“I’d be your slave forever,” Sammie shot back down, and in the meantime, Victoria went around the work space in the shop, righting kayaks and surfboards, getting them settled into their storage racks, and picking up and hanging out the assorted life vests and wetsuits as well as the harnesses they used on those patrons who wanted to take one of their parasailing trips along the shore. Carefully she checked each fitting and strap, making sure
they were in good order, setting aside those which would require repair.

Her friends came down just minutes later, redolent mugs of coffee in hand, and joined her, helping to put away paddles and other equipment and reorganize the display cases holding the assorted goggles, life vests, wetsuits, and other water-related paraphernalia she sold. They filled in other empty areas with new inventory from her stockroom.

Sammie went into a small storage room and came back with a box of T-shirts, grimacing as she placed the carton by the display rack at which she had been working.

Victoria glanced at her watch. They had been cleaning up for almost forty-five minutes and the customers, if they came on time, would be there shortly. But she had promised to help out her friend and she kept her promises.

“Time for that massage.” Victoria walked to her friend and urged Sammie toward a nearby work table. Snagging a clean towel from a peg on the wall, Victoria laid it out and then helped Sammie up onto the table. Her friend’s movements were guarded, a testament to her discomfort, and Victoria berated herself for not seeing the true extent of her friend’s pain before now.

When Sammie was on her stomach, Victoria immediately began a slow massage of the knotted muscles, gauging with her heightened senses the extent of injury. Minor muscle damage and some bruising, she thought. To alleviate her friend’s aches, she slowly released a bit of her gathered energy to help heal Sammie’s discomfort. She also tried to see if she could sense any Hunter power in her friend, but there was none apparent at that moment.

“That feels great,” Sammie acknowledged with a low moan of pleasure.

To distract Sammie from what she was actually doing, Victoria kneaded the muscles while sending curing bursts of power and joked, “I guess it’s a good thing you retired last night. Your old bones can’t take that kind of abuse anymore.”

Jan let out a hoot of laughter. “Who are you calling old? I believe you are the one closest to thirty, are you not?”

Victoria chuckled and shook her head. “Guilty as charged.”

“Which I guess means that you should start thinking about settling down? Maybe with that sexy Rafael?” Sammie said, peering over her shoulder at Victoria.

“You think Rafael is sexy?” she asked, not that she was surprised by her friend’s appraisal. Her captain was handsome, and the masculine alpha energy that Hunter males projected was a potent pheromone, especially to human females. They possessed no defenses against such masculine vigor.

Which made her think of the handsome stranger from last night.

Jan laughed out loud again and walked over, gave her a playful hip check. “Girl, don’t tell me that you haven’t noticed that he’s gaga over you?”

Victoria paused her massage and treatment of Sammie as she considered Jan’s words. “Really? I’ve known him for so long that he’s like a brother.”

Sammie blurted out, “For starters, don’t stop the massage. And secondly, you cannot be serious. Like a brother?”

Glancing back and forth between the determined gazes of her friends, she said, “Totally serious. He’s just a friend and there can’t be anything more between us.”

Rafael was a Hunter whose descendants had lost the gift of gathering energy centuries earlier. As such, he could never be a worthy mate for a Quinchu. But even if she defied her parents and opted to choose her own bonding partner, Rafael would not be on her list. They were friends and only friends.

“Because of my family,” Sammie and Jan mimicked in tired unison, having heard more than once how any man she chose had to be acceptable to her parents. Victoria left it at that, not wanting to continue the discussion. With a last stream of healing energy into Sammie’s body, she good-naturedly patted her friend on the butt. “Back to work. I’ve got to go to a funeral in a couple of hours.”

“Me, too,” Sammie replied as she sat up, dangling her legs over the edge of the table.

Victoria narrowed her eyes as she considered her friend. “You knew Salvatore Bruno?”

“My dad is an old friend, but not me. However, I do know Adam and his new wife, Bobbie. They’ve been ordering some T-shirts and things from my store,” Sammie said. The evasiveness in her voice could not be denied.

Sammie was doing more than just providing T-shirts for Adam and his wife, but Victoria didn’t press. She understood that her friend had other businesses with the kind of clientele who demanded confidentiality about the services which Sammie offered. Much as Sammie knew when to stop pressing about Victoria’s family obligations, she refrained from asking more about Sammie’s connections to the Brunos.

“Want to go to the funeral together?” It would be nice to have a buffer between her family, the newlywed Brunos, and their people. The Desert Light Hunter clan had been in the area for several months, but she hadn’t spent much time with either them or Adam and Bobbie. That this next encounter would be over the grave of the man who had been both his father and kidnapper was the height of awkwardness.

“I’d like that. These things are always so uncomfortable,” Sammie said, as if reading her thoughts.

“You can say that again.”

And because Sammie was Sammie, she did, dragging a chuckle from all of them, easing everyone from a difficult moment and back to the work they had to complete before Victoria’s first customers arrived and the morning disappeared.

