Текст книги "Born in Chains"

Автор книги: Caris Roane

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

She snickered. “That’s rich: who gets hurt. And you a vampire. But let me make myself clear to you one last time: You can’t even begin to fathom what I’ll be given in exchange for the weapon, and it’ll be worth every ounce of sweat or knife-like headache, trust me on that.”

She didn’t blame him for his anger. Right now she was his enemy, she had control of him, and she could say yes or no to any of his requests or demands.

He stood up and paced the length of the closets, fuming.

At least the pain in her head had finally dissipated, her nose had stopped bleeding, and she no longer felt dizzy. “Where do I put these?” She held the washcloth and tissues for him to see.

He gestured with his hand to a door to his right, beyond a long dresser. “That’s the privy.”

The bathroom wasn’t far at all, but once inside, the chains tugged at her. “Could you come a little closer? I want to shut the door.”

Though she couldn’t see him, he must have moved because the tension on the chain eased. She discarded the tissues and rinsed the washcloth out.

She glanced around and realized she was staring at black marble, on the walls, the sink, the massive shower, even the toilet. The fixtures were an antique silver. The elegance seemed juxtaposed with the fierce vampire who challenged almost every word she spoke.

At the far end was a second door that probably led to a hall and the rest of the apartment.

As she finished up and washed her hands and even rinsed her face, she met her gaze in the mirror. Josh had her eyes, the same hazel color and roundish shape, which was the reason everyone said he looked like her. But the truth was, he had his father’s mouth and nose, even his strong jawline.

Josh. Her heart sank into her stomach all over again. Josh alive. Her son. She had to get him back. The drive was as powerful as the orbit of the earth around the sun.

She released a sigh, needing to get on with things. The sooner she got her hands on the weapon, the sooner she’d get her son back.

When her phone rang, she drew it from the pocket of her jeans then opened the door but was startled to find Adrien standing there. He leaned against the doorjamb, and she was surprised all over again by how big he was. She also knew that his vampire genetics gave him great physical strength, incredible strength. He really could break her in half if he wanted to.

The phone rang again, but all she could do was look at Adrien.

His brows pulled together as he stared back at her. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

She nodded and touched the surface of her iPhone. “Yes, Mr. Kiernan.”

“Do you have him in hand?” Kiernan’s voice had a slight rasp, which always made her want to clear her throat. Maybe he was a smoker.

She glanced up at Adrien again. Did she have him in hand? Was that even possible? “I have the vampire with me, yes.”

“Good, because I have bad news.”

Her heart dropped. Was Josh okay?

“We’ve had reports that an element in Daniel’s world has gotten wind of our plans and they don’t like it. You need to tell Adrien to expect assassins. Fanatics. He’ll understand. Now work with the vampire to get your tracker skills functioning as best you can, then have him seek out the latest rumors about the weapon and get on it.”

Before Lily could ask even a single question, like how exactly her mysterious tracking ability was supposed to work, Kiernan hung up.

She met Adrien’s gaze and was ready to repeat the conversation, but he pushed away from the door frame and lifted a hand to silence her. “I heard him. Damn fanatics. And Kiernan can eat shit and die, as far as I’m concerned. How you could ever align yourself with a lowlife like that, well, fuck.”

Lily wanted to tell him that it wasn’t by choice, but she didn’t see the point of trying to argue her case with him. Still, given that he was a vampire, a vampire, it chapped her hide to see his disapproval of anything she did.

She huffed a sigh. “He said you’d understand, so who exactly are these fanatics?”

Adrien narrowed his eyes at her. “You do know that you’re being used by two of the worst men in either species and that there’s a good chance you’re going to die because of it? What do you think of that?”

Lily shrugged and held his gaze. “Then I’ll die.”

He shook his head. “You don’t care if you die?”

“Oh, I care. Believe me, I do care and I intend to stay alive. But this is what I’ve chosen to do.”

“Is it really worth the money?”

“My reasons for doing anything are none of your goddamn business.” She lifted her chin, letting all her hostility toward his kind flow through her. She wanted him to feel her opposition to his vampire world whether Kiernan was an evil human or not, or whether she was doing Daniel’s bidding or not.

He took a step toward her and leaned close to her face. “Well, given that I intend to stay alive, too, I need to know what’s going on in that weak human skull of yours. It might even be to your advantage to work with me.”

For a long moment, probably because the chain vibrated heavily against her neck, Lily felt a powerful urge to tell Adrien everything, about Josh, about the attack on her family, about being strong-armed with Josh as the motivator, but she couldn’t. Even if she trusted Adrien, and she was far from doing that, Kiernan’s rules were simple: No one was to know about Josh, or she could kiss this deal, her life, and her son’s life good-bye.

