Born in Chains

She understood that feeling because she shared it—a kind of brazen confidence born from overcoming a few things, like being able to dominate a vampire on a sex table, or tracking a weapon through miles of extended caves, or even being able to siphon Adrien’s power and finally communicate with her son.



Yes, she understood what Adrien was feeling extremely well because on the coattails was that elusive thing called hope. Maybe now, after accomplishing so much together, they could succeed at what needed doing, at finding the weapon and rescuing Josh because of it, so that Lily could at last bring him home.



As she drew back, she wondered if she should tell Adrien about her son. Hadn’t he earned the right to know the truth despite Kiernan’s warning to keep it a secret? Didn’t her hard-won relationship with Adrien demand the truth?



She wanted to tell him. Desperately.



She planted a hand on his chest.



“What is it?” His brow furrowed, a familiar look for him.



She made the decision and the dam within her broke. “Adrien, my son isn’t dead. He’s alive. Kiernan has him. He’s had him for two years, since the attack on my neighborhood. He’s kept him all this time, without my knowledge, when I thought Josh was dead, so that when Daniel wanted to use him to get to me, to create this”—she touched the chain at her neck—“he’d have the tool he needed, the only thing that would have ever persuaded me down this road with you.”



Adrien blinked a couple of times. His head jerked as he processed what she’d just told him. His lips parted; he might even have murmured something. He finally said, “I imagined so many things, this secret that you’d kept from me, but not this. Oh, dear God.” He stepped sideways, releasing her. He seemed to have trouble breathing. He pressed a fist to his forehead.



She needed to tell him everything. “I’ve been through hell since I learned he was alive. And I can’t imagine what my son has gone through. I contacted him earlier, before Rome. I made telepathic contact. He’s alive. I truly didn’t know for sure until just then that he really is alive. I mean Kiernan let me talk to him once, but these men have such resources at their command I thought maybe he’d faked the whole thing. But I spoke to Josh this evening. He has a caregiver, a woman named Claire. A human.”



She seemed to run out of words and speaking them aloud somehow made it worse, the truth of what she’d been through, what her son had suffered. A strange strangled sound came out of her throat. But Adrien caught her and drew her into his arms. Her eyes burned but she couldn’t cry. The horror of her son’s situation and of her own held her in mute paralysis.



But Adrien’s arms soothed her and helped dissipate all that rising horror and emotion. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’ll be all right. We’ll get him, we’ll find him. Somehow we’ll bring your son home.”



“How?”



And then the real question surfaced, the one she’d been ignoring from almost the beginning, pretending she didn’t care because she hated all vampires: how could she and Adrien ever turn over the extinction weapon to Daniel? How could she ever trade Josh’s life, though precious beyond words, for a weapon that would be given to a monster who wouldn’t think twice about obliterating entire cavern systems of vampires on a whim if it suited him?



He pulled back from her but he took hold of her arms, staring hard at her. “Lily, listen to me. We’ll take this, as we have from the start, one step at a time. Now that I know what’s really going on here, what has motivated every step of your journey, it changes the game.”



“There’s no way out.” Her words came out hushed.



“There’s always a way out. We just can’t see it yet, and right now we have a gala to get to. Maybe something will surface in Beijing that we can use. Have you tried tracking the weapon by focusing on China?”



She shook her head. “My thoughts have all been about Josh.”



“Of course they have.” He shook his head. “Your son is alive. How old is he?”



“Ten. He was eight when he was taken. Two years ago. Oh, God.”



He nodded several times in a row. “All right. Beijing. We need to go there now, get things rolling again.”



Lily forced herself to breathe once more and turned her tracking ability to China. She thought of nothing else but the weapon and Beijing. Adrien rubbed her arms slowly and she closed her eyes. His power flowed through her, the tremendous power she siphoned from him continuously.



The pull began like a gentle tug on her body to a place she could only define as very dark, but quickly became a grip of need: She had to get to China. Adrien, what is the name of the Beijing resort?



The Black Cavern.



I have a fix on it, and the pull of the weapon is strong, really strong. Her tracking ability roared to life as it never had before, she felt the location rushing toward her.



Good.



She drew in a sharp breath as another sensation arrived. The weapon is there. I can feel it. The weapon is in Beijing. But this was followed by another pull as she cried out. “Oh, my God, Josh is there as well. I can feel him. Josh is at the Black Caverns.”



“Has he been there all along?”



