12

Jack

October 29th, 2019

I felt the moment she collapsed, her kiss growing weak, her body falling into mine.

Her lips fell away from mine as her head rocked to my shoulder, her body sagging.

I gently lowered her leg, pulling out of her and maneuvering our clothes back into place before swinging her up into my arms with ease.

Her tangled and matted hair fell across her face, shielding her from the world, although I very much doubted it would take anyone more than a second of thought to realize it was her.

She was the youngest, most beautiful one at this event, as soon as I walked out of the maze, they would know exactly who it was and what we had done.

Good.

Leaving her shoes, I carried her back out of the maze, hoping they all understood that Rae Bennett was mine and mine alone from this day forward.

I was sure the captain’s wife got the picture when I threatened her under the stairwell on my way to Rae. I was sure Max understood it when I broke his wrist before pulling Rae to the dance floor. Soon the world would understand it. She was mine. From now until death claimed us.

As soon as I walked out of the maze and back around the front of the building, the few people who had been standing outside smoking all looked our way.

Taking in the cuts on her body, the brambles in her hair, they knew exactly what had been done, and I couldn’t help but smirk.

Mine.

I glanced down at her, taking in the way she rested in my arms, her breathing slow and even. I liked that I wiped her of her energy, but I had to give credit where credit was due. She had an eventful night, her adrenaline spiking and feigning every hour or so. It was enough to make this woman who suffered from nightmares every night, absolutely exhausted.

Malachi was waiting for me at the top of the steps, looking from Rae to me. “The Police Captain’s wife is telling her husband not to pursue, and I saw young Max clutching his wrist when he disappeared into that maze after her. You’re becoming reckless.”

Not reckless, I was making it a point to those who dared touch her that she was protected. “I’m claiming her,” I announced, walking right past him. “She’s mine. My claim. Nobody touches her now but me.”

Malachi was quiet until we reached the bottom of the stairs. “You’re the first. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I absolutely did.

It was a play on Malachi’s ‘falling in love’ law. This wasn’t love, the was possession. Everett, Azrael, and I knew that we weren’t capable of love as Malachi saw it, so we shifted the wording, created a law we could abide by if we so choose.

We were allowed a possession. A Claim. One partner we wanted to keep as our ‘prisoner’ to use, to fuck, to throw away, whatever we wanted, that’s what they needed to be to us.

Greyson was capable of love, so this law didn’t apply to him, he chose to back out of it, but we did make it known to the Initiates in the program before they went through it.

Once you went through the training, something inside of you snapped. It changed a person deeply and irrevocably. This was the perfect law for those of us who wanted a permanent toy.

This toy was ours to control, to use, to treat however we wanted, but once she became a part of The Family, she became one to protect. If Azrael beat on his girl, we were obligated to protect her as we would protect our sisters, but there was a difference between beating just to beat, and causing pain because it enhanced the pleasure.

A Claim wasn’t necessarily a part of The Family until Malachi gave his blessing, so until then, the girls were on their own to a point.

I wouldn’t say I would hold my tongue if I saw my brothers doing something stupid, but I wasn’t obligated to do anything before the blessing either.

“Are you sure about this?” Malachi asked, opening the door for me.

I slid Rae into the car carefully and buckled her up. “Yes. Where’s Zo?”

“Staying to see if she can spot who tried to poison her.”

Good.

I walked around the car, sliding in beside her to make sure her head wouldn’t fall at an odd angle before giving the driver her address.

I carefully brushed the hair from her eyes and admired the way her dark lashes brushed her skin. “You need more training if this is how tired you get after such a short amount of time.”

She released a heavy breath, but didn’t say anything, and I found myself smiling.

“Don’t worry, Princess, you’re mine now. You’ll learn how this works soon enough.”

I carried her up to her suite, easily unlocking the door and slowed when I found Azrael staring out her balcony windows.

I kicked the door shut and frowned. This was exactly what I didn’t want to deal with tonight. “What are you doing here?”

Azrael turned, taking in the scene, wearing that mask of his as he always did, his creepy cane gripped in his left hand. He didn’t even need a cane, I think he carried it around because it set a sort of tone for him that people couldn’t ignore. “Malachi called me and said you’ve made a claim.” He cocked his head to one side. “You’re projecting,” he hummed.

I snarled quietly under my breath and carried her to her room. I was the oldest one of us, the third most level-headed one, why were they questioning my decision?

I placed her on her bed and put a sheet over her, not wanting to clean her up with an audience. Although, I had to admit, seeing her red and used had me wanting to take her again.

I’d lick that blood away with my tongue, leaving bite marks instead.

But now I had something else I needed to deal with.

With one last look, I turned and headed for the door.

“What’s your name?” she asked tiredly just as I opened the door.

I glanced back, taking in her exhausted form, the light from the crack of the door illuminating a line across her tear-stained face.

I turned back to the doorway, my eyes locking with Azrael’s. He was smiling, raising an expectant brow.

Ignoring her, I shut the bedroom door. To be truthful, I wasn’t sure if I would have answered her had he not been here. I might have. If I wanted to claim her, what was the reason in not doing it? Besides, hearing her moan my name? Fuck, even just the thought of it had me wanting to walk right back in there and fuck her into a coma.

“Why would he call you?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “How did you beat me here?” He was AWOL, how was Malachi even able to reach him? Nobody could reach him when he went out on his excursions.

“I’m in town doing business,” he answered vaguely. “You kill your monstrous brother and then fall for the first assignment you get?” He clicked his tongue. “So pathetic. It seems to me like you’re spending too much time with dear old Greyson. And here I thought you and I were the most alike.”

