Page 6 of Claim of Blood (Blood Bound #1)

Chapter Four

Adam

Adam Matthews stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse office, watching the sun rise over Porte du Coeur.

The city sprawled beneath him like a living thing, rivers cutting through its heart like ancient arteries.

Even after millennia, watching the dawn still filled him with a quiet joy—a simple pleasure denied to many of his kind.

He rarely felt this kind of stillness anymore.

Not around his Court. And certainly not around Leo.

His fingers traced the glass as his mind drifted back to freckled skin beneath his touch.

He hadn’t meant to touch the boy. Not really.

But there was something in Leo that invited disruption, some instinct he didn’t recognize, didn’t want to name.

The hunter’s pulse had jumped so beautifully, those amber eyes widening in surprise.

A familiar presence interrupted his morning contemplation.

“Brother.” Raj’s voice carried centuries of warmth. “You’re looking well for someone under hunter surveillance.”

Adam turned from the window, a genuine smile crossing his features. “Just passing through?”

“A brief stop between meetings. Singapore calls.” Raj’s dark eyes sparkled with familiar mischief.

Maja appeared in the doorway, her blue eyes narrowing at Raj’s presence. Even in Louboutins, she moved with a warrior’s grace. “I wasn’t aware we were having a family reunion.”

“And my dearest niece, you’re looking radiant as ever,” Raj greeted, clearly enjoying himself.

Maja’s glare could have frozen hellfire. “Uncle.”

“Oh, come now,” Raj continued, spreading his hands in an expansive gesture. “Is that any way to greet your favorite uncle? You grow more beautiful with each century. That fierce glare becomes you.”

“I have work to do,” Maja said flatly. “Important work that doesn’t involve your particular brand of... entertainment.”

“You wound me.” Raj pressed a hand to his chest, grinning. “Centuries of devotion, and still so cold.”

“Centuries of rejection,” Maja’s voice could have frosted glass, “and you still haven’t found a new hobby.”

Adam watched the familiar exchange with barely concealed amusement. Raj had been needling Maja like this since her turning, and her increasingly creative rejections only seemed to delight him more.

“Bai sends her love, by the way,” Raj said, his expression sobering slightly. “She also mentioned she hasn’t heard from Mother. None of us have, it seems.”

Adam turned fully to face his sibling. “I haven’t seen her. Not since Isabella...”

Maja bowed her head, touching her heart at the mention of the name, her earlier irritation with Raj forgotten in shared grief.

“It’s been over a hundred years,” Raj said delicately. “Everyone is worried.”

“You remember how she was after Helena’s death,” Adam reminded them.

Something fractured in Raj’s usually perfect composure. His hand trembled slightly as he adjusted his tie—a nervous gesture Adam hadn’t seen in centuries.

“Isabella was too young to go that way,” Raj’s voice took on an edge. “Too young to be taken by hunters.”

Adam crossed the room with supernatural speed, pulling Raj into an embrace. “She chose to stand her ground. Like Helena did.”

Raj pulled away, straightening his suit with practiced precision. The moment of vulnerability vanished, replaced by his usual mischievous demeanor. “Now then, my exquisite niece, surely all this talk of family tragedy has made you reconsider dinner with your favorite uncle?”

“Seven centuries of refusal,” Maja corrected. “And it will be seven more before that happens.”

Raj laughed, the sound rich with genuine amusement. “Then I shall try again in the 2700s.” He moved toward the door, pausing briefly. “Do be careful, brother. The hunters are getting bolder these days.”

Maja waited exactly thirty seconds after the door clicked shut before pulling out her tablet. “The information you requested about our café visitors.”

Adam opened the first file. Katherine von Rothenburg’s face stared back at him, her scars prominent in the high-resolution image. The second file made his breath catch.

Leopold von Rothenburg. Leo. Finally, a name for his beauty.

“Boston branch of the family,” Maja reported. “They’re old blood, Adam. Very old blood.”

“I know what they are.” He traced a finger over Leo’s image. In the photo, he was smiling at something off-camera, those amber eyes bright with amusement. “Did you find anything else?”

“Nothing official,” Maja said. “But there are gaps. The kind that suggests carefully scrubbed information. His records are surprisingly sparse for a von Rothenburg.”

Adam looked up sharply. “Protecting him?”

“Or hiding him,” Maja suggested. “Either way, he’s important to them. Important enough that when you approached him, they pulled him immediately.” She paused. “Why did you approach him, Adam?”

