Lawful Claim

by Marie Johnston

  “Some bad blood, huh?”

  He considered his words. “Perhaps they might not be as open-minded as Kaitlyn would be.”

  “Gotcha.” Ana looked up from her twisting hands. They were sitting in the corner of the rec room, Julio playing Xbox with a pale-haired young teen boy, having the time of his life. She’d never let him play as many video games in his ten years as he had the last two days they’d been staying at the lodge. “Commander, you all have been absolutely honest.”

  Brutally so. She’d asked Kaitlyn what being an Agent entailed. Even Ana could tell the female had first mentally consulted her boss, and then shrewdly gauged the authenticity of Ana’s reaction to the details. One of the many ways they had determined her and Julio’s lack of culpability in the whole Sigma scheme. After helping them get settled, Kaitlyn had pulled Ana aside, stripped down, and shifted into a wolf. Ana had damn near pissed herself, but any disbelief had gone out of the window. Julio, then came out to the hallway and asked to pet the giant red wolf before Kaitlyn went back to her own cabin to shift back.

  Sigh…What a world she’d been thrown into. “That man, Agent E, how much of my husband is left? And if this bonding thing works, then what? Is he something, someone, I want to be attached to for the rest of my life?”

  The silence that followed didn’t bode well for the answer. Commander Fitzsimmons’ eyes never wavered from hers as he internally ruminated over what to say.

  “Your husband’s human innocence is gone.” His voice was barely audible to her human ears. “Is there anything left of him? Yes, or you wouldn’t be here. He is most definitely changed. In a good way or a bad way? It was intended for evil, but is he evil? I don’t think so. You will have to make your own decision. If I had a mate,” he paused, clearing his throat, “and she was captured by Sigma, but eventually her actions suggested she wasn’t fully adopted into their indoctrination, and maybe even working undetectably against Sigma, then I would understand the position she was put in. I wouldn’t give up on her.”

  His words tore at her. “Even with what they would’ve done during their time as an Agent? Could you be mated to an Agent after that?” she whispered.

  Those perceptive hazel eyes never strayed as he thought his answer over. “That is something you’ll have to reconcile within yourself. What’s done is done. What an Agent might still have to do…” A shadow flitted across his face. “I guess, the reasons behind their actions are what makes the difference.”

  There was a story there. She suddenly felt a kinship with the stranger in front of her. This man recently had to make his own reconciliation about someone and it strained him greatly.

  “If Agent E agrees, I’ll do it. For my son’s safety.”

  *****

  What a relief, I don’t have to drink blood. Ana sat in the original interrogation room where she had been brought when they first arrived. Agent E sat stiffly next to her, while Julio was down in the rec room playing video games.

  They had both been summoned to meet with the commander to discuss their upcoming nuptials, or mating, or whatever it was called by non-human species. Ana found out that the Guardian’s doctor wasn’t an MD doctor, but a PhD researcher who had spent years working and secretly learning medicine in human hospitals. The doctor, Garreth, had studied E’s blood and confirmed both vampire and shifter elements. He deduced that since the serum given to alter Agents contained elements from both species, either form of mating may be successful. Or not. Since Ana wasn’t sure how she was going to stomach a mouthful of fresh blood without vomiting it right back up, she opted for a shifter mating. That is, after she had asked the good doctor if there were blood-borne diseases she could catch from Agent E. Garreth had explained that those kinds of diseases didn’t cross the human threshold.

  One less thing to worry about.

  “We’ll mate you like we would a shifter pair, using a special dagger to meld your blood.” Commander Fitzsimmons eyed them both, waiting for objections. Ana just felt numb. “I can do the ceremony, unless either of you have an issue with that.”

  Ana weakly shook her head while E answered with a gruff, “You’re fine.”

  “Ana, you need to call your work. Tell them the wedding’s off, you need a change, and you and Julio are moving. Say sorry for the short notice, but after all you’ve been through, it was just too much. Something along those lines.”

