Shadow's Claim (Immortals After Dark #13)(123)

“All you need to understand is that I’m never letting you go.”

Some weak part of her thrilled at his words. But . . . “You can’t just keep me here. I have a kingdom to rule.”

“Can’t I? Maybe I wouldn’t have done so back when I had honor. But you’ve stripped me down to the bone, woman. Until I’m nothing but pain and need. A shade.”

“Did you bring me here to punish me?”

“Yes! No.” He worked his hips between her thighs, rucking her skirt up to her waist. “I’ll figure this all out when I’m inside you.”

Just like that night in his tent, she could feel his rigid erection pressing against her panties. Against her will, her sex readied for that hardness, growing damp. “I don’t want you—not like this.”

He drew back above her, but he kept her wrists pinned. “Damn you, Bettina!” With his free hand, he clutched the back of her head, searching her expression. “Choose me over him! Want me.”

Over Cas? I did!

But before she could work up a scathing retort, the vampire yelled, “What do I have to do? Fucking tell me!” He jostled her mask, partly obscuring her vision.

“Let my hands go!” When he didn’t, she rubbed her shoulder against the corner of the mask to right it.

At once, a change seemed to come over him. With his irises flickering from black to green and back, he released her, tenderly straightening it for her.

Then, with a groan of misery, he buried his face against her neck, punching the pallet again and again. “I can’t hurt you,” he rasped. “Even now, I can’t.”

“But clearly you wish you could?” she sputtered. She didn’t deserve this from him! Yet he didn’t seem to be listening to her whatsoever.

Against her ear, he murmured, “Before you, I was a male of little emotion.” As if he couldn’t help himself, he lifted his head up to brush his lips over her cheek. “Now with you? I’ve never struggled against such lust. I’ve never felt such wrath.” He punctuated his harsh words with a gentle kiss to her temple. “I’ve never hurt so deeply.” A kiss to the corner of her lips. “Or loved so hard.”

“Love?” Daciano had talked about fate and bloodings and Brides. But he’d never mentioned love!

His eyes were mesmerizing as they caught hers. “I hate what you did. And still I love you.” With a bitter curse, as if he’d said too much, he drew away from her. Turning to sit at the edge of the pallet, he dropped his head into his hands. “I won’t let you go, drag?. You’ll stay in this underworld with me until your other life is but a memory.”

“Stay with you?” She righted her clothing with snappish movements. “After how you’ve treated me!” He’d abandoned her, then abducted her—never explaining his actions, nor allowing Bettina to explain hers.

His head swung up. “You are angry at me? You betrayed me repeatedly! And then, on top of everything, you used your power on me—on me. Apparently I was the last to know you’d recovered it!”

“I had no choice but to use it. And what about your actions? You humiliated me in front of my people! Not to mention what you did to Caspion.”

“You dare utter his name in my home?” A chilling malice laced his tone. “I blame him for your treachery. He talked you into it. You wouldn’t have betrayed me on your own.”

“He had nothing to do with it! I didn’t know what else to do! I was terrified for you.”

Double take. “So you poisoned me?”

“I had to— Wait. What?”

“You handed me that f*cking goblet of blood, the one spiked with poison from the ring you always wore.”

She gasped. “Vampire, you believe I did that?”





When Trehan registered her dumbfounded expression, hope bloomed in his chest.

Then logic reminded him that she and Caspion had the means, the motive, the opportunity. You reach, because you want her so badly. “If not you and the demon, then who would dare?”

She cried, “How about your cousins? The ones who are always trying to kill you!”

“They would never do something so dishonorable.”

“But you think I would?”

In a singsong tone, Salem said at his ear: “You’re both wrong.”

“Sylph! You followed Bettina here?” And remained? When I was about to take her?

“I’d morphed wiv her collar a split second before your mist came. Then I figured you were goin’ to nab her, so I tagged along to make sure you wouldn’t hurt her.” The being shimmered around the room as if excited. “Do you know how long I’ve been wantin’ to come here?”

Bettina looked as mystified as Trehan felt. “Salem, how are we both wrong? Who did it?”

“The vampire’s squire! Not twenty minutes ago, another phantom told me he’d heard the young vamp brag about mickeying Daciano’s carafe of blood.” Salem addressed Trehan as he said, “Seems the Horde lord you killed in the melee was his sire. The little bugger couldn’t murder you outside the ring, but he could hamstring you before a match so Caspion could take your head.”

The bloody squire poisoned me? That soon-to-be-dead vampire?