Born in Chains

But the bastards kept coming, stepping over the dying bodies so that Adrien was forced to inch backward, closer and closer to Lily. As fast as he killed, two more launched at him. He shunted one body aside, then another.

His speed made the kills a simple matter, but at some point, either he’d be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, or someone would get behind him and slay Lily.

CHAPTER 12

The thump of Lily’s heartbeat drowned out the sounds of the moans all around her, one small mercy. She met the gaze of the nearest fallen vampire, blood oozing from his mouth as he blinked. His eyes seemed to clear for a moment as he met her gaze and said, “Sorry. Not my fault.” Then he was gone.

Not his fault? He’d come here to kill her but it wasn’t his fault?

Lily knew she had maybe thirty seconds left to live. Adrien fought cleanly and efficiently, but where the wall curved to each side of her, several fanatics were moving in close, stealing in behind Adrien.

She had to do something, but what?

On instinct, she put her hand over her chain, and despite the desperate nature of the moment, her revisiting power called to her. She let it come, the edges of the horror-filled room beginning to swirl so that an entirely different image of the same space opened.

She felt the time sequence: one hour earlier. She saw the same vampires sitting in easy groups around the crystal floor, chatting, some playing cards, rolling dice, a friendly scene, in fact, not fanatical at all.

Then Silas entered the vaulted cavern from the middle tunnel and with strange, stiff movements, one by one, the men rose to their feet and stood at attention. But there was nothing normal about what they were doing as they packed up their dice and cards and donned the robes that Silas passed out to them.

Their lethargy helped Lily to understand that these vampires weren’t acting on their own.

Not my fault rang in her head.

Then she got it and everything made sense.

Adrien, she said forcefully, mind to mind. Silas enthralled these vampires, all of them. I’ve just seen it in a revisiting vision. They didn’t know they’d come here to fight.

Fuck, came back to her.

Blood now pooled in too many places over the beautiful crystal floor. Adrien was about to slice open another throat when he stopped suddenly and held his arms wide. The vampires closest to him launched then seemed to be repelled away from him at the exact same moment.

Even the vampires sneaking in from the right stopped moving and looked around, horrified at the fallen near Adrien.

“My God, what’s going on here?” one of them said.

“You’ve been tricked.” Lily waved a hand in Silas’s direction, “By that man.”

She watched the vampires struggle, shake their heads, take a step toward her as Silas tried to regain control of them.

But Adrien battled only Silas right now, his body rigid, all his attention focused on the Ancestral.

Lily felt the need to support him, so she rose up from the floor, moved in behind Adrien, and surrounded him with her arms. The chains began to shake against her body this time, responding to Adrien’s concentration. She could feel him battling Silas for control of the men.

She relaxed and let her thoughts flow with his, binding her mind to his. The moment she did, she felt the boost in power—but the experience hurt her, that rush of energy like molten lava through her mind. She wanted to pull away because of the pain, but she knew Adrien needed her.

She held fast. Though she could see little of the cavern, she sensed that the vampires began to fall back then fly out of the cavern using altered flight.

The moment broke suddenly, the pain in her mind flashing bright then winking out. Adrien relaxed and she released him. He had won the battle with Silas.

Of the living and uninjured, only Silas remained; the rest of the vampires had escaped. The ones on the floor were dead or dying.

“It would seem you’ve won the contest, for now, but only because of the support of the woman.” His light blue gaze shifted to Lily. She felt him try to pull her in, but once more Adrien’s mind slipped into hers and blocked him.

Silas shrugged, and in a blink of an eye he was gone again. But just as fast Adrien moved to stand beside her, two blades drawn, his flecked teal eyes fierce and almost glowing.

“You think he’s still here?” Lily settled a hand on his arm.

“Just want to be sure.”

Lily, however, could feel that the Ancestral was gone for good, so she wasn’t surprised when Adrien, breathing hard, slid his arm around her and walked her to the curved wall, pulling her down to sit beside him. “So many unnecessary deaths. How I hate that man, that he would hide behind religion and cause this disaster.” His gaze moved slowly over the slain, now in an arc in front of them.

Lily avoided looking at the number of dead, but turned toward Adrien to focus, if for just this moment, on him. His sweat had a metallic smell, yet underneath was that rich scent that she loved. “Thank you for saving my life. Again.”

