Born in Chains (Men in Chains) (7 page)

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.

*   *   *

“Get off me,” Lily said, her voice hoarse. How many times had she screamed while he’d brought her, but now she wanted him off her and out of her.

Adrien pulled out and flipped over on his back, throwing an arm over his forehead.

She turned on her side, away from him as a few tears leaked from her eyes, tears of dismay and rage that she’d enjoyed giving up her blood to a vampire, that she’d taken pleasure from his body repeatedly.

She hated herself for having been weak with him—but mostly she blamed the chains because from the first her attraction to him had worked on her, building her to the point that the moment he came at her needy and trembling, she’d lost her will to refuse him.

She should have insisted on a donor. He’d even suggested it and yet she’d remained mute, unable to tell him to get someone else. Her lack of willpower disgusted her. She wasn’t a person to give in so easily to lust and yet she had, almost as though the chains had stolen her ability to choose anything but him.

The tears tickled over the bridge of her nose. She swiped at her face, still breathing hard from the sheer gymnastic quality of the joining.

She felt the bed tip and shift and glanced over her shoulder.

Adrien had shifted to sit on the edge of the bed and now had his phone in hand.

She stared at his back, her vision warming up because of the chains, despite the lack of lighting in the room. He had bloody streaks where she’d scored him and the sight made her smile grimly, a small satisfaction that she’d hurt him, if only a little, while he’d plowed into her.

She watched Adrien’s shoulders rise and fall. He’d taken a deep breath. “I need to ask you something. Have you tried to use your tracking ability yet? Now that we’re chain-bound, that ability should start coming to life.”

Oh, that. “I tried it earlier. I have to say nothing much happened.” She explained about the sensation of tendrils leaving her.

“I’ve heard it described that way. Well, just keep trying at different times. I’m sure it’ll improve as we go along.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’m going to make a phone call to a man named Rumy, a friend, a good friend, though he’s well connected to our underworld. He owns a place called The Erotic Passage in the Como system, Italy, on the lake by the same name. I think it’s the right place to start. If anyone knows anything, it’ll be Rumy.” He was silent, his head bent as though staring at his phone. “Is that okay with you?”

“You’re asking my permission?”

He turned to look at her. She was surprised by how much better he looked. Her blood really had helped. “Neither of us is happy about our situation. I get that. But I want to get along with you. We’ll need to work together.”

“You’re right and yes, please call this Rumy person.”

He nodded and drew the phone in front of him, then after a moment to his ear.

“I need to talk to Rumy. Tell him it’s Adrien.” She couldn’t hear what the other person said, but she could feel Adrien’s sudden anger through the shared chain. “Get him on the damn phone or I’ll come over there and twist your head off that scrawny neck of yours.” Another pause, then, “That’s better. Thank you.”

Silence as he waited.

Rumy and The Erotic Passage. What a name for a club, but then what else should she have expected from a world of bloodsuckers.

After a moment, she heard Adrien talking quietly to the one he called Rumy. There was some laughter, chatting, queries about health, about the prison, a few jibes, the usual masculine nonsense.

Lily’s thoughts turned to Josh, and she lifted the chain to her lips. Josh, her firstborn, the last of her family. Was he truly alive? How many times had she wondered if Kiernan had somehow fabricated the phone call, using the memory of her son to manipulate her into taking on this mission?

But she couldn’t have mistaken her son’s voice. She would have known it anywhere. He’d called out, “Mom? Is that you? Mom!” He’d wailed after that.

She clapped her hands over her ears, trying not to hear that sound, a pitiful, bellowing wail. She had to get to him. Had to find him.

She heard Adrien sigh. Her desperate thoughts about Josh disappeared, and her present reality returned.

Adrien rose from the bed, flinging his phone onto the comforter. “You need to get cleaned up and dressed.” He walked to the bathroom, but the chain tugged, so she sat up, leaning toward him. Damn this chain for its short leash.

He reached inside the room and the next moment he flung a washcloth at her, which she put between her legs.