Claimed, a vampire romance (Lost) (2 page)

“You need to forget what you saw.” Not a threat, truth. This town wasn't safe for a human who knew vampires were real. Best case, the Senate would set them up to look crazy. Worst... Cameron tightened his jaw again.

“I—” Her face paled and her hand went to her mouth. Then, without another sound, she spun and fled the room.

Alone, Cameron balled his fists and cursed his moment of weakness.

He couldn't leave her like this, knowing.

But as he moved to follow her, the front door to the sorority house opened, and a dozen females flowed inside.

Realizing he had screwed up, he nodded to each of them. Then, slowly and politely, just as his father had trained him, he walked out the front door and into the night.

Chapter 2

Vampire.

Cameron was a vampire, and his brother was too.

And Nancy...

Nancy was with them.

Rachel’s hand was already on the door to her room. She paused. Cameron had said Nancy was okay. No,
content
. He'd said she was content and that Nancy made his brother better.

What did that mean? What could make a vampire better?

Blood. Human blood.

She spun and raced down the stairs.

The doors to the formal living room where she had talked with Cameron were open, but the room was empty. The foyer, however, was full of girls recently returned from the candlelight vigil Shelby had put together.

Rachel hadn't wanted to go. She'd wanted to stay here, hoping that some news of Nancy would arrive, and it had.

“Rachel, did you—”

Rachel waved the girl's concerned look and whatever words she was about to utter away. “Did you see a guy here? Tall, good-looking...”

“He left,” another girl offered. She gestured toward the front door.

Ignoring their alarmed and curious glances, Rachel grabbed her fleece hoodie from the hall tree and hurried out the door.

The mix of rain and snow from the previous night had stopped, leaving the air sharp and almost painful to breathe. Rachel jerked on her jacket and jogged down the sidewalk, searching the streets for any sign of Cameron. A slight wind moved the tree branches above her head, and she could hear muffled music from a nearby frat house, but no Cameron.

She shoved her hands into her pockets and pulled her jacket closed over her chest.

“Looking for someone?”

A man stepped out from behind the giant oak that dominated the sorority house's front yard.

Rachel jumped and glanced over her shoulder back at the house.

“Did I scare you?” The man took a step toward her, moving into view under the streetlamp that lit the walkway to her home's front door.

For a moment, she thought she knew him, but as he stared at her, she realized her mistake. It wasn't that she knew him, it was that he reminded her of someone... Cameron.

Even that realization was strange. This man looked nothing like Cameron. His athletic build was smaller than the vampire's, and his coloring, both hair and complexion, were darker.

It wasn't his looks, she realized, that reminded her of the vampire, but something else. How he held his body, like an animal holding back its instinct to pounce.

She glanced at the house again.

“Are you looking for someone? Your friend, perhaps?”

“My friend?”

“Shelby, I think her name is?” His hand shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, he looked casual and innocent, but the hair on the back of Rachel's neck rose.

“No. My boyfriend. He just left, and I forgot to give him something. He can't have gone far.” She rose on her toes as if expecting to spot this mythical boyfriend hiding behind one of the cars parked along the street.

“Oh, Cameron Renault.” The man's eyebrows rose. “He's your boyfriend?”

She looked back at the house, but the door remained closed.

“How... Do you know Cameron?” Uncomfortable and wishing one of her sisters would decide to follow her, Rachel shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Not personally, but I know of him.”

“Oh.” Not the clearest of answers and not at all reassuring. But, if the man knew of Cameron, perhaps he also knew where she could find him and thus his brother and Nancy.

“Do you know where he lives?” she asked.

“So, he isn't your boyfriend.” The man said it as if he'd guessed as much.

“No.” Rachel held his gaze. She was desperate. Cameron was a vampire. His brother was a vampire. She doubted she would find their home addresses listed on the web.

“I might.” The man tilted his head, studying her. “But first, why don't you tell me more about your friend Shelby.”

“Shelby?” Why did he want to know about her sorority sister? “She left.”

“Did she?” He muttered something, a curse. “Do you know where she went?”

