The Claimed (Sin Hunters)

by Caridad Piñeiro

  “Please, Christopher. Not this. Kill me instead, but do not banish me.”

  For a moment he wavered. Banishment was extreme. Once he marked her, she would not be welcome in any Hunter clan anywhere.

  “You have caused too much pain, Maya. This is your doing, not mine.”

  With his outpouring of power, her skin bubbled and blistered beneath his fingers and palms as he tattooed the mark of shame along her wrists. He fought her as she tried to yank free and continued to plead, finally resorting to tears, but it was too late.

  When he released her she held up her hands and stared at her wrists, now scarred by small triangles filled with dots, defined by sharp rays along the edges. The mark of the stingray whose spine had been used for bloodletting in ancient times. Now it was a mark of shame, warning others that she had wasted precious life. The markings also served to bind her power, blocking her from using it to do anything other than gather limited amounts of energy, permanently weakening her.

  “You have until morning to pack your things and leave,” he said.

  Maya stared up at him, still dazed. Her arms flopped down to her sides as she sank back onto her haunches. “Where will I go?” she said, almost sounding like a lost child.

  Not even Alexander would take her back.

  “Try the humans,” he said, and looked toward Victoria.

  She dipped her head, accepting his decision, and took hold of his hand to offer a reassuring squeeze.

  A knock came at the door and Christopher called out, “Come in.”

  Rafael entered and seemed shocked when he saw Maya. The color slid from his face, probably because it was impossible to miss the stingray tattoos across her wrists, making her dead to him.

  He stumbled for a moment before saluting them. “The watch has been set and all is in order.”

  Christopher turned his attention to Victoria. “Let’s go rest, my love. There will be much to do in the morning.”

  Victoria nodded, but then said to Rafael, “Make sure Maya is gone by dawn. She is not to spend another day here.”

  Rafael dipped his head and confirmed her instructions, but once they had gone, he faced Maya. “What will you do?”

  She laughed harshly and glared at him. “I am banished, but you may soon join me if you don’t help me.”

  Rafael’s gut twisted with fear. He had no doubt he would be tossed out and exiled if they discovered his disloyalty. If they found out, he thought. He doubted Victoria and Christopher would manage to stay together. There was so much they had to face and the risk from Alexander still to consider.

  Alexander might have lost this battle, but it was just the beginning of the war.

  “You will not betray me if you want my assistance, Maya. You will not betray me because you know what I must do to make things right,” he said, and released a twisted, half-crazy laugh.

  “You will fail, Rafael. Their bond is strong.”

  “But they are outcasts to both Light and Shadow now. And Alexander doesn’t strike me as a man who quits too easily.”

  The maniacal laugh came again before Maya moved to the end of the bed and stood. “Alexander will eat you alive, which leaves me with only one regret.”

  “Which is?” he asked, needing to know what was in her warped mind.

  “That I may not be there to see it.”

  “You’ll be there, Maya, because we will help each other,” he said, and she nodded, confirming that she would keep his secret in exchange for his assistance during her banishment.

  CHAPTER

  38

  Victoria walked with Christopher to his bedroom, but once they were standing by the bed, she paused to look at him.

  “When we bonded, I worried about what that would mean. Light and Shadow together. Dealing with our clans and the histories of our people.”

  He offered her a weak smile. “I understand, but even with all that to handle, there is one thing about which I have no hesitation. I love you, Victoria, and I know it won’t be easy.”

  “It won’t,” she jumped in. “Your father will not rest, and my parents may not ever accept us.”

  “So long as you pledge your love to me,” he said, bending down on one knee and gazing up at her with love lighting up his dark gaze.

  “I pledge myself to you. I love you, qhari.”

  He smiled at her use of the ancient word. “And I pledge my life and love to you. We are man and wife forever, warmi.”

  With a playful tug on his hand, she urged him back up, smiling broadly at his words.

  He pulled her into his arms, bent his head, and kissed her, sealing their vows. Kissing her over and over again until they were breathless and it was time to honor each other in different ways.

  His hands shook as he reached for the hem of her cotton polo shirt, slipped them beneath the hem to slowly pull the shirt over her head, exposing her upper body. With a quick twist of the snap on her bra, he spread the bra away and feasted on the generous curves of her breasts.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said, and cupped the full globes, strumming his thumbs over her caramel-colored nipples, which were already tight with desire.

  Victoria laid her hands on his wrists and followed the line of his muscled arms to his chest, where she urged him away only long enough to remove his shirt and pants, leaving him standing before her, gloriously naked. The skin of his body, a creamy olive color, was unmarred by contamination, perfect in every way and calling for her to explore every inch of his flawless body.

  While he continued to tease the tips of her breasts, she undid her jeans and shimmied them down. Victoria kicked them away so she could bring herself close to all his wonderfully perfect skin and his growing aura.

