Claim Me (Body Scenes 4)

Jane took several steps backward, staggering almost drunkenly until the backs of her legs brushed against a sofa. She sank onto a plump cushion as her body started to tremble again.

Not averting her eyes from the alpha, she asked, “Who are you?”

His jaw clenched for a moment.

Drake took a long stride toward her, but she held up her hand to warn him off. He’d get the wolves’ hackles up if he continued to protect her from them. And God forbid he should lay a hand on her now that they’d both claimed her.

“Don’t antagonize them,” she said in a shaky voice. “They’re not here to hurt me.”

He backed off, but just barely. Drake was an undisputable alpha himself.

The refined shifter said, “I’m Jude Marks.” Briefly inclining his head toward the first imprinter, he added, “This is Cray McKinley.”

“Jane,” was the most she could manage to say by way of an introduction. The pain Jude felt mirrored her own. A relentless rage, a ferocious longing and an inescapable sense of guilt and grief overwhelmed her. His emotions had somehow entwined with hers and they swirled around low in her belly, making her insides ache and her heart constrict. She didn’t need much oxygen to function, which was a good thing, because her breath was abnormally scarce.

“What’s going on?” Cray asked, his gaze also on Jane. All eyes were on Jane.

Drake answered for her. “She has a gift. She connects with souls when she deems them worthy. But that means she reads and feels emotions, sometimes intensely, as though they’re her own. It can be a pleasant experience or…it can be a painful one. I’d venture to say it’s the latter tonight.”

“Who was she?” Jane asked in a quiet voice, her gaze still locked with Jude’s.

He was instantly unsettled. Breaking their eye contact, he turned away. Jane sprang to her feet, surprising everyone, including herself. Jude looked at her over his shoulder, a curious expression on his chiseled face.

To Drake, she said in a breathless voice, “Perhaps a little less testosterone in the room would help ease the tension.”

He gave her a contemplative look, clearly not willing to leave her alone with two shifters, even if they had imprinted on her.

“Drake.” Her tone was insistent.

“Fine.” He stalked toward the door, but said, “Call me if you need me.”

“Of course.” She knew she wouldn’t. There was nothing Drake could do to help her at this point.

Jude sat on another sofa facing her and said, in answer to her earlier question, “I suppose it’d be moot to lie and say I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She nodded. “I’m pretty good at this. You can’t hide anything from me. Especially now that you’ve imprinted on me. The gift is even more powerful.”

“Some gift,” Cray muttered. “You’re close to tears.”

She tried to compose herself, but the pain was real and palpable and…excruciating.

As she took a few steps toward Jude, he said, “Her name was Celine. She was a member of my pack until a hunter attacked her. He left her to suffer instead of finishing her off. She was injured too badly to self-heal. I found her just before she passed. There was nothing I could do to save her. She died in my arms.”

Jane sucked in a sharp breath as she felt the familiar stab of pain in her chest that always accompanied memories of Sean. He’d been slain too. She knew how devastating it was to lose a lover and her heartache doubled as she experienced Jude’s torment along with her own.

She swayed again on her high heels, reeling from wave after wave of dread, sorrow and angst washing over her. Cray moved behind her, gently placing his hands on her biceps to stabilize her.

“Jane,” he whispered in a soothing tone. “Try to make it stop.”

“I can’t,” she mumbled as tears filled her eyes and grief consumed her. Not just hers, but Jude’s as well. She said to him, “You didn’t imprint on Celine, but you loved her.”

“Very much. She wasn’t the one though.”

“How can I be?” she asked as fat drops rolled down her cheeks. “For either of you? And both of you?”

“I don’t know,” Jude told her. “It’s not something I’ve ever experienced before and I don’t know exactly how it works, except to say that something within both of us connected with something deep within you.”

“Like soul mates.” She’d thought Sean had been hers, but even with him, she’d never felt this magnetic pull so acutely.