A lie. Azrael didn’t like to think of himself as ‘alike’ to any of us in any way whatsoever.

I sneered. “I am no more him than I am you. We made a deal, Azrael. We claim whoever we want, whenever we want, so long as we follow the laws.”

“Oh, I know,” he purred as I made my way to her fridge. “I just didn’t think any of us were weak enough to have to follow that particular law.” He paused as I opened the fridge. “Is this because of your interest in her mother’s murder?”

I grabbed a water, grinding my teeth as I turned to him. “How do you know about that?”

He gestured his cane towards her coffee table. “I’ve been here for 10 minutes, and I got bored. You can accomplish anything in 10 minutes. Anything.”

I ignored his comment and started for the living area, taking in the papers that covered her table. She left them out tonight. Why? Was it another clue into who she really was or just due to the mind of a complex person who hadn’t felt like putting it away this time?

“I was going to install cameras for you so you could watch her more closely, but I understand that my brothers aren’t as diligent as I am."

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t feel the need to watch everything she does.”

“Pity,” he replied, picking an invisible lint from his jacket. “I do.”

My eyes shot towards him, that rage boiling under my skin.

He laughed. “Don’t you worry your darling little head, Jacky my boy, I don’t like blondes or brunettes or redheads. In fact, the only thing a woman is good for, in my opinion, is taking what I give her until she’s got no strength left to even breathe.”

I frowned, watching him for a moment longer before turning back to the files across the table.

Azrael was fucked up in so many ways. It was the institute, I swear. He had always had something broken inside of him, but when Beckett finally sent him to a place we thought could help him at the age of 17, he came back as something even more sick and twisted than before.

I worried about the people he came in contact with, but the truth of the matter was that he was the best of us all at this game and he reminded us of it constantly. In one way or another.

I picked up a random file, skimming over the page she had been looking at. There was nothing here I didn’t already know. Pool of blood, no body, no witnesses, no cameras. Nothing at all, just that pool of blood that the police claimed was Marla’s, but there were no official tests done to actually prove it. I wondered if she had caught onto that yet. They never ran the blood, they just said it was hers.

I had been asking myself why for days.

The door swung open, two women—one with black and red hair, cut to her shoulders, and the other with hair almost as short as mine, the color of wheat—walking in.

Poppy loved dying her hair outrageous colors, but right now, her face matched the red she had chosen. “I have been looking for you for three days, you absolute dick.”

I rolled my eyes and found Zo’s as she made her way over. We weren’t related, but we might as well have been with how similar we looked. The same shade of blue in our eyes, the same height, almost the same nose.

She glanced at what I was holding. “I couldn’t find them,” she explained when I tossed it down.

“We’ll have to keep a better eye on her,” I decided, not that there had ever been a choice in the matter. “Shh,” I lectured Poppy and Azrael when she got louder. “Everybody out. Now.”

“And here I thought the fun was just getting started,” Azrael sang.

Poppy straightened, folded her arms over her chest, and waited.

Once Azrael passed her, she was right on his heels, nearly stepping on them.

I turned to Zo again. “I’m sure Malachi told you too.”

“He told all of us,” she answered, glancing towards Rae’s door. She was quiet a moment before turning back to me. “Why did you claim a target? Do you understand the trouble this could bring to us?”

I grabbed a pen off the table, scrawled a few words on a sticky note and took the bottle and the note back into her bedroom, setting the two on her nightstand before leaving again.

I gestured to the front door. I would check for cameras later, for now, I wanted to leave before I did something stupid like fuck her again.

She needed it.

I needed it.

But I had pushed her tonight, something she clearly wasn’t used to. She would be soon, just not yet. Her body needed to recover.

I shut and locked the door behind us, heading for the elevator at the end of the hall. Azrael and Poppy already gone. “I don’t care,” I finally answered her. “We all agreed to the same law, Zo. Do not sit here and act like I don’t live by them every single day, like I wouldn’t die before breaking one.”

“You’re breaking one right now, J. Just because you put another law on top of it, doesn’t mean you aren’t shattering the last one. A target is a target. She needs to die.”

Malachi had already hesitantly lifted the kill order anyway, so the lines had already been blurred, but even so, it didn’t matter. “She’s mine,” I bit, slamming the elevator button down. “If Malachi wants to kill her, then I’ll have no choice but to kill him too.”

She sighed, rolling her eyes as if she thought I was being dramatic, but I wasn’t. I was serious. If it came down to it, I’d pick her, whatever that said about me, I would pick her. “He’s worried because you’re the first. The first to make this decision and you did it with someone you’re supposed to kill. Men don’t understand the true connection a person can have with another. There’s a reason we haven’t claimed anyone. We can’t trust them to live for us.”

“I’ll fucking make her,” I growled. “Whatever it takes, I’ll make her, and then I’ll watch as the light drains from her eyes and bury her where we bury everyone else.” My heart tightened at those words, and I knew they weren’t true.

This Claim was meant to keep her alive, yet here Zo was, telling me she would have to die anyway. Fuck that. If they tried to kill her, I’d kill them first.

“You’re going to make that woman live her life, dedicate herself to you in every sense of the word, and then you’re going to shatter her heart before you kill her?”

“Yes,” I lied.

She released a breath as we stepped onto the elevator, her eyes darkening. “I didn’t realize Azrael had rubbed off on you so much, Jack. I’m sorry, I never should have left you alone for so long. Especially during that last mission.”

I worked my jaw, hitting the ground floor button. “It was an assignment like every other, it affected me none.”

I wouldn’t let it.

Malachi wanted my brother dead, so I killed him. Put a bullet right between his eyes. It was needed with the trouble he had caused, and I was better for it anyway.

“Yeah, it shows.”