  His life force was bright and gleaming a vibrant aqua blue, as if he was beneath the surface of the sea. The color was almost as pure as hers. Only the barest threads of the contamination remained evident, but dormant, the tendrils of the virus’s power stagnant. Liberating her own energy, she allowed it to brush along his, and he responded with a groan as the union roused even greater desire and something else.

  Inside her came a stronger flutter, as if the child within her demanded to be a part of what was happening as well.

  Christopher must have sensed it also, for he looked down at her flat belly and covered it reverently with his hand. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “It’s our child growing ever stronger,” she said, and brushed her fingers across the back of his hand.

  A powerful shudder ripped through his body and he dropped to his knees, kissed a spot directly below her navel, and then wrapped his arms around her. He tucked his head to her abdomen, and the scintilla of energy quivered again, almost as if their child was responding to its father.

  “It’s hard to believe it’s happened,” he said, dropping another kiss just below her navel before leisurely placing a trail of kisses up to her breasts.

  She cradled his head to her as he brushed his lips across her nipples. “It is. It seems so sudden. Hours ago we were battling for our lives, and now this.”

  “We were battling, warmi, but I don’t want you to ever risk your life, our child’s life, like that again.” To drive his point home, he grabbed hold of her hands and trapped them behind her, imprisoning her against him.

  Her insides clenched as the action wedged his erection against her belly. With a sexy smile, she rubbed her hips along him and teased, “You know I don’t like being told what to do.”

  “Really? What happens when—”

  With a discharge of Quinchu power, she hurtled them across the short distance to the bed and pinned him beneath her. “You disobey? I might have to punish you.”

  Christopher grinned, and his eyes glittered with sexy playfulness. “Then I guess I should tell you that I’ve been a bad, bad boy.”

  “I’ll have to make sure you don’t do it again.” She leaned down, bit a spot at the crook of his neck, and then kissed it. His erection, which was still nestled tight to her
belly, jerked in response.

  Her power and his vibrated as their life forces melded, creating a huge aura around them, shimmering with vibrant streams of color as pleasure mounted. She moved down his body, bit his nipple, and he groaned, yanked one hand free of her grasp, and brought it to her breast. He gently caressed the tip, rotating it between his thumb and forefinger as she moved downward.

  Her body pulsed with need as did his when she teased the edge of his head with her mouth before taking him in. Sucking him in and out of the warm wetness of her mouth until he pushed upward with his hips and begged her for more.

  “You want more?” she said huskily, but as she had done before, he gave a blast of his Añaru power and reversed their positions, trapping her beneath him. And much as she had taken her time “punishing” him, he intended to do the same.

  “You did a bad thing,” he warned, part in jest, part deadly serious.

  It was the serious that somehow took root, bringing home just how lucky they had been. “I’d do it again to save you. To save Ryan.”

  His body tensed at the mention of his friend, and she regretted it, until he brought his mouth down to her belly again. Softly he said, “If it’s a boy, I’d like to name him Ryan.”

  “I’d like that, too.” She reached down and guided his erection to her center. Eased him inside her where he held still, his body trembling above her.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you. Of loving you,” he said, and bent his head to kiss her.

  Victoria knew she would never stop wanting him. Never stop loving him. She returned the kiss, allowing their combined energies to grow and fuse more powerfully. Uniting them in every conceivable way. Binding them until not even death could part them, as the boundaries of their energies became indistinguishable. Each of them would forever carry a bit of the other, as would the child growing within her womb.

  When their release came it sent a surge of energy across the heavens, so powerful it reached the hearts of all of the Hunters gathered in the compound. Even Maya couldn’t fail to be moved by it, so pure was the love it carried to each who felt its touch and accepted the message swirling through the energy: No matter how hard the future might be, with love all things were possible.

  CHAPTER

  39

  Although Sammie was exhausted after the events of the day, there was no way she could just go home and rest.

  So many unanswered questions remained about Victoria and her people, but also about what she was. Where she had come from and who her mother had truly been.

  Victoria was right that she needed to know more so she could understand. So that she could maybe consider that she had more family than she had thought. That maybe she had Victoria and her odd group of people who could be part of her life.

  Only one person had the answers.

  She knocked on her father’s door, and after a short hesitation while her father likely confirmed who was there, he opened it.

  He must have understood why she was visiting as soon as he set his eyes on her, surprising her because she hadn’t considered herself that transparent.

  “You know,” he said, and stepped aside to allow her to enter.

  “Were you ever going to tell me?” She walked over to his sofa, sat in the same exact spot on the couch where she had since she was a little child. There was even a small dip in the cushion as a testament to the time she had spent there with her father.

  He closed the door and moved toward his recliner, his steps noticeably slower than they had once been. His head hung downward, displaying a wealth of gray in his buzz-cut hair. A slight hunch marred his usual militarily upright stance.

  “Well?” she pressed, worried, since he seemed suddenly frail. When he finally faced her, his features were pale with a hint of sickly green.

