Theirs To Claim (Predatory Desires Book 1)

Theirs to Claim

Predatory Desires

Book 1

Diana McKinley

Copyright © 2015 Diana McKinley

Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a mode
l
.

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1511570601

ISBN-13: 978- 1511570602

DEDICATION

To Will and Julie

I couldn’t have done it without you both!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Cover Art:  Reese Dante   
http://www.reesedante.com

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  Actual locations are referenced solely to lend realism to the story.  No negative connotations to real locations are implied or suggested.

CONTENTS

“
For there are these three things that endure:

Faith, Hope and Love,

but the greatest of these is Love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

Aramaic Bible

Chapter 1

It was happening again. No matter what she did, no matter how careful she had been, it wasn’t enough. Would never be enough. She could see that now. After weeks of this perverted game, she was finally starting to get the picture that
nothing
she did would make it go away. It had taken her long enough, but she was ready to admit something had to change. She just couldn’t keep living this way.

With shaking hands, Emily Matherson walked into her small kitchen and fell into a chair at the old oak table. Its scared surface was one that she knew by heart. She’d sat there more times than she could count when her grandparents lived in the house with her, absentmindedly tracing the worn lines and scuffs across its surface as if that would help her mind sort through whatever she was pondering.

Now, she sat all alone at its end nearest the windows. The windows she never opened anymore. Covered now in the shades that she never lifted to allow sunlight through either. Closed off. That about summed up her life now, and she hated it.

Emily placed the stack of mail she had just retrieved from her small front porch on the table’s surface and stared at the one piece that made cold shivers race down her spine. The seemingly harmless brown envelope stared back at her, mocking and taunting her. Screaming at her that she’d never really escape. That no matter what she did, someone’s eyes would always be on her and always find her.

A broken sob escaped her lips as she propped her elbows on the table and ran her hands through her hair in frustration and anger. Yes, Emily admitted to herself, she was angry. Mad as hell, as a matter of fact, that someone was out there, even now, watching her and studying her. Making her life the subject of their fantasies and cravings.

For just over two months now, she had received one envelope a week. At first, they contained pictures of her going about her daily routine. Innocuous little snapshots of an ordinary life. Poses that spoke of how relaxed and laid back her days had been. There were several of her at the supermarket, looking for a fresh cluster of bananas or checking the date on a half-gallon of milk. Some showed her jogging through the nearby park, while others depicted her watering the flowers in her yard. All commonplace, innocent moments.

After several weeks, however, they began to change. The photos took on a more personal focus. There were images of her wiping the sweat from her neck after a long workout session at the local gym, others of her lying on her back deck soaking up the sun’s rays in a bikini, and even a few that showed her walking through her living room at night in a robe. She had been covered, yes, but so very exposed at the same time.

But the last few envelopes had come with not only pictures, but also messages. Little captions written in elegant red script that terrorized her to the point that
Emily
had changed. She’d changed her routines, her choices, and even her behavior. The slightest noise or shadow provoked a terror in her that sent her scrambling for her grandfather’s gun, a weapon that was never out of reach now.

The notes still echoed in her mind, even if she wasn’t looking at them.

“You looked lovely in this sweater. I like you in pink. Wear it for me again.”

“I like your hair down, so don’t clip up like this again.”

“Stop covering the window in your bedroom. I want to see you at night when you get ready for bed. Watch over you. Don’t keep me out.”

And those were just a few of her stalker’s malevolent comments. But put together, they spoke of a demon that she felt breathing down her neck each and every day. And the weight of it all had finally become too much to bear.

“Enough is enough!” she whispered in disgust. She swiped at the moisture on her face and drew in a deep, cleansing breath. After grinding her teeth together, Emily reached for her phone, ready to call Andrew and tell him about the latest delivery. But her hand halted midair and then she slowly pulled it back.

What could Andrew do? Really, Emily asked herself, what could he do? She’d been down this road for weeks, and he, nor even the sheriff, could touch a person who left no fingerprints, left no trail. And they wouldn’t be able to do anything this time either. Only collect the evidence, dust for prints, and log it all in. Not that Andrew didn’t want to help her. There just wasn’t realistically something meaningful he
could
do.

Andrew Hughes, an acquaintance since junior high, was also a deputy with the sheriff’s office. And he was the only one who’d been home at the time, when the first envelope had arrived in her mailbox, whom Emily had felt safe confiding in. He had kept his word and only told his direct superiors, keeping the whole sordid affair from the local gossip train and so-called newspaper that circulated their small town’s news.

But as much as they had wanted to help, both Andrew and the sheriff had been sorry to tell Emily that there wasn’t much they could do to catch a stalker in the early days. It was only when the perpetrator made a mistake or got too close, that they were found in such cases. But Emily didn’t want her stalker getting anywhere near her to have such an opportunity. And neither had Andrew.

He, and another deputy named Ryan, had come over and helped her install cameras throughout her home and on its exterior. They’d even gone as far as rigging the windows with alarms that would sound if someone tried to breach them, with the help of a security monitoring firm from the next county over. It had been a step in the right direction, but Emily could clearly see now that it was not enough.

It would never be enough. Because the mail came six days a week, and that gave her admirer six chances to enter her home. To come inside and terrorize her.

And so, she had to leave. Leave Whitford Falls and see if there was a place where she might find a safe harbor, and a place where she could completely disappear. That was the problem with her small town, and Emily clearly recognized that now. The population was sparse enough that her comings and goings were easy to keep track of. It didn’t take much effort at all to find out where she was at any given moment. A person had only to ask, and a polite soul would point them her way. And that just made her a perfect target.

