Page 32 of Claimed

“Yes,” Piotr shudders. “Definitely.”

“Just one?”

“Yes. One. It looks old. Well, it does not look old. It looks ageless. Smooth skin, but old eyes. Face like it was carved out of stone. Also, he said he was a vampire.”

There are no real protocols in place in the event of a visit from a vampire, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to defend the pack.

“Double the patrols, and put the pack on defensive alert, move all whelps and females to the center of the hold—but show him into the front drawing room.”

The castle is large and has many rooms. The one I intend to take this guest in is right by the front door, opposite the guard hall. It is a room in which a guest who is not a friend can be welcomed with some measure of security.

Elena is away on assignment. She would lose her mind if she knew that a vampire was here, at the castle. I do not know if she would panic, or be so excited about the prospect of meeting one that she’d rush into the room.

I prepare myself briefly and then proceed to deal with the threat.

My orders have already been carried out. The pack is on alert. The energy can be sensed in the air. I am sure the vampire will be able to sense it too. They have intense senses the same way we do, perhaps even more finely honed. They are predators, as we are, but not in the same way we are.

The truth is we fear them, as they fear us. They are our natural rivals, if not our natural predators. I am used to encountering dangerous people, but this will not be a person. This is a vampire, a creature, a thing.

As I prepare to enter the room, Piotr leaves it. He looks concerned.

“It wants to see your mate, too. Says it would be honored if you would bring her with you. Something in the way it said it makes me feel like not having her would be a mistake.”

Elena’s words of warning come back to me in a rush. The vampires are going to try to kill Anya, according to her. But if they were, this would be a very bold way of doing it.

“He says he’s not here to kill your mate,” Piotr says, very nearly reading my mind. “But he would say that if he was going to try. I don’t think you should meet him. I think we should stake him.”

“If there is a vampire who has visited us in our home in the middle of the day, we can assume he is of sufficient age to not need to avoid the sun. That also means he was more than capable of tearing every single one of your throats out the moment he saw you. You know they can move faster than us in our human forms.”

“He might just be waiting until we let him in, massacre the entire pack.”

At that moment, the door to the lounge opens.

It ismydoor.

This ismycastle.

Myterritory.

There should be absolutely no way that anybody else should be able to cut a dominant figure here.

And yet, the vampire manages it.

He is tall, gaunt, and yet somehow powerful. He looks at me with deep, dark eyes that hold just a hint of red that gleams as if it is being lit by a candle that does not exist.

“I have no intention of doing any of you harm,” the vampire says, speaking in an Eastern European accent. I am surprised to hear it, though I should not be.

Piotr tucks in behind me. I feel him bristling, on the verge of a shift. I put a hand back to try to calm him. The last thing I need now is some kind of mass panic and shift. I want everybody thinking and relaxed for the moment. If someone is going to shift and attack, it will be me.

I look at the vampire more closely. He is at least six foot six tall, and very lean. He is wearing a bespoke tailored three-piece suit, largely black but with a deep burgundy lining. His hair is dark, thick, and slicked back, displaying a traditional widow’s peak. He looks every inch what he is—vampire. A walking stereotype.

“Good to hear,” I say.

“Will your mate be joining us? Most of this discussion pertains to her.”

I am about to say no, absolutely not, when Anya simply appears in the hall behind us. Some sixth sense must have let her know she had been summoned by the dead creature.

I am trying not to be visibly disturbed by the vampire. They lack life in such a fundamental way. There is nothing but death on display in front of me, animated absence of life. That is why Piotrcalls it ‘it.’ There’s something about the vampire that truly feels as though it has no real life. It has been designed to consume and little else.

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