He shifted to look at her, leaning his head against the smooth, polished crystal wall. “I’ll say the same thing because that boost of power made it possible for me to defeat Silas. I honestly don’t know how long I could have held him off, then you were suddenly there, and in my mind as well.” He put his hand on her knee. “But I felt your pain when you helped me. I’d do anything if you didn’t have to feel that kind of pain.”

Lily stared into his eyes, startled yet again by who he was, his compassion for her. He just wasn’t what she’d expected from a vampire. She drew in a ragged breath. “Hey. We’re both here right now. That was a small price to pay.”

He nodded. “I take it your revisiting power came online again?”

“He’d enthralled all of them.” She told him what one of the vampires had said just before he died, as well as his sudden awareness of where he was, what he’d done. “The men weren’t fanatics, Adrien. They’d been playing cards and rolling dice. I think they’d been led here under false pretenses.”

“That makes sense. I knew most of them weren’t fighters, but until right now I thought they were devoted to Silas, to his religious cause.”

Her gaze flitted around the floor, which caused her to turn into Adrien once more. “This was a tragedy,” she whispered.

“Yes, it was.”

“How can a man profess religion of any kind then create and encourage this kind of slaughter?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled his phone from his battle leathers and made a call similar to the one he’d made in Paris after killing the assassin.

A few moments later at least a dozen vampires arrived bearing stretchers. Two corpses at a time, the bodies were taken away.

Much to Lily’s relief, Adrien remained where he was, sitting beside her. The cleanup crew had given him a towel, and he kept wiping sweat off his face, neck, and arms.

With the last of the debris and stains dealt with, the crew left. The emptiness of the cavern, the sterile quality of the air, surprised Lily, as though nothing had ever happened there.

Adrien had grown very still, but she sensed something from him that caused the chain around her neck to vibrate softly. She felt his deep respect for the men who had died here today, even a kind of love for them as someone who had spent his life serving as his society’s protector. And maybe under that respect was grief.

She looked up at him, surprised all over again by his depths, by his kindness despite his warmaking, by his careful respect for others, though he could have easily bulldozed his way in any situation and taken what he wanted, with all the strength and power he carried in his bones.

She inched closer and looped her hand beneath his bare bicep, still damp from battle-sweat, and gave a squeeze.

As he turned to look at her, his head no longer against the wall, she offered a small dip of her chin, wanting him to know that she understood. He smiled and leaned down to place a kiss on her lips.

Thank you, came from his mind to hers.

Her heart squeezed up tight.

This was not simple between them, not on any level.

Was it just the blood-chains that had brought up such a powerful level of understanding, or was it Adrien? Would she ever know the difference?

The questions were unanswerable, so she turned her attention to the cavern and her mission. She opened up her tracker senses and focused on the extinction weapon, on what she’d been told about the Paris experiments on bats, on the sensitive hearing of vampires generally.

The tendrils of her power, made real because of Adrien, traveled swiftly away from her, deep into the cavern system, miles from where she now sat.

“What is it, Lily? My chain is vibrating heavily.”

“I’m getting a call from the branch on the right.” She gestured to the far end of the vaulted chamber.

“How far?”

She shook her head. “Miles. Whatever relates to the extinction weapon is a long way away.”

Adrien rose to his feet, then extended his hand to her. She took it, and because of his increased Ancestral strength, when he pulled she flew upward a couple of feet then flopped into him.

He laughed, gave her a quick squeeze. “Sorry ’bout that. Still learning.”

Smiling as she slid down his body, she almost kissed him, but stopped herself. What was she thinking? That she’d have a long-term relationship with a vampire, with someone no doubt slated for death by Daniel once he got his hands on the weapon? She had to start being sensible where Adrien was concerned.

He led her to the tunnel on the right, but given her sense of where they were headed she suggested they use altered flight and communicate telepathically.

“I’m all for shaving time off this mission. I’ll just pause at each branch and you can tell me which way to go.”

“Done.” How simple this all seemed.

She turned into him and he slid his arm around her waist. But instead of pulling her against him, chest to chest, he held her to his side so that she was facing forward.

Her feet dangled as he started the altered flight.

Once he started to fly, the miles dissipated quickly. At each juncture, she made her decisions quickly because she knew the route as though it had been imprinted on her DNA. Of course, it was just the chains, and the power she siphoned from Adrien, but she never wavered as she communicated each shift in course telepathically.