Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven #1) by J.R. Ward

Lydia would be safe because actions had ramifications, even for those existing outside of the law.

God, he was ready for this to be over.

Pausing, he looked through the trees. He was halfway up the mountain, and if his memory was correct—and it never failed him—he didn’t have far to go.

Goddamn, he was so close.

As his legs started up again, his body went along for the ride and took his mind with it, the latter nestled in the stagecoach of his skull. And it wasn’t much farther until the line of “No Trespassing” signs made an appearance, everything exactly as he remembered—

There it was, up ahead. The hatch—although it was no longer flashing any of its metal. So Eastwind must have moved the pine needles back into place. The downed tree, however, had been left as is, and that was how Daniel knew he was in the right place.

Closing in on all the “No Trespassing” missives, he took a last look around, and then didn’t hesitate as he crossed over onto the property. As he kept hiking onward, he stayed aware of his surroundings. The worst-case scenario? He got plugged by someone on the final goal approach and Lydia died not because he was noncompliant, but because he was sloppy and exhausted and got shot because of it.

Destiny had a sick-ass sense of humor, though, didn’t it.

And then he was at the hatch.

His boots stopped and he glanced to the left. To the right. All was clear that he knew or could sense.

Bending down, he brushed the ground cover away, exposing the hatch’s face. There were supposed to be four of them in total; that was what the building plans for the underground facility had provided. But they only required one to get inside.

That stupid woman Phalen should have left the shit well enough alone.

But nooooooooo, she had to go get some bright ideas and try to resurrect the past. This was all her fucking fault, and if innocent people were collateral damage? It was on her.

Stripping off his pack, he opened the thing up. The acetylene torch with its tanks was heavy as fuck; the explosives had not been the weight issue.

Kicking more of the pine needles away, he knelt down, got out the red Bic that Susan had sold him along with his guilt-branded packs of cigarettes. With a crank of the gas and a flick of his thumb, he had himself a handy-dandy yellow flame.

He went to work on the seal of the hatch, the steel heating up to a glow, the going slow. But like he gave a fuck.

He was going to burn through this bitch, get down under, set the charges around the facility—and then have a last Marlboro before everything went Fourth of July.

The cleanup was going to be a bitch, and he wasn’t talking about the damage to the landscape. But the spin, at least as far as the outside world, was already in place.

Animal activists. Protesting that hotel for what they were supposedly doing to the wolves. The headlines wrote themselves, and he could just picture the social media hashtags. And that was another reason Lydia Susi was going to be okay. She had no history of activism, no arrests, no criminal record of any kind. People who blew shit up did it either as a pattern of behavior or in a moment of psychosis, and she fit neither of those descriptors.

If they killed her, and tried to pin the explosion on her? It wasn’t going to pass editorial review.

Besides, Blade had his own problems internally. Always had.

Daniel was hollow as he stared at the hissing flame. Dead, though he lived—except he was going to take care of the last part of that tag. Really fucking soon—

The bullet was soundless as it came at him. And the hit in the center of his chest was nothing but a pfft.

The impact, however, was like a cannonball, pitching him backwards off his crouch, the torch going flying, his visual field swinging from the hatch seal, to the pines, to the gray sky above as he flew back and took his sight with him.

As he landed on his back and gasped, his legs churned in the pine needles and his hands flopped on his pecs to find the lead slug’s entry wound. But like that was going to help?

The footsteps coming toward him were muffled, although maybe that was because his hearing was failing already. And when he coughed and tasted blood, his brain struggled to come up with a plan to save himself—

The face that entered his visual field was not a surprise.

“Hi, honey, I’m home,” Mr. Personality drawled.





LYDIA JOGGED THROUGH the mountain’s forest, dodging trees, jumping over rocks, hopping across streams. She’d been careful to enter the preserve not through a trailhead, but on a convoluted course from the WSP headquarters. And in spite of all the sleep she hadn’t been getting, adrenaline made her hyperaware and fast on her feet.

Breathing hard, she hit a decline and then doubled back up. She was close, she was so close …

And then she slowed. Stopped.

Scrambled over to lock in behind a pine tree.

The main trail was up ahead, the broad concourse empty of hikers. But she waited, just to make sure she was alone and in the correct place.

Satisfied with both, she crossed the packed dirt and kept on going into the preserve, fifteen feet. Twenty. Thirty—

“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Oh … God.”

As she tripped on her own boots, she couldn’t believe she’d been correct: The body was stretched out face up, the arms and legs tied to stakes that had been driven into the ground. The clothes were unmistakable. Gray flannel slacks. Blue blazer.