Page 62 of Hunted

His eyes blaze. ‘You forget yourself,’ he says softly. ‘You do not touch her. Ever.’

‘Wha—?’ I swallow the rest of the question as Valentin’s hand settles exactly where Malachi’s had been.

Heat pulses into me like a brand. Cold, then blazing hot, then cold again, until a deliberate warmth sinks beneath fabric and bone.

Rewriting the contact.

Erasing Malachi’s touch with his own.

The place on my arm tingles like my skin has been persuaded to forget anyone else was ever there.

I’m still reeling when Valentin turns sharply to his guard.

Malachi visibly braces.

Valentin steps into his space and snatches his wrist in a slow, unhurried grip. Malachi hisses, then pales, eyes lowering as the air shifts and the trace of me dissolves beneath the colder, darker dominance of his sire’s bloodline.

The whole spectacle lasts less than half a minute. It is vicious. Territorial. Ancient. And when Valentin releases him, Malachi drops to one knee immediately.

‘Apologies, my lord.’

Valentin does not respond. He stares at me instead. And in that chilling, turbulent silence, last night’s thoughts harden into concrete.

This vampire isn’t merely searching for Lyra Hannigan.

Something is happening to Valentin Moretti.

Something that is making him unravel.

And whatever it is, it’s slipping out of his control fast.

12

VALENTIN

By mid-morning, I have dismantled a competitor’s biotech subsidiary with a single redirected investment and approved the quiet absorption of a nightlife chain that will triple Umbra’s influence in Manhattan within the quarter.

These are the arenas in which I am most comfortable. Power, clean and precise, measured in outcomes rather than impulse.

And because the fires of Netheris would not leave me alone, I drained a CEO with a predilection for hurting female employees and dropped his husk-dry body from low banking clouds.

It took care of my satiety and disposed of a persistent problem.

It was still beneath me.

Any one of my Twelve could have handled it. But I needed the violence.

Because of her.

The memory roars back.

Her arm in Malachi’s hand. The scent of her skin shifting under another male’s proximity. The violence that surged through me in response.

If it were not so grotesquely out of character, it would almost be amusing.

Malachi is not merely a subordinate. He is the oldest, most disciplined of my Twelve, his loyalty tested across centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy. There are few beings I trust more implicitly.

And yet I nearly tore out his throat.