“No.”

“You aren't meeting her somewhere?”

“No.” Rachel frowned. “I told you, I was looking for...” She'd said boyfriend, but he knew now that wasn't true.

“Cameron.” His gaze shifted to the house. “He came here to see you.”

“Yes.” What had he thought?

“Give me your hand.”

“My hand? No.” She turned then, ready to race back inside, but he was too fast.

He shoved the sleeve of her hoodie up to her elbow and ran his nose down the inside of her bare arm.

Then, as quickly as he'd grabbed her, he released his hold.

Rachel jerked her arm to her chest and spun, ready to run.

“Human,” he muttered.

She froze.

Her voice shook as she turned to face him. “What else would I be?”

He smiled. “Not. Human, that is. But you are.” He frowned, disappointed.

“Do you know Cameron's brother? Can you tell me how to find him?”

The man's eyes glimmered. “Dorian? The less-blessed son?”

Less-blessed? Rachel didn't know what that meant, and considering the situation, she wasn't sure she wanted to. “Yes, Dorian,” she replied.

Again the man assessed her. “You truly have no idea where your friend went, do you?”

“She's with Dorian.”

The man stiffened. “She is?”

Too late, she realized he had been asking about Shelby again, not, as she had for a moment thought, Nancy.

“Why would she...” His eyes narrowed. “You haven't told me how you met the Renaults or why the chosen son visited you.”

His presence... intensified. It was the only word Rachel could think of to describe how she felt as he stared her down. He hadn't moved, wasn't even an inch closer to her, but she knew instinctively that she was walking on a precipice.

And she knew just as instinctively that she couldn't outrun him or even call for help before he would be on her.

He was, despite his calm outward appearance, a beast. And there was only one way out of this conversation— she had to appease him.

She stared into the darkness and willed the fear and pain that she'd been carrying with her to sink into hiding.

Then she looked back at him and told him everything, everything, at least, that she knew for sure.

He didn't move during her tale, didn't even, that she noticed, blink.

When she was done, he turned to leave. No “thank you,” no expression of disbelief or sympathy for anything she had said.

She grabbed hold of his leather sleeve.

She could feel his annoyance as he turned, but she had moved past fear. She needed answers.

“Where can I find Dorian?” she asked.

He breathed out through his nose, impatient and put upon. “Forget your friend. Forget the Renaults. Forget everything. Go inside. Pack your bags and head back to whatever little country town you came from.”

His words cowed Rachel, but only for a second. She was from a small town, but that didn't mean she couldn't handle whatever he thought she needed to run from. And, maybe because of that small-town upbringing, she couldn’t leave her friend, not until she knew she was okay.

“I won't.”

“Then you're an idiot, and I don't have time to worry with idiots.” He pulled his sleeve from her grasp and loped forward.

“I'll tell Shelby you were here,” she called.

He stopped and turned. “That would be incredibly stupid.”

His gaze was intense again and threatening.

Rachel lifted one shoulder. “Maybe, but I need to see Nancy. Tell me where Dorian lives, and I won't tell Shelby about you.” It was a lie. If Rachel hadn't lost her phone in the canyon, she would have already been texting her friend, warning her of the man's interest.

He grabbed her by the wrist again, pulling her hand from her pocket and revealing... nothing.

His nostrils flared.

“My phone was lost in the canyon, but once I go inside—”

His fingers tightened. “I'll take you to the lesser-son, but don't blame me if you don't get through this night alive.” Then he started walking, dragging her along behind him.

o0o

“Wolves have moved into our territory.” Cameron's father thumped his fist onto the table in front of him. “And you want to lecture me on 'lack of restraint’?“

Cameron refused to be baited. “Your son almost died cleaning up after you.”

“Dorian's fine. The important thing, the thing we need to be talking about, is the wolves. I want them out, destroyed.”

“No more thralls.” Cameron met his father's gray gaze, letting the older vampire know he wouldn't compromise. “No more thralls, here or for any of your friends.”

