The Claimed (13 page)

Victoria’s spine visibly stiffened as Christopher approached. She was keenly aware of his very masculine presence, but also of the possible danger he represented. Even if he wasn’t a Hunter, her attraction to him challenged her to want things that might not be possible.

She controlled the way her heart sped up and her body responded to him. As her gaze connected with his, she detected both masculine interest and prideful pique.

“Good to see you, Victoria,” Christopher said, as he bent and dropped a kiss on her cheek, his restraint obvious. The vibe of power coming off of him registered keenly against her Hunter senses, but she once again noted that it lacked the noise of contaminated Shadow energy. That relieved one concern, although not the other.

“I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls, but I don’t keep my cell phone with me at work,” she explained. From the look he gave her, he clearly didn’t buy her excuse.

“We’ll be starting the auction in just a few seconds,” one of the emcees announced over the microphone, and the house lights flashed off and on as a visible call to attention.

“I see you’re ready for the auction.” She gestured to the paddle in his hand.

“It’s for a good cause.” With a shrug, he leaned close once more and whispered, “Would you mind going somewhere a little more private?”

“I’m supposed to be meeting friends.” Victoria peeked toward the hall’s front entrance, where, almost as if it had been planned, Jan and her fiancé, Josh, strolled through the door, Sammie following alone behind the couple.

Christopher pursed his lips and nodded. “I see. Maybe later?”

“Maybe,” Victoria replied, and approached her friends, although in retrospect, she suspected she would have no peace with them either since they had spotted her with Christopher.

“Is he the one?” Jan asked, waving her auction paddle in Christopher’s direction with a “Yoo Hoo” kind of flair.

“If you mean the dark-haired, good-looking giant in the back, then yes,” Victoria confirmed, and snagged the paddle that Sammie handed her. “Thank you, Sammie.”

“His blondish friend is not bad either,” Sammie teased with a wink in the man’s direction.

Bright color erupted on Ryan’s cheeks at their perusal, nearly matching the hints of red in his strawberry blond hair.

“Quit busting his chops,” Josh warned from beside Jan, rising to the defense of his fellow man.

“Something catch your eye?” Rafael assumed a position beside Victoria, having left her parents in Mike’s care with one other cadre member in the front row. The remaining half a dozen or so members of both her and
her parents’ cadres were scattered throughout the meeting hall, alert for signs of trouble.

“Nothing,” she said, but from the corner of her eye, she detected the glint of a murky aura as someone drifted from behind one of the pillars along the far side of the room.

Rafael must have also detected the stench of Shadow. He swiveled his head in the direction of the pillar, peering toward the area intently before returning his attention to her. “I think I saw an old friend. I’m going to see if I can track him down.”

Victoria bobbed her head with approval, but as her friends started chattering about Christopher and Ryan, she opened her Hunter senses and focused her attention on detecting any unusual energy signatures from those in the crowd. From the area of the pillar came the pulse of diseased power once more, much as she would expect from one of the Shadows with their tainted pox virus.

Another low, insistent beat came from the back of the room, and as she turned to check it out, there was no denying the source was located near where Christopher and Ryan were standing. Once again she tried to detect anything unusual about the two men, but other than having stronger than usual life forces, they bore no trace of Shadow power, although the small field of energy around Ryan seemed more clouded than it had been the day before.

Sensing no other life forces of concern, she turned her attention to the front row.

A very strong push of energy originated from where the various Quinchus were gathered as well as Adam’s wife, Bobbie, and her family, who must have entered
while Victoria had been chatting with Christopher. It worried Victoria that so much power was concentrated in one area. If Shadows were in fact present, there would be no hiding that much vitality no matter how much they cloaked it. Much as when the humans gathered together in certain spiritual situations, having that many Hunters in a tight area had energy calling to energy, awakening it.

When the emcee stepped away from the podium after providing the rules for bidding and lighthearted banter about inadvertently using others’ paddle numbers, Adam Bruno took the stage. He got the auction going with a short speech about the importance of protecting the environment and safeguarding the local areas. Victoria used the moment to excuse herself from her friends to take a slow walk along the periphery of the hall, searching for the dirtied energy she had sensed earlier. She needed to make sure she was aware of what was happening so she could take the necessary steps if her family and clan members were in danger.

From the back of the room, Christopher couldn’t fail to notice what was happening with Victoria and her friends. The man who had been with Victoria moments earlier had disappeared in the direction of Maya and two of his cadre members. Victoria seemed shaken by something also. As she slipped away into the darkened wings of the large hall, he tapped Ryan with his paddle.

His second-in-command glanced at him.

“I need to check on something,” Christopher said, and cocked his head in the direction in which Victoria had disappeared.

“I’ll keep my eyes open in here,” Ryan confirmed.

Christopher nodded, not that he expected anything to happen in the vicinity of the hall. It had filled up in the short time since the emcee’s announcement and introduction, with a large number of humans present from what he could see of their life forces. Those he had identified as possible Light Ones would not risk any kind of confrontation with his small group in the company of so many mortals. But that did not mean the Light Ones would not cull the Shadows out of the larger group and take them out one by one if they discovered what they were.

Striding quickly toward the wings, he caught a glimpse of Victoria as she spoke to the man he had seen earlier. He seemed agitated, but Victoria laid a hand on his chest and he quieted with that comforting gesture. A familiar one, Christopher surmised from the ease with which Victoria had touched the man.

