Page 27 of Claimed

“She does not have any local friends,” I growl. The bartender swallows deeply and takes a step back. He does not know who I am. He does not know who she is. He does not understand, logically, the events that have taken place beneath his nose. But he knows that he has made a terrible mistake.

I leave the bar vowing that she will never be out of my sight again. I will cuff her to me. I will make her mine so deeply, punish her so severely that she will never think of leaving my side. My mate has run away, and I am worried. This level of concern and fear has rarely, if ever, been present in my body. I thought I was worried about her before I claimed her, but the bonding we experienced at our first mating has intensified my concern. I would burn the world to find her. I would tear down each and every one of these pretty historic buildings.

Everybody who came with me, including the local pack, is searching. Minutes tick by, feeling like hours. Something terrible has happened, I just know it. I was too happy. I took things too casually. I trusted that fate would keep my mate safe, and that my mate would behave in a sensible fashion.

I forgot how young she really is, and how impulsive she really is. I don’t know why she decided to run off. Maybe she was following a scent. Or maybe she was just following one ofthe many bad ideas that apparently still inhabit her mind. I remember Elena trying to tell me on the plane that Anya would need to be disciplined. I have done nothing but spoil her. Everybody has.

“Alexei!” One of my pack rushes up to me.

“We’ve found her, boss, but the scene…”

His expression is so fraught, I know something terrible has happened. I feel as though the wind has been taken out of me. If she has been hurt, or worse, I will never forgive myself, or anybody else.

I always thought the problem in getting a mate would be finding her. I never thought it would be a matter of trying to keep her.

He leads me to an inner city residential building in a shady part of the town.

“Here,” he says. “She’s inside. But she’s…”

I push past him and into the house. There are no lights on inside, and flicking the switch does nothing. There’s no power. That’s a bad sign. It smells too, mostly of blood. I smell that before I smell Anya at all.

I can barely pick her up among the general olfactory grossness. So it’s the blood I follow, into a room with peeling wallpaper and the remnants of a bed. Well, a mattress on the floor.

I cannot believe my eyes. The entire place is absolutely covered in pieces of people. Hairy limbs torn from torsos, bones gnawed on and then discarded. The mattress is soaked in blood and there are spilled innards draping the floor like decorations.

I am looking at a vampire kill tableau—it has to be. Perhaps Elena was right. Perhaps they are becoming bolder and tracking us. Maybe my failure to listen to my advisor has led to the death of my mate.

Anya is in the middle of it all, stark naked in her human form. For a brief moment, I feel a pang of fear at the notion she might have been killed, but then she takes a deep breath and stretches in the middle of it all, languid as a well-fed cat in a sunbeam. She is a picture of contentment, unconcerned by the fact that her beautiful bare body is being increasingly covered in sanguine essence.

“Anya!” I snap her name as I rush for her, scooping her up from the bed. We are now both absolutely covered in crime scene. I don’t care. The relief at finding her alive is so intense, she could be covered in anything.

“Bring the car around,” I say. “We are leaving this city now.”

I get Anya out of Prague while she is still dozing in her post-shift state. She is not entirely awake yet, because she has fed so aggressively. The car is a mess. I’ve tried to clean her up with towels and wet wipes, but she needs a shower. She needs a full decontamination.

“Hello,” she smiles at me as she wakes up a little more. “What are we doing?”

She’s forgotten how she came to be so full. That’s not uncommon either. Shifters can have quite a bit of brain fog to begin with when they go from one state to another. It’s not just the bonesand flesh that shift. It’s the brain, too. There aren’t many studies into shifter anatomy, but I think the brain itself undergoes changes. I think there are memories that can be left behind from time to time.

“We are going home,” I tell her. “You’ve been a bad girl.”

“I have?” She smiles. I don’t like that smile. It’s dangerous. She looks far too happy.

“I mean it, Anya. You were very bad, and you are going to pay for it.”

“What did I do?”

“Sneaked away at lunch, for one thing,” I tell her.

“Oh? Good for me,” she says, unrepentant. “Those things are so boring. I have to sit there for hours sometimes, just listening to the talk. Did I do anything fun?”

I grit my teeth and try not to respond either too harshly, or with amusement. She has a certain streak of rebellion in her that I find quite appealing from time to time, but it cannot be encouraged.

“You almost got yourself killed.”

“Oh, you must be so angry,” she says. “You must be absolutely furious.”

“Yes.”

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