Within the vision, the furniture was different and so was Adrien, but there he stood in this very room, near the fireplace, dressed in formal white silk breeches, white stockings, and a fitted black coat. He turned and looked in her direction, but she could tell that though he sensed something, he couldn’t see her.
Adrien stood up from the table. “What is that? What are you doing?” He even looked toward the fireplace. “It was you,” he said. “I felt something, a very long time ago, in this room, maybe two centuries ago. I was near the fireplace and you would have been right where you are now. I felt your presence. My God, Lily, it was you. I sensed your presence all the way from the past, yet you were looking at me just now.”
She rose as well. “Yes and you looked amazing in white breeches and a black coat. The room was full of important people, too.”
He stared at her as though amazed. “I carried that feeling around with me for days, that I was supposed to do something but couldn’t place it. Now I know why, because here you are. Lily, do you know what this is called? You have revisiting visions. You’re in the present and you see the past, people from the past.”
“I had one in the cavern just before I saw you hanging in chains. The vision was of you two hours before, when they first tortured you.”
“You saw that?”
She worked to keep the memories at bay. “Yes. All of it. It was horrible.”
He shook his head. “This world of ours must be a nightmare for you, something that won’t end, that keeps delivering.”
“But good things, too,” she said quickly. “Like making love with you. That was unexpected and wonderful.”
His chest rose and fell. His gaze had locked onto hers so that the last of the present vision faded.
A look came over his face that pushed the air from her lungs. His scent followed, suffusing the air with strong herbs and what she’d come to know as Adrien. The chains set up a vibration against her skin.
Once more, she felt his desire for her. Hers rose as well, along with the strange need her body felt to offer a vein. Could her life get any stranger?
She glanced down at her list. Her list-making was one of the things in her life that had kept her sane over the past two years. This list, though, had more to do with finding a killing machine: go to The Erotic Passage for more information, ask Adrien more about his brothers.
She’d left off the most important thing, the one thing she couldn’t write: Josh. Find him, save him, make a new life with him.
“We should go,” she said, rubbing her finger back and forth over the notepad.
“Lily,” he said softly, rounding the table so that he stood next to her. “I didn’t mean to upset you. My need for you is fierce and I know you can feel it through our connection. I blame these damn chains, which is one more reason I want to avoid adding a new layer of power. I can’t imagine what would happen with an even stronger bond.”
She nodded, but she felt dumbstruck all over again by his proximity. Her knees felt weak. Her gaze fell to his lips. He leaned in and as she closed her eyes, his lips touched hers, a moist pressure that didn’t help her knee-situation at all.
The kiss lingered and her heart began to set up its own demanding racket. Her hand slipped up and around his neck, beneath the long weight of his hair, then she was just in his arms, wrapped up in the cocoon of his phenomenal strength.
He could crush her and yet she knew him already, knew that he’d never hurt her. He was kind to children and respected women. She couldn’t believe how much she’d grown to trust him in twenty-four hours.
We should go. Her mind reached to his, but his arms tightened around her.
He deepened the kiss. Her body weakened further as she leaned into him. She parted her lips, needing air, which of course prompted his tongue to dip inside.
She moaned against his mouth.
Yes, we should go, he said mind to mind.
But there was something so perfect about being wrapped up in his arms that she forgot the hour and her desperation. She sank into the thrill of his mouth, his lips, his powerful arms that flexed and released against her.
She shuddered. His scent, now surrounding her thickly, made mush of her thoughts. He could take her if he wanted to. She had no will but his right now.
Despite the intensity of the moment, he began to pull back, easing up on his embrace, kissing her with only his lips, then withdrawing that sweet pressure to lean his forehead against hers. “I wish to hell we had more time because I’m feeling urgent all over again.”
“Me, too, and very forgetful when you touch me.” She drew back and met his gaze, struck again by how beautiful his flecked teal eyes were, the shimmering depths that weren’t quite human, but more, much more.
Vampire.
She looked away. She needed to remember what he was, that she wasn’t like him, that once she had Josh back again, she’d be rebuilding a life with her son, a life that couldn’t include Adrien.
Releasing him, she ripped the list from the notepad and slid it into the pocket of her jeans where her fingertips touched her iPhone. “If you’re ready, let’s go.”
He nodded. He ran a hand down each side of his battle leathers, checking his weapons again, no doubt, as well as his phone.
He slid one arm around her waist, holding her against him. “I’m sorry that this process hurts.”
“It doesn’t matter, Adrien.” She took a deep breath. With any luck they’d find the information they needed at The Erotic Passage and she’d be one step closer to Josh. “I’m ready.”
The flight began and as before a sudden nausea took her over, but she fought it back. And as before, her head began to pound, but because he kept the speed slow, she could manage the pain.
Soon he’d flown them away from the city lights of Paris until the blackness of the countryside below took over, with only the occasional village lights. She closed her eyes and leaned against Adrien’s chest as he took them south toward Italy.
