Lover Claimed (2 page)

He snorted at the thought of Piper doing her
best to outrun him and stuffed her under his arm.

Chapter Two

“Here is the address,” Trudy said, handing
Lajos a piece of paper. She still had that far-off look in her eyes
that most humans got when their thoughts were being manipulated by
a shifter.

Lajos hated pushing his thoughts on people
and he’d never felt good after doing it. It was something about
taking away someone’s free will that never sat right with him. The
first time he’d done it, he’d been a teenager who’d given in to his
wolf and shifted in broad daylight to go running through the
forest. Unfortunately he’d been so hyped up about running through
the woods that he hadn’t taken the time to survey his surroundings,
and a very curious human couple had seen him return for his
clothes. They had a ton of questions for him. With no other choice,
he pushed the thought to them that they’d spent the afternoon
getting high on mushrooms and were experiencing a shared
hallucination.

“Thank you,” he said to her. He studied the
address, wondering how far this destination would take him out of
the way from her office building. “Should you call her to make sure
she’s home?”

“Yes, yes. I’ll try to call her,” Trudy said
in a flat voice. “I’m sure she’ll want to know that I was
attacked.”

“No,” Kristof said, immediately. Then to
Lajos he said, pushing his thoughts,
“I don’t want her friend
bringing back her memory. I’m using all my strength to hold on to
her mind as it is.”

Lajos gave a short nod. “If your friend isn’t
home is there anywhere else Piper can go?”

“I have a key,” Trudy said. “Meisha teaches a
karate class at the Boys and Girls club on Thursday nights, she
should be home by now. But if she isn’t home you can open the door.
Leave the key on the nightstand. She’ll return it to me later.”

Lajos took the key Trudy handed him and
stuffed it into his pocket.

“Call me when you get to Hollander
Accounting,” Kristof said.
“I’m interested to find out who we’re
dealing with.”
Kristof pushed the last sentence to Lajos.

“
Me too. I really want my hands on or my
teeth in these bitches.”

Lajos extended his free hand to Trudy. “Nice
to meet you, Ms. Hollander.”

She shook his hand with a limp grip and her
mouth was set in a half-smile. “Nice to meet you too.”

He released her hand and gave Kristof a
scolding look.
“She looks brain dead. Release her.”

“
I will, as soon as we get to the hotel. I
don’t need her changing her mind again.”

Lajos shrugged. It was his mate’s brain he
was screwing around with. If Kristof was smart he’d want her to be
able to connect two coherent thoughts together. “I’ll leave you
lovebirds to it then.” He smiled and stepped back and out of
Kristof’s reach.

Kristof growled again. No sense for Kristof
to fight against nature. He’d be better off if he just accepted
Trudy as his and dealt with it. Lajos left Trudy looking
addlebrained and Kristof clenching his fists and headed toward the
door. Well, what was left of the door. Lajos had broken it down
trying to get to the other shifters.

He stepped over the door and noted the hinges
and part of the frame were a mangled mess. “Don’t forget to call
someone to fix this for her,” he said on his way out.

“I’ll prop it up before we leave and contact
the company that the officer suggested to me,” Kristof yelled after
him.

Lajos tossed his hand in the air as a last
goodbye. The sounds of the night greeted him as he made his way to
the rental car. His wolf’s interest peaked at the possibility of
being able to shift and explore. What he really longed to do, more
often than there were hours in the days, was run free. There was a
certain happy calmness that washed over him and his wolf as he ran
across the grounds of his estate or through his acreage of trees.
To feel the wind brushing against his face, the fresh air, to hear
the life of the forest, there was nothing like it in the world.

“
Maybe later,”
Lajos promised his
wolf.

He had to get rid of the pooch and swing by
Hollander Accounting first. Only after his business was taken care
of could he entertain the idea of shifting to explore Timucuan
Ecological & Historic Preserve, one of Jacksonville’s many
state parks. From what he’d read on the plane ride down here,
Timucuan was more than forty-six thousand acres of coastal
wetlands, salt marshes and hardwood forests. He’d almost become
giddy with excitement at the prospect of spending some nights
roaming the woods and running through the marshes.

