She tried it out now, thinking about the extinction weapon, but nothing happened, not really, except for a small sense that she was reaching out for something by sending tendril-like thoughts outside herself. She focused once more, concentrating hard, but again felt just strange little tendrils without much effect.
She was queasy at the thought that she was this connected to one of the walking undead. Except vampires weren’t exactly the undead; that was just part of her world’s mythology. These vampires lived in all sizes of caverns, more a tribal culture than anything else. They shunned centralized organization, but it appeared the vampire Daniel was working hard to establish himself as a dictator. And wouldn’t a weapon like the one she sought be exactly what a hopeful despot needed to consolidate his power?
And every time Adrien spoke Daniel’s name, rage boiled from him, a dark, deep hatred for the man who, by all appearances, intended to enslave his world. She could hardly blame Adrien for that.
Everything was in almost pitch blackness—which reflected exactly how she felt right now. She felt the pressure of the dark around her, the proverbial rock-and-a-hard-place.
Probably more than anything, she needed to come to terms with Adrien. He was so angry. Every breath he took vibrated with rage. Of course he had reason, since he’d been chained up and tortured for a year, and his brothers were still there. Yet she sensed there was something else eating at him, something that went very deep and probably had to do with Daniel.
And Adrien was four hundred years old and Daniel five times that, figures that still boggled her mind. The vampire world was long-lived. Adrien had had centuries to stoke the fires of his hatred for a man like Daniel.
CHAPTER 3
Adrien loved his Paris shower. He’d had the head mounted high to compensate for his height, and the strong water pressure really stripped the dirt away—or in this case the sweat. He leaned back and let the warm water flow over his hair, his forehead, nose, and chin.
Beautiful.
Other sensations struck.
He’d killed yet another fellow vampire.
He was tired of killing his own kind, but he and his brothers had been serving his world for centuries doing just that. When vampires followed the wrong path and hurt other vampires or humans, he stepped in, as both Lucian and Marius did, and others they’d trained through the decades.
The problem in his culture was simple: His kind valued individual liberty above everything, which left the whole society vulnerable to despots like Daniel. Self-direction was so prized among his species that few strong, supportable laws had been instituted to protect good citizens from those who practiced evil.
There were even heresies abroad that had so perverted the essential law of their world that those who killed humans were now being elevated in rank in certain secret societies, offered medals and prized cave dwellings for taking human life.
As he rinsed the battle-sweat off his body, he turned his mind to the here-and-now. He was in Paris after having been imprisoned for a year. His thoughts turned quickly to Lucian and Marius. He had to get them out, but if he made the attempt, and Lily got hurt or died, he’d be dead.
One final rinse and he shut the water off. He could have stayed in a lot longer; the filth he’d lived with was still too sharp in his memory. But one assassin might be followed by another or several. At least his security system was back on full force.
He toweled off in brisk movements.
So who sent the assassin? A number of sects existed throughout his world, each led by a different spiritual guide. But the largest group of fanatics followed an Ancestral called Silas, a vampire of tremendous ambition, perhaps even close to Daniel’s level. Silas shared something in common with Daniel: He didn’t hesitate to kill anyone if it meant furthering his ambitions.
So, yes, he would guess Silas had initiated this attack.
He stepped into a clean pair of jeans and slid a black tee over his head. He was tugging on the sleeves at the shoulders, adjusting them, when a stomach cramp gripped him hard.
Oh, shit. He didn’t really want to do this, but now he had no choice.
“Lily,” he called out. “I’m going to need blood, dammit!”
* * *
As Adrien appeared in the doorway, Lily saw that he was trembling, all the way from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers. She’d been warned by Kiernan of the effects of blood deprivation on the vampire, and here they were in plain view.
Another tremor.
Something was wrong.
Thunder rolled over the city and suddenly a spattering of rain hit the windows.
He winced suddenly and bent over at the waist. Through the chains, she sensed his stomach knotting as though in pain. “What’s wrong?” she asked, but she already knew. Oh, dear God, how was she supposed to do what so obviously needed doing?
He rose up, breathing hard. “Time’s come, Lily. I need blood and if you can’t deliver it, I’ve got to take care of business right now. I’ve got to get someone. They kept us blood-starved.”
Thunder rumbled overhead again and a flash of lightning brightened the cloudy October sky.
He lowered his chin and held her gaze in a hard grip, his nostrils flaring. “I’m talking sex here as well. I’ve gone too long without both and it’s almost impossible in a situation like this to take blood but hold back the other. Do you understand?”
He took a couple of steps toward her, and she took two steps back. Her heart pounded in her chest. His gaze fell to her throat; fangs appeared.
The wall of closets hit her back. The Eiffel Tower winked through the rain now hitting the windows. She tried to tell him no, but the words wouldn’t leave her mouth.
“What will it be? I’ll call someone, but you’ll have to watch.”
“I hate this.”
“Ditto.”
He trembled now and his color looked really bad. His eyes had a wild look.
She almost told him to use his phone right now, to call a donor, but she couldn’t. She’d desired him from the first, maybe even from the first time she’d seen a photo of him. And she was so lonely, so grief-stricken, that some sick parted of her wanted this and wanted it now.
He must have taken her hesitation as a yes, or maybe he couldn’t help himself, but the next moment he moved so fast she hardly saw him. She cried out as he caught her around the waist. His mouth covered hers as his tongue penetrated her deep. She could feel him hard against her belly.
Was she really doing this? Really letting a vampire take her blood and her body?
She hated him, hated his kind for taking her family from her, and hated herself for wanting him right now.