Page 44 of Claimed

Kim

Iam vaguely aware of being carried, which is a strange sensation; I’m not sure I’ve ever been carried before. Not like this. Arms that feel strong – weirdly, unwaveringly strong – are beneath me.

No, not beneath me.

They’re wrapped around my legs and I’m sort of slung – fireman’s-lift style – over a large sturdy shoulder. As things start to come into focus, I realise it’s Lucien’s shoulder I’m being carried over. And it’s his ass I’m staring at.

His arm is over the backs of my thighs, high up, close to my ass. And his hand is holding me tightly in place.

I look to my left and see Luna in the same position, except she’s patting Lucien’s back with the flat of her palm. “I can walk,” she says. “Lucien. You can put me down now.”

He pauses. The sensation of movement stopping so abruptly makes my head spin.

He sets her down. I shift and mutter, “I can…”

But Lucien simply changes position, holding me now like I’m a bride he’s going to carry over a threshold. “You cannot,” he says gruffly.

And he’s right, because as soon as we start moving again I pass out.

The next time my eyes open, I’m in a bed staring at a ceiling. But it’s not a bed or a ceiling I recognise.

I turn my head and see Luna sitting in an armchair beside me. Her head is resting in her palm, and her eyes are closed.

Her skin is pale, but her cheeks are flushed. Somehow, she looks stronger. And I don’t understand how she doesn’t have any marks on her. Not one. Nothing to indicate she was part of a huge mother-fucking fight.

Beneath her chair, swirling like they’re some kind of pet, the inky shadows retreat when I look at them.

I spend a few minutes deliberately not moving or speaking so that I can study her. I’m a demon hunter; sensing the presence of evil is what I do.

And I suppose until this moment, I haven’t wanted to go looking for it in Luna. But now? After seeing what she did to Steven?

“Well?” Lucien’s dulcet tones invade my thoughts. He’s lingering by the door, and his presence makes Luna whimper in her sleep and reposition herself in her chair, although she doesn’t wake up. “Have you figured it out?”

He walks over and sits close to me. Between us, but on the bed.

I sit up, leaning back against my pillows.

“Is she the same? Has she changed?”

“Oh, she’s changed,” I say quietly. “The energy she unleashed on Steven felt like the energy left behind in the bookshop after that fight. But if you’re asking me whether I sense anything demonic in her, the answer is no.”

Lucien nods, although he doesn’t seem pleased by the news. “That’s because she’s not a demon. Her power is something different.” He sighs, his jaw twitches, then he shrugs off his jacket and leans forward resting his elbows on his thighs so he can place his forehead in his hands. “She’s closer to a god, I think. Or a goddess.”

“Of course you think she’s a goddess,” I quip. “I do too but⁠—”

Lucien raises his head enough to scowl at me. “Humans have a very narrow perception of the concept of the gods,” he says.

I frown. My head hurts. “I’d love you to enlighten me, but right now I’m not sure I’d absorb any of it.”

Lucien sits up, eyes darting from my face to the scratches and bruises covering my torso.

I am suddenly very aware that I’m only wearing boxers.

Fuck knows where my clothes went.

Something that looks almost like concern flits across Lucien’s face. He reaches for a glass of water on the bedside table and hands it to me.

I take a sip, cough because my throat feels raw, and he holds the glass for me, his fingertips brushing mine as I drink from it.