Page 85 of Claimed

Malachi’s silence is answer enough. The mind-bond is empty. Sealed. Dead quiet where it used to hum with dangerous warmth.

He sent his vampire guard to interrogate me, to do the very thing he swore never to do. He’s prying my mind open while shutting me out.

And fuck, that hits worse than a sucker punch with knives.

Draven’s presence pushes again and images flicker behind my eyes. A green shopfront in New Orleans. Selphine’s hands over a bowl of steam. A vial at my mouth. Valentin’s mouth at my throat. Blood in glass… on his lips. Blood leaving the Tower in a courier’s box.

I shove back with everything I have. The pressure recedes by a fraction and Draven’s brow lifts.

‘Well,’ I say, breathless, ‘that was rude.’

Malachi’s voice is cold. ‘You’re protecting a witch who poisoned him.’

‘I’m protecting myself from vampires who think interrogation is foreplay.’

Draven presses harder.

Fuck. Pain ignites through my skull. I grip the chain because I need something solid, real. The ward-hum rises under my skin. Bride’s Mercy goes furnace-hot beneath my tongue, and for one horrifying second my own name tries to move in my throat.

Ly—ra.

I choke.

No. Absolutely not. My fingers tighten around the chain until iron bites into skin.

‘You will tell us what you are hiding,’ Malachi croons.

‘Will I?’ My voice shakes. I hate that, so I make it meaner. ‘Maybe if you ask nicely. Try saying please without sounding like a funeral fucked a sword.’

Draven’s power slides deeper. The cell blurs at the edges.

I see my father’s study. Smell Selphine’s shop. Feel Valentin’s first bite in the Vault. His horror. His hunger. His hand around my wrist in the alley right before he sucked on my thumb.

Nothing incriminating there, but fucking Gods… if he keeps going…

The dungeon snaps back and my knees hit stone. Damn it, I didn’t realise I had fallen. Malachi steps closer and watches with a gratification that turns my stomach.

I lift my head and smile at him through the pain. ‘Wow. You brought a mind crowbar and still look constipated. Embarrassing.’

For the first time, Draven’s mouth tightens in irritation. Then he pushes.

Hard.

A grunt I refuse to turn into a cry builds at the back of my throat as the glamour becomes a hook, catching on something buried so deep even I avoid it.

A girl in a bedroom. A vampire in the dark.

My nose starts to bleed. Hot. Sudden. Wet. It drips over my upper lip, and for one suspended second all three of us understand the same thing.

Oh, shit.

Draven stills. Malachi’s smile vanishes. And the pressure in my skull spikes so violently my vision whites out.

Then the sealed thread inside me breaks open. A wall blown apart by a king’s rage.

The dungeon vanishes under a roar so vast it feels as if the Tower itself has opened its throat.

EIRA!