“Your friend Zoey matched you in temper. She was feisty, and those first few days she fought me. Hard.” He drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes, clearly remembering and savoring the past.

When he opened his eyes, he bored his gaze into Claire’s. “I knew she’d make it and more than anything I looked forward to her six-month death transition. I sold tickets at a hundred thousand euros a pop. She was a perfect performer as well because of course by then she’d fully embraced the lifestyle.

“We were an excellent couple that way; she knew my needs and my preferences and she could take the pain like no other human woman I’d known. But what excited me the most was that she held something back, kept a part of herself alive, something I knew she vowed she’d never let me possess. I tortured her repeatedly, to the shadow edge of death, and it was beautiful to see, to watch, how she never gave in, never said, Daniel, you can have it all.

“So you see, you shouldn’t pity Zoey; she became my favorite. I even thought about having a child with her, but then one’s offspring can be such a disappointment.”

Lucian felt Claire go very still beside him. “When did she die?”

Daniel held Claire’s gaze in a fierce grip.

“Pity. Just a few hours ago. But then you saw what she looked like, how emaciated she was. And I needed relief. I’ve been under such tremendous strain since you took Lucian away from me. Zoey died while I was pounding into her.”

Lucian knew some part of his father’s story was a lie, but which part, he couldn’t tell. The tremors moved through him again, heightened perhaps because of the monster he faced.

He would have communicated to Claire that Daniel wasn’t telling the truth about Zoey, but she tore out of his arms before he could stop her and launched at Daniel.

She had just enough physical power to knock him back a few feet as she clawed at his face. But he righted himself, then subdued her swiftly, overpowering her to hold her tight in his arms.

Daniel could snap her neck with little more than a thought.

Instead he sniffed her throat. “A fighter like Zoey, and your blood smells like heaven. No wonder Lucian is smitten with you.’”

Claire met Lucian’s gaze and held it firmly. She didn’t attempt telepathy, maybe suspecting that Daniel could intercept, which was probably a smart move. There was a lot about Daniel that even Lucian didn’t know.

She then shifted to meet Daniel’s gaze once more. “You know what? You can eat shit and die for all I care.”

Daniel grinned. “I want to see you go through your death transition. I want to be the one pumping into you, just like I did Zoey.”

Daniel lifted his gaze to Lucian. In that moment Lucian’s life flashed before his eyes: his desperate childhood, escaping Daniel’s compound, enduring a rigorous retraining process with Gabriel that involved a thousand exercises to purge his rage, then later battling the results of Daniel’s criminal influence in his world.

And now Daniel had Claire.

Something greater than rage flew through him, something enhanced with his Ancestral power. In the same split second that he’d watched all the events of his life, Claire fell purposefully limp in Daniel’s arm, a signal for Lucian to attack.

He flew at Daniel’s head, both hands extended toward his face. The natural protective instinct caused Daniel to loosen his grip on Claire so that she dropped to the floor.

Lucian’s momentum carried Daniel across the cavern space and into the far wall with a terrible thud.

The blood-madness tremors took over his body as a rage, built of centuries, poured through his brain and stole his rational mind.

Daniel flung him away, but Lucian roared and launched again. Daniel looked surprised, and maybe a little pleased. He reached a hand toward Lucian and Ancestral power poured from that fist, striking at Lucian hard and breaking his attack so that the blow he struck Daniel slid off his cheek.

He caught Daniel around the neck and dragged him to the ground, but his father flipped Lucian onto his back and pinned him with his millennia-old abilities. He slapped Lucian several times in a row.

Lucian bucked, but filled that movement with his new Ancestral power. Suddenly Daniel flew into the air.

Lucian gained his feet and launched once more, meeting his father mid-flight. He grabbed him and called on his power, pulling it into him as he pinned Daniel’s arms to his sides.

You’ve learned some things, haven’t you?

Lucian heard Daniel’s voice in his mind, but he operated now on instinct and said nothing in response. He gave himself to the feeling of harnessing what he’d gained by putting on the double-chains.

Daniel drew back and punched him, a hard left to his nose. The force thrust Lucian into a spin so that he landed hard on his back on the floor.

Lucian! Claire called to him.

He trembled now, but he didn’t care. He’d finish this with his father right now. He rose up, slower than before as Daniel drifted down toward him. Daniel’s cheek bled, and his left eye was swollen. Lucian had gotten in a couple of good hits.

He intended to get in a few more. Despite the tremors in his hands, he bolted toward his father.

Then he saw something glint.

“Lucian!” Claire shouted. “He has a blade.”

He felt the slice deep into his gut. He grunted and gasped for air. He couldn’t breathe and now he couldn’t see.

Daniel twisted the blade. “I made the mistake of trusting others to kill Adrien and I failed. Now that you’ve reached Ancestral status, you’re a danger to all that I’m building. You need to die, and the great thing is that because you share the blood-chains with Claire, she dies with you.”

Daniel pulled the blade out as once more Lucian landed on the floor. He saw Daniel, blade in his fist, smiling at him. He felt his intention: His father would come for him again, probably to sever his head.

The next moment he couldn’t see Daniel, but Claire was beside him, her hands on either side of his face.

She forced him to look at her, then sent her words piercing his skull. Lucian, I’ve created a disguise, strong enough to hold Daniel off for a few more seconds. Which means you’ve got to fly us the hell out of this cavern. Straight up will do. Just do it now.

Tremors racked his body.

Daniel’s voice broke through the disguise. “You think you can hide from me, Lucian?”

How many times had he heard that in his childhood?

“Lucian! Now!”

Lucian let Claire’s orders reach through to his rational mind. The blood-madness had him trapped again, but despite the intense pain in his gut, he flew straight up. He heard Claire cry out in pain at the same time, though he had no idea why, but he had hold of her and he kept flying.

He focused as best he could on The Erotic Passage. He dropped straight into Rumy’s office, which set the alarms shrieking.

He heard Rumy say two things: “Put him in restraints,” and “Oh, shit, Claire’s been sliced deep.”

CHAPTER 12

Claire’s back burned.

Lucian.

Where was Lucian?

He had to be nearby and alive, because she wasn’t dead.

Something sharp pierced her arm first near her shoulder, a shot of some kind, then another needle into the vein inside her elbow.

Eve’s voice. “We’ve got him, Claire. He just needs some of your blood to get him through again. Focus on healing. Sleep now.”

Focus on healing.

Her back hurt and stung and burned.

Her mind grew dull, and she dropped off.

She awoke sometime later and felt a hand caressing her face. “Claire, I’m so sorry.”

She turned, but the turning caused a mountain of pain up and down her back. “What happened?”

“Daniel cut you deep but you’re healing fine.”

“We made it? We’re alive?”