  Awesome. She’d be the dick who just up and quit work. Over a guy. But it sounded plausible, and they all knew her history.

  “Jace will take care of cleaning and selling the house, wrap up all the loose ends.” The commander studied the two of them, sitting side by side, reading their rigid, uncomfortable body language. “Would you two like some time in here to talk before the ceremony?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great,” E muttered.

  “Sure,” Ana mumbled.

  Commander Fitzsimmons rose to his imposing height. “The recorders are off. Dani will be in her office so just knock when you’re ready to head back to your rooms. She’ll hear you and call me.”

  After he left and the door swung closed, Ana continued to study the table, while E sat with his arms crossed, staring at the wall.

  “I’m sorry,” E said abruptly.

  Ana’s brows drew together. “For what?”

  “All of this. And that you have to mate me even though you’ve moved on.”

  Ana didn’t need special hearing to detect the faint edge of bitterness in his last statement, and her anger was quick to flare. “What was I supposed to do? Going through life alone is not a lot of fun. Going through life alone after having lost my best friend and husband?” She shook her head. “I was miserable. I mean, Julio and I were happy, but after Nana died it was just me and him. He lost his first tooth, and who was there to join in the celebration? He learned to ride a bike, and who could I call and tell? Yeah, the hard times were bad enough. The good times were almost worse, because then I could see how alone I really was.”

  E’s brow creased, like he’d never thought of what it was like to share in all of life’s pleasures and disappointments with no one. Not. A. Soul.

  “There was no one, Julio. Agent E. Whatever.”

  “E is fine,” he answered gravely, studying his hands.

  “So, yeah, I moved on. I dated and was ready to marry again. It was nice to feel cared for, to have adult company, have a shoulder to lean on. I find myself grateful that even though Griffin was conning me, he put on a good show.”

  “I’m sorry,” E repeated, his voice heavy with emotion.

  Those two words pissed Ana off.

  “Maybe you should be.” She nearly shouted at him. “It’s not like I could fall in love with anyone else after you.” His startled expression lifted to meet her incensed one. “It’s not like any of this hell was our fault. So you know what you can do? Mate me and try not to get killed for real. Because the only blessing I felt like I had was not having to tell a son he lost his father, since he never knew you anyway.” Ana stood up to stomp toward the door. “But now he knows you, however briefly. So don’t die.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I want you to tell me everything, you know, before we…” Ana drifted off. She was in a little cabin that had been vacant since this pack of Guardians took up residence in West Creek. It had been tidied and freshened for their overnight stay. There they sat, side by side, on the already made bed. Ana in a simple ivory dress, E wearing borrowed slacks and a dress shirt, under Mercury’s strict orders to, “Take them off before you two do it.”

  The commander had mated them privately, not even Julio was present. She hadn’t wanted to get the boy’s hopes up, like his parents were getting remarried or something. Right now this mating was for survival.

  Steeling her resolve, she continued. “I want to know everything you’ve done, no barriers, no more secrets. We start this new relationship completely open. You know what my life has been like, what I do for a living, who I’ve been with, so it’s your turn.”<
br />
  “Ana.” E’s eyes filled with trepidation. “You don’t know what you’re asking. It’s awful and it’s done. I can’t take back any of it.”

  Sighing, Ana stared straight ahead. “We haven’t been able to talk, to catch up. You’re a stranger, but you’re not. You say my husband died that night, but when I look at you, I’m seeing him. It’s hard to separate the two, you need to understand that.”

  Turning toward him, waiting until his dark-brown eyes met hers, she pressed on. “You say you’re not Julio Esposito, but part of this Agent E,” she gestured up and down his body, “is him. If it makes you feel better, I’m not Ana Esposito anymore. I’m Ana Esposito, widow and single mom. It’s been my identity since that night. I’ve had other relationships, a whole life, other than the one you and I had together.”