Her energy registered long before she lifted the edge of the bed coverings and slipped onto the mattress beside Christopher. Maya’s hand snaked around his waist, skimming along his midsection toward the erection caused by a combination of the morning and the strength of her Hunter allure.

Sucking in a breath, he grabbed her hand before she could touch him intimately and left the bed. He stood beside it, naked, glaring at her, nearly hobbled by his almost painful erection. As Maya peered at his engorged cock, she smiled like the proverbial cat.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, reaching for a robe.

Maya lowered the bed coverings to expose her breasts. Another wave of need rolled over him and she knew it.
Her particular affinity was sexual energy, and she both gathered and dispensed it to suit her needs. Maya smiled, raised her hand, and stroked the tip of her breast. His erection jerked in response and his balls tightened to the point of agony.

“You are my Añaru. I live to please you,” she said, smiling sexily while she continued to touch herself.

“I have no need of your services, Maya. If you came to me hoping to rekindle our relationship—”

“I came because I believe you are right about the old ways,” she replied, but the words were as false as the passion she roused.

“Go back to your room, Maya. Find someone else to satisfy,” he commanded, his tone flat and hard as granite, leaving no doubt about his intentions.

With a quirk of her lips and a final tug on her hardened nipple, Maya flounced from his bed, making it a point to brush against him. She emitted another blast of her power, which nearly buckled his knees, dragging a groan from him. She paused, as if believing he would reconsider and ask her to satisfy him, but he warned, “Leave now. I am not my father.”

Alexander would take anything and everything he wanted, but Christopher required more in a relationship. With a flick of his wrist, he slammed the door after her.

Maya chuckled with daring. Alexander would have already crumpled under the onslaught of her power and would have been gratifying both of them by now. Hard, fast, almost impatiently, and with a final stroke of his hand and sip of Añaru power, Alexander could curl her toes with pleasure and have her screaming out her completion.

Not that Christopher was a slouch in bed, Maya thought as she left his bedroom and returned to her own. During their short engagement they had made love more than once and it had been incredibly rewarding. But she knew Christopher had delusions that it should be about more than just physical gratification.

Maya had no such delusions. As the equivalent of what humans called a succubus, she lived for only one thing: sexual pleasure. It was both her gift and her curse.

When she entered her room, she crept back beneath her covers and picked up the cell phone by the bed. With a quick push she speed-dialed while fondling her breast with the other hand. Christopher might not want morning satisfaction, but she did.

“Good morning, Alexander,” she said after hearing his low, sex-husky tone.

“Is it a good morning?” he asked, seemingly perturbed by her call. When a very feminine chuckle erupted in the background, she understood why.

“I can hear that it’s good for you,” she teased and imagined him with another woman. Her sex swelled and dampened and she inched her hand downward, stroking her fingers along the moist cleft.

“Have you satisfied my son?” he asked abruptly.

With a soft sigh as pleasure rose in her, she said, “Not yet, Alexander. But he will find that resisting me can be quite… painful.”

Alexander chortled with understanding. “Work him hard, Maya. We need to find where that font of Quinchu energy is,” he said, referring to the amazing Light Hunter power that Christopher believed to be somewhere along this bit of Jersey Shore.

“Do not worry, Alexander. I know just what to do.” She snapped the cell phone shut and tossed it onto the bedspread, having more pressing business for her hand.

With one hand between her legs and the other at her breasts, she closed her eyes and recreated the mental image of Christopher’s magnificent state that morning. She stroked herself and imagined it was him, filling her with that long thick girth. Caressing herself more roughly, she pressed harder until she perched on the rim of release.

With a wave of her own power that she sent through her body, Maya pulled herself over the edge, arching her back and crying out with the ecstasy that suffused her.

Afterward, she lay on the bed, breathing heavily. A light sheen of sweat coated her body, but combined with the nip of the morning air it chilled her skin, reminding her that she lacked a lover’s warmth in her bed.

Driving away the nascent self-pity, she jerked up the sheets and buried herself beneath them. Allowing her mind to wander across all she knew about Christopher, she laid out her one goal for him: binding with Christopher during his Equinox.

Alexander’s son might be advocating a new direction for their Shadow Hunter clan, but Maya was certain that he would not avoid his responsibilities to the woman with whom he mated. That binding was essential to the survival of their people and Christopher would not risk that for his own selfish wants.

Because of that, she would be in his face and elsewhere, making sure that Christopher was aware of her presence and more than willing to help him with his needs.

Maya intended to be his Equinox mate and nothing was going to stop her.

V
ictoria stood beside her parents at Salvatore Bruno’s funeral, front and center where the Brunos, Desert clan Light Ones, and Quinchus would be sure to see them. With such short notice, the show of force that her parents had wanted to present amounted to approximately three dozen of their Ocean clan. Possibly intimidating to a clan that had been decimated by Shadow attacks and a hard life in the desert, but not to Adam Bruno, who seemed to have amassed many acquaintances in his life as a human.

Besides Sammie and the man that Victoria recognized as Sammie’s father, a hundred or more people filled the church behind the tight-knit group closest to the casket. Judging from the strong resemblance of the individuals near Adam and his wife, she assumed they were his family.