The Claimed Read Online Free PDF Page A

when she had been beginning to lose steam.
    “How about I give that ol’ body of yours a massage when you come back down?” she called up the stairs as her friends went for the coffee.
    “I’d be your slave forever,” Sammie shot back down, and in the meantime, Victoria went around the work space in the shop, righting kayaks and surfboards, getting them settled into their storage racks, and picking up and hanging out the assorted life vests and wetsuits as well as the harnesses they used on those patrons who wanted to take one of their parasailing trips along the shore. Carefully she checked each fitting and strap, making surethey were in good order, setting aside those which would require repair.
    Her friends came down just minutes later, redolent mugs of coffee in hand, and joined her, helping to put away paddles and other equipment and reorganize the display cases holding the assorted goggles, life vests, wetsuits, and other water-related paraphernalia she sold. They filled in other empty areas with new inventory from her stockroom.
    Sammie went into a small storage room and came back with a box of T-shirts, grimacing as she placed the carton by the display rack at which she had been working.
    Victoria glanced at her watch. They had been cleaning up for almost forty-five minutes and the customers, if they came on time, would be there shortly. But she had promised to help out her friend and she kept her promises.
    “Time for that massage.” Victoria walked to her friend and urged Sammie toward a nearby work table. Snagging a clean towel from a peg on the wall, Victoria laid it out and then helped Sammie up onto the table. Her friend’s movements were guarded, a testament to her discomfort, and Victoria berated herself for not seeing the true extent of her friend’s pain before now.
    When Sammie was on her stomach, Victoria immediately began a slow massage of the knotted muscles, gauging with her heightened senses the extent of injury. Minor muscle damage and some bruising, she thought. To alleviate her friend’s aches, she slowly released a bit of her gathered energy to help heal Sammie’s discomfort. She also tried to see if she could sense any Hunter power in her friend, but there was none apparent at that moment.
    “That feels great,” Sammie acknowledged with a low moan of pleasure.
    To distract Sammie from what she was actually doing, Victoria kneaded the muscles while sending curing bursts of power and joked, “I guess it’s a good thing you retired last night. Your old bones can’t take that kind of abuse anymore.”
    Jan let out a hoot of laughter. “Who are you calling old? I believe you are the one closest to thirty, are you not?”
    Victoria chuckled and shook her head. “Guilty as charged.”
    “Which I guess means that you should start thinking about settling down? Maybe with that sexy Rafael?” Sammie said, peering over her shoulder at Victoria.
    “You think Rafael is sexy?” she asked, not that she was surprised by her friend’s appraisal. Her captain was handsome, and the masculine alpha energy that Hunter males projected was a potent pheromone, especially to human females. They possessed no defenses against such masculine vigor.
    Which made her think of the handsome stranger from last night.
    Jan laughed out loud again and walked over, gave her a playful hip check. “Girl, don’t tell me that you haven’t noticed that he’s gaga over you?”
    Victoria paused her massage and treatment of Sammie as she considered Jan’s words. “Really? I’ve known him for so long that he’s like a brother.”
    Sammie blurted out, “For starters, don’t stop the massage. And secondly, you cannot be serious. Like a brother?”
    Glancing back and forth between the determined gazes of her friends, she said, “Totally serious. He’s just a friend and there can’t be anything more between us.”
    Rafael was a Hunter whose descendants had lost the gift of gathering energy centuries earlier. As