Page 33 of Claimed

“Hello,” Anya says, stepping up next to me. “I’m Anya.”

“What a beauty,” the vampire says, stepping aside and opening the door to the lounge even wider. “Please, let us begin our discussions.”

I am being invited into my own room. Quite the power move. I hear Piotr growl behind me. I was going to have him in the room, but I decide against it. The space is monitored, but if the vampire is going to do something violent, it will do it before any of us have a chance to react. In fact, it already would have.

So I usher Anya into the room, and she and I go in to meet our fate.

The vampire sits down in an armchair, languidly lowering himself with an easy charm and grace. These creatures just barely follow the rules of physics, and they completely ignore all other natural laws.

Anya and I sit on a couch nearby.

“Would you like something to drink?” I make the offer out of habit, before the creature’s quiet smile indicates his amusement.

“I do not think you are offering what would normally be offered when someone says that phrase to me,” he says.

I try not to physically recoil when I consider that he could have entirely misinterpreted this as a chance to feed on myself or Anya, or anyone else in the pack. There are rumors that vampires can feed on wolves if they want to, though they usually prefer normal humans.

“I am not,” I confirm. “How can we help you?”

The vampire smiles at me, and his eyes slide over to Anya, then back to me. I do not like it when he looks at my mate that way. This is about her somehow, I already know it.

“An ancient accord has been broken, and that must be addressed.”

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

His response is another smile, verging on a smirk. He is talking to me as though I am little more than a whelp. I do not like being spoken down to in my ancestral home. I like even less having my home treated as though it is owned by a vampire who thinks his age gives him ownership over all contemporary things.

“Of course you don’t. I was born over a thousand years before you. My memory is therefore significantly longer than yours. Three hundred years ago, vampires and wolves signed a treaty. It was a relatively minor one, but a treaty is still a treaty. And it involves your mate. That is why I asked for her to be here.”

I am uneasy about Anya’s presence here, but I still don’t sense a threat from this vampire. I am sure he is strong, but he is speaking with what I am sure he regards as respect. I feel as though he is trying to avoid a conflict, something I have interest in avoiding too. Elena’s warnings about the vampire awakening have not fallen entirely on deaf ears. This may be the first of many interactions we have in coming years.

Anya

I squirm nervously as the vampire looks at me, then back at Alexei. I’ve never met a person like this before. I suppose he’s not really a person. He’s more like a monster, I guess. But he just looks like a guy. Maybe a kind of intense guy, but a guy.

“Your mate killed two of our thralls, and ate one of my sons.”

Alexei lets out a growl of something more like shock than anger.

The cold creature looks at me. I look back at it with nothing but curiosity. I know what I did. I am not interested in its summation of facts, but I am absolutely intrigued by the creature in front of me.

There is a void inside it. Wolves are passionate. Alexei is pure fire. But the thing in front of me has no soul, no heart, no true feeling. It is designed to do one thing, and one thing only: feed.

I thought it would be more frightening, but it’s not. It’s strange, but alluring in a way, too. It’s like being regarded by the absence of anything.

“You,” he says, clarifying the words, and looking directly at me as he repeats himself, “killed two of our thralls, and ate my son.”

“They deserved it,” I say.

He smirks slightly. “I am sure they did, but the truce is very specific. No wolf will spill the blood of any vampire, or thrall, and in return no vampire will spill the blood of any wolf. You have broken that treaty.”

There’s a long pause, and I realize I am expected to respond. Alexei isn’t saying anything. I can’t read his expression, either. I think he is thoroughly distracted by the vampire, and not by what the vampire was saying.

“…sorry?”

I offer the word in a sort of helpless way.

“Sorry,” he laughs. His amusement seems genuine, but empty. “That is all you have to say?”

---