The repeated blows, however, had done something to Adrien, and he saw spots in front of his eyes. But he flew fast and hard as Lily clung to him, her arms and legs wrapped tight around him.

Yet as he flew, the wounds he’d sustained caused more spots to float before his eyes. His disorientation increased.

Adrien, you’re heading deep into the earth. Can you shift course? Adrien?

Was Lily speaking to him? Where was he? I need to stop.

But he couldn’t do that. If he stopped in the middle of rock they’d both die and he didn’t have a sense of where he was. I can’t see or think. Lily, I can’t do this, can’t get us out of here.

He felt pressure on his neck. Yes you can. More pressure. Just keep moving and relax. You’re doing fine. More small bits of pressure. Then he realized Lily was kissing his neck.

For some reason that made him smile. His mind cleared at least enough to allow him to feel the heat of what he knew was the earth’s magma.

He turned, heading back toward the surface.

Much better. I must be siphoning more and more of your power because travel is easier on me now. Her thoughts reached into his mind and eased him. Adrien, is it possible to get a magma burn? I might have blisters on my ass. What were you thinking, vampire?

Adrien smiled a little more and he sped up. Flying through the last of the rock, he took them into the air toward the stars. He could finally breathe.

Oh, thank God.

You okay?

Fine. Just a blistered butt. How about you? Dear old Dad gave you a beating, one of many in the course of your life, I take it.

He didn’t like that you called him an asshole. He would have killed you.

He felt her draw in a long deep breath. She hugged him hard. I think I might owe you one. Again. She fell silent, then after a moment said, I’d be dead right now, wouldn’t I?

Yep.

What a prick, but damn if you aren’t traveling fast. You took on a new piece of power, didn’t you?

Had to.

Where are we headed?

Rumy’s. We’ll be safe there.

He wanted to say more, but the spots began to return. Daniel could never get deep inside The Erotic Passage.

We’re almost to the lake. Hold on. I’m not feeling one hundred percent yet.

I’m good.

He slipped around to Rumy’s private entrance and slowed. His brain was still shifting about so he had to attempt his landing twice. Even then, he ended up on his hands and knees.

Lily slipped off his back as the door opened.

He looked up and Rumy smiled. “On your hands and knees, I see. Looks like Lily’s got you trained. Glad someone finally did.”

As Adrien stood up, his brain refused to function and he listed to the left. He would have gone straight over the low balustrade and into the lake, but Lily caught his arm and pulled him back.

“Hey,” she said. “Where you going?” Then, “Rumy, I need some help here. That bastard Daniel tried to fry him in Mexico.”

Rumy called out and the next thing Adrien knew, he was being lifted up by several pairs of hands. This time the black spots grew to the size of potatoes, and that was the last he knew.

CHAPTER 13

Lily sat at Adrien’s bedside.

He looked really bad. His face was both seriously burned as well as black and blue. Because she’d removed his shirt and leathers to bathe him while he healed himself, she saw how almost half his body had either serious red welts or massive bruising from Daniel’s preternatural bludgeoning.

He lay on his back on a bed in one of Rumy’s guest suites. The curly-haired owner of the expansive nightclub had immediately provided shelter, just as Adrien had said he would.

Now Lily was alone with Adrien, sitting at his bedside, touching him, wishing he would heal faster, wanting him to wake up to talk to her yet knowing he needed rest more than anything.

Earlier, when Adrien was settled in bed, she’d talked things over with Rumy, needing to be reassured that Daniel wouldn’t be able to reach them here. But Rumy was adamant that his security surpassed everything else out there and that even the über-powerful Daniel Briggs couldn’t get through the layers of disguising shields he had in place throughout his cavern system.

She also got a message to Gabriel about Adrien’s condition since by now she understood that he was like family to Adrien. Gabriel had eventually called her and set up events for the following evening. Apparently, the Ancestrals were having their annual Gala at the Black Caverns Beijing Resort, a place known as a high-end playground for rich vampires and rumored to have extensive human sex-slave trafficking. Adrien, having advanced to Ancestral level, would now be allowed to attend the gala with Lily as his guest.

Lily at first refused since they needed to keep searching for the weapon, and not waste their time attending a black-tie affair. But Gabriel then informed her that the Beijing system had numerous associations with the extinction weapon. With Lily’s tracking ability, if the weapon, or some part of it, was there, she’d probably sense it immediately. So she’d agreed to set up the event on behalf of herself and Adrien.

