A strange knife-like sensation pierced Lily’s sternum and started cutting her up. Instead of pain, however, all she felt were streamers of blood-red rage flowing through her chest and into her muscles, even down her arms until her hands were balled into fists.
Adrien glanced at Lily and slid his arm, as he often did, around her waist. Only this time, he pulled her in a powerful jerk against his body so that she stilled. “We’re chain-bound, Eve. You can see that, so stop with this shit right now. It’s been a rough night.”
Eve turned ice-blue cat eyes on Lily. She didn’t smile, just gave a long, slow look up and down.
“Does the kitty play?” she asked, her voice soft, low, seductive.
Lily’s nostrils flared.
A small smile curved Eve’s lips. Then she sidestepped toward Adrien, sidling close.
That did it. With lightning speed, Lily slipped in front of Adrien, planted her hands on the Amazon’s arms, and shoved her.
But the woman was a vampire, worked out, and it was like pushing against a granite wall. “Leave Adrien alone.” Her voice echoed up and down the corridor.
Eve’s eyelids dropped. She dragged a hiss of air between pursed lips that was more sensual than hostile. “The kitty has claws. Me like. I could do you both, have you both chained to my table.”
When Eve reached for Adrien’s arm, Lily blocked her hand, slapping it away. Eve tried again and again, halfheartedly, chuckling each time.
This wasn’t working and the female vampire was too damn strong so Lily began pushing backward at Adrien. That her buttocks connected with his arousal sent fury washing through her veins. She whirled in his arms. “What the hell?”
But his eyes fell to half-mast. It’s you, Lily, taking on a vampire, keeping her away from me. I’m hot for you. Eve has always left me cold, and damn, if you and I hadn’t just fucked I’d take you right now.
She dialed down her rage and planted a hand on his soft tee. “You’d better be telling me the truth, because I’ve got a lava flow of rage in my veins right now.”
“I know.” He held her arms and to Eve said, “Stop the nonsense. You’ve got my woman ready to go volcano. Can you give the act a rest? You know I’m never going to sleep with you and I’ll definitely never lay myself out on your table.”
Eve glanced from one to the other. “But you might let her do it.”
“I might,” he said. “Now, where can we talk that doesn’t have a table or a bed or a closet full of your gadgets? I’m serious and if you don’t oblige me, I’ll tell Rumy you’ve been hitting on me again.” Rumy had made it clear that Adrien and his brothers were off-limits to Eve.
At that, Eve straightened her shoulders. “Fine.” She whirled around and shifted to altered flight, disappearing through the opposite wall.
Lily was flying with Adrien before she knew he’d started them after Eve. But it only took a couple of mind-and-eye-jarring seconds to catch up, even to get used to passing through walls of stone, through furniture and groups of people, mostly without flinching.
She kept her eye on the red glitter effect that flowed behind Eve as she flew, her ponytail swaying from side to side. The color suited her and seemed to sparkle. How is she doing that? Or do all vampires have a kind of signature when they fly?
It’s all for show, something Eve concocted.
I don’t like her very much.
She’s not so bad. You’ll see. Again, it’s all for show.
Adrien began to slow and the shimmering red glitter bunched up suddenly then disappeared.
Passing through one last wall, Lily landed with Adrien in what looked like a nicely furnished home.
“I always wondered how you lived,” Adrien said. “And thank you for bringing us here.”
“Aw, hell, if I’m not going to get any action, I’d rather be comfortable. Give me two secs to clean up and change. Then I’ll tell you what I know.” The woman seemed almost normal as she disappeared down a side hall.
Lily’s heart lurched. Maybe she’d finally get the information she needed.
The sound of water running, or rather flowing in sheets, drew her attention. As she turned around, her brows rose: She was looking at a waterfall not thirty feet away. She wended a path through some elegant modern black leather furniture, past a long rectangular dining table, to an elegant creation of rock, water, and lighting.
She wondered where the pump was, then looking up realized she was seeing the real deal, a waterfall inside the cave system.
Vampires and caves. Why not waterfalls? It all made sense, and everywhere she went in this strange new world, she saw that the caves, the sculpted walls and floors, the tunnels through hard rock, had all been around for a long time. Behind the flow of water, she could see that granite had been carved and polished so that it appeared as though light glittered through the flow of water.
When she heard Eve call out offering her guests wine, which Adrien accepted, she returned to him. A servant appeared, a much shorter woman in a crisp white, tunic-like apron over a maroon gown, and took Adrien’s request for two Cabernet Sauvignons.
After taking the first sip, Adrien suggested they sit down in the chairs opposite the couch. Lily sank into the soft leather and gave herself to savoring the wine and trying to let go of some of her tension about where she was, that she kept having some really outrageous sex with a vampire, and that a sex-club dom was now changing in the other room.
She eased back and closed her eyes, a mental list popping into her head: Category, The Erotic Passage, item one, get information from Eve about the weapon; item two, get Josh back.
As always happened when she thought about her son, her stomach tightened, but she forced back the tension and sipped her wine. She had to relax through this process, through these soul-shattering experiences that kept turning her world upside down. The more relaxed she was, the better her decisions would be—but much easier said than done.