Louis Renault raised one brow. “The parties are necessary to keep everyone—”

“No more,” Cameron insisted. He had no issue with removing the werewolves from Crystal City. He had, after the experience with them in the canyon, intended to do as much anyway, but he would use whatever leverage he could to get his father to stop the gluttony of killing by him and his fellow vampire elders. The fact that they made a party of these murders, reveling in their ability to hold multiple humans in thrall at one time while draining those humans dry, made the entire thing that much more distasteful.

His father slid his jaw to the side. “I can't guarantee that one or more won't... slip.”

“You can't control them?”

“Of course— Fine. No thralls. But only if every last werewolf is eliminated.”

“Done.”

o0o

Rachel rubbed her wrist as she stared at what appeared to be a vacant house in front of her. The man who had dragged her out of Greek Town stood beside her, watching her... waiting, it seemed, for some comment from her.

“Is this... Dorian, does he live here?” she asked.

“Last I heard.” The man pulled a smartphone from his pocket and ran his finger over its surface. After a moment, he looked up. “Still no sight of Shelby. But if my guess is right, your other friend knows more.”

“My other friend? You mean Nancy?” Rachel had expected the man to leave her alone once they arrived at Dorian's, but he was moving forward, toward the front door.

The door opened when they were still ten feet away.

“How nice, an invitation,” the man murmured, and he disappeared inside.

Rachel, alone on the front steps, hesitated. Concern and guilt for leaving her friend alone in the car, bleeding, had brought Rachel this far, but staring at the open door that seemed to lead to nowhere, reality began to return.

Rachel didn't take risks. Not normally. Nancy was the bold, throw-caution-and-rules-to-the-wind one. If Nancy was here, she would laugh and dance through the door, turning to tease Rachel into following.

And Rachel would, protesting, because she wouldn't want her friend to take the risk alone.

Rachel blew out a breath and stared at the open door. Then she walked up the last step and over the threshold.

o0o

The door to Dorian's house was open when Cameron arrived.

He paused outside, listening and sensing for any danger or deception.

“Wolf!”

The yell, more of an accusation, actually, was followed by the sound of furniture breaking.

Forgetting caution, he hurried inside.

His brother was in the living room. His hair and eyes both wild and anger pulsing from his body, Dorian strode forward, toward a second man Cameron didn't recognize.

He did, however, recognize the petite, pink-haired co-ed whose wrist the other man grasped.
Rachel
.

He surged forward, cutting off his brother. His fingers clamped onto the other man's shirt, and he shoved him backwards into the wall.

Books fell from a bookcase nearby, and a glass shattered on the floor.

His instinct was to reveal his fangs, but as his lip rose, he heard Rachel suck in a breath.

His anger at seeing the man holding Rachel, however, was too great to do nothing. He pulled the man closer and then slammed him into the wall again.

The man laughed. “Afraid to show your true colors, Renault? Don't worry, the lady already knows what they are.”

From the corner of his eye, Cameron saw movement. He tensed, ready to take on whatever new threat had entered.

“Dorian? What's happening?” Nancy, Dorian's new love and Rachel's lost friend, had entered the room.

Cameron gritted his teeth and cursed inwardly. He had hoped there would be some way to hide from Rachel what her friend had become, but now he guessed that hope was soon to be lost.

“Nancy!” The joy in Rachel's voice was unmistakable as she rushed toward her friend. “You're okay. You're really okay.”

The man whose shirt he gripped growled and swung his fist, hitting Cameron in the side of the head. Caught off guard, Cameron stumbled, and his hold on the man loosened.

The room, however, was small, and there was nowhere for the man— wolf, as Dorian had declared him— to go. The wolf strode forward, as if to approach the two women. Cameron grabbed him from behind, and with his arm pressing against the other male's windpipe, he murmured, “You came alone, wolf? How very unwolflike.”

Wolves, like those in the canyon, seldom traveled alone.

Cameron shifted his gaze to Rachel, but her attention was still on her friend. His grip tight on the wolf, he walked backwards toward the door.

“Dorian?” Nancy's call to his brother halted Cameron's steps. “Who is that?”