  Her dead husband, wait, new husband. No, that wasn’t right, either. She had to quit thinking of him as her dead husband. Or husband at all. Mate. Her mate took a deep breath and started talking. He began with the sexcapades from when he woke up changed, and how he met his partner, Agent X.

  “Trust me, when it comes to X, I can’t tell you for your own safety. And hers. Just know, we’re close and she’s extremely important to me.”

  “You really care for her?”

  He paused. “Yes. It benefitted both of us greatly and offered us each some protection to let others think we had a certain type of relationship. But I didn’t have to pretend to care for her.”

  Agent X definitely intrigued her.

  He continued on with the more stomach-churning details of his duty with Sigma: the people he hurt, who he killed, who he seduced and then sometimes killed, and why. It made her sick, that his mind and body would be used as a weapon when he’d been nothing but tender, loving, and protective when he was hers, when he was human. He ended with how he hid his activity, watching her and Julio, paying off prostitutes to say he was with them all night, not just for the half hour it took to get covered in their scent.

  She knew he was done when he trailed off, head down, hands folded on his lap, awaiting her judgment. Her heart hurt. He was so strong and so damaged, so ashamed yet so repentant, so determined but so lost. Maybe their mating started as nothing but survival, but right now it felt like so much more.

  “Twice now you’ve given up everything for me. We’ve been given another chance and neither of us knows for how long. But one thing we do know, is that we’re finally a family again.” She gave a weak, wry smile. “Albeit an untraditional one.”

  His expression stole her breath with its intensity. “You’re phenomenal.”

  Faster than she could see him move, he flipped her back on the bed, his powerful body covering hers, his lips crushing hers, swallowing her gasp. Ana managed to wiggle her hands free to cup his face in awe. She had her husband with her again. How many times had she prayed for this, knowing the futileness of her efforts? How often had she dreamed of his touch, of his scent enveloping her, only to wake and find an empty bed, or worse, one of the men she’d been in a relationship with? The brief flare of hope at finding a man next to her, only to realize it wasn’t the one she’d been dreaming about.

  He was here now. It wasn’t a miracle, but a devastating tragedy, a transforming work of evil that took him away. Despite it all, he was back. She met his energy with equal verve of her own, relishing his lips and his length pressing against her belly.

  “Ana.” E growled, breaking free to rip open her dress, but became aware of the force he was using and went still.

  He’d always been a sweet and gentle lover, coveting her body, treating her with the utmost respect. That was so ten years ago. “You better not stop,” she ordered, arching her back, letting her lace-clad breasts slip free of the ivory satin of her dress.

  Heat flared in his deep-brown eyes and he finished ripping her dress, also borrowed. Kaitlyn had given her a knowing wink and said she didn’t expect it back. Cool air drifted over her skin, causing her nipples to pebble further under his sensual inspection. Like a man possessed, he ripped the front of her bra apart and tore her panties, removing the material so she was bare to him.

  Reaching for him, he stopped her. “Don’t,” he choked. “Just let me look. I…This…I never thought I’d see this again. You’re so beautiful.” He splayed his fingers over her belly, lightly skimming faint stretch marks earned in the last two months of her pregnancy.

  Regret crossed his face. “I wish—”

  “Don’t.” This time she needed him to stop. “I know.”

  Giving a small nod, he kept skimming his fingers further down until he was at her center, parting her folds, using his other hand to spread her legs until she was open before him. Lifting his gaze to meet hers, he waited for her to refuse, and when she didn’t, he slid down until his face was settled between her thighs, dipping his tongue into her heat.

  A groan escaped her lips and she lifted her hips into him. Using the movement to grab under her legs and pull her close, he licked at her until she was writhing, but keeping her close to the edge, not letting her plummet over.

  “E, please.” She panted, riding the pleasure, trying to take it all the way. At the sound of his name, he nipped at her bud, shoving her over the precipice she’d been balancing on, screaming her pleasure.

