Claiming Valeria by Rebecca Rivard Page A

clan to stand down.”
    Adric’s jaw tightened. “Not yet.” He refused to accept they’d
been cut off at the knees. Not when he’d been dreaming of this day ever since he’d
first heard the stories about how the clan had almost taken Rock Run sixty years
ago. He’d decided then and there that was what his people needed to become whole
again. “Maybe Jace can recover the data.”
    Jace was the clan’s ace hacker and the main architect of the
quartz smartphone technology. “Already on it.” He frowned down at his own quartz.
    He wouldn’t touch Adric’s quartz except in a dire emergency.
No one would. Earth fada had a direct connection to their quartz. Each piece was
attuned to its owner’s energy, a unique vibration that fed both the owner and the
quartz. But as their go-to tech guy, Jace had a backup copy of every important document.
    “Sorry.” Jace shook his head, scowling. “No can do. Whoever did
this didn’t even bother breaking the encryption. They just wiped the whole file
clean.”
    Adric’s hand went to his own quartz again. The gray-and-orange
crystal vibrated in a short, agitated pattern, attuned to his emotions in a way
that was eerily sentient. “I’d say the S.O.B.s broke our agreement, but they never
said I could keep the data on Rock Run.” In fact, the sun fae had been careful to
make no promises beyond the large sum they’d paid for his help in tracking their
queen.
    Fucking fae.
    They were so damn clever with their promises. Well, at least
he had the payment safely tucked in a bank account that could only be accessed by
him or Marjani. It was money his clan desperately needed. They’d been nearly destroyed
by the fighting during the Darktime. They were poor, hungry and demoralized. As
alpha, his first priority was to rebuild their crumbling homes, make sure the children
had food in their bellies.
    “It’s for the best, Ric.” Marjani leaned forward, hands on the
table. “We’re not ready. The clan’s still recovering. Even if we took Rock Run,
we’re not strong enough to hold it. We have the money—more than we ever dreamed
of. Be grateful for that.”
    “You’re wrong. We could take their base—and if we did, we’d damn
well hold it. Even if we have to kill every male above the age of ten—and the female
soldiers too, for that matter.”
    Female fada were less likely to have the aggressive instincts
necessary to make soldier, but every clan had women like Marjani who fought alongside
the men. Two years his junior, she was slim, almost delicate-looking with an oval
face and large dark eyes. But she’d guarded his back with a pit-bull-like determination
as he’d fought his way up the hierarchy on his way to becoming alpha.
    She dragged a hand through her short black hair. “This isn’t
us,” she asserted. “We don’t go into people’s homes and murder them. Not since—”
She looked away, throat working.
    They all knew what she’d almost said. Not since the Darktime .
When their parents had been executed by an alpha brutally consolidating power. When
a few years later the two of them had almost been murdered in their beds by their
own uncle, who had assassinated the previous alpha. When Jace’s sister had been
raped and murdered, and Lucas had been imprisoned and tortured for over a year—simply
for being Adric’s friends.
    The stories went on and on. The end result was their clan had
split into a number of small, weak factions which had nearly ended in them all being
exterminated, hunted by one another and the more nasty fae.
    Adric crossed his arms. “We need that territory. Our cats and
wolves need the space, need the room to run. Even deer need more space than they
get here in Baltimore.”
    Marjani’s full lips thinned, but she kept silent. Adric might
be her brother, but he was also her alpha.
    He glanced at Zuri, who as usual hadn’t spoken, preferring to
listen to the others as he weighed options. The man was frankly beautiful, with
curly black