Page 1 of Connor's Claim

Chapter 1

Connor

The blade in my hand, cold and hard, reassured me in a way life rarely managed. It was a tool of my trade along with the skeleton bandanna tied across my lower face and the needles and tranquilisers in a leather pack in my pocket.

Keeping to the shadows, I stole along the edge of the night-dark mansion, alert for sign or sound of another person.

For the danger I knew was coming.

Once upon a time, I’d arrived at this house with a backpack of clothes and an expectation of living here for a short while. My mother had a new man and had fucking gushed about how we’d all make a home together as a blended family. Them, the deeply in-love couple, and us, the kids.

Me and his teenage daughter.

Everly.

I never expected to feel anything for her but disdain. After all, surely she’d hate our new living situation, too, and loathe thesight of me just as I would with her. Except she hadn’t. She’d liked me. Been kind. Welcoming.

Including into her bed.

That was the limit of it, though. Love at first sight was my failing.

Everly Makepeace had once been my stepsister and my obsession, but never the other way around.

It was the only way I could explain why now, a decade later, with no love lost on her side, I was breaking into her home to protect her.

I took a corner, my sights on a drainpipe that ran up a notch in the wall and which had given me a way into her bedroom on countless occasions in the past, but I drew up short, shock stealing my breath. Starlight glinted on jagged broken glass, the kitchen door open a crack.

Whoever was after her had already got in.

I was too late.

My heart restarted, and adrenaline rushed. I darted to the door, easing inside with my knife ready to carve Everly’s name into her attacker’s skin. Silence held the kitchen, polished, empty surfaces stretching across the space. I already knew from the lack of cars outside that no one else was home. Her father had a busy life managing the city and dodgy deals while wearing his crocodile smile. He wasn’t here. Just her.

Along with a stranger.

Treading carefully, I passed the kitchen’s Italian marble island with my sights on the exit, on protective duty I couldn’t explain. I shouldn’t give a fuck about this woman. She never had about me. She’d been everything to me then nothing, and nothing was where she should’ve stayed. Somehow, my feet kept moving. My muscles remained tight and my focus honed.

At the door, I held still and listened.

Nothing. No creaks, no voices. Maybe they hadn’t found her yet. I paused to decide on my route once I was in the hall. A sweep of downstairs or directly up to her bedroom. Aye, I’d go straight to her. Relish her expression of fear if I was the first one there.

Abruptly, something thudded. Footsteps. A muffled scream.

Everly’s.

I burst into the hall, cold panic filling me. Across the way, two bodies moved deeper into the room Everly’s father called the Council Chamber. A big man dragged Everly backwards, her bare legs scrambling for purchase on the floorboards and her pale, silky dressing gown flaring open. His gloved hand clamped against her mouth, and her long brown hair spilled over his arm where she tried to escape him.

His arm was right under her breasts, her curves threatening to spill from her camisole.

Dead man walking.

The decision came as easily as my jolt forward to intercept his abduction attempt. Crossing the hall, I sheathed my knife, the weapon unneeded. He was unarmed, at least at first glance, and I had anger enough to overpower anyone.

The man spoke urgently into Everly’s ear, whatever he was saying ceasing her struggle enough for him to free her mouth. I didn’t give a fuck. I ran the remainder of the way and raised my fist. Both spotted me at the same second, Everly’s eyes widening. Her attacker flinched, but my punch connected with the side of his face. He fell, dropping his hold on her.

“Connor,” Everly squeaked.

She recognised me. Even all in black. Even with my face half covered.

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