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

“If your grid collapses,” Rehv announced, “psychosis is going to own you and everyone who loves you is going to lose you even as you live and breathe in front of us.”

With a feeling of dread, she stared at John Matthew. And all she thought of was how much she loved him.

“Yeah,” she heard herself say. “I’ll meet you. Just say when and where.”





THREE WEEKS LATER, the night was unseasonably warm, and as Lydia walked out of C.P.’s mansion onto the terrace, she decided she wasn’t going to need her sweater after all.

When Daniel didn’t immediately follow, she glanced back into the professional kitchen.

Through the open sliding-glass door, she saw him over at a counter, laughing and saying something to the cook. Then he was turning to her. Walking to her. Smiling at her.

He was as he had always been, tall and strong and powerful.

It was hard to believe that he was dying. That under his smooth skin and still-heavy muscles there were rogue tumor cells multiplying millions of times over, and developing reliable blood supplies, and spreading far and wide.

It was hard to believe that their time was so short.

Today, at around three twenty-one p.m.—not that she was counting—they’d discovered that, yes, it was confirmed, the lung cancer was in his brain, too.

Before long, his quality of life was going to nosedive … because he had turned down treatment. After a team of C.P. Phalen’s doctors had looked at all the scans, and then talked with other experts in the nation, and gotten together a semblance of a plan …

He had said no, thank you.

No chemo. No radiation. Nothing but comfort measures.

She didn’t blame him. Six pretty good months without, nine miserable months with. Why ruin the time he had? The time they had—

“Penny for your thoughts?” he said as he stepped out and slid the door shut behind himself. “Or would you rather keep them private?”

“Just remembering what we did upstairs in the Jacuzzi.”

“Ahhh … I like those thoughts.” He took a sip of his Jack and soda—and as he coughed, he covered it up quick, then talked through the tail end of the fit—as if, as long as he ignored it, it didn’t exist. “I like them very much.”

As he wrapped his arm around and pulled her in close, she molded her body to his and welcomed his kiss. In the lee of the setting sun, and in the pleasant cuddle of the warm spring air, she drank in the eternity they grabbed at every moment they were together.

When he eased back, she ran her hands over his face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“What for?”

“For bringing the end so damned soon.”

“Oh, my God, like it’s your fault.” She shook her head. “Daniel. It’s not your fault.”

“I just want you to know that the last three weeks have been the best weeks of my life. And whatever time we have ahead of us, it’s more than I could have expected or deserved. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I feel the same.” When his expression grew remote, she frowned. “What is it?”

Taking her hand, he led her over to an arrangement of wrought iron furniture. It went without saying that they sat together on the love seat. She wanted to be close to him as much as possible, and he felt the same.

Daniel swirled his Jack around in the rocks glass. “There’s something I want to do before I go.”

Lydia took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do it. Whatever it is—”

“We’re going to find your family, your people.”

She lifted her brow. “I told you, my grandfather’s passed—”

“Not that family.”

“… oh.”

Daniel took her hand and rubbed the center of her palm with his thumb. “I’m not leaving you alone in this world. There are more of you here. Somewhere. And I have a contact that can help us find—”

“Come on, Daniel. This isn’t a Stephen King novel. What do you think—that there’s, like, a lair of the wolven somewhere in the woods?”

“We’re going to find your people, so you’re not alone. After I’m gone.”

Lydia looked up at the backside of C.P. Phalen’s enormous house. And thought of Candy and Sheriff Eastwind, both of whom had been by regularly as soon as they had heard of Daniel’s cancer.

The story of everything at the WSP was an illusion sold to the press and the state law enforcement officials: Rick had killed Peter, and then himself, over a simple embezzlement scheme miraculously untied to anything that had to do with genetic experiments. Past or present. It had been big news for a short while—after which the nation’s twenty-four-hour shock-information cycle had moved on to something else.

And Lydia was still working at the WSP. At least on paper.

In reality, she hadn’t left C.P.’s estate since she’d been flown in and treated for her gunshot wound. And she wasn’t going to leave. Daniel had been invited to stay for comfort measures and he’d accepted the offer.

So no, they weren’t going anywhere.

“But I thought you said it wasn’t safe for me out there.” She focused on the horizon. “That because of the way things went, your agency was still coming after me. Still coming after C.P.”