Theirs to Claim

Theirs to Claim

By

LeTeisha Newton

Copyright © September 2012, LeTeisha Newton

Cover art by Mina Carter © September 2012

Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

Amira Press

Charlotte, NC 28227

www.amirapress.com

ISBN: 978-1-937394-66-0

No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and e-mail, without prior written permission from Amira Press.

Dedication

For those women out there who live life on the edge. For who one just isn’t enough and they don’t apologize for it! This is for you…

Chapter One

The breath pumped out of her lungs like a locomotive, loud and startling in her ears. She knew he could hear it, just behind the pounding of her frantic, beating heart. She could feel him behind her, but she never looked back, just kept pounding the pavement, one foot in front of the other, as though the dogs of Hades were chasing her . . . Maybe they were. A cloying cloud of sulfur and brimstone choked her until her eyes were streaming and she gasped for those fading breaths.

“Please,” she begged to no one and everyone, “please don’t let me die.”

Her heels had been tossed and forgotten minutes before, and she could feel the aching and stinging in her feet, but she couldn’t stop. Frenzied thoughts passed through her head. Why had she decided to go on this blind date? Why in the hell had she let Jezzie, of all people, set it up? Why? Because murders on the quiet back roads of small-town Texas weren’t supposed to happen! Screw it. She refused to be the first.

Biting down hard on her lip to keep her focus, Zelina tucked her pointed chin into her chest and pushed harder. She could hear her track coach in her head telling her to open her stride, not pump her legs faster. Work smarter, not harder. She shook her hands loose, fell into the old chin-to-hip motion, and tried her best to breathe. She was going to get away, and if he caught her, she was going to make sure he wouldn’t do this again.

When Jezzie had described that Z had to give someone other than “the brothers” a shot, she’d finally given in. Brian had been handsome, charming, and smooth. Striking gray eyes, expertly chopped dark hair, and an unembellished charcoal suit made him look as though he had stepped out of
GQ
magazine. At least in Z’s mind it had. Jezzie was a senior editor for her publishing house. It really wouldn’t have surprised Z in the least that she knew someone who looked like him and came from that world. That he also seemed to be equally mesmerized by her natural hair twisted into a side-hold bun, streaks of blond and lighter brown throughout, and her nearly six-feet height, she thought she had it good. When she caught him checking out her nice—if she must say so herself—behind in her pencil skirt, she figured he was on the right track. She’d even liked the combination of her darker skin against his much paler flesh.

From there, dinner had gone off without a hitch. He’d complimented her hazel eyes, her angular face, but in a way that didn’t stink of flattery. It felt as if someone was truly seeing her for the first time, and she’d let herself relax, giving her bestie a mental high five for a job well done. By the time the damn dessert course was served, she could have sworn she could hear wedding bells in the distance. He was just that good, and Z couldn’t figure out why a guy so easy with himself, no cockiness found, no need to overimpress, or stress, seemed to be single. It just didn’t ring.

When she’d stepped out of the bathroom of the restaurant, conveniently away from prying eyes and those trying to enjoy their food, he was waiting for her with the darkest look she’d ever seen. She’d kind of gotten a clue and the shock of her life.

Chapter Two

“What—” was all she got out before he lunged at her.

Fear kept her immobile for a moment until anger kicked in. Stepping back into the bathroom, nearly slipping on water on the floor, she’d taken another look at Mr. GQ. His face seemed longer, eyes sunken and dark, his hair slicked back over his scalp as though he’d been running a marathon. He looked . . . hungry. He’d continued his pursuit of her into the bathroom, and she’d seen something she never thought possible in her life. One loafer-covered foot stepped into the water, and Brian let out a wail like a friggin’ demon spawn before jumping back, smoke rising from the melting material.

Frozen in a tableau of predator versus prey for those seconds, Z wasn’t sure what to do. Someone must have heard the sound. Surely someone would come running, wouldn’t they? But could they face whatever this thing was in front of her? Would he harm them for coming to save her? She looked over his shoulder, and Brian caught the motion.

“No one’s going to save you here.”

“What do you want from me? You won’t get away with this. We’re in a restaurant full of people.”

“To answer your first question . . .” he said, smiling at her.

Zelina felt her knees turn to water as she slid to the ground, cold and wetness seeping into her dress. Four perfect pointed teeth hung down over his bottom lip, the exact stupid lip she’d wanted to come up close and personal with at some point. Damn, what a way to spoil the mood!

Sufficiently happy he’d gotten her attention, he continued as if her world hadn’t been totally ripped from its foundations. “Good, you understand. Now, as to the second question, the moment you got up from your seat to find your way back here, you ceased to exist. They will never hear you scream.”

His smile made her sick to her stomach. His assurance that she was beaten served to piss her off. Just the typical a-hole who knew he got everything for nothing. Zelina, shaking in her stilettos, wasn’t going down that easy. Thinking quickly, she reached for the dampness she’d felt under her butt and splashed as much as she could at his approaching body. A lucky shot caught him across the eyes and face, dragging him to his knees. Amid the smoke and putrid smell of burning flesh, Z made a dash for the exit.

