Page 67 of Claimed

‘And you became this because…?’

‘Because I stepped into rooms I should not have entered.’

‘You know what’s sexy? Plain speaking. Facts tossed out like rich chocolate dipped in caramel. That’s what gets me wet.’

His hand begins to slide down my hip. ‘Am I allowed to mention that you are already wet, or is that redundant?’

I clamp my thighs shut before he completes the obvious journey. ‘Speak. Plainly.’

‘Occult rooms,’ he says. ‘I did not know what they were. I was young, proud, and my family’s fortune was collapsing. My father’s enemies were sharpening knives. I would have walked through almost any door if it promised leverage.’

‘Doubt that, but carry on.’

‘The invitation came through the House of De Santis.’

My spine tightens. ‘As in Lucien De Santis?’

Valentin’s expression does not change, but the air does. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I’m a hunter. I do research.’

He watches me like he knows omission when he hears it. ‘Not Lucien,’ he says at last. ‘An heir. Reckless. Charming. Too curious for his own survival. He dabbled in forbidden patronage as if it were art, and because I needed to know what kind of man he truly was, I followed him into the wrong gathering in Rome.’

‘That’s a yes on you hating him.’

‘A measured yes.’

I nearly smile, then catch myself. Dangerous, how easily we slip into banter while wrapped in curses and countdowns. ‘So he lured you into the occult rooms. Then what?’

Valentin’s claws press lightly into my hip, and I expect him to end the conversation with sex.

Instead, he answers. ‘He believed he was summoning a patron. He did not realise he was knocking on the door of a Maker. She engineered catastrophe and watched what I would do with it.’

‘How?’

‘She planted forged letters and seals in the room. Proof that the De Santis heir had arranged my family’s financial collapse. Before anyone could question it, she ensured the right men saw them first: my father’s creditors, the host’s armed guards. Within minutes they believed they had justification to seize the heir and move on my household that same night. Then she offered a solution through the host. Hand the heir over as the culprit and my family would be spared. One trade. One body.’

‘And did you take the offer?’

‘I refused the obvious sacrifice. I made the host confess, forced the truth into the open, wrote it in blood, and delivered it to the rival house myself with terms that protected the heir and ruined every man who thought he could profit from the chaos. Then I let them take the host’s head without dirtying my hands.’

I should be horrified. Yet some traitorous part of me warms at the idea of him refusing to become her puppet, even if his alternative still ended with a man dead. ‘So you saved the heir.’

‘Yes.’

‘And that impressed her.’

‘It interested her. Morality did not impress her. She was impressed by ruthless capability.’

My skin prickles. ‘And she’s the woman who turned you?’

The room draws in around us before he answers. ‘Yes.’

Jealousy spears me so quickly I almost laugh at myself. ‘She made a habit of testing you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was her name?’