Gyspy prince Stefan Zolinski has been raised to hunt down and eliminate werewolves like the one that killed his mother. So hes faced with an impossible choice when the woman he loves becomes one....
Infected by a virus she was working to eradicate, Dr. Bethany Andreas accepts the beast within herbut she cant accept the betrayal of the man she planned to marry. Yet the passion that still burns between them does not lie: Stefan is Bethanys one true mate. And only by completing their bond can they hope to save the world....
Claimed by
the Wolf
Saranna DeWylde
www.millsandboon.co.uk
MILLS & BOON
Before you start reading, why not sign up?
Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!
SIGN ME UP!
Or simply visit
signup.millsandboon.co.uk
Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.
Dear Reader,
Im saddened that weve come to the end of our journey with Claimed, but Im thrilled to share Bethany and Stefans story. This was a step outside what I normally like to write about, because they had an established relationship. I love writing about the chase, watching as all the excitement and newness unfolds as couples learn to fall in love. With this one, they learned how to be in love after falling. Thanks for taking the leap with me again.
XO
Saranna
Dedication
For Jennifer L. Hart. Always.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
The asset has been terminated, Prince Stefan Zolinski said to the company of men who surrounded him in the small clearing. The only sound he heard in response was the crackling of the torches that enforced the magical boundaries of their perimeter.
He sought out the eyes of each soldier, his Gypsy power pushing hard against their mental shields. He tested them for both their commitment and any weaknesses. It pleased Stefan that he found none. His team was an elite force trained from birth to hunt and eradicate monsters.
The Aeternali moved up their timeline by partnering with the Department of Defense. Last report from the asset confirmed Dr. Ian Gevaudan is in residence at the Blue Ridge Research Facility and is continuing his vile experimentation. Hes produced a virus communicable through bodily contact with teeth and claws. With uninfected werewolves, it takes three bites. This virus can spread with a scratch to both monsters and humans. Stefan met each mans eyes again. We have to take the facility down.
He left the rest unspokenif Gevaudan was permitted to continue unchallenged, he could infect the world, and the governing body that was supposed to protect supernaturals and mortals alikethe Aeternalihad sanctioned his actions.
Johann Graywald, his first lieutenant, spoke. What intel do we have on their defenses?
It comes from Aeternali troops and containment protocol. If the walls are breached, theres an F-16 that will finish the job for us with a containment payload. Get in, get out and watch it burn. Lets move out.
The men broke from the group, each attending to his duty and making themselves battle-ready.
The asset Johann began.
Is no longer your concern. Something a lot like guilt formed a cold, hard ball in the pit of his stomach. It seemed wrong somehow to refer to Beth as nothing more than an asset. But that was what shed beena means to an end. She was a scientist on the payroll of the Department of Defense and the Aeternali. She was simply a way for him to gather intel about the Blue Ridge Research Facility so he could destroy it.
Collateral damage.
As he recalled vivid memories of Beth, the cold knot in his gut sprouted tentacles that twisted around his spine. Stefan found it odd they made him feel cold because his last moments with her had been so damn hot.
She had awakened that morning sleepy-eyed and wrecked from the night before. He could see it now as clearly as if she stood in front of him. Her red-gold hair tumbling over her pale shoulders, strawberry lips swollen from his kisses, the velvet feel of her slit still slick with the evidence of their coupling as she mounted him. Beth rode him, the sunlight slicing through slats in the blinds to paint her in a soft glow. Shed brushed her lips over his and whispered, I love you.
The last thing shed said to him.
He hadnt said it back. Instead, hed drifted back to sleep after theyd both spent. He spread his palms on the table and stared at the map spread out in front of him of their target and plan of attack.
Johann closed a gruff hand over his shoulder. Theres no shame in mourning her, my prince.
Stefan steeled himself. Her death was needless, and I regret I didnt do more to protect her. Thats all.
There was nothing you couldve done. Giving her Zorannas mark of protection would have alerted the Aeternali guard dogs. From what I hear, it wouldnt have saved her from what happened.
Stefan fixed his lieutenant with a cold stare. He didnt want to discuss it. He could think about it later, after hed assured himself that hell was nothing more than a pile of smoking rubble.
Were going to war, not a poetry slam. Well save the feelings for long nights by snapping fires with full cups of warm spiced wines in our hands.
