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

She knew why.

In spite of the fact that the kid had every right to be sitting in his chair—and even though Nate was only a “kid” by virtue of having recently gone through his transition—he was awkward and overwhelmed.

Then again, it had only been three or four months since he’d been out of the same kind of lab Xhex herself had been held in.

These were early nights and days for him. And it was going to be a long, long time before his brain rewired itself and his sensory perceptions toned down.

That was the thing when you were experimented on: Your body was not your own. While you were getting pumped full of diseases and drugs, and dealing with the haywire reactions to things you did not consent to, your brain was forced to reconcile it all with your emotions. For her, she’d disconnected through rage, and when she’d had her chance to get free, she’d taken it. On her terms.

But Nate had been a young. And they’d killed his mahmen—

As if he sensed her stare, his eyes lifted to her. Her first instinct was to look the fuck away, but no. She owed him more than that. He was a survivor, just like she was, and there was a good chance, if she avoided him, he was going to dub in something like she felt sorry for him. Or she was blaming him for having been too weak to get out.

Xhex smiled as much as she could—which was not much. And then she lifted her hand in a casual wave.

He flushed, like he could read her mind and knew she was managing him. But after a moment, he lifted his own palm.

They both looked away at the same time.

The tap on her knee brought her head to her hellren. “You finished already?” she asked John Matthew.

Her male shook his head. Then he signed, You want to take a walk?

How the fuck did he know her so well? Then again, they had been together for what seemed like an eternity.

“Yeah,” she said softly, “I would.”

The two of them got up together, and they left their plates—because if you picked anything off the table and tried to take it into the kitchen, you were going to have to look into Fritz’s hangdog face, his heart broken, his eyes watering with self-condemnation at the utter failure in his duty to clear.

Rhage had tried it once with a napkin, and the entire household had ended up with a case of the guilts from the doggen’s unrelenting self-flagellation.

As she and her mate went down the table to the archway into the foyer, they nodded and smiled at people. John Matthew clapped Blay and Qhuinn on the shoulders. She studiously ignored V’s heavy-lidded eyes.

Nope, sorry, V, she thought.

The next thing she knew, they were in the study, but they kept going. Opening up one of the French doors, she held it wide for John Matthew, and then they were outside on the barren terrace. Although it was spring, they were in way upstate New York—and on a mountain. So no lawn furniture, and the pool was battened down, and the formal garden’s flower beds and fruit trees remained insulated for winter.

John Matthew closed the doors behind them, and he hung back, letting her walk around. Sometime later, maybe it was five minutes, maybe it was ten … maybe it was twelve hours … she stopped and looked at the night sky.

“They say there are aliens all the time up here.” When he whistled in an ascension, she glanced over her shoulder. “No, really. People upstate see them regularly. The thought is that it’s, like, secret shit from Plattsburgh.”

John Matthew pursed his lips in a well, huh kind of way.

“Yeah. Not everything that flashes across the heavens is a shooting star.”

She mostly kept the bitterness out of her voice, even though she could give a shit about whether humans were taking pictures of aliens or weather balloons. For fuck’s sake, she was a vampire. Like ET didn’t actually exist?

“I figured out why I’m having the dreams.” The words were spoken quick, like maybe she could duck the whole fucking thing if she spit the syllables out fast enough. “Nate.”

John Matthew nodded. And signed, I should have made the connection.

“Me, too. But yeah, he’s the reason I’m having the nightmares. What he went through is bringing it all back. You know.”

She hated the weakness, the emotion, the fact that under her surface were pain and suffering she had not volunteered for and couldn’t seem to lose. Then again she’d been sold by her own family into that lab, in retribution for a violation they could not forgive.

Murhder had been a former lover of hers. And it was because of that relationship that her own blood had taught her a lesson. Or thought they had—

John Matthew whistled, and when she glanced at him, he signed, But Vishous’s vision wasn’t about the lab. It was about wolven.

“I’m not going to worry about his prognostication crap. For all we know, he had Arby’s at one a.m. and his smokehouse brisket didn’t sit well with him.”

So what are you thinking?

“I’m not.” She cursed when it was clear he wasn’t buying her lie. “Oh, come on. Is my symphath rubbing off on you?”

John Matthew just shrugged. And as he stared at her, she looked down his huge body. He was dressed in black, his skintight T-shirt and his leathers as dark as the shadows he would stalk along in the field as he protected the vampire race from its new enemy.

“I love you,” she said roughly.

Her hellren mouthed a curse. Then signed, Fuck, you’re thinking of going to the Colony, aren’t you.