His fingers reached for her, nails slicing gashes into her thigh, but she slid past him. She ignored the burning as much as she could, sprinting through frozen, silent bodies to reach the door. He had been right. No one was coming, and no one had even heard her scream. They all stood like left-alone marionette dolls in the restaurant, still in midstride, mouths agape on silent laughs, and even poised on the brink of a kiss. None of them could help her. She was a space in time they wouldn’t even remember.

Chapter Three

As the events washed over her, the same fear, helplessness, and her fight-or-flight swam around her, but Zelina pushed through it. She didn’t know how long she’d been running, but something in her told her she was running out of time, that any second she would—

“Got you,” Brian growled in her ear, slamming her to the ground, the breath whooshing out of her lungs. She felt dazed. He flipped her over in his arms, spittle dripping from his mouth. Pockmarks marred his once-handsome face.

The sight of him sent air careening back into her lungs, and she struggled against him, clawing at him with her nails and trying to buck him off of her. It was like a rose petal trying to force steel out of the way. He never moved, never gave.

“Ah, ah, ah, don’t hurt my feelings like that. I just gave you the best date of your life.” He chuckled, his rancid tongue gliding over her collarbone and neck. She felt her pulse throb even more.

“It didn’t end well. Let’s try it again. This time I’ll have a big pitcher of water for you.” Z sneered back.

The slap happened so fast she didn’t even see him move. Fire raced along her cheek and eye socket. Her eye felt as if it was going to explode. He pulled her head roughly to one side by her hair, sniffing at her neck and nuzzling. Did they train all men how to hit? Incapacitate, maim, kill . . . no, that was the military. She was losing her mind.

“Your skin is like chocolate. I loved watching your pulse under your skin as you ate. As you watched me and got turned on. As your body told me it wanted me.” He scraped his teeth against her jugular, the sting biting at her. A small whimper escaped before she could stop it. He chuckled against her throat, nuzzling the skin as if he was rewarding her for the sound before his teeth scraped again, deeper.

“Can you hear me knocking?” He mocked her before his teeth sank in. Pain exploded through her system. It was like twin knives puncturing her skin, and on each suck, they sliced through more.

She screamed. It was all she could do, flailing against his body like a butterfly held under the paw of a lion. She knew it was futile, but she still fought. She couldn’t die knowing she hadn’t tried everything she could to survive. The edges of her vision started to darken, her arms feeling as though they were moving through quicksand. She could feel her soul slipping away. In every sawing of his fangs, she felt more of herself disappear. Tears gathered in her eyes. She was too weak to stop the overflow, and she didn’t much care. In this moment, with her life fading to the concrete, she missed Jezzie, her only family left.

She wanted her crazy friend to pull her into her arms as she always did when times got rough. She didn’t want to know that Jezzie would be dealing with death all over again. She’d thought they both left that behind after the orphanage. Her gaze roamed until it found “their” star, Jezlina. They’d named it so long ago. Friends and sisters for life. Water thicker than any blood for them.
I love you, girl
, she whispered to the star in her mind, her mouth not wanting to cooperate. She prayed with all her heart it reached Jezzie as the darkness crept in.

A flash of blue eyes, so deep they rivaled the blues of the oceans in outer space, in the face of the biggest wolf she’d ever seen in her life, streaked over her. Brian’s weight was lifted, his teeth ripping from her neck as she watched him struggle with the wolf. She really couldn’t take much more of this.

He couldn’t hope to be as fast. The wolf darted in and out of his reach, snapping here and there until Brian was full of oozing wounds. For a moment, Zelina pitied him. Only for a moment, though. Then she was wishing for the wolf to take his fucking head off and use it as a chew toy. The thought made her feel like smiling, but she found she just didn’t have the energy. Z could feel her neck slowly bleeding out, but she didn’t have the strength to stop the loss, didn’t have the strength to try to save herself. The darkness crept in more and more. The loss of heat was sinking in, almost bone deep. In the last, all she could think of was not having had the chance to bury her face in that wolf’s fur and thank him. Silly, she knew.

Chapter Four

Tarquin had never seen a more beautiful, tragic creature in his life. Her skin was of the deepest chocolate, vibrant and alive despite her dangerous plight. Hair, wild and untamed, fanned around her on the pavement, silhouetting a heart-shaped face of angular features and a full, sensual mouth. It was then he saw all the blood his sensitive nose had picked up on the wind. The vampyre had done severe damage to her neck. She had angered the fiend, and he had punished her for it. A large, gaping hole was taken out of the side of her throat. It was ragged and angry, red splattering her flesh and streaking her hair with darkness under the stars.

Her screams told him the vampyre hadn’t even used a glamour to soothe her. He’d wanted her to be afraid, wanted to taste the fear in her adrenaline-laced blood crashing into his system. That told him the vampyre was rogue and that even his own clan would be calling for his death. As a whole, vampyres felt the others in their clans, traced by blood mother to blood child. Over this connection, when one fell rogue, all of them would immediately know and seek out the fallen child to execute him. It was not something he was sure they enjoyed, but he understood the necessity of doing it. Rogues were dangerous and psychotic, always looking for the next thrill kill. To kill was against every tenant of the vampyre, but Tarquin was afraid this one might just have succeeded with his chosen meal. Her skin was slowly turning ashen, and he feared he was too late to save her despite his best efforts.