Born in Chains

And yet he was aroused, which told her the other part of the story, that he had a powerful drive toward her he didn’t want to have. This had all the makings of a nightmare.

She ignored that his erection pressed against her stomach. He didn’t even seem to notice his sexual state. Instead, his eyes bored into hers, and as she kept her hands flat against his chest, he finally grew still, though his nostrils moved like bellows with each breath.

The other vampires in the cavern grew quiet as well, as though sensing Adrien’s growing calm. The three men were half-brothers, though she knew little else about them except that they served as a type of policing force for their kind.

As she stared up at him, chills raced over her shoulders and down her arms. Her chest tightened as a strange sensation gripped her deep in her stomach, something that emanated from the chain around her neck. Kiernan had told her it would recognize Adrien since the specialist—something called an Ancestral in the vampire world—had used Adrien’s blood to create the chain.

She opened her mouth to tell him about her current mission and what she needed him to do, but all she could seem to focus on was the shade of his eyes, an exquisite shade somewhere between blue and green, almost a teal but quieter, softened with faint brown flecks.

She realized that she could see really well in the dark, another result of the blood-chain. Essentially, once connected, she’d be siphoning more and more power from the chain and from Adrien himself after she’d bound him with the matching chain. In the meantime, she could already feel the chain at work on her. The vision alone had told her that much.

She looked at his lips, full and sensual. He strained toward her, leaning into her. “You’re my enemy,” he hissed.

“And yet you desire me.”

“I want you on your back, human, then I’ll make you feel just how weak you are compared with my kind.”

“You speak of my weakness, but I’m not the one hanging from massive chains in a prison. You are. How did you get here, vampire? What brought you to this cavern?”

“Treachery,” he muttered.

“Of course. Your kind always has an excuse. But at least we seem to understand each other, I hate your kind and you despise mine. We ought to at least be on an equal footing when I take charge of you.”

“What does that mean?”

She backed away slowly, and as her hands left his chest his gaze fell to the chain at her neck. His eyes narrowed.

“I’ll be taking you out of here.”

“You’ve got a blood-chain.”

“I do.”

“And you’ve got the matching one?”

She nodded. “I was hired by a private individual to take you into my custody and make use of your powers.”

He scowled. “Daniel would never allow that unless he’d sanctioned the release.”

“Who exactly is Daniel?”

Adrien snorted. “Daniel Briggs, the vampire in charge of everything right now, including this lovely prison.”

“I report to Harris Kiernan, no one else.”

The vampire hissed. “He and Daniel work together, a little married couple.”

“I’ve been told to explain a few things to you. First, you’ll be bound to me and we’ll be unable to get more than a few feet apart at any given time. Second, for either of us to remove the chain will mean death to both. Finally, you’ll have to do as I say. And just to be clear, I’m more determined than you can imagine to see my mission through. I’ve got a lot at stake and I will get what I’ve come here for. Or die trying.” She lowered her chin. “Do you understand?”

“You’re saying you’re putting your life on the line for your mission.”

“That’s right.”

“Have you considered that once bound, I might decide to do the same? That I might find living in this state a worthless venture?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve made the decision to bind myself to you and if death follows, so be it.”

He nodded slowly. “All right, I believe you. So what’s your mission?” His eyes flared suddenly. “Wait, I can sense something from you, about you. You’re a locator, aren’t you?”

“That’s what I’ve been told. That’s why I’m here.”

“And if we form this bond, you’ll be able to find things, is that it?”

“Yes.” She watched as he started putting the pieces together.

“Shit. You’re after the extinction weapon.”

She drew in a deep breath, vaguely aware that she no longer held the washcloth, nor did it seem to matter. “I am.”

“Do you understand the ramifications of this weapon?”

“That it has the potential to destroy the entire vampire race.”

The other vampires shouted suddenly for Adrien to refuse to go with Lily, but he called out, “The human has already said that Kiernan—and therefore Daniel—has turned me over to her. If he has his hand in this, we can be sure he won’t be far behind in trying to get the weapon for himself. Imagine the control he could exert over our race. I have to do this thing.” He met and held her gaze.