“You okay?”
She opened her eyes and shifted to meet Adrien’s beautiful flecked teal gaze. She nodded. “I’m surviving.”
His lips quirked. “Sometimes that’s all that matters.” He lifted his glass to her. “For what you’ve been through, you’re doing great.”
His voice soothed her; that was what she understood, the deep resonance, the kindness. Maybe it was that quality that surprised her most of all, just how kind Adrien was.
Guilt pierced her suddenly, about why she was here, that she was using Adrien, and that she would go to any lengths to get her son back. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered. “But how can this end well, any of it?”
“Lily, what’s going on? Tell me.” He tilted his head and frowned.
She wanted to tell him about Josh, she really did, but how wise would that be? She’d agreed to the terms of the mission. Was her need to tell Adrien the truth worth putting her son’s life on danger?
She touched the chain at her neck. On the other hand, this wasn’t a normal situation and the bond she shared with Adrien had already told her so much, had made her care for him. She almost opened her mouth to speak—but at that moment a very different Eve returned to the living room.
She was barefoot, she’d lost the makeup, and her long blond hair, only partially dry, hung about her shoulders. “I hope you enjoyed the wine.” She met Lily’s gaze and all the flirtation was gone. “I have an import business, and of course Italy is exactly the right place for it. So how are you liking our world?” She sat down on the couch, spreading her arms along the back of the cushions.
Lily glanced briefly at Adrien then back to Eve. “It’s not what I expected, not on any level.” Thoughts of Adrien catching the vampire child up in his arms in the Trevayne system raced through her mind, stealing her breath away all over again.
“We’re not all bad,” Eve said. “Or at least, not all the time, and for the sake of my friendship with Adrien I apologize for my earlier misdeeds.”
Oh, great. Now Eve was proving her character as w
ell, which made the whole situation one big nerve itch. Good vampires. Bad ones. A world lacking a system of justice. A world of the individual. She liked too much of what she saw.
“Apology accepted.”
Eve nodded, offering a half smile. “So once I showered, I had a little chat with Rumy and he tells me that the shared chains have brought on a revisiting power—that you actually saw Daniel in Rumy’s office.”
“That’s true. I did.”
Eve narrowed her gaze at Lily. “Daniel’s one good-looking bastard, isn’t he?”
Lily nodded. “And very charismatic. It’s no wonder he’s caused all sorts of problems. He also seemed familiar to me, though I know I’d never seen him before.”
Eve glanced at Adrien and smiled. When her gaze returned to Lily she still wore a smile. “He might seem familiar because he’s fathered any number of children, all sons.”
“Really? But I thought they were rare?”
“In our world, you mean, yes, children are rare, but Daniel has great power and he doesn’t mind playing around with science. No doubt you’ve already seen one of his sons in passing.”
Lily shuddered.
Adrien cleared his throat. “And as fascinating as Daniel’s progeny might be, Eve, how about you tell us what we need to know. I take it Rumy already told you what we’re after.”
“Yes.” She wrinkled up her nose. “But the extinction weapon? What a nightmare.”
“Then you know something about it?” Lily searched her face, her heart rate climbing.
“Of course I do. And from the information I’ve received over the past several decades, a weapon like this could be used to take out an entire cavern system at once.”
Adrien leaned forward, his arms on his thighs, his hands clasped tightly together. “How the hell do you know this?”
Eve chuckled. “Because, darling Adrien, I sleep with a lot of men who tend to become talkative at certain times and I have a variety of skills that can keep them talking.”
She called for a glass of Silver Patrón. When the tumbler arrived, she took a long drink, savoring. She leaned into the couch again and released a deep sigh. “God, I love tequila, one of the human race’s finest achievements.” She chuckled softly. “You both look so tense.”
“Eve—” Adrien chided. “More details.”
“Fine. So here it is: In the nineteen fifties, just like in the human world, scientists in our major Paris university went mad with experimenting, especially with sound waves and bats, which have super-sensitive hearing, just like vampires.
“At certain decibels, the bats died, and so did a number of scientists.” She then spoke of what Lily had heard before—the Council of Ancestrals ending all experiments. “The Paris laboratory was destroyed, filled in with rubble, but word has it that the actual data and weapon, and the key to operating it, were hidden away, probably behind powerful Ancestral disguises. I’ve also heard that the same thing happened with other labs, other weapons, so there might be more than one.
“But of everything that I recall, the place I’d suggest to start is the group of crystal caves in Mexico. I know that a significant, secret, and highly illegal research facility was located there and operated against Council law, over the next decade well into the sixties, until a tragedy occurred, namely that a large number of scientists were killed.”
Lily settled her elbow on the arm of her chair and let her head rest in her palm for a moment. Her heart now thumped in her chest. The moment Eve had said “Mexico,” Lily felt the location click with her tracking ability.
Adrien reached a hand toward her and touched her arm. “You’re feeling it, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Mexico will give us some answers.” Then she looked down at her halter, skirt, and boots. “But I need to get changed before we head out.”
