Claimed by the Pack

DAMIEN

“So which one of you is responsible for this?”

She pushed her phone forward confidently, a photograph already taking up the full length of the screen. It was the book. The one I’d brought back from the underhalls. The one I’d recognized as belonging to the Hallowed Order, although I was supposed to have forgotten that part.

“That would be me,” I said.

Serena’s gaze shifted in my direction. I could feel the excitement in her now, the rush of adrenaline that came with the heat and turmoil. She’d been sated, but only partially. And until she was, it would be difficult for her to focus on much of anything.

I’d been sated of course. I’d been called selfish for it, but I honestly didn’t mean it the way it happened.

And poor Broderick hadn’t been sated at all.

This was my first experience outside of the pack. Outside of Karessa. I’d fallen back into old habits, back when I hunted in a much different way. The pier at Santa Monica. The boardwalk. The strip. Back then I’d been carefree and careless, sun-bronzed and magnificent. Idolized in the way youth and beauty are always worshiped, until they both inevitably fade.

I took women when I wanted them in those days. Fought them off when I didn’t. And yet nothing felt like it did here, with my brethren. With Karessa and Broderick and the rest of the pack. Here I belonged. There was a sense of kinship and blood. Pride too. Always pride.

At least up until that was suddenly gone.

“Do you know what this represents?” Serena was saying. “How important this is?”

The book I’d found was old. Dark red leather. Bound with raised bands on the spine that looked painted with gold leaf. It was in bad shape, almost unreadable. But on the cover…

On the cover was a symbol I’d seen before. An all-seeing eye, set against triangles, encapsulated by a circle. An eye with a crescent moon in the iris.

“Not really,” I said. “But when I showed it to Xiomara…”

“And how did you know to show it to Xiomara?” Serena jumped in. She was still astounded I knew the woman’s name. “How are you even aware of her?”

That story was on the longer side. I decided not to tell it just now.

“I know your symbol,” I said simply. “I knew immediately when I found it that the book belonged to your Order. An ancient branch of it, anyway. Or so I was told.”

“She told you that?”

“Yes.”

I stared down at the photo of the book I’d shipped off to New York. The old lady had called within minutes of receiving it. She’d been excited — more animated than I’d ever seen her before. And I’d seen her pretty jacked up.

“And you said you saw more like this?”

I nodded to Broderick. He slid open a drawer and tossed two more of the books onto the table, both torn and beaten all to hell One was nothing more than a leather cover and the first few pages. The other was water-damaged to the point where the book had swelled up and split its bindings.

“We found those three days ago,” I said. “Same area, pretty much. A little further down though. The whole place is in rough shape.”

Serena reached out excitedly to take the books in her hands. She turned them over and over again, running her fingers over the edges.

“We know your people had roots here,” I said. “And that at one point, almost all of y

our knowledge was lost.”

Serena nodded slowly. “Your whole damned city caught fire,” she said. “1618.”

“Not my city,” I replied with a chuckle. “I only live here.”

Serena smirked. “Can’t be much surfing on the Seine, though.” Even her smirk was sexy.

“No, actually. The waves suck.”