Rebecca Zanetti: Claimed

Dage sucked in air, then sprang forward. The tree branch ripped out of his flesh with a protesting snap. He landed on his knees in the crusty pine needles, emitting a string of Russian, Greek, or maybe Gaelic that sounded like curses. The earth rumbled and the wind picked up its strength around them. Winding down, he pushed to his feet. “Damn.” His good arm grabbed the hem of his shirt and ripped it over his head, his back to her.

Emma gasped at the raw wound above his right shoulder blade. Sharp wooden splinters emerged from split bone, shredded muscles, and cut tissue next to the dangerous tattoo she knew so well. The breath caught in her throat when he pivoted and blood poured from his broad chest. “You’re bleeding.” She shook her head, her focus narrowing on the wicked tattoo of intricate markings along his left arm and over his shoulder to his back.

The design had haunted her dreams like a warning talisman.

He nodded, inhaling deeply, his metallic eyes unfocusing for a moment, his muscles visibly relaxing. The blood flow stemmed, leaving the bullet holes seeping. The wide gash crusted over. “That’s the best I can do for now. It’ll heal.” He shoved the tail ends of his shirt into a back pocket and held out one large boned hand. “Come.”

No. She wouldn’t run into the woods. Not again. “Ah ...”

Dage raised an eyebrow. “We need to get going, love.”

How many nights had she run through the woods to escape her drunken father and his beefy fists? Those days were over. She’d thought she was done running from monsters.

Dage waited patiently, his gaze on her, his hand extended.

She hesitated, glancing at the tarnished limb still protruding from the ground and awaiting its next victim. In slow motion, she shifted her gaze to Dage and paused for the briefest of breaths before sliding her hand in his. A click echoed throughout her heart, throughout her head when his warm palm closed over hers. No. Wrong time to deal with this. “I need to get to Cara in case the Kurjans had time to infect her with the virus.”

Dage tightened his grip and started to jog, tugging Emma to keep pace. “Cara is fine.” Pine, sunshine and wildflowers commingled into a scent carried by the slightest breeze as the trees rushed past. “Talen made sure of it.”

Thank God. “The Kurjans didn’t get a chance to inject her with the virus?” Relief began to wind through the nerves still jumping in Emma’s skin.

“No. Cara and the baby are safe.”

Emma stumbled, then regained her footing with the king’s help. “She told you about the baby?”

Dage flashed a grin, the sunlight dappling through branches high above to kiss his bronze skin. “No.” He tightened his grip. “I sensed the babe’s heartbeat when Talen carried Cara out of the Kurjan research facility earlier today. I take it she told you?”

“No.” Emma grinned back. “Psychic here. Sometimes, anyway.”

“Ah. I wondered if you were an empath like Cara. A psychic scientist, huh?” Not by one breath did Dage show he ran with blood streaming from his shoulder.

Reality crashed back like falling boulders. “Yes. A scientist who helped develop the virus that might kill all vampire mates, including my sister.”

Dage shook his head, slowing his pace. “No. The Kurjans didn’t design Virus-27 to kill our mates.” He stopped, resting his back against the trunk of a lodgepole pine, blood weaving down a six-pack worthy of billboards. “I need to close these damn holes.”

Emma tugged her hand free to bend at the waist to suck in air, her calves protesting the sudden stop. “You’d think with all the running I’ve been doing from the Kurjans I’d be in better shape.” Her lungs ached. She’d been on the run from the bastards for five terror filled weeks when they’d finally caught her. She eyed the path she’d just run, adrenaline prickling goose bumps on her skin. Were the Kurjans behind them?

Wait a minute. “Virus-27?” She tilted her head. “What do you mean it doesn’t kill?” She thought her lab had been working on a cure for cancer. Not a way to genetically alter vampire mates, like her sister.

“Well ...” Those silver eyes probed her for a moment, bringing an unwelcomed skittering to Emma’s abdomen. “What do you know about a vampire mating?”

The skittering turned into a full flush which traveled north to heat her face. “Just what Cara had time to tell me when we were locked in the room by the Kurjans earlier today. And she, um, showed me the brand on her ass.” The design resembled the tattoo winding over Dage’s shoulder.

Twin dimples flashed in Dage’s strong face. “Yes, well. When we find our mates, a marking appears on our palm. It transfers to our mate during sex and changes the human to immortal.”

Warmth heated Emma’s face, and she struggled to focus on the genetics involved, stretching her calves during the moment of rest. “Your mates are always human?”

“Well, non-vampire anyway. Vampires are male only.” He pushed off from the bark and her senses swam with sandalwood, leather, and amber. Power. “The marking changes a human from having twenty-three chromosomes to twenty-seven.”

Emma’s scientific mind reeled. “Vampires have twenty-seven chromosomes?”

“No. We and the Kurjans have thirty.”

She shook her head. “So Cara now has twenty-seven chromosomes and is immortal?” Emma needed to get back and take some blood samples. She wouldn’t have believed it had she not stolen lab results full of proof.

“Yes. And as a mate, she’s safe from the touch of any other vampire or Kurjan. We call it the mating allergy.” He closed his eyes, breathing deeply as the holes in his body reduced in size. “My brother Jase tried to kiss a mated woman a century or so ago and ended up in agony with raw blisters across his face.” Dage smiled in remembrance.

“So my research to create a virus that mutates chromosomes was actually to change this mating allergy?” She’d hoped to combat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma by having a man-made virus attack and mutate the cancer cells.

“We think that was one of the goals. The virus initially attacks the twenty-seventh chromosome, thus my brother Kane named it Virus-27. We believe the twenty-seventh chromosome ties into the mating bond. The Kurjans want to steal our mates.” Dage opened his eyes, dark gaze on her.

“Why? I mean, why don’t they just find their own mates?”

“Ah. Well, mates are enhanced humans. Psychics, healers, empaths—and you’re few and far between.” He eyed the sun just beginning to lower in the west. “In fact, there’s a pretty strong theory that enhanced humans are descendants of the fey people, cousins to the witches.”

Witches? No way—she was a scientist, damn it. And his reference to her as a potential mate should not have set butterflies to flight in her stomach. The desire to explore a world where her psychic visions not only made sense but were accepted flirted with her need to protect a hard-earned, well-ordered life. Focus. She needed to focus. “So Cara and the baby are safe from the Kurjans, so long as they’re protected from the virus?”

“Yes. They’re safe from the Kurjans.” Dage stretched his arms, his gaze sliding to the forest before them and clearly avoiding hers.

Unease wound down Emma’s spine at his tone. Something concerned the king. “Who isn’t my sister safe from?” Good God. Was Talen dangerous? Or ... “Is something wrong with the baby?”

Dage sighed and rubbed his chin, sending a tendril of unease down her spine. “Probably not.”

“Probably?” Not good enough. Not nearly good enough.

His silver gaze wandered her face, taking her measure until she lifted her chin in response. He sucked in air. “The speed of the pregnancy is unheard of in our people. Cara’s physiology is still changing from human to immortal—no mate has ever reproduced so quickly. It usually takes decades or even centuries of trying for a successful conception.”