The Claiming

by Imogen Keeper

  “Move,” he said, in a voice that somehow sounded annoyed, a little amused and not even a touch overexerted.

  She spun a circle, launched her body into a run, pumped her arms and made a hard right onto Avalon Street.

  Sanger followed after her, but not like he was giving chase. It almost felt like they were jogging together, all chummy and shit, out for an evening warm-up before the coming storm.

  Avalon was a busy road in a bourgeois part of the city. Lined with posh restaurants and bars, and camolia trees with their pretty patterned trunks, bougania vines climbing archways over the streets in all their lush, tropical glory, cascading like jewel-bright flower blankets.

  Men wearing togatas smoked and told lies in the streets, while women in vibrant dresses preened and pretended there weren’t unlucky felanas out there, being sold like slaves, drifting from one abuse to the next.

  Tessa shoved through a pack of male humanis. One of them stumbled off the curb and landed on his ass.

  She glanced at the Prime’s face, had a fleeting image of his hard, angular features. Dark, glowering eyes. He wasn’t even mouth breathing, the jackass. Just running away, as unconcerned as if he’d just gotten out of bed. Calm and easy. Just a gigantic Prime out for a late-night jog, compared to her, the panting felana in full sweat, on the brink of a heat, running for her life.

  He grinned. White teeth in a swarthy face—she hadn’t seen him smile yet. It hurt to see it, like a knife to her belly.

  “Are you having fun?” she asked, appalled because it looked like he really was.

  The smile vanished. “Keep running, felana.”

  She scowled. She wanted to ask why? She wanted to ask a million questions, but right about then, the shadows at the mouth of the alley moved again, and a handful of men appeared. They looked like Primes. And they were headed their way.

  Whoa. Shit.

  She sprinted down Avalon, dodging clusters of bar-crawlers. Sanger kept pace with her. It was one thing to mess with humanis, they were slow and would never catch her, but Primes were a whole other situation.

  Her heart pounded painfully.

  Her deodorant and charcoal had failed completely.

  She could smell herself, the distinct aroma of felana in heat, thirsty for a Prime. It was a unique smell, a little floral, a little salty, a hint of musk, but distinct, pure felana dancing in the air all around her like a godsdamned lure. Abysmos, she hated what she was.

  If she could smell it so could they. They’d catch her, and they’d keep her imprisoned, and she’d never find Leyla, and she’d have failed. Failed. Failed. Failed.

  It was a miracle Sanger was still running, that he hadn’t pinned her down and fucked her right there in the street. She could smell him too, a thick smell, that sex-and-promise-and-a-death-that-never-felt-so-good smell, overwhelming her, making it hard for her to think or move.

  The faces of the humani males she’d run past no longer expressed mere curiosity. They stared, following her with hungry eyes. Olfactory glands, responding to the call of nature, picking up the scent of pray.

  Sanger shouted something but she couldn’t even process it. Her stomach cramped, body burning so hot she couldn’t breathe, and all she wanted was to strip off her hat and her stupid jacket, lie down on the pavement and present herself to him.

  Her body demanded it.

  He was after all a perfect specimen of a Prime. Big and strong, handsome, able to beat away other suitors, the perfect biological call to a felana in heat.

  Her feet got sluggish.

  She’d never get him to let her go this time. All he’d see was a felana in heat, and he’d go into rut.

  A trio of guys stood right in her path, up ahead on the right, staring at her. Her stomach twisted again, and her feet felt heavy. She wasn’t moving as fast anymore.

  The weather chose that moment to join in the fun. The sky split with a slashing stripe of lightening, the answering boom chasing its tails less than a heartbeat later, and the clouds broke open.

  Humanis in the street squawked and raced for cover, holding their hands over their heads.

  Tessa was just grateful for the splash of cold water on her overheated skin.

  Sanger grabbed her wrist, his hands slipping on hers, and pulled hard, shoving her down yet another alley.

