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

With a grim curse, he put his glass aside. “I really can’t leave here … without knowing you’re with people who understand and can protect you.”

She thought of the wolves in the preserve, the way they had come and surrounded them. Protected them. Saved them both.

“That’s why you refused treatment, isn’t it.” She tilted his chin when he looked away. “That’s why.”

“I don’t have a lot of time left, Lydia. And I’ve found someone who I think can help. I used some back channels to get the contact. It’s a woman by the name of Alex Hess. I’ve never met her, but somebody I know and trust has. Word has it, she’s got some familiarity with the experiments on those floppy disks.”

“Did she work at the labs?”

“I don’t know, but my source tells me that she is a gatekeeper. That she will help, if she wants to.”

Lydia shook her head. “Listen, I don’t want to waste what little time we have—”

“Please. This is my last mission. I want to complete … my last mission. For you.”

With a sigh of resignation, she settled down onto his chest and—

“I wish things were different,” he said roughly.

Funny, that was just what she was thinking.

Lydia looked up to his face. “Love is immortal. It survives all things.” She thought of when she had seen him in the veil. And when the same had happened for him. “You’re my future, no matter how little time we have.”

“And you’re my everything.”

They kissed. And kissed again.

“And okay, if it’s that important to you,” she said as she stroked his face some more, “I’ll meet with the woman. But my main focus is on you. You’re all that matters to me right now.”

“It’ll help me … let go, when it’s time.”

Lydia closed her eyes as tears threatened. Over the last couple of weeks, she’d been so careful not to let the dam break—because if she gave in, she was going to sob until there was no breath in her lungs.

And there was going to come a time when she was going to have to breathe for the both of them.

“It’s okay,” Daniel said sadly. “I’m here now. I’m holding you … now—”

There was the sound of the sliding door opening, and then high heels on the terrace.

Lydia took a deep breath and smiled up at C.P. “Well, if it isn’t our hostess with the mostest—” She frowned. “Are you okay?”

C.P. Phalen was not a pacer. She was never hesitant. And she never, ever had to choose her words.

And yet the woman started to walk back and forth in front of the sunset, her profile cast in grim lines.

“Okay,” Daniel said dryly, “I think I’ve proven over the previous weeks that I can handle bad news. Or have you missed all the pathology reports and PET scan results I’ve been getting?”

As C.P. turned to them both, she hesitated some more.

And then she spoke the words that would change everything:

“What if I told you there was another option for you.”

“As opposed to outright croaking?” Daniel drawled as he lifted Lydia’s hand and kissed the back of it. “No offense, but I don’t have a lot of interest in getting stuffed and propped up in the corner—”

C.P.’s eyes locked on Daniel. “What if I could give you … a new life. Through a cure.”





Don’t miss the next installment

of Lydia and Daniel’s love story:

FOREVER

Coming Summer 2022!





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


WITH SO MANY thanks to the readers of the Black Dagger Brotherhood books! This has been a long, marvelous, exciting journey, and I can’t wait to see what happens next in this big world we all love. I’d also like to thank Meg Ruley, Rebecca Scherer and everyone at JRA, and Hannah Braaten, Andrew Nguyen, Jennifer Bergstrom, and the entire family at Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster.

Thank you as well to the incredible Robin Covington for all her help and support around Sheriff Eastwind!

To Team Waud, I love you all. Truly. And as always, everything I do is with love to, and adoration for, both my family of origin and of adoption.

Oh, and thank you to Naamah, my Writer Dog II, who works as hard as I do on my books!





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