Lily held her fingers to her lips and watched as life left the stranger, all three bodies locked in battle.
Adrien held both parts of himself still as he focused on finishing the job.
The room was horribly quiet except for the faint rustle of clothing as the assailant struggled to get free, a fish flailing in a net.
After what seemed like an eternity, he grew limp, but still Adrien held the chain around his neck, taking the kill to its limit, making certain of death. After what seemed like an hour, he let the body fall to the floor.
Adrien re-formed, the two beings drawing together in a swift, almost invisible rush of movement, reshaping to the self prone on the floor. Another shock to her system.
He sat up, sweat pouring from him, dripping off his forehead, soaking his shirt, the dead vampire at his feet.
It was all so horrible.
He sat there for a long moment, his arms braced around his knees, his gaze fixed straight ahead, the battle chain dangling from his left hand. She remembered seeing him in two places and tried to understand the dual parts, how they might have functioned.
She stared down at the corpse on the floor. “He’s dead.” Such a stupid thing to say.
Adrien nodded, his gaze falling to the body as well, a frown between his brows. His lips sagged at each corner.
“I don’t exactly know how to process that there were two of you and that you just killed a man. In front of me.”
His gaze shot back to hers. “You mean that I just saved your life.”
“And your own. This is monstrous, Adrien.”
His gaze hardened. “You call this monstrous? Your race is so arrogant.”
“Arrogant? We don’t move in packs and destroy entire neighborhoods of innocent families.”
“No, you build armies and destroy nations.”
She put a hand to her chest. “I don’t build armies.”
He glared at her. “And I don’t move in packs. My brothers and I police those f**king packs whenever we can. I give up my life every goddamn night hunting them down and slaughtering those of my kind that threaten the secrecy of our world. Or I did until Daniel gained control of the Council and threw all three of us in prison.”
Lily stared at him. She knew so little of his world that it shocked her to hear him speak of policing rogue vampires. She wanted to think she might have misjudged things, but the tips of his fangs showed and she shuddered.
He gained his feet, sweat dripping down his face. He once more wiped his sleeve over his forehead. “Shit.”
He moved past her, crossing to his desk. He unplugged his iPhone from the power source, tapped it a few times, and said simply, “I’ve had a security breach and I need cleanup.” He didn’t even state an address.
He pressed another button and slid the phone into the pocket of his jeans. “They’ll be here in a few seconds, flying in. Just be prepared.”
On instinct, Lily moved in his direction. Maybe because he felt her sudden anxiety, he drew close as well but maintained a slight, careful separation.
A split second later two young men arrived carrying a stretcher between them.
“That was fast,” she murmured.
“Yeah. Phones have helped. We have a much quicker response time now.”
One of them glanced at Adrien. “We’re getting the security system fixed.”
“Thank you. What the f**k happened?”
“Our whole system crashed about half an hour ago.”
“You were hacked.”
“Looks like.”
Adrien scowled as he glanced at Lily. She was pretty sure she could read his mind on this one.
“You were right,” she said.
“Then you’d better get ready to fight hard for the fortune you’re after. This nightmare has just started.”
One of the young men turned to Adrien. “Does this mean that you and your brothers are free? I mean, did Daniel release all of you?”
“No, not yet.”
“I’m glad you’re out. We’ve had a lot of problems with rogues, and some of the seedier clubs have gotten out of control. Your presence has been missed.”
Adrien nodded but said nothing more.
Offering one last bow in Adrien’s direction, the two men, with the corpse on the stretcher between them, glanced at each other, then moved swiftly into altered flight and disappeared from the apartment.
Adrien swiped at his forehead. “I’ve gotta shower again. Sorry. Then we probably should make some plans.”
Lily held her arms folded tightly over her chest. She trembled, but she didn’t want Adrien to see her this upset. She needed to toughen up if she hoped to see Josh again—and yet a man, even if he was a vampire, had just died in front of her.
With the short fighting chain dangling from his hand, Adrien crossed in front of her and headed in his long stride out of the office. She moved fast to keep up.
Once more he crossed the top of the living room. He paused to glance at the security panel by the door. Lily saw that the lights were now on, which apparently satisfied Adrien because he moved swiftly back down the long dark hall. He dipped into his bedroom, then returned with what looked like another shirt and jeans. He opened what proved to be, just as Lily had suspected, the second door to the black marble bathroom.
When he went inside, Lily stopped at the threshold. The dimensions of the room, though large, didn’t exceed the capacity of the shared chains, so she said, “I’ll be right outside.”
He nodded, his expression still grim. When he started to unbutton his jeans, she quickly closed the door. She really didn’t need to catch another glimpse of all his maleness.
She sank to the carpet next to the door, drew her knees up to her chest, and slung her arms around her legs.
Tears burned her eyes.
This was all too much.
She’d never seen a man killed before and if she hadn’t had the presence of mind to move when Adrien needed her to move, well, she’d be dead and Kiernan would probably dispose of Josh as an asset that had lost its value.
She took deep breaths and arched her neck to stare up at the tall ceiling, at least what she could see of it. Her eyes had adjusted but the hall was very dark. A distant glow from the living room’s front window provided the only illumination. The Paris apartment, while beautiful, had odd angles and fairly small windows.
Kiernan had told her that once she shared the blood-chain with Adrien, she would start siphoning his natural vampire powers. She might see better in the dark, hear better, and have a sense of his emotions, possibly even gain increased physical strength. She’d also be able to bring her tracking ability online; if she focused on the weapon, over the next few days she would develop the ability to see its location anywhere on earth just by thinking about it.