Emily shivered again at the mere thought of being a target. Of having someone actually take things a step further, or trying to physically make contact or harm her in some way. She’d tried to make sure all those she loved and cared about were out of the stalker’s line of sight. Over the last months, Emily had slowly pulled back from all her friends and acquaintances. She no longer went shopping or out to lunch with others, nor did she allow them to drop-in on her unannounced anymore.

Sure, she had tried to explain her odd behavior away, blaming it on looming deadlines from her publisher. But she knew her dearest friend Tara hadn’t bought any of the bullshit she had sold her. Tara had finally backed off, but Emily knew it was only a matter of time before she showed up at her door with a bottle of Moscato in one hand and her other firmly planted on her hip, demanding to know what in the hell was going on.

And then there was Gabriel and Noah. Her original protectors, who had come to her rescue when she was only eight, and had been a constant presence in her life since that fateful day. The day the class bully, Douglass Halton, whose daddy had more money that God, but who also had two chins too many, had decided it was a good idea to push her down and then laugh as Emily slid into a muddy ditch just outside the playground at the bus stop.

Noah had spotted the little prankster first, but Gabriel had been right on his heels. The two fourteen-year-old boys had each grabbed one of Douglass’s arms and jointly lifted him off of the ground before he could blink. After a swift intervention and kick to the rear, little Douglass was apologizing and crying for his mama. And then Noah had taken off his t-shirt to help wipe the mud from Emily’s clothes, while Gabriel had knelt beside her and tied her left shoe.

It had been the perfect day. The day her two protectors had swooped into her life like guardian angels. One light, the other dark.

Noah was the fairer of the two, with honey blonde hair and startling green eyes that danced with little flecks of gold when he laughed or smiled. Gabriel’s hair was so dark that it looked like midnight to her, and she swore that his piercing blue eyes could see straight into her soul. Both stood well over six feet tall and always made her feel as though nothing could touch her when they were together. As if just by being there, they could buffer the ugliness that the world might throw at her and keep it at bay.

Throughout the years, their friendship had steadily grown. When her parents had died in a car crash three years later, and she had moved in with her grandparents, they had been by her side to help her laugh again. When Noah’s mother succumbed to breast cancer his senior year and his father had remarried the year after, they’d been there to hold him up and help see him through the transition. And when Gabriel had taken a bullet in the leg while the men served in Afghanistan, she and Noah had stayed with him through each and every moment of his painful rehabilitation.

But this time, they’d not been near each other when the danger encroached. The men had been on assignment when it all began. Somewhere, Emily assumed, far away from where she was. Somewhere, where the knowledge of what was breathing down her neck, might just prove enough of a distraction to get them killed.

So, when the two men dearest to her heart had called her three weeks ago, on a night of downtime, Emily had not whispered a word of the hell she was currently enduring. She had simply filled them in on the little things that had made up her day, letting her supposed normal life ground them and give them something to look forward to whenever they returned home.

Just thinking of the guys and Tara hardened her resolve to act. There was no way in hell she was giving this sick, son of a bitch a reason to go after those she loved most. If she wasn’t around them, then they couldn’t be stalked too. And she knew from past experience, that it wouldn’t be long before Gabriel and Noah were back home again. Their cases rarely lasted over three months, and Emily knew she had to be long gone when they returned.

She still had choices, Emily told herself. The pervert had not taken away her right to defend herself or others. She could choose to sit in her house and just wait for the stalker to harm her or someone she loved. Or, she thought, she could leave and protect them all.

She rose abruptly from the table then, leaving the brown envelope lying right where she had dropped it, as well as her phone. Emily headed for her bedroom and the luggage that always stayed tucked out of sight under her bed. She pulled her three large rolling cases out and her two smaller bags, lining them up across her pale, pink comforter.

Emily turned towards her closet and made herself slow down and breathe again. And though her hands trembled, she forced herself to think rationally about what she would need if she was going to pull this off. How she might flee and stay off-grid as Noah would say - out of the realm of credit card receipts and driver’s licenses, things that would help someone track her whereabouts. She would need everything, she admitted, as a little hysterical laughter escaped her.

“What am I doing?” Emily asked the empty room. “
Really
, what in the hell am I doing?”

You’re saving the only three people you really love
, said her subconscious.

And she had no rebuttal to that glaring truth. None whatsoever. Because she did love them. Most especially Gabriel and Noah. Though they’d given her no indication over the years that they wanted anything more than her friendship, it was still the deepest and most meaningful bond she had allowed herself to form with anyone else. Even more so than Tara, who’d been her best friend since she was in the sixth grade.

Emily had only been eleven when her parents died, and then she’d lost her grandparents within the first two years of her college life. As a result, she had let no one new get too close to her heart. She’d learned the hard way that it just hurt too much to say goodbye and bury those you loved. So only those who were already special to her, namely Gabriel, Noah, and Tara, still occupied the largest part of her bruised heart.

Yes, Emily admitted to herself that she loved the two men more than they loved her, because if either man had ever given her the slightest hint that they were interested in something more, she would have caved and confessed how long she had dreamed of being theirs. But that was also the reason it could never work out – because she wanted them both. She loved them both equally and Emily knew she could never have one without the other, never choose between the two. It would be like having the day without the night. The light without the darkness.

Somehow the men’s features and coloring went along perfectly with their temperament and habits. Noah was the more lighthearted and playful of the two. He loved to joke and kid with her, and he always helped her find a reason to laugh. He was like her sunshine, and he could chase away any worry she had when he simply smiled at her.

Gabriel was more introspective, quiet, almost brooding at times. He was also thorough and analytical, and that was one of the reasons he helped to lead his team, even at such a young age. He kept so much internalized, yet surprisingly, he never hid any truths about himself from Noah or Emily. No, with Noah and her, Gabriel was brutally honest, and Emily had come to depend on that candid approach to life. He was her compass, steady and constant. And he was her shelter, because Gabriel grounded her and made her feel safe.