So for two months she’d lived in this nightmare of fear and hope, of a resurrected son who’d been gone two long years. But he was in the hands of a man who had no qualms about using him as ransom for a mission that would take her deep into the world of the vampire, the last place she wanted to be.

“Right now,” she said, her chin level, “you’re on a need-to-know basis. So unless there’s anything else, I suggest you tell me about these fanatics and give me some idea where we should go to start our hunt for the weapon.”

He grabbed her wrist and shook his head. “Soon you’ll tell me what the hell is going on here, because something’s not right. Maybe it has something to do with Kiernan, maybe it doesn’t. But my instincts are screaming at me that we’re in danger on more than one front. As for the fanatics, there’s more than one group. Each is full of religious zealots intent on keeping the vampire world hidden from the human world—something I actually believe in as well.”

“Why aren’t you part of one of those groups, then?”

“Because they don’t hesitate to kill innocent people if they stand in the way.” He laughed harshly. “The stunned expression on your face tells me exactly what you think of me. You’re actually surprised that I’d hold a position like that, against killing innocents.”

“Yes, I’m surprised.”

“Why? You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough.” She let her hatred fill her words. “You’re a vampire. I don’t need to know anything else.”

She watched his eyes darken, his mouth turn down, his nostrils flare. This time she felt his opinion of her, his loathing of her kind.

He stepped close and breathed in hard through his nose. “I’ve always hated the stench so prevalent in humankind. It has a cloying, grasping quality, a desire for money above everything—the same reason you’ve bound me with a chain around my neck.”

“I think we understand each other pretty well now, don’t you? So let’s just get on with finding the weapon.”

Adrien thrust his fingers into his hair and turned in a circle. She felt his rage and his frustration as the chain all but thumped against her neck.

He turned on her and for a long moment as he stood over her, she felt his desire to strike her down, to slam her into the floor. Although her heart rate had skyrocketed once more, she straightened her spine. “Killing me won’t do you any good because you’ll die as well.”

He took deep breaths and finally calmed down. “This is Daniel’s doing and you’re just the fucking messenger, I know that. But I hate your opinion of my kind.” He clenched his fists. “And I hate that the bastard finally found a way to force me to do his bidding.”

“Daniel has asked you to go after the weapon before?”

Adrien shook his head. “No. He knew better than to ask.”

“I see what it is. Through me, he has control of you now.”

“Yes, and it’s about as perfect a plan as he could have constructed. I can’t go after him because I can’t risk you dying—I’ll die. And it’s also true the other way around, especially since you’re extremely vulnerable in our world, not hard to kill at all.” He glanced around. “I need to check my security system and then I need to get armed.”

He moved past her. “Come with me.” He headed to the end of the hall.

She hurried after him knowing that if she didn’t, the chain would tighten.

When he entered the living room, she saw him glance to his right, toward the front door. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“My security system has been compromised.”

Lily glanced at the panel by the door and saw that not one light was on. “You mean it’s off? Right now?”

“Yep. Stay with me. My weapons are over here.” He headed across the room behind a long dark leather couch, in the direction of a partially opened door.

Lily thought she saw something move inside the room just as Adrien hurried inside. She heard a shout and a loud thump. By the time she reached the doorway, Adrien was struggling with another man on the floor, a man who wore some kind of long, hooded black robe, something a monk might wear.

She saw a blade flash. The chains began to tug at her, pulling her forward, but she held her ground.

“Lily,” Adrien called to her, but not from the floor.

At first she didn’t understand.

“Lily, over here by the fireplace.”

Slowly, she shifted her gaze. There Adrien stood, another Adrien, straining in the direction of the mantel but unable to move.

Two Adriens.

“I need my weapons,” he shouted. “Step into the room, toward me. Help me. For God’s sake help me or we’ll both die.”

Shock held Lily immobile.

There were two Adriens.

Two.

How the hell was that possible, in this world or any world? Kiernan hadn’t told her about this.

“Lily!” he shouted.

The desperation in his voice broke the spell and she darted forward, positioning herself midway between the battling pair on the floor and the second Adrien struggling toward the fireplace.

The chain released him and he immediately jerked forward to the painting over the fireplace, pulled it away from the wall, then punched in a code to what proved to be a safe. But grunting sounds from the floor shifted her gaze to his other self on the floor.

The dagger flashed once more in the dim light from a nearby window.

The assailant rolled Adrien onto his back and pressed a dagger to his neck. Adrien battled to keep the sharp point from breaking skin.

She glanced in the direction of the fireplace. The second Adrien withdrew a chain, weighted at both ends, from the safe.

He blurred back to the assailant and, from behind, caught him around the neck, tightening as he pulled. The prone version of Adrien now grabbed the wrist holding the dagger, keeping the assailant’s hand immobile as the chain did its work.

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 fucking 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 fuck 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.