  Before she finished the surge of orgasm, he was on his knees, pulling her toward him. He only undid the clasp of his pants, too impatient to remove his clothing. Once he was free, she barely had to time view his thick manhood before he was feeding his length inside of her.

  “Ana,” he breathed again, falling over her, catching himself with his arms on either side of her head. “You feel amazing, so good.”

  When she was filled completely, he didn’t move, his eyes squeezed shut, body shaking.

  “It’s okay, E,” she urged, realizing she was comfortable with his current identity. He wasn’t her husband, he was no longer an Agent, he was just E. “You don’t need to be careful with me anymore.”

  “You’re fucking amazing.”

  With that, he backed out and thrust harder, losing himself in the smooth motion, his thrusts increasing in power and urgency. She held onto his wrists, keeping her knees up and out of the way so he was free to surge back and forth.

  Another orgasm built within Ana, his strokes carrying her rapidly to an impending explosion, not stopping even as she rode out another climax, crying her pleasure. He kept his pace, his gaze boring into hers, watching the pleasure build and release, until her voice was hoarse from crying out in ecstasy, until her legs fell limp to each side to use her energy to withstand another earth-shattering wave of bliss.

  Sensing she was spent, he arched back, gritting his teeth. “Don’t. Want. To. Stop,” he bit out, before throwing his head back, roaring her name, and shaking his release within her, where she was still somehow clenched tightly around him. When he collapsed onto her, she let all her inner muscles relax, pried her hands from around his wrists, and lay listless underneath him, enjoying the feeling of his body covering hers.

  He abruptly reared up on his elbows. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Barely able to keep her eyes open, she murmured, “Absolutely not.”

  Lightly kissing her eyelids, he slid out from her and curled her into the fortress that was his body. “Get some rest. We’re not done yet.”

  *****

  “What the fuck are these?”

  Ana drifted awake, partially aware that she was naked and that the furnace she had been snuggled against was no longer there.

  “What?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

  “These.” His fingers traced her backside, and she realized what he might find back there.

  “Oh, um.” She sat up. They had passed out on top of the still-made bed, leaving her nothing to cover up with. Ana remained bare to him, sitting on the bruises he had been questioning. He had stripped down completely; her eyes widening not at the broad, muscular chest, or the evidence of his arousal, but at the magni
tude of marks covering his body. Light beige slashes crossed and puckered his dark body. Scars that had not been there the last time she had seen him naked.

  “Ana!” he commanded, lifting her off his magnificent body. “Who hurt you?”

  “Well.” This wasn’t something she wanted to talk about with her husband—oops, mate. But he’d been honest with her. “After you thwarted Griffin’s plan to kill our son, he got a little rough with me. The worst was the night before you killed him. I felt almost like he was punishing me for something. He’d never been like that before.”

  “If I would’ve known, I would have made him suffer,” E seethed.

  “I think you did just fine.” He clenched his fists, shaking his head like he’d missed his opportunity. Apparently that didn’t mollify her mate. “He knew you saved Julio that night. He knew before he died that you were saving both of us. That’s revenge enough.”

  Her words had some impact and he finally softened, appeased. Leaning forward, he firmly cupped both of her breasts in his rough hands. She arched into him, settling her hands over his. It was something she always loved to do: watch his darker skin caress her lighter, caramel-toned body. She’d dated good-looking men, including Griffin. But none of them had shared her heritage like E did. The two of them shared similar upbringings and the deep love of Ana’s Nana and E’s father. Ana had struggled to remember old recipes and beloved stories of E’s mother he had told her to pass down to Julio. Even recalling E’s proud, dutiful father enough to pass down a worthy legacy was becoming more of a struggle as each year passed. She feared there’d be nothing left of Julio Senior for young Julio to associate with.

  Would E be willing to visit the past, remember what being human was like and the legacy he left behind?

  “These are bigger than before.” He plumped and weighed her breasts, rolling her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.