Forever Claimed. Rachel Lee

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      “You’re not going to tell me you didn’t do that,” she said, accusing him with a pointed finger.

      “If I had done this,” he said stonily, “I would not have brought her here, and certainly not still alive. Jude,” he demanded again.

      Chloe bit her scarlet-painted lower lip, the only color on her except for a blood-colored ruby ring. “He and Terri are out on a date. What do you expect him to do about her, anyway?” she demanded, waving a hand at the woman.

      “I expect him to listen to a warning I have to give him. That’s proof of the danger he’s in.”

      Chloe’s eyes widened a shade. “You better not be lying, St. Just.”

      The man he had been before would have considered those fighting words. The man he had discovered after Natasha’s death couldn’t deny she had a right to speak them.

      “Jude, now,” he repeated. “Then we can decide what to do with this mortal.”

      “It looks too late to me,” Chloe muttered, but she pulled out a cell phone from a skirt so layered with black lace and net that it stuck out from her body almost like a tutu, and then pressed a button before placing it to her ear.

      “Sorry, boss,” she said into the receiver. “St. Just is here with a woman who looks like she’s been half butchered and he says you’re in danger. He wants to see you now.”

      She ended the call and scowled at him. “You so better not be lying.”

      He didn’t bother to argue with her or say another word. With Chloe, he’d swiftly learned, you could waste a lot of breath. Instead, he just glided over to an armchair and sat, folding his arms.

      The outer office hadn’t changed in any important way; Jude’s inner sanctum still lay behind a locked door, a deceptively ordinary-looking door. He scanned his environs because it was native instinct to be aware of his surroundings, not because they interested him. He looked everywhere except at the woman on the couch.

      Five minutes later, he heard the sounds of Jude and Terri coming down the hall. From the speed of their arrival, he guessed Jude must have carried Terri on his back and traveled at top speed. Terri, clad in evening dress covered by a heavy parka, looked windblown.

      As they crossed the threshold, their gazes fixed on the woman on the couch. Terri’s bright blue eyes widened, and she sped across the room with a rustle of sapphire silk to kneel beside the victim. As a forensic pathologist, she was also a trained doctor.

      “My God,” she whispered. “She’s almost dead.”

      “She’s been almost dead since I found her.”

      Jude, dressed as always in elegantly tailored black beneath a long black leather coat, looked at Luc. “What happened?”

      “Vampires.” Luc shrugged. “I could smell them in the area. But the woman is just evidence, Jude. I came to warn you. There are those who don’t like the way you drove them out of this city, who don’t like your rules about not harming humans. They’re coming back to take vengeance, they’re bringing others who feel as they do. And from what was done to that—” he waved toward the woman on the couch “—I suspect they may already be here.”

      “That,” Chloe interjected sarcastically, “is a human being.”

      Luc shrugged. None of this was his problem, beyond delivering his warning so Jude could prepare. He had done what he set out to do, and could leave.

      Except for some reason he didn’t. He just kept sitting there, almost as if waiting for something.

      “I should get her to the hospital,” Terri said, her fingertips pressed to the woman’s throat. She hadn’t even yet removed her jacket. “I don’t know if there’s time, but she needs a transfusion, a lot of stitches, maybe even surgery, depending.”

      “There isn’t time,” Jude said with unusual gentleness. “Trust me. I sense it. She’ll be gone in a couple of minutes.”

      Terri swore softly and settled back on her heels. “Do you know how much it goes against my grain to sit by while someone dies?”

      “Do you want me to try to turn her?” Jude asked. “There might be just enough time.”

      Terri’s blue eyes fixed on him. “You’d turn a stranger, but not me?”

      “She’s a stranger. I love you. I don’t want to make you something you might regret for eternity.”

      Terri simply shook her head, apparently having no retort.

      Luc watched as Jude went to place a hand on his human mate’s shoulder. “Trust me, Terri, this woman is better off dying. I know what it’s like to be turned without a choice. Without knowing and understanding.”

      Luc was the last person to argue that being a vampire was good. He was suffering the torments of the damned because of a vampire trait he’d been unable to escape: claiming. The beauty of a claiming was undeniable. But so was the obsession, and the madness that followed if you lost what you had claimed. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even his worst enemy.

      Jude turned to him, his golden eyes intent. “So they’re coming after me? And you think they’re already here?”

      “I think this woman—” he emphasized the word for Chloe’s benefit “—is the opening salvo, if you will.”

      “Do you know what their plan is?”

      “A reign of terror designed to draw you out in such a way that they can terminate you.”

      “They could just come knock on my door.”

      “But what fun would that be?”

      Chloe shuddered. “I knew there was a reason I don’t like most vampires.”

      Luc ignored her, knowing full well he was the reason she didn’t like other vampires. Her liking for Jude and for his friend Creed was obvious enough. He didn’t care. Chloe was just another human, low on his radar of importance.

      “They are going to take over the city,” he said. “They are either going to kill you or make it impossible for you to remain here. One way or another, they’ll sabotage the authority you’ve been exercising in this city. They’ll make sure another vampire never heeds your rules.”

      “I’m not the only one with those rules.”

      “True, mon ami, but this group is completely rogue and they’ve been whipped up by some of those you forced out of this city in the past. You’re just the first target among what I suspect will be many.”

      Jude leaned back against Chloe’s desk and folded his arms. “I don’t have to tell you, Luc. Most of us have always tried to avoid creating situations that draw attention to our existence.”

      Luc nodded. “I have helped remove rogues before. A certain amount of careful coexistence is necessary. All-out war between vampires and humans would benefit neither of our kinds. But that is what this group wishes.”

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