Lily saw the strength of him in that moment, his basic intent—and that the last thing he’d ever do was turn over the weapon once he had it in hand.

Great.

She drew a deep breath and set her shoulders once more.

Okay, one problem at a time.

“I’m glad you’re being reasonable.” Lily began backing away from him. “I’ll get your bath ready.”

She turned, picked up the lantern, and headed out, but the farther she moved away from him, the more the stench returned like a furnace-blast of odor. Somewhere, she’d dropped the washcloth.

She picked up her feet and ran the rest of the way.

Once outside the cavern, now fully dark, she jogged back down the path. The vampire who had led her to Adrien waited for her by her tent.

Furious all over again that she was even here, forced by circumstances as heinous as they were outside her control, she delivered her orders, her words clipped. “Give him another hour or so to heal, then get him clean. I don’t care if you have to use pumice on every inch of his skin, just get him clean.”

“I’ll see that he’s bathed.” The vampire turned and headed back into the main camp to round up her forces.

When Lily went inside her tent, she quickly stripped off her clothes. She moved into her makeshift camp shower, wondering if she’d ever feel clean again. As she soaped up, she shuddered at her memory of Adrien, that she’d found the enemy beautiful, that she’d desired a vampire.

The thought felt unholy as she scrubbed from head to foot.

She would order her clothes burned, especially since they had Adrien’s blood on them. She wanted no visceral memory of her time here if she could possibly help it.

Although the water was just barely warm, even after the staff added hot water to the tank, she stood beneath the shower and shampooed her hair, scrubbed her skin raw, and only quit when she couldn’t smell the cave any longer.

Afterward she wrapped herself up in a thick robe and reviewed the latest email from Kiernan. Her first step was simple: bind Adrien with the matching chain, then take him back to his Paris apartment to get prepped for the mission. Once he was ready, she was to contact Kiernan, who wanted to know every step of her progress.

Sighing heavily, she opened a small case to her right and removed a chain that matched her own, made up of the same small dark loops. Her chain vibrated as she slipped the second chain over her head.

In the box was something else, something to help her remember why she was binding herself to a vampire. She picked up a small piece of cloth, taken from Josh’s shirt, stained with his blood.

As she towel-dried her hair, she heard a thumping on the path outside. A dozen men hurried by, barely shadows in the dark. Two of them hauled a huge stainless-steel tub, which got dumped unceremoniously not far from her tent. Those men raced back up the path in the direction of the cavern.

She heard shouting in the distance.

What the hell was going on?

She moved to the tent doorway and held her robe closed. Other staff arrived and began filling the tub, some with cold water, some carrying buckets that steamed, but all those heads were also turned in the direction of the cave.

She listened hard.

About fifteen seconds later she heard Adrien’s voice. He was shouting, then roaring, then nothing, at least from him.

When the shouting of the guards didn’t abate, Lily got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and slid into a clean pair of loafers.

She left her tent and hurried back up the path. By the time she reached the group at the opening to the cave, she realized that the guards were firing Tasers into Adrien, laughing as his prone body jerked in the dust. He moaned each time he was hit.

“What the hell are you doing?” she called out. “I need him.”

The men, all paled-out vampire Indians, turned to her, eyes as vicious as the women’s.

“He gave us trouble,” the tallest man said, swatting at a fly near his head. He glared at Lily.

A lie, of course. The manacles Adrien wore held a preternatural charge and kept him from doing more than shuffling, just as he had in the cave during her vision.

When she glanced down at him, he craned his neck to look up at her.

Meeting his hostile gaze, her own rage flared, not just at him, but at the collective nature of the vampires around her, without decency of any kind. So typical, in her opinion, that they would torture a prisoner like this, one of their own.

“Take him to the bath,” she said quietly. She wanted out of here as soon as possible, and the only way out was to get the vampire clean then bound to her with the second chain.

It took six men to lift that much muscle and haul Adrien back down the path to the large metal tub, now full of steaming water.

Once he was in the oversized bath, his knees pulled up to make him fit, she set them at the task of scrubbing the grime off him. Fortunately, he passed out. She ordered the water changed two more times.