  Shouts sounded behind them.

  Primes giving chase.

  Her heart thundered, water sprayed out around her every foot step, dripped down her face.

  “Two more streets, turn left onto Aberilla. Third house on the right. Green door.” Sanger’s voice was like gravel. She groaned as it rippled along the hairs on the back of her neck, shivering despite the clammy night heat. A surge of wet desire rushed straight between her thighs, as she kept on running.

  He growled at her, a dark angry sound, that spurned her on and turned her on, the sound of a Prime issuing an order to a felana that belonged to him.

  A new burst of speed took her, and she ran, as hard and fast as she could, on increasingly heavy feet and shaking knees.

  Sanger shook off her hand and dropped back. Without that grip, she felt almost naked. A glance over her shoulder brought her to full stop, her teeth starting to chatter as water soaked her to the skin.

  Sanger had turned around. Shoulders, wide beneath a thin, tight black shirt that stuck now to his every bulging muscle, lifted with every breath, water dripping down his skin, spraying off his body, sparkling in the night lights like glitter. He spread his arms, his triceps flexing. The humanis on the street melted back, silence filling the night.

  He said something, too low for her to hear.

  One of the other Primes tilted his head, a slow grin pulling across half of his face. Another laughed, illuminated by a second crack of lightening, with a blast of thunder so loud, she brought her hands up to her ears, water clumping in her eyelashes, flooding her mouth through parted lips.

  The Primes didn’t react at all, just faced off, moving according to some innate choreography she couldn’t follow. Fucking Primes. It’s like there was a wavelength they could hit that she couldn’t hear.

  Two of them stepped a little closer, moving in on either side. She sucked in a deep breath, dropping forward to rest her hands on her knees, a hard stab of pain slicing across her belly.

  The humanis in the background were moving, pacing, restless.

  Sanger shifted a little, just a small step back, and the two on either side moved in fast, arms pulling up.

  He was going to die. And she’d be left here like an offering on some demonic altar.

  With a savage roar, one of the other guys swung out with a massive fist, and the other reared up like he was going to grab Sanger by the neck.

  Except they didn’t.

  Sanger was way too fast.

  He slammed his fist into one of their faces so hard the guy flew back into the third guy. His free arm shot out and throat punched the last guy.

  Her knees wobbled, useless as jelly.

  Who the hell was this guy?

  She turned away when he aimed a swift kick that took out a kneecap, and simultaneously jammed his fist into another’s nose.

  Blood sprayed out in an arc of glittering red.

  She turned away and staggered to a loose run, too weak to even hesitate. She needed a door between her and the rest of the world.

  She followed his directions as best she could, slopping through puddles and slipping on a freshly painted curb as she made the turn, hoping her memory served.

  All she could really hope for was some privacy. Maybe she’d live through this and be able to look for Leyla when it was done.

  A green door, bright and shiny as an emerald, in a white house, just as he said. She staggered up the steps.

  She’d never make it back to the aerie. But this… no choice. She twisted the polished, brassy handle. Open. She threw herself bodily through the entryway, slammed it shut and promptly vomited on the polished floor.

  It wasn’t much. The
re’d been nothing in her belly, but it burned coming up. All this time, she’d been clutching that stupid bun while she ran. She tossed it away and ripped her dumb hat off her head, her knees buckling.

  Moaning, she lay her pounding head on the floor, now in a puddle of water dripping from her body and hair. Familiar warmth spread across her skin, like a fever heat, raising goosebumps over wet flesh so sensitive that her clothes hurt.

  Off. Off. They needed to come off.

  Her boots and socks landed with heavy, echoing thuds that sprayed water around the room. She stripped off the shirt. Even her thin harem pants. They burned too badly against tender skin and settled into a sopping puddle behind a sofa.

  With shaking hands, she scrabbled for the knife she’d tucked into her boot and clutched it.

  Her body had betrayed her.

