The Claimed (14 page)

As Adam completed his short speech and returned to the front row, Maya could discern matching power in the woman beside him. His wife, and a pregnant one at that, if Maya was not misinterpreting the slight baby bump. Beside them were people who could only be Adam’s real mother and father, and yet there was only a minimal hint of power from them and those further down the row. They were cloaking their Hunter auras, not that it mattered anymore.

Adam’s presence had given them all away.

She had to find Christopher and the others to tell them, uncertain if they had detected the Light Ones. Maya was eager to win her place amongst them because she was uncertain whether Alexander could retain the position of Añaru for much longer. Even she had detected that his life force grew weaker every day despite the repeated feedings he undertook from any Shadow who came near and the ever increasing body count of humans he left drained of life.

Maya was no fool. She planned on being on the winning side. When she turned toward the darkened wings of the hall, intent on alerting Christopher and Ryan, she saw them.

Christopher and a woman, standing close together. A singular aura surrounded them, pulsing almost melodically as the two life forces united.

Impossible
, Maya thought. Light and Shadow Hunters could not meld their energies, and yet Christopher and the woman beside him seemed to be in harmonious sync.

She pivoted, intent on hiding in the shadows to further observe them, and nearly bumped into the man. No, not a man, but a Light One, she realized as her energy rasped against his like stone grinding against stone. She
was about to reach out for power to defend herself when he growled his warning.

“Do not consider it.”

His hands were low at his sides, but at their centers were two gleaming balls of energy. Considering his size, the density of the orbs, and his proximity, one blast would be enough to literally fry her alive.

“I mean no harm,” she said in a low husky voice, almost a purr, as she allowed some of her sexual energy to leak, hoping he would not be immune to her allure.

He maintained his slightly wide-legged stance. A warrior’s carriage, ready to act. His attention was focused on her except for a quick glance beyond her shoulder, which was followed by a longer look.

He had seen them. Christopher and the female Light Hunter. It seemed to take all of the warrior’s willpower to return his attention to Maya, revealing a weak spot in his armor: the woman.

“She is important to you,” Maya said, recognizing his interest in the female with Christopher.

A slight give in his posture and a trembling in his fingers created another chink for her to widen. “He is important to me. The last thing I want is him bonding with a Light Hunter bitch.”

In a move so quick she was unable to defend, the Light Hunter warrior grabbed her by the throat and drove her against the wall. The orb of energy that had once been at the palm of his hand snaked around her neck and slowly tightened in punishment.

He leaned down until his face was so close, his nose bumped hers as he snarled, “Do not dare disrespect her. She is my Quinchu.”

Somehow Maya managed to eke out, “And he is my Añaru’s son.”

Reaching up, she splayed her hand on his chest and although the temptation of his energy was strong, inviting her to feed, she instead released smidgens of her sexual energy, in such tiny doses that it would produce comfort and not need.

Within seconds his grasp at her neck relaxed in hesitant fits, although he remained on guard and capable of ending her life with a blast of the orb in his other hand.

“We cannot let this happen,” she said, inclining her head in the direction of where Christopher and the Quinchu had been just moments earlier.

The Light Hunter warrior tracked her gaze and when he found himself staring at empty space, the defined lines of his face became brittle as crystal. Bits of neon crept into his irises, proclaiming that he was starting to lose control of his power. Emotion would soon make the true extent of his energy visible to all around them.

“Will you help me?” Maya asked. The heat of his anger was evident, and she hoped she could use it to turn him.

“Yes,” he hissed and released her.

Victoria tugged on Christopher’s hand as they stepped into the early summer air, drawing him away from the auditorium and over to a nearby gazebo where they could have a private discussion. Where their hands touched, there was no denying the flow of power, passing between the two of them in a perfect and untainted circuit.

Once they were within the protection of the gazebo, she dropped his hand and wrapped her arms around
herself, trying to contain her energy and restore some kind of balance.

“I don’t understand,” she began, still unsure of what he had mentioned earlier. “Why does your father want Adam?”

“Salvatore told him Adam had great power and my father is all about the power,” he responded, no hint of evasion in his voice.

“Speaking of power, how is it possible that our life forces are so similar? You’re a Shadow,” she said, pacing back and forth in the small space.

Christopher dragged shaky hands through the thick locks of his dark wavy hair and blew out a long breath. “I don’t know, why, except… my affinity is water.”

“As is mine,” she confessed, imagining that was one reason for the synchronicity of their energies.

“We were once the same people. Before the pox and contamination. We are not all that different,” he urged.

Victoria could not accept such a bald-faced statement. There was very little that was similar between the warlike Shadows and her people.

“Why does your father want Adam?” she pressed yet again.

He shrugged those impossibly broad shoulders, and beneath the fabric of his dress shirt, powerful muscles rippled with the action. “Why else? He wants to suck him dry of every bit of energy.”

“And you don’t?” Victoria immediately challenged, standing directly before him, but in a defensive stance, legs slightly apart and her hands at her sides where, if need be, she could release an energy blast to protect herself.

He mimicked her posture, but there was something almost relaxed about him. Especially as he approached until he stood barely an inch from her and the thrum of his power became one with hers, creating that circuit once more without even touching her. The energy was so in tune with hers, an almost audible tone sang in the silence of the night.

“If I wanted to take you, don’t you think I would have already?” It was impossible to miss the double entendre behind his words.

