I’m almost there.

But if Claire arrived, Daniel would have one more piece of leverage. He couldn’t let her get caught.

Claire, stay away. You can’t help right now. I’ve got this.

He met his father’s gaze. “Let Marius and Zoey go right now, and I’ll give you the weapon.”

“You’ll have to detach the bomb, or did you think I didn’t know about it?”

In that moment, Lucian realized that he’d lost the war. He could accomplish half his goal and save Marius and Zoey, but not his own life. At this point Daniel would never believe that Lucian could choose death over handing him the extinction weapon free and clear.

He slowly levitated away from the boat, pulling his phone from his pant pocket and pretending that it was the detonator. “You have five seconds to choose, Daniel, or I’ll blow the weapon up. Let Zoey and Marius go. Now.” He started the countdown. “Five, four, three, two…”

“Fine.” Daniel waved a hand.

Quill dropped Zoey, who started to fall a hundred feet toward the water, her cry more a whimper than anything else. At the exact same moment, Marius fell. But despite his chains, he had enough power to fly after Zoey and scoop her up before she hit the water, then carry her in the direction of The Erotic Passage.

Marius was free, and he’d saved Zoey.

The original plan—to have Daniel take the weapon and blow himself up—had failed. Lucian had only one recourse that made sense to him. He had to destroy the weapon if his world was to survive and right now he intended to do just that.

Lucian dropped into the boat knowing that at least he’d be keeping the weapon from Daniel’s hands. He’d lived four centuries. Long enough, and what better way to go than by protecting his world?

Claire reached the boat at the same moment as Lucian. But she had one advantage her vampire boyfriend didn’t. She quickly engulfed him in a disguise that even Daniel couldn’t see.

Lucian already had his hand on the heavy iron loop at the top of the weapon, so she said, “Don’t do it, gorgeous, or we’ll both eat it. Now look up?”

When he glanced up Lucian gave a shout that came straight from his gut. He saw the disguise there, and how furious Daniel was as he flew in quick streaks above them, unable to see the boat.

Daniel roared his fury. His other sons took off in quick bursts of altered flight.

Lucian caught her up in his arms and hugged her. “You came back.”

“We can talk later. Let’s get rid of this weapon for good.”

She felt Lucian’s uncertainly through the familiar vibration at her neck. “We can get out of this, Lucian. Trust me. The disguise will hold long enough, even through the blast, for us to get away.”

He turned to her, his eyes searching her own.

“Okay, this is how we’ve gotta do this thing. The second I lift the weapon and trip the wire, I’ll shoot straight up. You’ll have to hold the disguise tight or Daniel will be after us.”

“Got it.” Claire smiled then eased into a grin. She shrugged. “Easy-peasy. Ready to go with the disguise when you are.” She stepped onto his foot and he slid his arm around her waist, pulling her close. She felt, in this simple way, like she’d come home. All her questions were answered. She knew, in the deepest part of her soul, that this was where she belonged.

Glancing past him, she saw that Daniel seemed intent on their location. “Your father might have figured something out.”

“Then we’d better go. Hold on.”

“Do it.”

Lucian smiled. Claire had said that to him a lot over the past three nights: Do it.

He pulled a battle chain from his leathers and with a quick jerk of his wrist caught the upper loop with the chain. He’d need that extra distance to keep from having his feet or legs blown apart. He gave a tug to make sure the chain held and sent a shot of pure power down his arm to secure the hold.

“Ready?”

With her arm snug around his neck, she whispered, “Ready.”

Then he headed straight into the stratosphere, shooting skyward with Claire’s dense disguise surrounding them. He pulled the weapon up off the boat to trip the wire then, in that same split second, let the weapon fall back to the deck.

By then he was two thousand feet in the air and moving fast.

He heard the explosion then a moment later felt the power of the blast beneath him, but dimming by the split second until Claire’s voice reached him. Hey, vampire, it’s cold up here and now I can’t breathe.

Lucian had gone far enough and fell away, heading south and west, in a trajectory toward Uruguay and his secure cavern.

As soon as he had Claire safe in his home, in the living room, he checked her for injuries but found none.

“You are fast,” she said.

“Thank God you’re okay.”

“Yeah, yeah. Call Rumy. Let’s find out what happened from where he sat.”

He held her next to him as he made the call. “Tell me everything.” He put the phone on speaker so that Claire could hear as well.

“Gabriel’s guard had orders to stay here until the situation resolved, just in case Daniel made a play for my club. But here’s how it went from my vantage. Daniel and his boys kept flying over the lake until the explosion. Each was blown back a few hundred yards, but unfortunately each recovered. They didn’t turn in my direction but took off, heading east, probably back to Daniel’s lair in the Dark Cave system. So they’re gone, as are the boat and the weapon. The lake’s a mess. I sent a crew out there, under the cover of my own disguise, to get everything cleaned up.”

Lucian huffed a sigh. It was too much to hope for that the blast would have killed any of them. “And Marius? Zoey?”

“Marius said to tell you that he’s fine, but he’s in bad shape, like you were. He’s in blood-madness recovery now. Eve has about a dozen of her girls donating. He’ll be out of the woods in a couple of days. He said he and Zoey know some stuff about the Dark Cave system and he has a plan that’ll probably involve Zoey—but from what he can tell, she’s willing to do her part. She said to tell you, Claire, that as soon as she’s feeling better, she’ll call, and that she never stopped thinking about you. She said you were the reason she’d stayed alive as long as she had. She wanted to find you, if she could, and help you.”

Lucian felt his chains vibrate heavily. He turned to look at Claire and saw tears running down her cheeks. He pulled her to sit down on the couch beside him, holding her close.

“Claire?”

“Just give us a minute, Rumy.”

“Got it.”

Imagine Zoey worried about me, when she was the one who’d been auctioned and used. She covered her face. By Daniel.

Claire, she wouldn’t have known what happened to you, that you’d been in Florida taking care of Josh. She would have assumed you’d been sold into slavery as well.

I know.

He gave her another minute to regain her composure. She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her jeans, a wad of them, and blew her nose. “Sorry, Rumy, I kinda lost it, but I’m back. So Zoey’s fine?”

“Marius had enough strength to get her to the back entrance, but my staff was waiting for them. She’s very weak, but we’ll take care of her, you know we will. One of our medics has her on a blood transfusion right now and we’ve got a healer coming in soon. She’s eating chicken broth as we speak and talking about needing to get back to the Dark Cave system; she says five human slaves die every day and an equal number are brought in to replace them. She seems determined. I recognized the fire in her eye. Looked like your fire, Claire. Damn, I’m glad you’re back. You staying this time?”

Lucian’s heart stopped. He couldn’t breathe. Her answer had more significance than anything else he remembered from his four centuries of life.