Night Unbound [Claiming series, #1]

- 9 -

ADULT CONTENT WARNING: Some parts in this chapter contain content of an adult nature and are for mature audiences only ages 18+. Proper caution should be exercised. Reader discretion is advised. 

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Julie couldn't close her eyes. Demons capable of long-range planning. What did that mean? How long a range? Years? Decades?

That feeling of being watched. Gone now. But there long enough to drive her back to Asher. Soren was connected to Asher, too, and his granddaughter had been attacked.

The coincidences left her cold as ice inside.

She listened to Asher typing away on the computer, with long pauses as he apparently read something, then the scribbling of a pen on paper as he made a note.

What she wanted, really wanted right now, was to feel his arms around her again. Just as they had been in the car. Because they had made her feel safe, as if somehow Asher could be a bulwark against inchoate fears. Fears she didn't want to name. fears that had haunted her childhood and now haunted her again.

What would a demon want with her? Access. But access to what?

And she must be out of her freaking mind. Only a couple weeks ago she hadn't believed vampires existed. Now she had fed one and was looking to him for protection from demons?

She wouldn't even write that in a diary, if she had one, let alone say it out loud to anyone. Her world had turned so topsy-turvy; she didn't know which end was up anymore.

She had no idea how long she lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore uneasy, roiled thoughts.

How could vampires be real? She couldn't deny what she'd seen, what she knew, but she couldn't find a way to explain their existence. It flew in the face of everything scientific in her nature and training. How could he move so fast? How could he make people do things with a certain tone in his voice, or a certain look? How could he survive on blood alone? How could he be damn near immortal? All her training rebelled against what experience was teaching her. She wanted pigeonholes again, she supposed. Maybe when they got past this demon thing she could persuade him to talk to her, explain things at least as far as he understood them. That would probably help her a lot.

Right now, while her need for tidiness was useful in her job with the M.E., it helped her not at all with Asher.

All of a sudden, without a whisper of warning, Asher squatted beside her. She managed not to gasp her surprise, but she wondered if she'd ever get used to the way he could move so fast he almost seemed to materialize out of thin air.

"Time's getting short," he said quietly. "I left a list of things for Mackenzie to do when she comes in. Do you want me to take you home?"

Any drowsiness that might have been trying to sneak in vanished in an instant. "No!"

She thought he'd leave her there on the couch, but he surprised her. As if she weighed nothing at all, he slipped an arm beneath her shoulders, the other beneath her knees, and lifted her. The next thing she knew, they were on their way to his bedroom. So fast. He moved so fast the world passed in a blur.

Locks thunked behind them, then he gently set her on her feet in his bed. "Let me know now," he said. "You don't have to stay in here with me."

"Maybe I'll actually be able to sleep."

He withdrew his steadying arm and turned. She watched as he pulled open a drawer and took out a cleaner's shirt box.

"This'll cover you decently," he said as he handed it to her. "At least you'll be able to sleep comfortably."