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.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. He was shaking head-to-foot, and the chains told her just how out of control he was. He laid her out on her back. “I can still call someone, but I don’t want to. I want you, Lily, and I want you now.” His arms, planted on either side of her, trembled.

But in that moment, maybe because even in his overwrought state he’d given her a choice, a wave of desire crashed over her, something that had been building since she’d first seen him in the cavern, in the vision before he’d been tortured, looking like a proud stallion, facing up to the pain to come.

Her breasts ached and she felt so swollen and needy between her legs that she let out a harsh cry. “I’m here,” she all but shouted.

Lightning flashed from the small windows on either side of the bed and thunder rolled as he landed on top of her. She had a brief glimpse of fangs as another flash lit the room.

She turned, exposing her neck, and he used a hand to pin her head so that she couldn’t move. He struck quickly, puncturing her vein, a brief slice of pain that disappeared the moment he began to suck in quick, heavy, starved pulls.

She could feel his desperation but the more he took, the more her body grew lax, melting into the down-filled silk. She wanted her clothes off since her body had lit on fire, burning deep.

She hadn’t had sex in all this time, not since her family disappeared from her life. And sex was all that she wanted right now, the relief of it, the physical pounding.

Fierce sex, even with a vampire.

* * *

Adrien took fire down his throat. He rarely drank from humans, but on the rare occasion he did, it had never been like this—as though each drop carried the source of all life.

He wanted more, so much more. He wanted to drink her down tonight, tomorrow night, and every night after that. He wanted the flavor of her blood on his tongue when he woke up in the evening and the last thing in the early-morning hours when he went to bed.

His blood-starvation had made his mind a cauldron of disjointed thoughts, of profound need.

He heard her cries and moans and didn’t care if he was hurting her. The hungry shifts of her legs rubbed his cock, stroking him, helping him to know that all he needed would soon follow.

He ached into his groin, a gathering of twelve months of frustration and despair. He knew that what was about to happen, especially with his blood-need satisfied, might just shake the foundation of the earth.

At last, he slowed his drinking and began to secrete the potion that would heal the fang-wounds in minutes. The same potion also carried a chemical that speeded up red cell production to replenish the supply. He’d be taking more from this human in the coming hours, the least he deserved on behalf of his kind for the wreckage her kind spewed over his world.

As he drew back, he saw her in the glow of his vision. Her pupils were dilated and her lips dark and swollen. Good. She was sexed up and ready, because what was about to come wouldn’t be a gentle coupling.

“I hate you for what you are,” she shouted. Her hand whipped toward his face, ready to strike, but with his usual speed he caught her hand before she connected.

He leaned down and put his lips on her mouth then drew back. “Can you taste your blood?”

Her tongue made an appearance. She winced at the taste, but her body undulated with more need.

He lifted up, holding her gaze, and stripped off his shirt.

She looked up at his chest and cried out, then her hands clawed him, her nails dragging over his skin, scraping long strips. She leaned up and took a nipple in her mouth, sucking hard.

He groaned and with one hand took off his jeans, a real test of his skill as he hovered above her, and let her suck and bite him.

Her arms wrapped around his neck to hold her steady. He started working her clothes off her, peeling away her pants and her shirt as she kicked off her shoes.

As he fell on top of her, he plundered her mouth. Her nails found his back this time and each scrape hardened him one degree more. He grunted his approval, thrusting his tongue heavily into her mouth.

He pushed her legs apart with his knees. She cried out against his mouth as his cock found her entrance and he began to push.

The human was tight, but she shoved her hips against him, forcing him in deeper.

He needed to calm the fuck down.

Her hands roved his body, rubbing up and down his biceps, which flexed beneath her touch.

“You’re so wet.” And tight. My God she was tight. She hadn’t been used in a long time. He hoped to hell he wasn’t hurting her, but nothing in the chains told him she was feeling any pain as her body undulated beneath him and against him.

He began to push into her in short thrusts. His balls were so ready.

“Do it, Adrien. I can feel that you’re ready and I’m ready. Do it.”

He gave a cry and thrust into her hard, pulled back and thrust again. His hips took over, and every stroke was like a lightning strike of pleasure along his cock.

He heard her crying out and could feel her tight orgasm pulling on him as the release came, what he’d been aching for during his captivity, to be inside a woman and feeling all her flesh as his cock jerked inside her and his beautiful come filled her.

He barely heard her cries of ecstasy as he shouted his pleasure. But he could feel that she was coming again, her hips matching his thrusts.

Even though he’d come, he could stay hard for a good long time, and given the length of his celibacy he was pretty sure he could release again, so he kept working her body. He leaned down and kissed her, which somehow lit her up and she arched once more. He drove hard and fast, bringing her yet again so that she screamed in ecstasy.

The rain still beat on the windows and as another flash of lightning and roll of thunder shook his Paris apartment, she came, crying out, a sound that matched his shouts and groans as he released into her again.