Lily shook her head. “No. When I used telepathy earlier, it just didn’t feel as far as China. Does that make sense?”



“Yes, it does. Well then, we’d better go.”



She nodded. He pulled her tight against him and the flight began. The entire distance, Lily’s heart ached as she thought about her son, yet she feared that the whole situation couldn’t possibly lead to a happy outcome.



She wondered, too, why Kiernan would have brought Josh to Beijing—or maybe it was Daniel’s doing. Did he know something that she didn’t, about the Black Caverns and the extinction weapon? Did he know, for instance, that both she and Adrien, as a bonded tracking team would be there, at this particular gala?



A dark sensation moved through her as Adrien brought her closer to Beijing. Daniel would want to hurt them both because of what had happened in Mexico. She felt naive suddenly, that her previous and very brief spurt of confidence hadn’t taken into account that once Daniel had tested Adrien in Mexico, he’d now turn up the heat. And what better way to remind her of the pact she had with Kiernan than to bring Josh to the Black Caverns.



But she strove to calm herself as Adrien flew them east. She needed her wits about her, to hold Daniel at bay, if possible, while she sought the weapon, maybe even to get to Josh and take him away before Daniel could stop her.



The flight lasted less than a minute, a huge change from her first night with Adrien.



He took them to the far edge of what turned out to be a landing field for those just now flying in.



Adrien chose a spot and brought them down gently, using the experience of four centuries to avoid other couples.



Lily held his arm tight as she walked beside him through a grand but very dark hotel entrance, a dozen chandeliers illuminating what turned out to be walls of glimmering obsidian detailed with white crystals in small, scattered diamond-pattern designs.



She reached out for Josh, and maybe it was her mother’s heart or maybe her tracking ability, but she knew exactly where he was, even though at least two miles of rock separated her from her son. I know where Josh is.



We’ll get to him, Lily, as soon as we can. But first the weapon. I’ve been thinking maybe we could destroy it before Daniel got to it.



If only we could.



Too many ifs and maybes in this equation.



She wanted to reach out to Josh telepathically, to let him know she was nearby, but she feared alerting Daniel. What if he could discern her telepathic communications with Josh? She just didn’t want to take the chance.



One step at a time.



With such a large gathering of Ancestrals, even the air felt different, humming with power as she descended a wide, carved staircase into the Beijing resort.



Moving down a large hall, she used her tracking ability and focused on the weapon. What came back to her was a massive machine not far from where Josh was being held, and the pull from this machine was enormous.



The extinction weapon.



She truly had found the weapon, or at least one significant version of it.



She shared the news with Adrien, who stiffened.



Another frightening thought intruded. Do you think Daniel already knows where it is?



Adrien shifted to meet her gaze, shaking his head. I sincerely doubt it, but he may have had reason to guess it might be here.



You’re probably right. If he knew where it was, he wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble.



When she entered the banquet room, she climbed three steps, grateful because of her heels to have Adrien’s support. The tables were laid out on a raised portion of stone and carpeted with thick, plush burgundy-and-black carpet.



At the far end was a dais beside which Daniel, his two subservient sons, and other elegantly garbed Ancestrals chatted together.



She had to admit, though, that of all the male Ancestrals present, Daniel exceeded them all in basic charisma. He had a champagne glass in hand and smiled, always his smile. He wore a finely tailored tux, like Adrien’s, his black hair oiled and combed straight back.



“He seems to enjoy his role,” she whispered to Adrien.



“That he does.”



Daniel stood smiling, his gaze roving the guests, of whom there had to be at least three hundred present. Since there were only about five hundred Ancestrals in the vampire culture, the number here tonight was significant.



Every race was present, so that it would seem the vampire world truly did share basic human genetics. But somewhere a couple of genes had taken a hard turn that had to do with the ability to grow and release fangs, increase bodily strength, and develop a severe reaction to sunlight. The rest, even Daniel’s behavior, was very human. In her opinion, he was a contented psychopath who had somehow maneuvered his way into a position of power, reveled in his rule, and intended to do whatever he needed to keep it, including acquiring, and probably using, a weapon that could wipe out his species.



As she glanced around, and saw that many vampires were staring at her, she sensed a kind of group curiosity and amazement, especially since the chain she wore drew a lot of attention. Adrien’s chains were less evident, hidden as they were beneath his shirt. But as she let her own gaze wander, she noticed that a lot of women present wore chains similar to hers, though enhanced with other jewelry. There were even women with multiple chains.