Page 46 of Claimed

His observation would suggest kindness if it came from someone else, but I know there is no kindness in this monster. I remain captive in his… I could almost call it a home, but it isn’t a home. It is a warehouse for vampires. They don’t do anything. They sort of swan in, sleep occasionally, and then leave again to do terrible things.

The pack is always full of life and love and yes, as cliché as it might seem, laughter. They live so deeply and intensely. I miss them almost as much as I miss Alexei. I even miss their disapproval of my behavior from time to time. They cared. Really cared.

This vampire calls himself my father, which is a perverse kind of nonsense. He does not care about me in the slightest. He is playing at caring, imagining what it might be like to love. I don’t think he is actually capable of it.

“I miss my mate,” I say.

“I know. You are bonded,” Dom says. “Bonds are strange things, aren’t they? Capable of sustaining us, or destroying us.”

I grit my teeth as he pontificates. I am sitting on a cushion at his feet, more or less, because that’s what he likes me to do. He likes to tell me what he is thinking, what he imagines, what he observes of the world around me and of his own cold internal state.

I think he is lonely, actually. Being ancient isn’t easy. In comparison with him, I am basically new. I think that is why he likes me.

“Do you want me to bring your mate here? Do you want him by your side?”

“No,” I say. “Nobody alive belongs here.”

Dom’s brow lifts. “You are unhappy, even though you have been spoiled. I have bought you the prettiest dresses, and am feeding you the finest food. Speaking of food, you’ve barely touched your acorns, oysters, and snails.”

“It’s not exactly to my taste,” I say, risking rudeness. “I prefer red meat.”

“You prefer living flesh,” he says, flashing his canines. “Just as I prefer fresh blood. You are so much like me.”

I am not like him at all. He projects his cruelty and his carnality and a dozen more terrible traits besides. He wishes to see me become even more like him over time. That is why he spends so much time doing what he considers to be instructive.

“I am going to make you happy, Anya,” he says. “If it is the last thing I do.”

The words are probably supposed to give me some sense of comfort, but coming from those cold, dead, compelling lips, all they do is send a shiver of pure fear down my spine. I am all too well aware that they’re more of a threat than a promise.

He looks at me with that glittering gaze.

“I think it is time I showed you something,” he says. “I need for you to appreciate your position here for what it is. You are not the only one of your kind, but you are the only one who is this impossibly spoiled. Come with me.”

Those last three words are not a request. They are an order. My body follows them, as it always does when he commands me, without question, and without an option.

CHAPTER 14

Alexei

The address on the card leads me to a largely windowless building cast in concrete at the edge of an industrial center in a city that barely deserves to have a name. It is a dull, uninspiring place, which is saying something given the communist architecture that dominates so many places like these.

I could not care less about the beauty of the buildings, but I am aware of my surroundings. This is where my mate has been kept, perhaps. Unless, of course, this is the trap Piotr supposed it to be.

I check the address again. The building fits in this terrain, but it is hardly a place where an ancient vampire could be given his due. This is how their kind have to live, hiding in ugly places, and doing ugly things.

There’s a heavy metal door at the entrance, reinforced with iron or steel. It is not open when I try it, and I have no intention of knocking. It opens under the encouragement of a shotgun, which I happen to have tucked under my arm. I have no ideahow that got there. I am making decisions without really being aware of them at the moment.

The interior is dimly lit, but that does not matter to me, of course. I can see quite well in the dark. I can also smell Anya. For the first time in weeks, I have my mate’s scent, and it is an intoxicating, heady, rewarding thing.

“Anya!” I shout her name.

I hear a little sound in response, not as though someone is being quiet, but as if someone is trying to be heard through heavy walls and dungeons. That is all I need. My senses are as sharp as they have ever been, entirely focused on the one thing that matters to me in the world: my mate.

I chase up through the stairs and passageways of the vampires’ lair, aware that the things are around me, but staying clear of me. This is almost certainly a trap. I know it, but I do not care. Anya’s scent is fresh and vital and she is here. That is all that matters.

“Anya!”

“Alexei!”

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