“Do you think I am that easy?” she asked, and took hold of his hands, releasing a wave of energy from deep within that had him shaking beside her with want. But her display backfired as the power surged back through the circuit between them and into her.

She stifled a moan as desire slammed into her. When she attempted to break away, he held her fast with a gentle grip. As their gazes connected, the slow rise of fluorescent light in his eyes mimicked the revelation of his real life energy.

His dark, nearly black eyes grew a startling shade of teal, and his aura, unlike the muddied energies of other Shadow Hunters, was a clear crystalline sapphire. It was as pure as her life force which awoke in response, acknowledging the similarity of their vitality, making it impossible to tamp down the need that weakened her physically and stole her resolve with each passing second. But as he drew near, leaving not a millimeter of space between their bodies, she realized she was not alone in her insanity.

Christopher raised his hand and with his index finger, traced the line of her cheek, leaving a trail of warmth and
excited energy everywhere he touched. Then he dipped that finger lower, along the edges of her lips, before taking an almost playful swipe across her chin.

But then he went farther, skipping down the long line of her neck to the swell of her breasts exposed by the scoop neck of the gauzy summer blouse she wore. In response, her nipples tightened and as he circled the tight peak with just that one finger, her insides clenched and she could no longer just stand there.

She slipped her hand between them and to his rock-hard midsection. Running the back of her hand all across those lean muscles, she moved farther up to a spot directly above his heart. With one blast there she could take him down, but instead she splayed her palm across that spot and experienced the surge of his energy, sympathetic and strong.

He moaned and his erection jumped against her belly, yanking a pleased smile to her face before she shifted her hand over and covered the swell of his chest. The hard button of his nipple pressed against the palm of her hand and she mimicked his actions, tweaking that tight bud.

Over and over they touched, caught up in something bigger than themselves. In something almost primordial as the true essence of their beings, unique and yet similar, stirred the Equinox tucked deep inside both of them.

Victoria sensed the tendrils of his energy seeking hers, wrapping around the core of her Hunter vitality for a more lasting binding, but she retreated, stumbling away from him, thanks to the force necessary to break the connection and the weakness in her knees.

He would have reached for her again, but she whipped her hand up to stay his motion. He jerked to a halt, his
eyes glittering in the night. The sapphire of his aura and silver-blue threads in its field gleaming as bright and clean as a newly minted coin.

“This is not possible,” she said, fearful of what had almost happened. That she had nearly started to bond with a Shadow, because if she had not pulled away, she would have made love to him right there in that gazebo.

“I didn’t think it possible either—for Light and Shadow to share so common an affinity. But I don’t have much time to wait. Unlike you whose Equinox has only just awakened, I have been delaying mine for some time.”

When she had asked her parents to choose her own mate, she had never imagined that it would be the call of a Shadow that would tempt her. Shaking her head, she laid her hand over her stomach to stop the flutters in her midsection, needing calm before she returned to the hall and faced her family and the other Light Hunters gathered there.

She wasn’t sure what she should do about Christopher. The presence of his people here was a danger to her clan, but so far they had done nothing to cause concern.

But he was a definite danger to her on many levels, and her attraction to him was… insane. Until she knew more about him, she needed distance and she started by taking another step back from him.

Christopher sensed her indecision and understood completely. Their people were mortal enemies and he had no reason to trust her. But lingering streams of her power, so slight as to be almost invisible, continued to connect them with thin strands of energy. He could feel them, partially wrapped around his core. Knew that if they went any further, they might irrevocably bond.

Craziness, he knew. She was his enemy and yet despite knowing what he was, she had not sounded an alarm or sought to attack, surprising him with her actions.

Plus there was no denying the attraction he felt to her, one born of Hunter power. But he wanted more than just a physical union of their bodies and energy. He wanted someone on whom he could rely, a true companion.

“Can we learn to trust each other?” he wondered aloud.

“Maybe,” was all she said, clearly unconvinced.

While they could continue to linger out in the gazebo, they had already been gone too long. Until both he and Victoria had a better clue what to do, it was best that they keep what was happening between them private.

“It’s time for me to go, but I would like to see you again,” Christopher said, and gave a forceful pull on his life force to break the link between them. He cloaked his energy beneath the veneer of humanlike flesh and bone and then hurried back to the hall to allow her time to digest all that had just happened.

R
afael stole from the shadows as the man flew from the gazebo, his body almost a blur of light as he raced toward the auditorium where the auction was well underway.

The Shadow Hunter beside him, Maya she called herself, whispered in his ear, “They have shared energy. I can taste it all around him.”

As could he, although not as strongly as Maya, whose hunting abilities were far more capable than his. Jealousy twisted his gut once again and from beside him the Shadow woman chuckled.

“Your emotions are so delicious.” She ran her hand along his arm, absorbing some of the energy leaking from his body due to his lack of control.

Her red-gold aura brightened a bit, but remained obscured by the darker lines and shadows from the pox, reminding him of what she was. Tainted. Making him reconsider throwing in his lot with her until Victoria finally emerged from the gazebo.

From the powerful pulse of her power and the disheveled look of her light brown hair, there was no denying that something had happened between her and the Añaru’s son.

“What do we do to stop this?” Rafael said, fists clenched at his sides. It went beyond his sense of personal betrayal. For the good of the clan he could not let Victoria become involved with one of the Dark Ones.