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

Just as she only tracked the addicts, the desperates, and the malcontents in the clubs, he only ever saw bad news. Very bad news.

In the future.

“What,” she gritted out. “Fucking tell me, whatever it is.”

It was a long while before the Brother answered—and his nearly white, navy-rimmed eyes shifted to her own before he spoke. As fear speared right into her chest, his one-word reply hit the airwaves—and she felt even worse.

“Wolven,” was all he said.





TWO DAYS LATER, on Sunday morning back in Walters, Lydia found the footsteps in the dirt outside her rental house.

The two-story, two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath was barely more than a shotgun, even though the only things on either side of it were a shallow lawn and a whole lot of trees. Given the town it was in, it went without saying that her nearest neighbors were a quarter mile away and her driveway was a hundred yards long.

As she stepped out onto the porch, she had her running shoes on, her windbreaker zipped up, and her earbuds in. At ten a.m., the air was still and cold, and overhead, the sky was a clear, but weak, blue. The sunlight was warm on her face, however, and that felt good.

It also felt calming—which considering the gymnastics her brain had been going through since Friday night was exactly what she needed. Even if it was the kind of thing that didn’t last.

After she locked up, she stretched her calves on the stairs, and enjoyed contemplating, for a moment, the simple problem of choosing left or right when she got to the end of her driveway. Right would take her out along the rural road for about a half mile before she could cut into a trail and do some intervals on the mountain’s incline. With a left, she’d head into town, going by the post office, the supermarket/diner, and the bank, which would be closed. The decision seemed obvious as there was more traffic on the road—relatively speaking—but she didn’t want to go into the preserve.

She didn’t trust herself not to end up at the hotel site—

At first, she wasn’t sure what got her attention. But as she glanced around, she had the same sense she’d gotten when she’d been sure someone had moved something in her office.

Her out-of-place alarm was never wrong.

And that was when she saw the footprints going around the porch. The depressions in the damp earth were barely noticeable, but sunlight was as always the great revealer, the subtle shadows thrown by the indentations forming a pattern that was unmistakable.

Stepping off onto the scrubby, brown grass, she got down on her haunches. The prints were big, and oddly, they had no tread to them. They were smooth and box shaped—and they went around to the living room window. Went around the whole first floor of the house.

As she tracked them, she was careful not to interfere with the trail, and she took pictures on her phone. By the back door, she fired up her Samsung’s flashlight and tried to see if whoever it had been had come up on the shallow landing and left any dirt or residue.

Hard to tell.

Returning to the front, she went inside and checked all of the windows. Everything was locked, the old brass fixtures cranked into place, and all the glass panes were intact—although given how small the place was and how quiet the nights were, she would have heard something breaking or getting smashed.

A cold numbness went through her.

There had been some rain on Saturday afternoon. Given the clarity of the markings and how deep they were, it seemed like the ground had to have been damp … so she guessed they’d been made sometime during the night.

Back in the kitchen, she looked over the uncluttered counters. The stove, with her grandfather’s teapot and the skillet she’d bought a year ago sitting on cold burners. The table, with the two chairs, the single place mat, and the napkin holder—as well as her laptop, which was worth maybe six or seven hundred dollars.

That Lenovo was the only portable thing of value she had. Well, there was the TV that had come with the house, and that was also where she’d last seen it.

One by one, she opened all the cabinets. The drawers. The door into the little pantry.

Struck by a driving paranoia, she went to the living room and lifted the cushions off the sofa. Picked up the remotes and put them back down again. Measured the distance from the rug’s edge to the kick pleat on the old armchair. Checked the shade on the lamp.

Then she pivoted to the stairs.

Had someone come in the house while she’d been asleep? She didn’t have an alarm, security cameras, or motion detectors. And locks could be picked, even dead bolts.

As she went up the pine-planked steps, she avoided the one that creaked even though there was nobody else in the house. There couldn’t be anyone else—and there hadn’t been. Otherwise they’d have hurt her or stolen something, not that she had much of real value.

When she got to the top landing, she looked through the open door of the single full bathroom. The sunlight reassured her, but only because the magical-thinking part of her brain told her that nothing bad could happen on a sunny spring day.

Bad things happened at night.

When you were asleep alone in a house.

They did not happen in broad daylight. No matter what was in the dirt outside those windows.

The guest bedroom—not that she’d ever had guests—was across from her own and she went there first, not sure what she expected to find. An indentation on the pillow? A depression on the handmade quilt? Water glass on the bed stand?