As they went farther the clouds began to thin so that when she checked her surroundings once more, she could see stars. She smiled. Yep, much better to take it slow.
We’ll be moving through the Alps soon, he said from his mind to hers. Just wanted you to be prepared.
How clear the words sounded in her head. Thanks for the warning, she returned.
When blackness engulfed her she knew she was passing through rock—that and the strange clinging sensation of solid matter.
The flight went over Italy now and the same occasional lights of villages or towns.
Another two minutes passed and his mind once more sounded within hers. Almost there. We’re over the lake now. The club is on the eastern shore.
She looked down; sure enough, she saw a black expanse of water. He descended toward the lake, traveling in a southeasterly direction.
In this position, his head cleared hers easily. But movement drew her attention and she shifted slightly to gain a better view. She saw that several distant figures, all robed with hoods, approached out of the northwest, something Adrien wouldn’t be able to see. Fanatics.
Adrien, there are four men coming in from the northwest, wearing robes and hoods.
Shit. I have to speed up.
Do it.
She shifted to look away from the intruders so that she could see the light from the club. But the vibration grew until instinctively she looked up.
Another attacker sped toward them from above and before she had time to warn Adrien, the fifth vampire slammed into Adrien’s shoulder, knocking her out of his arms. The next thing she knew she was falling toward the blackness below.
She had enough sense to take a deep breath just before she plunged into the cold lake. Down she went, her body instantly shocked and numb from the frigid water.
Her first instinct was to pull for the surface, but the chain vibrated in a way she’d never felt before, a powerful warning.
She felt the connection to Adrien, and chose to rely on his ba
ttle instincts, on all that she was in this new world. Though anxious to reach the surface, she forced her body to remain hidden below.
She adjusted her vision, siphoning the familiar power from Adrien. She could see as though a soft light cleared a path through the water and the night.
While Adrien battled four of the vampires, the fifth zigzagged over the waters hunting for her, probably waiting for her to surface. She had always had trouble floating and right now was grateful for it.
That her pursuer couldn’t see her reminded her that she could siphon Adrien’s power. Here was one of the differences then—that she could remain hidden while a real vampire couldn’t see her through the water.
Slowly she released the air now trapped in her lungs.
As Adrien battled, first one then a second vampire fell into the lake. She could make out Adrien’s quick movements as he blended his flight skills with his battling ability. Like before, he split into two parts, almost directly above her because of their perpetual proximity issue.
But her lungs had begun to hurt and the vampire hunting her was getting closer. Maybe she’d released too many air bubbles at once.
Her vision grew gray at the edges. The vampire hovered nearby now. If she surfaced she was dead. But she was running out of air.
Adrien, her mind cried. Hurry.
Slowly, blackness engulfed her.
CHAPTER 9
Adrien heard her last desperate telepathic cry. He had one more in the air and he saw the fifth vampire dive suddenly into the water.
The vampire he battled had lost his religious garb and now fought him with dagger and chain, battling as fiercely as he and his brothers battled. Adrien had a few cuts, nothing too serious. But he had to get to Lily. If she died, they both would because of the chains.
He allowed his second self to appear weaker, listing toward the water.
The vampire took the bait and followed. With his first self, Adrien caught him from behind in the kidneys with his dagger. The man screamed and plunged into the water.
“Lily!” he shouted.
The vampire who’d dived earlier now surfaced, jeering. “She’s dead.” He lifted Lily’s pale hand and shook it.
Adrien could sense that she was close to death, but not yet gone. The sudden rage he felt was so raw that before he understood what he was doing, both parts of him moved at light-speed toward the vampire who now opened his eyes wide. He tried to dip below the surface, as though that would do any good.
His rage had opened his vision. He could see Lily floating now as well as the panicked, thrashing movements of the gloating vampire as he tried to escape. Adrien pierced the water, dove straight for the bastard, caught him with one self while his split-self cut his throat.
He turned in the water, grabbed Lily in all four of his hands, and took her straight into the air. He meant to get her to the club, but as he spun in a 180 he saw a dozen more hooded figures closing in.
He held Lily close to his primary self’s chest, re-formed, then flew away from the lake, faster than he ever had before, faster than any of these bastards could move.
He reached one of his private cavern homes, this time in South Africa, within twenty seconds of pulling Lily from the water. He stretched her out on the stone floor of his living room and began pumping the water from her lungs, then gave her mouth-to-mouth.
The moment she coughed and spewed all that liquid, her food followed. She cried out, grabbed her head, undoubtedly in pain from the speed of the recent flight, and with one arch of her back passed out.
He sat back on his heels, knowing that his life had just changed … forever.
Lily had almost died.
And his stubbornness about not embracing his Ancestral power had almost gotten her killed.
Well, that had to change.
He made plans with his housekeeper about caring for Lily.
Then he called Gabriel.