Jealousy bit deep, but he pulled its ugly teeth loose. He had no call to allow such an emotion to trouble him since he barely knew her. Or so he tried to tell himself, even though they had connected the previous night in ways much more profound than a simple first date. But that connection brought its own risk because he still did not know if he could trust her.

Trust being a big issue with him. Of all the people in his life, there was only one whom he could truly say he trusted—Ryan. And in his Shadow clan, there was not a woman who thought of him as anything other than a way to advance her position of power since he would be their future Añaru.

Neither situation screamed happily-ever-after, but then again, Christopher had never counted on that kind of life for himself anyway.

As the man hurried away from Victoria, Christopher sucked in a breath to gird himself against his attraction to her and cautiously approached. When he neared, she looked his way, and there was no denying the flare of desire that stretched between them. It only grew stronger the closer he got. For a moment it seemed as if she would bolt again, but then she faced him and stood her ground.

“You seem upset. Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve just got some family things going on right now.” With a weary sigh, she shook her head, and he couldn’t contain his need to touch and try to reassure despite his concern about not knowing if he could trust her.

The second he placed his hand on her shoulder, the pull of energy arose, so in sync with his own that his center vibrated in harmony. He stepped closer to her as her eyes widened and then dilated with the pleasure created by the link.

“Why is this happening?” Victoria asked, placing her hand over his heart, creating an arc of power that only strengthened the bond between them.

With such a strong current, he could no longer deny what she was. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

A silence like dead air over the radio followed his answer, yet she didn’t break the connection with them. If anything, the flow of power increased as if she was testing the circuit that had bound them together.

“If you’re a Shadow, why is there no sign of the pox on your body or in your aura?”

“My people and I have returned to the ancient methods of gathering. We do not feed on those who carry the pox.” Despite his words, the energy flowing between them was
tempting, and where his hand rested on her shoulder, tendrils of silver and blue emerged, seeking to sink into her body.

She turned to that violent display, but did not move or show an ounce of fear. Her courage only made her that much more intriguing.

“You are an Añaru. I can tell from your power. It’s immense,” she said, a slight huskiness to her voice that heated the need building inside almost to boiling.

“But you are not afraid and your energy is as strong as mine. Pure,” he said as the stream continued between them.

“I am a Quinchu,” she admitted, and met his gaze directly, her perfect little chin thrust out, almost daring him.

“I will not feed from you, and yet…”

He skimmed his hand along the strong line of her shoulder, to the sensitive spot at the crook of her neck. Her pulse beat strongly as he passed his thumb along that point, and her life force, so close to the surface, was impossible to ignore. The beat of Hunter power, so achingly familiar, registered against his senses, but he held back the almost instinctual desire to feed from her.

“You are sharing your energy. I feel it flowing through me, but it is free of the pox.” A storm cloud of confusion colored his words and was surely visible on his features as her vitality continued its path through him and back.

“My Quinchu family is virtually untouched by the pox. As for the sharing…”

With the faintest shift of her hand across his chest, she awoke his aura and hers. Bright aqua and a deeper blue melded beneath her hand and roused tiny bursts of silver
and gold. His body reacted to that kiss of power and he grew hard, expectant, as his Equinox recognized sympathetic power and desired it.

Her sharp gasp of need confirmed that she, too, was experiencing the call for bonding. At that, she broke her contact with him and wrapped her arms around herself defensively.

“This is not possible. This…” She gestured to him and then herself with a flip of her hand.

“Cannot be ignored. Our energies are alike. They attract one another,” he said and obviously hit a sore point.

“I will not let my Hunter needs and obligations rule me.”

Her defiance was more of an aphrodisiac than even her intensely pure and impressive Hunter energy. Particularly since he, too, was determined to buck centuries of tradition.

“I understand and accept what you’re saying. It’s one of the reasons my people are here.”

“Here as in ‘at the auction’ or ‘down the Shore’?” she asked, and did not move away as he once again approached and laid his hand on her shoulder, feeling deprived without a connection to her.

Despite her question, Christopher had no doubt that she knew the answer and opted instead to find out more about her. “Is that your family in the front row? The people with Adam Bruno?”

Disquiet arose in her body and gaze as she narrowed her eyes and considered him. “Why are you so interested in Adam?”

Dropping his hand to instead hold hers, he said, “My family has business with Salvatore Bruno. Unfinished business.”

“Salvatore is dead. He was buried two days ago,” she said, and Christopher seemed shaken by her announcement.

“My condolences, although I don’t think that will matter to my father. He struck a bargain with Salvatore and I expect he will want to see the deal finished.”

She tilted her head upward and peered at him intently, as if trying to discern if she was misreading the underlying threat in his words. “And what was that deal?”

“To deliver Adam Bruno.”

M
aya had managed to elude Ryan’s two guard dogs, giving the cadre members the slip through a back exit to the building. But as she had gone out into the night, intending to find herself a snack to feed her waning energy, the presence of Light Hunter power had registered. Incredibly potent and alluring vigor.

When she sought out the source of it, she noted the tail end of the entourage that entered the building and chased after them. Once she had returned to the auditorium and hidden in the shadows near the front, she detected the real font of the inimitable life force. It was a vitality that somehow seemed familiar.

Adam Bruno.

It had shocked her when the emcee announced his name and Adam took the stage, the glare from the floodlights nearly bleaching out the thin veneer of silver-blue aura surrounding him. Nearly, but not entirely, confirming to her that his father Salvatore had not been lying to Alexander about his son’s abilities.