And just like that he’d talked himself into
it. Shifting was definitely on the agenda for later.

He opened the driver’s side door and set
Piper on the seat. When she made no effort to move into the
passenger seat, he said, “Scoot over, unless you intend to
drive.”

She turned to face the windshield and opened
her mouth, letting her tongue fall out the side.

He gave her a slight nudge and chuckled.
“Move over butterball.” When she reluctantly stepped over the
middle console to go over to the next seat, he eased into the
driver’s seat. “If you behave I’ll roll the window down for
you.”

He started the car and punched the address
Trudy had given him into the GPS. They had about a twenty minute
drive. He put the car in drive and eased into the empty street.
When Piper whined he rolled down the window. “Don’t say I was never
good to you.”

* * * * *

Lajos stood in front of the apartment door
with the same address as the one sprawled on the paper he held. It
was a little after nine in the evening and, despite the lateness,
music could be heard blasting from an apartment a couple of doors
down from where he was, and an argument was ramping up from one of
the apartments on the lower level.

He knocked on the door for the third time,
this time louder than the previous times. He’d been waiting for
someone to answer for the last four minutes.

“What do you think?” he asked, looking down
at Piper. “No one’s home?”

Piper looked up at him and whined.

He took that as a no.

Lajos fished the key Trudy had given him from
his pocket and unlocked the door. He slowly opened it and stuck his
head through the opening. It was dark inside. The only light came
from a clock on the microwave that sat on a counter across the
room. “Hello? Anyone home?”

No answer.

He opened the door farther and knocked
loudly. “I’m here to drop off Piper for Trudy. Hello?”

Again, no answer.

With the door fully open, Piper trotted
inside. Lajos watched as she made her way down a narrow hall where
he assumed the bedroom was. He stepped over the threshold and
waited for whoever was home to come out. Even if Trudy’s friend
hadn’t heard him knock, surely she would notice Piper in her room
and want to figure out how she’d gotten there. He took another step
into the room and sniffed at the air.

It smelled good.

Really good.

A mix of flowers and spices permeated his
nostrils. He took a deep breath and wondered if the scent was
perfume or some kind of air freshener. The lingering scent of a
human was also in the air, but just barely. If he had to take a
guess he would say the human hadn’t been here for a couple of
hours. He could hear Piper in the back room, walking around, and
the light panting from her breathing. She probably could use some
water. The night was hot and humid.

Piper came back down the hall and made a
beeline for the kitchen. The nails on her paws scraped against the
linoleum floor as she walked around and then came back out to sit
in front of him.

“I guess this is it then.”

Piper looked up at him.

He stared down at her, unsure if it was safe
to leave her here, especially when he wasn’t sure when the human
would return.

“Maybe I should leave a note explaining what
you’re doing here?”

Piper broke eye contact with him and looked
back at the kitchen.

“And I guess I can give you some water. Crap.
I forgot to get some dog food for you.”

Piper barked.

“Right.” He walked to the kitchen with Piper
leading the way, prancing in front of him. “Note, food and water.
Or maybe you’d rather it be food, water and then note.” He turned
on the kitchen light and noticed the yellow walls and counter tops
filled with gadgets he’d seen mostly on infomercials. There seemed
not to be enough room on the counters to even make a sandwich.

He opened the refrigerator. The contents
inside were meager. He’d forgotten to ask Trudy if there was
someone else living here with this Meisha person, but by the looks
of this refrigerator not only did she live alone, but she probably
wasn’t home much. That or she was on a diet. He didn’t know much
about human women except that they loved to diet. He looked over
the couple of containers of strawberry Greek yogurt, the carton of
milk, a bag of shredded cheese and the bottles of mustard and
ketchup. He opened one of the sliding doors and found ham and
hotdogs.

“Jackpot.” He brought out the sliced ham and
Piper turned in circles while wagging her tail. “You like this
don’t you?” He chuckled as he pulled out a handful of the thick
slices.