He could hear the real question in her voice. Maja had been with him for centuries. She’d seen his countless liaisons, his casual affairs. She knew this was different.

“Compatibility,” he said quietly.

Maja’s tablet creaked in her grasp before the glass shattered. “With a von Rothenburg? That’s...”

“Impossible? Inconvenient? Potentially disastrous?” Adam’s laugh held no humor. “Yes. All of those things.”

“The last time one of our kind felt drawn to a hunter...”

“Was Helena,” Adam finished. “I know.”

They both fell silent, remembering. Helena, believing love could bridge the divide. Helena, whose death had changed everything.

“And now you’ve found it with his descendant,” Maja said softly. “Mother will—”

“Mother hasn’t been seen in decades,” Adam cut her off. “And I’ve never needed her permission before.”

Maja’s eyes narrowed. “What are you planning?”

Adam smiled, letting his fangs show briefly. “Nothing yet. But keep watching them. All of them. I want to know everything about our young Leopold.”

After Maja left, Adam tried to focus on work. The day slipped away in meetings and reports—Nocturne quarterly financials, marketing budgets, data privacy disputes with Québec’s government. Yet throughout it all, his thoughts kept straying to the hunter.

Leo’s file remained open in a minimized window, a distraction he’d returned to more times than he cared to admit. Such mundane details shouldn’t fascinate him. He’d witnessed empires rise and fall, yet here he was, five millennia old, fixated on a young hunter’s college transcripts.

The memory surfaced unbidden—another human who’d captivated him centuries ago.

John Warren, the Boston surgeon who’d befriended him in 1791.

John had known what Adam was almost immediately but felt fascination instead of fear.

Their twenty-year friendship had been built on long nights discussing medicine, philosophy, and human nature.

When Adam had offered him immortality in his final years, John had just laughed. “Human nature is a tricky thing,” he’d said. “One is always a student of it, and never its master. It is my nature, and I intend to die with it.”

Now, those words resonated anew as Adam contemplated Leo. Would the hunter make the same choice, valuing his mortal nature above immortality? Or would he be different?

As the sun set, Adam finally looked up from his work. The security feed showed an empty lobby café—Katherine von Rothenburg had departed. He summoned his car and driver, heading home to Innsbrook.

The Mercedes wound through the Second Cat toward the 15,000-acre development. His home sat at its heart, the largest mansion in the central subdivision. From the window, Adam caught the scent of wolf on the evening breeze—the PDC Pack running their perimeter checks.

Gaspard met him at the door. “Welcome home.”

“Maja made it back?” Adam asked, falling into step with his child.

“Yes, though she’s currently terrorizing the staff.” Gaspard’s tone was dry. “I understand her concern about the hunters, but...”

“That bad?”

“She stormed in as if the Revolution was at our doorstep.”

They entered the study, and Gaspard poured brandy from a crystal decanter. “The preparations for the Los Angeles Court visit are proceeding. Though I’ve taken the liberty of assigning them the North Wing.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Not the South Wing?”

“Sadly reserved for the Tokyo delegation,” Gaspard replied with perfect innocence.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Jian leading the delegation?”

Gaspard’s slight grimace told Adam everything. “He reorganized my library the last time he visited. Eight thousand volumes, alphabetical by author, with no regard for subject matter.”

Adam suppressed a smile. “That was 1953, Gaspard.”

“He also rearranged the entire East Gallery while I was in meetings.” Gaspard’s voice carried genuine pain. “The tapestries were perfectly placed.”

“The full Council meets in an hour,” Gaspard mentioned as servants wheeled in dinner.

Adam couldn’t quite suppress his groan. The weekly meetings were bearable, but bringing Nathaniel and Emilia always complicated matters.

“Three items on tonight’s agenda,” Gaspard continued. “The solstice celebration, the Los Angeles delegation, and our hunter situation.”

Through the study’s window, a familiar figure walked along the sidewalk. Leo von Rothenburg moved with a distracted edge, amber eyes fixed on the concrete, entirely unaware of his surroundings—a dangerous state for a hunter.

Adam raised his hand, silencing Gaspard mid-sentence. His beauty shouldn’t be here. Couldn’t be here. Not in this neighborhood, not this close to his territory.

He shouldn’t go to him. Not tonight. Not like this. But the pull was stronger than caution. Adam moved before he could stop himself—a predator chasing something he shouldn’t want.