Rachel Lee - Forever Claimed

Dani couldn’t answer. By and large, the packs preferred to live alone and be left alone, much like ordinary wolves. They avoided mingling with humans, and they loathed vampires because they attacked humans, which no pack would do because they were human—at least part of the time. A pack killed wild game only to eat, and otherwise only in self-defense. Vampires killed for pleasure. But no, they didn’t protect anything or anyone except themselves. Something like shame niggled at her, making her so uncomfortable that her anger revived.

“Why,” she repeated, “do you care what happens to me?”

“Because,” said Luc, “I have no quarrel with you. Unless you want to start one.”

Outside in the night, sirens began to whoop. Almost at the same time, a phone tweeted.

“That’s me,” Terri said. “I guess I need to go to work.” She rose and went to get a cell phone from the desk.

“It’s your night off,” Jude protested.

“If they need me, it’s because it’s more than the on-duty medical examiner can handle,” she replied, then touched her phone and answered.

“It’s begun,” Luc said. “It’s begun.”

Jude straightened. “I’m going with her to watch over her. Chloe, you stay here no matter what. I don’t want you exposed. Luc, keep an eye on both of them.”

Terri disappeared into the inner sanctum and returned in a few minutes clad in jeans and a jacket. “It’s going to be a long night,” she remarked as she headed for the door. Jude disappeared with her.

Luc, staring at the two women, sighed. “C’est la guerre.”

Chloe sat working at her desk. Luc appeared lost in somber thought. Dani was left to dart looks at them between staring down at her hands, which clenched and unclenched as emotions roiled through her like racing white water.

The vampires were going to war. For her kind that ought to be cause for jubilation, except she knew who would get caught in the middle: humans. While she was not fully human herself, she was human enough. She had lived among humans long enough to be horrified at that and ashamed that her own pack would probably stand aside and let it happen.

Lycanthropes didn’t involve themselves in the affairs of humans or nonhumans if they could avoid it. They preferred a solitary existence among their own kind, to live free and to be safe. Their lives were, for the most part, contented if not always happy. Their own little world.

But tonight had altered her view. Just a little. It didn’t feel like an earthquake yet, but some inner voice warned her that it could become one.

She looked up again and found Chloe studying her.

Chloe spoke. “So you’re a werewolf?”

“Not really.” Her shame, her sorrow, but true.

“You can’t shape-shift?”

“No.”

Chloe shook her head. “Well, I’m glad you can’t. But you probably aren’t.”

“I hate it.”

“I guess I would, too, if I were you. But you weren’t exiled?”

“No.” Dani didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to touch on the grief and longing that had made her leave of her own accord to try to live life as a normal. She ached to run with her pack, yet she couldn’t. She couldn’t live with the daily reminder that she was different, or with the feeling that she was a burden and not an equal. No one had encouraged her to leave, not a single one. She simply couldn’t take being the only normal in the pack.

Much as she disliked Luc, she couldn’t deny she was exactly what he had called her: a broken wolf.

She sighed and looked at the clock, counting the hours until dawn. Since it was winter, dawn remained far away.

“So you live here now?” Chloe asked. “What do you do?”

“I work in university administration and take classes when I can.”

“What kind of classes?”

Considering the horror Chloe had initially expressed over Dani’s lycanthropy, her questions now seemed surprisingly friendly. “Whatever I need. I’m just starting, but I think I’d like to be a nurse.”

Luc made a sound and she reluctantly looked at him.

“Another altruist.”

“What’s wrong with that?” she demanded.

“I don’t recall saying anything was wrong with it,” he retorted. “Your tone.”

“A thousand pardons, ma chère dame .”

“Don’t mind him,” Chloe said. “He’s always a pain. Between being a former French aristocrat and losing his mate last year, he’s a little insane. We make excuses for him.”

Luc barely blinked, but to Dani he seemed to tense. Dani didn’t think poking a vampire was exactly smart, but Chloe apparently thought she was perfectly safe.

More food for thought, thoughts that crashed hard against her belief that all vampires were bloodsucking monsters.

“What were you, Luc?” Chloe asked. “A duke or something?”

Luc waved a hand and for a few seconds it appeared he wouldn’t answer. “You are full of questions, Chloe.”

“I’m curious, since I’m stuck with you.”

“I was the Marquis de St. Just.”

“A real honest-to-gosh marquis.” Chloe’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be, ma petite . All it brought me was a dank prison cell and the promise of a ride on the tumbrel to the guillotine.”

Astonishment filled Dani. He was that old? But Chloe had a different reaction, and dropped her sarcasm entirely.

“Is that why you became a vampire?”

“It was the only way to survive. Enough. I don’t care to discuss my past, s’il vous plaît .”

Chloe put her chin in her hand. “It’s going to be a long night if both of you keep imitating clams.”

Surprisingly, Dani felt a little bubble of laughter rising. She tried to quell it but failed, and a giggle escaped her. A reaction to all the stress of the night, she thought, but Chloe was certainly a piece of work.

Chloe grinned at her. “Neither of you exactly looks like a clam.” She paused. “Here’s the thing. I know something about vampires, having worked for Jude for years. But I really don’t know anything about werewolves, and I’m curious. As for you, Luc, a little illumination would go a long way. You owe me for having kidnapped me.”

“As I recall, that was one of my stupider moments and you made me regret my idiocy almost from the first second.”

“He kidnapped you,” Dani said, aghast.

“For all of ten minutes,” Chloe admitted. “He needed an entrée with a friend of Jude’s and he’d already ticked the guy off. So I was his key.” She shrugged. “I was mad at the time because once he carried me off to Creed’s, I didn’t have my car. I had to wait hours to catch the bus.”

Dani listened in astonishment. What upset Chloe was waiting to take the bus? Not being kidnapped?

“Of course, I didn’t like being kidnapped for general reasons. Like not having a say about where I was going or when.” She frowned at Luc.

“I apologized. Would you like another one?”

Chloe waved her hand. “I doubt it would be sincere now.” She sighed, then looked at the clock herself. “Just tell me, St. Just. How bad could it get?”

“You saw the condition Dani was in. Multiply that by dozens a night. All of it to force a confrontation with Jude. They plan a reign of terror, because that is what they will enjoy. Jude is just an excuse for it.”

Chloe’s frown looked frightened. “Will others come to help him?”

“I don’t know. Creed perhaps.”

“But he can’t stand against a whole bunch of vampires. Not alone.”

“I did not say he would be alone. But how many come to help and when, I cannot say. The minute these vampires begin their spree, this city will become unsafe for both our kinds. Some may choose to wait for another time and place to rid us of these rogues. I simply don’t know.”