Wham!

Pain shot through the side of his body. The
refrigerator creaked and rocked as he fell back against it, hitting
the back of his head on the freezer and his back on the shelves.
The contents inside clanged as they fell over.

“Shit.”

The refrigerator door swung away from him. He
put his hand out, feeling discombobulated.

Wham!

The door came back and slammed against him
again, this time jarring his fingers.

I’m being attacked.

With all his strength he pushed against the
door, sending it flying open and slamming against the counter next
to it. He quickly scanned the room looking for his assailant.

Empty.

His breath came out hard. His eyes narrowed
in a deadly glare. Someone was here, but where?

Wham!

His nose erupted in pain that radiated to his
skull. He stumbled against the refrigerator again. He wanted to
hold his nose, but that would have to wait. Ignoring the metallic
liquid that dripped down the back of his throat, he focused on his
surroundings.

The air changed by his head. He reached out
with fast reflexes and caught a foot. Holding tight he turned and
stepped toward it. Whoever was kicking at him was in all black and
standing on the kitchen counter by the refrigerator. The assailant
tried to pull out of his grasp but, with a yank, he pulled at the
foot he held, trying to drag the person from the counter top.
Whoever this was, Lajos needed him on the ground where he could
stomp and pummel him.

To his surprise, the assailant came down but,
instead of falling to the ground, he used Lajos’ hold as leverage
and came straight at him, wrapping his legs around Lajos’ waist.
The force from the assailant’s body sent Lajos back two steps and,
while he was trying to regain his footing, fingernails dug into the
skin behind Lajos’ ears, piercing him.

Lajos used both hands to reach between the
assailants arms and thrust them out and away. He was going to kill
this…

He focused on light-brown, exotic-looking
eyes.

A girl
. A girl whose head was getting
dangerously close to his.

Wham!

Chapter Three

Meisha Komano crouched on her hands and knees
and stared down at the man who’d broken into her apartment. The
only thing that stopped her from calling the police to haul this
asshole away to jail was Piper. Her best friend’s dog was aptly
licking his face. He knew Piper, which meant he knew Trudy. But
still, the breaking into her apartment just didn’t sit well with
her, that and the fact that someone was murdered at Trudy’s
business just yesterday.

Oh, crap.

He’s probably a police officer bringing Piper
for her to watch for some reason or another. Her eyes widened at
the thought of having to face assault charges—again—but this time
the judge wouldn’t give her any type of leniency because she
volunteered at the local Boys and Girls club. He’d probably throw
the book at her for taking down a person of the law.

She probably should’ve asked him what he was
doing in her apartment first and
before
she’d attacked him.
When she came home and saw her front door standing wide open she
freaked. Her first thought had been that the Yaruzi had found her.
The Japanese gang wanted her and her family dead and she’d spent
most of her childhood and all of her adult life fearing they would
find her. But when she thought about it more, she knew it couldn’t
have been them. The person who broke into her apartment had not
only left the door open, but they were going through her
refrigerator. Two things she was sure the Yaruzi wouldn’t do. She
figured he was one of the drugged out fiends from the neighborhood
and, while robbing her, decided to make himself a snack.

Shit. I probably should’ve been paying more
attention to Piper.

She shook her head. She’d recognized Piper,
but she was so bent on catching the thief red-handed that she
ignored her gut. That was her problem. Her dad always warned her to
stop and think about her actions and not run head-on into
danger.

She chewed on her bottom lip, wondering how
she could get him to recover faster. Maybe if she explained how
scared she’d been the judge would be lenient. Maybe if she untied
him and gave him some smelling salts he would wake up and
understand the position he’d put her in. She eyed the purple knot
in the center of his forehead from where she’d head-butted him.
Then she looked at his crooked, blood-stained nose and swollen lip.
Both had been on the receiving end of her kicks. And if things
couldn’t get any worse, the fingers on his left hand were swollen
and disfigured. Oh yeah, they were probably broken.