Page 28 of Claimed
My arms close around the figure’s body and we fall into a dense section of brush. They wiggle in my grasp, contorting and flexing to break away. An elbow catches me in the ribs. I snarl, jamming my palm into their spine before wrenching up on their arm. The figure hisses.
“Stop struggling,” I growl in warning.
They don’t.
I lean down, pressing my mouth to the slick expanse of a hood as I fill my palm with crimson electricity. “Stop moving or else.” I send a small zap into the figure’s spine and they arch. My lips curve. “There is so much more where that came from—”
The figure rears back, smashing their skull into my face. Pain explodes through my nose and lip. Before I can shoot the arc of my power into their fucking heart, a heel hooks under my leg and I sprawl onto the ground.
I try to sit up and meet an already hurtling fist. More pain explodes through me, and I remember now why I hate fighting without magick. I’m pressed back as a small body straddles my hips.
The magick in my fingers crackles. I slam my arm down on the grip holding me. Their palm slips. I grab a very slim throat as the dark clad shape presses a very sharp dagger to mine.
I stare up into the shadowed face above me but cannot make out any features through a sheer piece of gossamer fabric, like a veil.
My eyes narrow. “Do it,” I snap.
The blade presses tighter. I squeeze my fingers and there is a soft gasp above me.
But the cadence is not male.
Confusion flares and my grip loosens against my will. “Who—”
A dark shape towers behind the figure. I catch sight of glowing amber eyes before the hilt of a wrapped sword meets their head.
The figure crumbles over me, washing me in a soft, feminine fragrance lost under a chemical soap.
Horan hauls the woman off of me and I sit up as he drops her unceremoniously to the leaf-strewn ground. He snatches the hood from a head of lush ebony hair and my jaw drops.
The other bidder. The woman from the club.
He swears and peers back at me. “You good?”
Something warm trickles down my neck and I raise my hand. My fingertips come away stained crimson in the dark. I look at the woman and can’t quite get my wide eyes to return to normal. “She was going to kill me.” I sag. “I think I’m in love.”
He scoffs. “Caine,Iwill kill you if you keep talking nonsense,” he grumbles. “Now get up. The others are already back at staging.” He climbs to his feet and hoists the woman over one shoulder.
Something about it makes heat flare inside my gut and I want to demand that I carry her. That her slim frame is cradled againstmychest.
It’s a new level of insanity. Even for me.
But the heat spirals like a fucking tornado and all I can feel is the press of the blade, her lean but strong legs locked over my body. I rise from the ground and watch her dark hair bounce as he starts back through the trees.
The woman is the most surprising creature I have ever seen. A riddle that needs solving.
Lucky for her, I am just the demon to solve it.
Chapter 10
Onyx
Pain echoes in the base of my skull as soft masculine voices reach my ears, drawing me from unconsciousness. I try to reach and touch my skin, but my arms are pressed taut to spindly chair arms. Of course they are.
I take a moment to assess the pain, anyway. Deep. But nothing too damaging. No nausea or grating bones. Whoever hit me knew how much pressure to use.
But it still fucking hurts though.
I raise my head and peer around, expecting a dark, bare bulb room in a basement or even a garage.