When she told Rumy what the plans were, he offered to arrange to have evening wear secured from their respective Paris and Manhattan homes and delivered to the guest suite.

So there was nothing to do now but to get Adrien healed up, to sleep through the day if he could, then to attend the gala that night at nine o’clock Paris time.

For now, however, she stayed by Adrien’s bed for a long time, just tending to him. When he moved restlessly, dealing with his pain, she would touch him and he would calm down. She watched the bruises grow lighter, the welts diminish, the burns fade. The restless episodes grew fewer and farther between.

Still she waited in the chair, turning everything over and over in her mind: the weapon, her son, the stress of the hunt, all the time pressures, the attacks, and of course Adrien, and all the tenderness she felt toward him.

And then the terrible truth that Adrien was Daniel’s son.

My God, what Adrien must have endured.

Adrien slept with his eyes squeezed shut as though even unconscious he lived with a certain level of tension. And why wouldn’t he?

Daniel was his father and had probably done terrible things to him for who knew how long.

Adrien moaned and, after a long moment, opened his eyes. He rolled his head to look at her. He tried to sit up but flopped back down on the pillow. “Lily.”

She leaned over him. “We’re safe at Rumy’s. Just concentrate on healing yourself.”

His eyes were closed as he nodded. He turned away from her to rest on his right side, the sheet sliding down to his waist, exposing his back. She put her hand lightly on a healed portion of his shoulder and rubbed gently. Adrien sighed and seemed to relax, if just a little.

She loved how he looked but would feel much better when the redness and bruises went away for good.

But as she looked, she saw a thin, silver line that ran from the top of his back, four inches from the base of his neck, straight down his spine. The line continued, so she pushed the sheet away and saw that it ended almost at his tailbone.

She didn’t understand what she was seeing. Vampires always healed … unless … the wound occurred repeatedly. This was one thing Kiernan had told her.

Her fingers trembled above the scar. The edges of the room began to spin.

“No,” she whispered. She didn’t want the vision to come. She didn’t want to see anything that related to the long silver line. And so long as her fingers hovered, the vision remained just out of reach.

She didn’t want to see.

And yet in some inexplicable way, she felt obligated to know the truth, to understand what Daniel had done to his boys.

She summoned her courage, took a deep breath, and pressed her fingers against the scar. Once more, the edges of the room spun, going faster and faster until the vision opened and she saw Adrien as a child, chained facedown to a table, trembling.

Daniel held a thin, sharp blade in his hand. “This will make you a man. The more pain you can tolerate, the stronger you will be. My father taught me and now I’m teaching you.”

He set the blade four inches from the base of the boy’s neck and began to cut, a deep cut that flayed the skin, splitting it into two parts that folded back as he progressed down the spine.

Lily heard Adrien’s screams, watched his legs thumping, his arms thrashing though bound, his body held flat by one of Daniel’s hands as he continued to cut, down and down.

She couldn’t bear watching another second. She moved her hand away from Adrien and the vision ceased, dissolving into thin air. She swiped at her now wet face, then sat back in her chair and wept as quietly as she could. She wept for Adrien and for herself, for Josh and for all her neighbors who had perished, for Lucian and Marius bound by chains in prison, for so much pain and suffering.

When her tears slowed and finally stopped, when she’d blown her nose and no longer felt as though her heart were being ripped from her chest, she marveled at the vampire recovering in front of her.

He’d survived a horrendous childhood, enduring unimaginable pain and suffering, and had become exactly what Daniel had predicted, a real man, at least by her own definition. A vampire, yes, but one who understood loyalty and service, who cared more about others than for his own safety, who could have fallen into rage and bitterness after leaving his childhood behind but instead served his world with relentless dedication. And he was the man who had swung Jean-Luc in a circle, giving evidence that he knew how to love despite the deprivations of his youth.

Her heart swelled at the memory of being with Adrien at the Trevayne system, at all the memories of Adrien.

Another truth surfaced: In this short but very intense time with Adrien, she’d grown to respect him and to care deeply about him. She might even be falling in love with him.

But as she stared at his back, her thoughts took a hard turn as she recalled Adrien’s reaction to the man in The Ruby Cave, chained to the table, the one Eve had used her floggers and chants on. Eve had told her she should put Adrien on the table, that he could benefit from it. Was this why? Did Eve know what Adrien had endured at Daniel’s hands when he was just a boy, what it would mean for Adrien to be chained to a table?