* * *
Adrien flew Lily back to his Paris apartment, the unofficial hub of their operations, and watched her lose her short skirt. Though her jeans were much more practical, the leather skirt revealed a lot of skin so he had mixed feelings about the switch-up. When a pair of blue running shoes replaced her boots, he repressed a sigh. What was it about heeled boots on a woman that got a man going?
Her body had become like air to him in this short time of being bound, but as he watched her brush out her hair, he seriously started questioning if what he felt was just about the chains.
His experience with Lily had begun ass-backward, and yet what he felt toward her, the tenderness, the compulsion to stick close and protect her, the off-the-charts need to get her beneath him, seemed completely disproportionate to the time spent or even to the bonds of the chains.
So what the hell was going on here?
It didn’t help that the chains vibrated almost constantly, metal against skin, informing him of Lily’s emotions at all times, if not her thoughts. But those he could guess at.
The situation freaked her out and why wouldn’t it? Shit, if he’d been in her shoes, he’d be going nuts right now. Vampires and a world she hadn’t known existed until a couple of months ago? He’d always been acutely aware of the human world, something all vampires avoided except in matters of business, like Eve’s wine-import company.
When Lily turned to face him, rubbing her earlobe where a single flash of amethyst could be seen through her thumb and forefinger, his heart lurched.
He was so damn attracted to her, plain and simple, as though every gene in his body reached for her. It had been this way from the moment he’d laid eyes on her in the Himalayan cavern. And he hadn’t worn a binding chain then, yet he’d struggled to get to her, overcome by a hurricane of need not just to get her on her back, but to hold her close by his side, to protect her, to be with her.
He felt the same way now as she gave a tug on the hem of her purple tank top. “I like that the new chains give us a greater reach. What would you say it is? Twenty feet? Thirty?” She frowned slightly. “What’s the matter? You’re kind of, I don’t know, all over the place.”
He shook his head and forced himself to breathe. He even liked the tenor of her voice. She had a certain resonance that spoke to him, that spoke of a deep sense of confidence she had in herself even in the face of her current nightmare.
“I’m proud of you,” he said, without thinking, his feet in motion as well. “You’re one of the most courageous people I know.”
He could feel her confusion, her surprise, and beneath those emotions, a texture of having been pleased. He took her in his arms. “Whatever happens, Lily, from this point forward, I want you to know that I value who you are.”
“You do?” she asked, frowning.
“I do.”
She searched his eyes and drew in a ragged breath. “Thank you.” Her large hazel eyes were bright. “I don’t know what to say.”
She needed the moment to pass, that’s what the chains told him. So he let it go. “It’s okay. We need to focus on Mexico. Can you access your tracking ability? Now that we have a lead, I’d like to know if my Ancestral power can help with that.”
“Good idea.” She blinked a couple of times then met his gaze. “That was so strange. I thought about Mexico and suddenly those weird searching tendrils zoomed there and I saw a cavern of white crystals. There were also three tunnels, and I had the sense that the weapon was down one of them.”
“Was this easier now, because of the new chain?”
“Absolutely. Night and day, like altered flight.”
He held her gaze, realizing that they’d become the very thing Daniel had been working toward: a tracking pair that could locate whatever needed to be found. Which meant that though he could celebrate having accomplished something with Lily, essentially he was still doing Daniel’s bidding.
“What do you know about the crystal caves?” she asked.
“A system of great beauty, filled with white crystals of all sizes, some massive, some very small, and a full range between. Mostly abandoned these days after one of the tunnel systems colla
psed and killed nearly a thousand inhabitants. But given what Eve told us, maybe there was another reason the system was shut down.”
“Because of the extinction weapon.”
He nodded.
Lily drew in a deep breath, and her gaze skated away from his. “Do you think we’ll have company?”
“Yeah, I do, so let me ask you this: Are you sure you want to continue?”
“Yes.” He felt her despair and wished he knew the truth.
She glanced down at his leathers and to the new weapon he now wore in a large sheath attached to his belt. “That’s the biggest blade yet. More than a dagger, I take it.”
He nodded.
“Any particular reason for it?”
“Instinct.”
Her lips curved just so. “I can get behind that.”
He smiled as well. “We’re for Mexico then. We’ll fly straight through but I’ll slow it up at the end, once we’re inside the system, to have a look. I’ll only stop if I think it’s safe.”
“Good. That sounds good.”
When he opened his arms, she stepped into him. He closed the circle, the chains vibrating heavily against his neck. The new double-chain enhanced everything, including his reactions to her. Proximity sent a thrill straight down his chest, all the way down to make his cock twitch and his balls tighten. More ragged breathing. The smallest touch and he was ready for her.
He oriented himself, focusing on his internal directional awareness. He pivoted in an easterly direction, toward the night, always east, always flying away from the sun just in case. Paris to Mexico would have been shorter heading west, but what was a few seconds to keep the larger portion of night close at hand while he flew.
Some lessons were learned early and learned hard.
Dropping out of a altered flight in sunlight just hurt.
Besides, his new power made the journey as smooth as glass. Passing through anything solid like trees or mountains, even water, was like swiping a hand through fog.
As he neared Mexico, he began to slow.