  Her scent was strong, a potent come-fuck-me-now fog. And beneath that, him. He lived in this home. Sweated here, slept here. His scent permeated it, beneath the cleaning products and expensive furnishings. It brought her every nerve flaring to life, opening and softening, preparing for him.

  Like a thousand exploding suns, her body burned, her clit throbbing like a pulsar, the walls of her core clenching and spasming, desperate for him to be inside her.

  Without a Prime to stop the need, and slow the release of the pheromones, she’d be all too easy to find.

  She rose on hands and knees and crawled toward a chest that sat just to the right of the entryway. With her shoulders, she pushed and shoved, panting and crying out against her own weakening body, water sliding down her nose.

  When the chest sat in front of the door, she sagged against the wall again. Her nipples burned. She slipped a hand between her legs. The second she touched herself through the thin layer of her cotton panties, she came, hard, shaking and sputtering. The orgasm left her twitchy, stomach shuddering, and not remotely satisfied. If anything, it was worse.

  Liquid heat built low in her belly, throbbed a pounding beat through the quiet of the darkened house.

  A rattle at the door told her someone had turned the handle, and she grabbed her knife back, held it so the blade rested against the flat of the back of her forearm. No point in letting him see it right away.

  A key snicked. The chest slowly moved inward, scraping the floor. She cowered against the wall, shuddering, trying to be quiet, but every movement sent rippling aches across her body.

  Sanger stepped into the room and locked the door behind him.

  With a shrug, he pushed the chest back against the door.

  His gaze settled on her, where she crouched against the wall, wearing only panties.

  In a languid move, he stripped off his wet shirt, tossed it negligently against a wall nearby, and she barely resisted the urge to crawl to it, rub her face in all those wonderful smells, spread them over her body.

  He stepped around her puddle of bile and rainwater and moved out of the room. When he turned on a light, it revealed the lean, hard muscles of his back in a grey steel kitchen. He rinsed blood off his chest with careful, economical movements, the muscles of his shoulder blades shifting with every move.

  Huddling against the wall, she watched as he poured a glass of water and swallowed it in a single gulp. He refilled the glass, another flash of lightening highlighting his body, the thunder booming so loud she flinched.

  Moving slowly, he crossed the room, squatted in front of her and handed her the water. Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe. But it’s not possible not to inhale, so inhale she did. It was like poison gas, deadly and strong, and she was powerless to resist it.

  Everything disappeared but the compulsion to crawl toward him, to rub her face in his neck. She found herself scooting closer to him.

  It hurt. She was on fire. She wanted to beg him to put her out.

  “How long has it been?” He set the water down by her feet, staying low, like he was trying to seem less enormous. With a cloth, he wiped up the pool of her vomit.

  Her face burned in shame. “Since what?”

  “The last time you were taken by a Prime.”

  15

  wishes and knifes

  cut deep

  TESSA chugged the water in the glass, grateful for the cool in her aching throat. She studied Sanger as he moved, cleaning up her mess, gathering her discarded clothes and shoes, setting them to the side.

  Struggling to focus, she reminded herself of everything she knew about him, trying to decide what he was going to do with her. He works for the Boss. But he let me go. Twice.

  He rifled through her bag. “When?” he repeated tersely, all swift motions, rehearsed almost, like he’d searched a hundred bags before, dealt with a hundred confused and scared felanas. Maybe he had.

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Clearly.”

  A new surge of angry wet heat coursed through her veins, coiling between her thighs. Her pulse raced. “That obvious?”

  “More than.” Palming her socks, he rose to his full height. This close, and from her vantage point, he had to be the biggest Prime she’d ever seen. “If you keep pumping out pheromones like that, we’re going to have every Prime in this arondi beating down my door, desperate for a crack at you.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen.

  She closed burning eyes, squeezed her fists tightly against a body that demanded she crawl after him, cry for him to do his job. And let her body do hers. She slammed her head back against the wall behind her so hard she saw stars.