  “I had hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you. We moved so far from where it all began so that it wouldn’t catch up to us,” he said, plopping down in the chair and placing his hands on his knees, rubbing them there nervously.

  “So what wouldn’t catch up?” She examined him, trying to gauge the multitude of emotions flooding his normally stoic face.

  “The war. It had nearly killed your mother—”

  “She was one of them, wasn’t she?” Sammie challenged.

  He nodded slowly, and his features grew tight with pain as he told the story. “Many years ago, Salvatore Bruno and I crossed paths. He was a Texas Ranger who had been investigating a series of murders. I was with a special unit of the CIA researching unusual activities.”

  “What happened?” she asked, needing to know a history that had long been a mystery to her.

  “I came to a compound in the desert just as a battle began. It was like Armageddon with lightning and thunder tearing up the land and buildings. Killing and wounding people,” he said, using his hands to try to demonstrate the way the blasts had been flying through the night sky.

  “My mom was one of the people?” Her peaceful, delicate, and fragile mother had been a warrior like those she had seen today?

  He nodded. “My team and I took shelter because we were in the line of fire and outgunned. When the dust settled, only the dead were left. The dead, Bruno, and his son. He said they had been on their way to a camping trip after his visit to the compound to question a possible witness to a homicide.”

  Except that Adam was like Victoria, which meant her father didn’t know that Adam wasn’t Salvatore Bruno’s real son.

  “How was mom involved in this battle?” she asked.

  He shook his head, as if clearing the dust from old memories, but then bolted out of the chair and began to pace, the recollection seemingly too much for him to handle. Dragging a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, he finally continued.

  “I was assigned the task of moving the dead to a facility where we could perform autopsies and other tests to try to understand how these people could have so much power. I had a crew picking up pieces and moving the bodies away, but as I was checking the corpses, I saw her. Your mom. She was so beautiful, my heart broke at the thought she had died so young. And then I realized she was still alive. Barely, but alive.”

  It occurred to her then what he had done. Her responsible and always by the book father had broken the rules. “You took her away.”

  He dragged both hands through his hair, clearly tortured to this day by what had happened. “I couldn’t turn her over to my group. I knew what they would do to her. What they had done to others.”

  “There were others?”

  He nodded violently and came back to the recliner. “I’ve already said too much, Samantha. You cannot let anyone know. If you do, you’ll be at risk.”

  She was already in danger, she thought, recalling what she had seen today and the horrible damage to Christopher’s friend.

  “Samantha? Something has happened, hasn’t it?” he finally asked, but she would not burden him with that knowledge.

  Instead she said, “Tell me more about my mother.”

  With a sad smile he came to sit beside her and slung one burly arm around her shoulders, as he had done many times before over the many years of her life. “You know I love you.”

  “I do, Dad. And I love you, but I feel different all of a sudden. I need to know why I’m feeling this way. I need to know about Mom and where I come from.”

  Realizing she would not relent, he haltingly explained about what had followed. How he had taken her mother away and tended to her until she was better. How in those long days and weeks, they had fallen in love. Her mother had been stronger then. It wasn’t until later that the weakness had developed, slowly draining her mother of life until one day she just slipped away, leaving them alone. Leaving him to move from place to place until he finally resigned from the CIA and its demands. It was then that he had relocated them here, trying to safeguard her until he knew whether she would be like her mother or like him. Human.

  But she wasn’t like either of them. It was why she had been a loner
for most of her life, always feeling apart from those around her. Only now there were others like her. Including her best friend Victoria.

  Maybe that was why they had bonded years ago when they had first met, because they were alike in ways neither of them had realized. Now there was no going back to what she had been before. No going back to being a loner.

  Samantha finally knew what had been inside her all along. She was a Hunter and her life would never be the same.

  Don’t miss the sinfully

  sexy start of the

  Sin Hunters series!

  Please turn this page

  for an excerpt from

  The Lost

  PROLOGUE

  El Paso, Texas, 1991

  As darkness slowly fled from his eyes, the boy woke, his head aching and his body sore, as if he had been beaten. He looked around the room, but nothing in it seemed familiar. Nothing except the man slumped in the rocking chair beside him.

  He remembered the man and some kind of accident, the boy thought, recalling the bodies, fire, and debris surrounding him the last time he had roused. He had been afraid, unsure of how he had gotten there in the midst of all the destruction. Wondering why he was alone because he was certain he had been with others.

  A man and a woman. Close by. Holding his hand until…

  An attack? he thought, not that he really remembered. He had a vague image of light so bright that it burned his eyes and face. Another memory suddenly came to him of flying through the air and hitting something hard. Possibly a wall.

  Then he had been all alone until the man had come to save him.

  A jingling sound intruded and the bed dipped as a big old beagle rested its paws on the edge of the mattress. The huffing sound of its breathing and the clang of the dog’s tags as it shook its head woke the man.