Read Online Claiming the Vampire by Chloe Hart - Free Book Online Page A

me.”
    Celia frowned. “Vet you?”
    “Yeah. You can cast a truth spell, can’t you?”
    “Yes, but I’m not powerful enough to do it without the subject’s consent.”
    “Well, I consent. I don’t have time to waste convincing you to trust me. I need…” He hesitated. “I need your help.”
    Celia looked at Evan, and he looked back at her. After a moment he shrugged. “Go ahead, if you’re willing. I must admit I’m curious. I’ve known Hawk Blakestone a good many decades and he’s never asked for help before. I wouldn’t mind knowing what’s brought it on now.”
    Celia nodded. “All right.”
    Hawk met her eyes. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I’m grateful you’re willing to hear me out, considering.”
    “Considering you tried to kill me a month ago?”
    He smiled a little. “Yeah. Considering that.”
    “I don’t think you wanted to.”
    “No. But I would have.”
    She shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that. Evan told me a little bit about you, Hawk. He said you were the most feared assassin in the vampire underworld—and that you’d never killed an innocent. You were hired to kill me, but you didn’t. Instead you went to whoever hired you and came up with that deal to save my life.”
    “I would have killed you if you hadn’t taken the deal—and if the client hadn’t called off the hit.”
    “Maybe…or maybe not. I guess we’ll never know.”
    He looked at her curiously. “Is that why you’re willing to listen to me now? Because you think I wouldn’t have killed you if it came down to it?”
    “That—and the fact that curiosity is my besetting sin. Like Evan, I want to know what’s brought you here.”
    Something flickered in his eyes. “One of your kind, actually.”
    “There, see? Now I’m even more curious.” She turned to Evan. “Why don’t you take Hawk downstairs, and give me a few minutes to get dressed. I’ll be down soon with my spell book.”
    Evan’s eyes went to the marks on her neck, fading already into a barely perceptible scar. As if his look were a touch, goose bumps swept over her skin.
    “This wasn’t how I wanted to spend the next few hours,” he murmured.
    “We’ll have time later,” she answered softly. “We’re mated, now. We’ll have time for everything.”
    He smiled into her eyes. “I like the sound of that.” Then he glanced at Hawk. “Still have a taste for whiskey?”
    “Hell, yes.”
    “Then let’s go downstairs and give my mate her privacy.”
     

 
    Chapter Five
    “You look lovely. Absolutely lovely.”
    Jessica met Talia’s eyes in the gilt mirror that hung in her bedroom. “I thought you were downstairs with the guests.”
    “I just came up for a moment, to see if you needed anything.”
    After they had returned to the mansion, her mother had sent her upstairs to freshen up. When Jessica had looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, she knew why.
    Her hair looked like a rat’s nest. Her face was flushed, and there was a smudge of dirt across one cheek. Her dress was dusty and torn in two places.
    Definitely not what the Fae nobles expected of North America’s princess.
    Jessica sent word by one of the maids that it would be at least an hour before she came down again. She could have managed it in fifteen minutes by just redoing her hair, washing her face, and asking one of her mother’s maids do something with her dress…but the truth was, she was desperate for a shower.
    No…a bath. In scented water as hot as she could stand it. She wanted to soak away the memory of everything that had happened tonight, as if that could wipe the slate clean and allow her to start over.
    But as she lay back in the sunken tub, breathing in the scent of lilac and narcissus, Hawk’s face kept appearing in her mind’s eye.
    Damn that vampire.
    She opened her eyes and looked down at her body. Men had looked at her with desire before, but she’d never felt an answering passion of her own. She’d always felt a kinship