Johann sighed and shrugged. As you wish.
It would be great if Stefan could follow his own advice. He couldnt stop thinking about that voice ringing in his head like a gong. As her fiancé, hed been listed as next of kin, and hed gotten the standard notification.
Im sorry to inform you Dr. Bethany Andreas succumbed to infection....
Dead.
He snapped the utility belt around his waist and checked his equipment: guns, ammo, silver nitrate pepper spray, knives. He thought about what hed do to the bastard who had infected her. Stefan had his own containment unit, and he was going to catch the guy, take his wolf skin and tear it from him like an orange peel.
Sweet Beth. So innocent and angel-faced. So trusting. Shed believed every sour lie from his tongue. Nothing could have stopped him from taking her home with him from the bar that night. Stefan hadnt expected her to be so beautiful, so wild. He hadnt expected to want to burn in the fire of her hair. For a moment, when theyd met, hed thought he was going to have to rethink his game and that a mild-mannered accountant wasnt at all the kind of man whod move her.
But theyd fucked that first night in the back of her truck under a black, moonless sky.
Stefan had thought if he ever got The Call, hed feel something...different. Something besides this cold that burned. Hed always known her death was a possibility. She had a dangerous job working with infectious diseases and biowarfare for the Department of Defense. The chances of injury, infection and death were always presentupped exponentially by her involvement with the Aeternali, the supernatural governing body. They were corrupt and foul themselves, turning over their own people for experimentation and even death. The Gypsy hated the Aeternali with a fire so hot it was a physical burn.
Though, somehow, it all paled in the pervasive dark shadow that had hung over him since losing Beth.
He remembered the oddest things from that last daythe smell of her pomegranate shampoo on the pillow, the way the covers rumpled over her side of the bed, the bumblebee slippers on the floor where shed left them.... They were all tiny things, but they were things shed never do again.
The dress on the form in the corner, the one shed sewn by hand for their weddingit would disintegrate where it hung. The fact shouldnt have surprised him. How far was he willing to take the ruse, after all? He didnt listen to the voice in the back of his head that shouted all the way.
Her essence still so present, he hadnt gone back to their little log cabin. As much as he hoped, it wasnt as if shed walk through the door any minute and tell him thered been some kind of mix-up. As if shed fall into his arms, and there wouldnt be any need for words. He didnt have them, anyway.
For the first time in his long existence, Stefan was lost. He didnt know how to be in his own skin, how to feel, because he wasnt supposed to feel anything at allBeth had been a tool. Simply a means to an end. Hed seduced her, manipulated her, and proposed to have access to her and what was going on at the facility. He wasnt so supposed to care what happened to her when he was done, but now there was this sinkhole in his chest that had been there for a week and it wasnt going away any time soon. His prime directive had been to find out what exactly the Department of Defense and the Aeternali were doing with the werewolves theyd capturedwhat kind of superweapon theyd made.
Then hed figure out how to kill it.
That was what Stefan Zolinski didwhat he was born for. He hunted monsters, and he killed them. Werewolves brought nothing but grief to the world, and they shouldve been systematically exterminated when the first one had drawn the breath of life into its lungs. While his sister had turned Guild cop to hunt the beasts that had slaughtered their mother, Stefan didnt give a damn about being fair to the Aeternali and adhering to their laws. He was Gypsy, and they were a law unto themselves.
Dr. Ian Gevaudan, designer of the zombie virus, and the wolf-beast, Konstantin, would both pay for what theyd done. It was a debt that wouldnt be satisfied without blood and death.
Bethany would be avenged.
Chapter Two
Cedar and bergamotStefan. Bethany would know his scent anywhere.
She also knew he was going to die. The Blue Ridge Research Facility had erupted in a war zone of explosions, gunfire and blood. He was an accountant, not a soldier. Beth scanned the landscape for him, sure he was near. Following the scent, she focused on finding the origin.
Bethany was hungry for the sight of himher fiancé. When she had been in the terrarium gathering information on the victims of the virus and had realized shed been infected with the LZthe lycanthropic zombie virusshe had been sure her life was over and that in minutes shed become some snarling cannibal dog only looking to fill her belly with meat. Any meat. The sound of the emergency doors locking her in with the beasts had been like the clanging of the gates of hell.