Free Claimed, a vampire romance (Lost) by Lori Devoti

rush. He'd missed her. He'd obsessed about her. He'd been willing to risk everything to save her, and she was throwing all of that away by following him here.
    He wouldn't let her. She was the one who was going to survive this, not him, and it was time she accepted that.
    He pulled back and stared into her eyes, determined to do whatever it took, even mesmerize her if he had to, to get her to accept her new reality and forget him.
    But as he stared at her, as he willed her to do as he wished, she only stared back, confused and hurt and one hundred percent aware. The spell didn't work.
    He closed his eyes then and pulled her back against his chest.
    She lifted her chin to stare up at him, and he kissed her again, this time softly and making no effort to hide how thoroughly he had fallen.
    “We'll figure this out,” he murmured against her lips. He didn't know how, but somehow they would. They had to.
    First, though, he had to get rid of the waiting vampires before they came looking for him.
    He turned, thinking to have her hide behind the ice machine again, but as he did, he heard a loud inhalation followed by a hiss.
    “A werewolf with the Crystal City leader's son.” The vampire blocking the entrance to the alcove where Cameron and Rachel stood was unknown to Cameron, but obviously the unfamiliarity didn't go both ways.
    Cameron pushed Rachel toward the ice machine and prepared to fight.
    o0o
    Cameron hadn't agreed to her plan, and he hadn't turned her away either.
    Rachel hoped that he thought they could be together, that they could somehow make this mess that was their reality into a life together.
    But first it seemed they had to get past another vampire.
    Or three.
    Two vampires flanked the first. These other vampires weren’t visible from her position, but they were definitely there. She could smell them, their cologne and the scent of blood on their breath.
    The first would tire Cameron, and the others would kill him.
    It was how the wolves would do it.
    She jerked at the thought. She didn't know how the wolves did anything.
    But the pack did, and it seemed they had found her and reconnected.
    Strength and confidence flowed into her. So much and so quickly that she staggered backward under the onslaught.
    Cameron flew backward, thrown by the visible vamp. He crashed into the ice machine. As quickly as he hit, he rushed back toward the opening of the alcove and the other vampires.
    Rachel opened and closed her hands. She could feel them itching, could feel her body itching.
    “Not now,” a voice or voices murmured in her head.
    She wasn't ready to take on wolf form. She knew that, but her body wasn't so sure.
    “He has weapons. Use those.”
    Nancy had told her Cameron was carrying an arsenal of werewolf-fighting weapons. Surely there was something in the mix she could use on a vampire just as well.
    Her gaze shot to the duffle Cameron had dropped when he'd entered the alcove earlier. Avoiding the fighting vampires, she scrambled toward it.
    Her guess was right. The bag clanked as she jerked it toward her. Blindly, she grabbed the first object she could and immediately hissed in pain.
    Silver. Wrong end.
    She pulled the bag back to her place behind the ice machine and dumped its contents onto the ground.
    Knives, guns, and something she hadn't expected. Stakes. A lot of them.
    Perhaps Cameron hadn't been hunting werewolves after all.
    She grabbed two wooden stakes from the pile and stepped out from behind the machine.
    The pair of vampires who had been standing behind the first moved forward.
    “Rachel. No.” Cameron gripped his attacker by the throat and shoved his head against the motel's brick wall.
    The other vampire, on seeing her and his companions, smiled. “One down. How many to go?” he asked.
    In answer, Cameron bashed his head against the wall again.
    Cameron's fangs were extended and his face contorted, just as she'd seen him before, but this time she didn't find the transformation disturbing at