Three hours later Adrien sat in a chair by his bed, where Lily now slept. A fire roared in the nearby hearth. He sat in jeans and a T-shirt, his leathers and tank drying out. His housekeeper and one of her staff had taken care of Lily, changing her, washing the lake water off her, forcing a healing herbal tea down her throat.
The tea contained a short-term sleeping potion as well so that Lily fell into a deep sleep and no longer thrashed and cried out for Adrien, or for her family; for Josh, for Jessie, or for her husband, Robert.
Now she was quiet, though very pale.
He’d sent two of his more powerful male servants to the Himalayas to check on Lucian and Marius, to let his brothers know that as soon as he could, he’d come for them and arrange their escape. Somehow. He also sent them to Lily’s Manhattan apartment to bring more of her belongings back to South Africa.
He’d done all he could for his present situation, but the hardest truth about Lily’s near-drowning, and what he needed to do about it, hit him square in the chest.
From the time she’d put the chain on him and he’d flown her back to Paris at full speed, hurting her the entire way, he’d been avoiding what he needed to do.
Now he saw no real way out.
Lily had basically drowned in Lake Como tonight, and all because of his hatred for his parentage and his fear that if he embraced greater power, like his father possessed, he’d become like him: without conscience, a risk to his friends, even to his half brothers, certainly to his world.
If there was some way he could predict where and how the fanatics might attack, he could manage where he took Lily and how fast they traveled. But from the events of the past twenty-four hours, he understood they meant to stop him from getting the weapon at all costs.
He couldn’t let that happen. Silas and his fanatics were no more to be trusted than Daniel.
But the truth was, the source of the attack didn’t matter—only that Lily’s vulnerability and his stubbornness had brought her to the point of death. Now she had one more horror she’d have to recover from, of drowning while under attack by goddamn fanatical vampires.
Some kind of change needed to come to his world. Maybe Sebastien was right, maybe there was something he could do, especially with so many loose factions out there, ineffective courts, and not enough laws on the books to protect the innocent. The governing Council, prior to Daniel’s takeover, had failed time after time to do what needed to be done. So here he was, sitting in a goddamn chair in one of his favorite caves, on the edge of despair because he’d been pushed to this point through no fucking fault of his own.
He leaned forward and shoved a hand through his hair. Sweet Buddha Christ, and all the vampire gods thrown in together, he didn’t want to do this thing.
He scoffed mentally, then offered a deep disgusted grunt into the air. He knew about pain. He’d been on close terms with cuts, bruises, and suffering from the time he could remember. His father had been a sadistic brute and had taken the flesh off his bones a hundred times with his whips and razor-sharp knives.
Dear old Dad.
His sire had been a sociopath who tortured his children. Worst of all, though procreation was rare in their long-lived world, his father had been one of the few extraordinary vampires able to sire as many offspring as he liked. And his siblings had all suffered as he had.
All of them.
Yes, his pain went deep, his disgust even deeper for the governing Council who had accepted Daniel’s bribes and lain down for him, one and all.
When Lily began to stir, even to stretch her arms over her head, he rose from his chair and moved to the doorway. His housekeeper, who oversaw all of his homes, sat in a comfortable chair in the opposite alcove, reading the Vampire Quarterly.
She lifted her gaze, then her brows. “How’s she doing?”
“Starting to wake up. Is the soup ready?”
She nodded and unfolded her legs from the chair. Setting the journal aside, she headed to the kitchen.
When he turned to look at Lily from the doorway, her eyes were open. Her fingers moved
uneasily over the edges of the sheet and blanket that covered her. “Where am I?” she asked.
“South Africa, a good five thousand miles from Italy. No lakes around.” He tried to smile, but the panic in her eyes as she put a hand to her throat set his lips once more in a tight line.
He returned to his chair, pulling it close to the bed. He reached for her hand and held it in his. She had long fingers and beautiful nails. He lifted her fingers to his lips. A swell of emotion tightened his jaw.
“You drowned,” he said. Some things need to be faced head-on.
She nodded, tight bobs of her chin. “When will this horror stop?” she murmured, not meeting his gaze.
He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the bed, folding her hand into both of his. “Hey, you’re alive. Right now, that’s all that matters.”
She let go of a quick sigh, nodding once more.
“Think about why you’re doing this.”
Her gaze slid to his and she frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’ve decided, knowing all that I sense about your character, that you’re not doing this for money, are you?”
She shook her head. “Not even a little.”
He watched her eyes fill with tears.
“I wish you’d tell me.” There it was again, that profound need he felt to have her trust him.
“I can’t.” She shook her head back and forth, her gaze looking panicked again.
He eased back on pressuring her. “It’s okay. But I hope at some point you can trust me enough to tell me.”
She glanced around the room. “This is really nice.” Then her gaze drifted to the ceiling and her eyes widened. “Oh, my God.”
Adrien looked up as well. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” This part of the cavern was on a long ridge of granite that he’d had tunneled out into various living quarters. Vampire craftsmen had then chiseled and polished the ceiling of his apartment into a variety of patterns. “This design is called ‘The Brook.’”