  She’d done this before, survived heats without the quench of a Prime to satisfy her cravings. Fought it so many times. But always alone, tied down to a bed at the aerie with Leyla bringing her water and food, dragging her to the pot they used as a toilet up there.

  This… was intolerable, being in the same room as him.

  “What alternative do you have?” he asked.

  None. Her body wanted it, would demand it, submit itself to him soon, but still, she refused to voice the words.

  He spoke again from the kitchen. “You have no choice.”

  I know. Her throat convulsed. “There’s always a choice.”

  The water ran, and she heard the distinct sounds of him washing his hands. “You want a choice? Get out.”

  Not an option. It was eight blocks from here to the aerie. She’d be attacked the minute she stepped foot outside his door.

  “You could protect me.”

  He glanced over his shoulder with a caustic half-grin. “Your confidence in me is flattering.”

  “I saw you back there.” She was breathing so hard now, against the ache tearing through her body, that her words came out like pants. “You’re strong. You’re the biggest Prime I’ve ever seen.”

  He moved to stand in the doorway, wiping his hands on a cloth, the lights behind him, voice even, robotic. “There are probably ten of them circling the pavement.”

  “You work for the Boss.”

  All that robotic smoothness, calibrated intent focused on her with a single raised eyebrow. “You think the Boss will help you now?”

  A slash of burning spasms cramped around the emptiness inside her. “You’re helping me.”

  He tossed the cloth to the side and stalked toward her, his boots so loud on the floor that she flinched.

  He stood in front of her for a long moment, and she let her gaze rove up the hard muscles of his legs, encased in their dark pants, along the crinkly dark hairs of his happy trail, over the bunching muscles of his abdomen. Scars that spoke of battles. Muscles that spoke of intense physical activity.

  She cowered back against the wall, less because she was afraid of him than because what she really wanted to do was rub her face against the front of his pants, at the erection that was straining against his zipper, burry her face in his ball sack until his stink covered her from head to toe.

  He squatted down in front of her. “I can’t protect you from me. I need to fuck you. It’s taking every ounce of control I have not to.”

 
Her nails lengthened, formed claws. “Then try harder.”

  He raised his hand up between them so she could see. His hand was shaking. Behind the strong cords of his neck, his pulse beat just below his larynx. Fast. She’d never stopped to wonder what driving lust did to a Prime, the power it might take for them to resist.

  She shook her head, even as she slid across the floor to kneel before him, pressed his thighs open to get closer, nestled her body within the circle of his legs and arms. The knife was still a hard length along her forearm.

  “We can’t resist it,” he said, softly. It was a voice that spoke to resignation, frustration, and maybe just a tiny bit of hope. Like a man on a battlefield, half dead, ready to meet the universe itself.

  Her eyes drifted shut, already soothed by the proximity of his scorching body. She touched her burning forehead to the skin of his neck, sucking in air like it was medicine.

  “I can resist you.” She buried her face down, lower, between the muscles of his chest.

  When he whispered, the air rippled along the fine hairs along her upper arms, and the back of her neck. “No, you can’t.”

  All that hot, smooth skin. She shoved at his arms, fighting to get closer, so she could slide an arm around his waist. She licked the skin of his neck, tasted Prime and snarled.

  He licked her neck back, and his sigh tugged at a liquid place deep inside. His hands closed over her hips, drawing her against him.

  “Yes,” he purred, and her insides quivered.

  She rotated the knife in her hand so the grip rested securely in her palm.

  There was always a choice.

  She didn’t want to kill him. He didn’t seem so bad, really, for a Prime. He’d helped her, sort of. Protected her from the others. He could have just mauled her the second he walked in the door.

  And he smelled so good.

  She hummed against him, lifting up within the cage of his body, to fit herself against the bulge in his groin, wondered what it would feel like to have him driving inside of her, took his earlobe between her teeth. There wasn’t a single part of her body that didn’t rage, demand that she fuck him.