Page 12 of Claim of Blood
“It’s been over a hundred years,” Raj said delicately. “Everyone is worried.”
“You remember how she was after Helena’s death,” Adam reminded them.
Something fractured in Raj’s usually perfect composure. His hand trembled slightly as he adjusted his tie—a nervous gesture Adam hadn’t seen in centuries.
“Isabella was too young to go that way,” Raj’s voice took on an edge. “Too young to be taken by hunters.”
Adam crossed the room with supernatural speed, pulling Raj into an embrace. “She chose to stand her ground. Like Helena did.”
Raj pulled away, straightening his suit with practiced precision. The moment of vulnerability vanished, replaced by his usual mischievous demeanor. “Now then, my exquisite niece, surely all this talk of family tragedy has made you reconsider dinner with your favorite uncle?”
“Seven centuries of refusal,” Maja corrected. “And it will be seven more before that happens.”
Raj laughed, the sound rich with genuine amusement. “Then I shall try again in the 2700s.” He moved toward the door, pausing briefly. “Do be careful, brother. The hunters are getting bolder these days.”
Maja waited exactly thirty seconds after the door clicked shut before pulling out her tablet. “The information you requested about our café visitors.”
Adam opened the first file. Katherine von Rothenburg’s face stared back at him, her scars prominent in the high-resolution image. The second file made his breath catch.
Leopold von Rothenburg. Leo. Finally, a name for his beauty.
“Boston branch of the family,” Maja reported. “They’re old blood, Adam. Very old blood.”
“I know what they are.” He traced a finger over Leo’s image. In the photo, he was smiling at something off-camera, those amber eyes bright with amusement. “Did you find anything else?”
“Nothing official,” Maja said. “But there are gaps. The kind that suggests carefully scrubbed information. His records are surprisingly sparse for a von Rothenburg.”
Adam looked up sharply. “Protecting him?”
“Or hiding him,” Maja suggested. “Either way, he’s important to them. Important enough that when you approached him, they pulled him immediately.” She paused. “Why did you approach him, Adam?”
He could hear the real question in her voice. Maja had been with him for centuries. She’d seen his countless liaisons, his casual affairs. She knew this was different.
“Compatibility,” he said quietly.
Maja’s tablet creaked in her grasp before the glass shattered. “With a von Rothenburg? That’s...”
“Impossible? Inconvenient? Potentially disastrous?” Adam’s laugh held no humor. “Yes. All of those things.”
“The last time one of our kind felt drawn to a hunter...”
“Was Helena,” Adam finished. “I know.”
They both fell silent, remembering. Helena, believing love could bridge the divide. Helena, whose death had changed everything.
“And now you’ve found it with his descendant,” Maja said softly. “Mother will—”
“Mother hasn’t been seen in decades,” Adam cut her off. “And I’ve never needed her permission before.”
Maja’s eyes narrowed. “What are you planning?”
Adam smiled, letting his fangs show briefly. “Nothing yet. But keep watching them. All of them. I want to know everything about our young Leopold.”
After Maja left, Adam tried to focus on work. The day slipped away in meetings and reports—Nocturne quarterly financials, marketing budgets, data privacy disputes with Québec’sgovernment. Yet throughout it all, his thoughts kept straying to the hunter.
Leo’s file remained open in a minimized window, a distraction he’d returned to more times than he cared to admit. Such mundane details shouldn’t fascinate him. He’d witnessed empires rise and fall, yet here he was, five millennia old, fixated on a young hunter’s college transcripts.
The memory surfaced unbidden—another human who’d captivated him centuries ago. John Warren, the Boston surgeon who’d befriended him in 1791. John had known what Adam was almost immediately but felt fascination instead of fear. Their twenty-year friendship had been built on long nights discussing medicine, philosophy, and human nature.
