“Daniel set himself up as head of the Ancestral Council and now rules our five governing courts. He has tremendous power as an Ancestral. But he also has great wealth because of the sex-slave operation he’s built. That wealth has bought him many allies, which is part of the reason he succeeded in taking over the Council. Right now he’s damn near invincible.”

“And what’s an Ancestral?”

“It’s the name given to any vampire who achieves a certain level of preternatural power. Only a small portion of our population become Ancestrals, and Daniel’s at the top of that food chain.”

A knock on the door made her jump.

“Are you okay with someone else coming in here?”

Claire glanced at Lucian, almost startled by the question. For some reason, maybe because of the brutality of the situation she’d found him in, she hadn’t expected him to be concerned about her comfort level.

“And now you look surprised. You don’t think me capable of kindness or consideration?”

She met his gaze. “I just thought, given what you’ve been through … I don’t know, you just surprised me.”

He looked away from her, his jaw hardening. She hadn’t meant to offend him, but she could see that she’d touched a nerve. She just wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

Rumy’s voice sounded through the door. “Okay to come in? I brought food.”

“Well?” Lucian asked, but this time his voice had an edge.

“Of course. It’s Rumy. And I’m sorry if I offended you.”

His jaw worked. “You didn’t.”

Right.

“Come,” he called out.

His voice had an authoritative ring. Rumy had told her that Lucian ran a small policing force in their world, protecting as many innocent people as he could from the depredations of Daniel and those aligned with him. Clearly, he was used to command.

Rumy came in, along with wait-staff and a trolley bearing two covered dishes. Her stomach rumbled, partly no doubt because she’d just fed a vampire, but she also hadn’t eaten for several hours.

Rumy glanced at Lucian. “You’re looking better.”

“I feel much better, thanks to Claire.”

Later, after he and Claire had consumed a simple but savory meal of burgers and fries, Lucian knew the time had come to get down to business.

Rumy had left so that they could eat in peace, especially since the subjects that would soon be under discussion weren’t going to be pleasant. But Lucian now got Rumy on the room’s landline and asked him to rejoin them, to discuss how to proceed with finding out what had happened to Zoey and with locating the weapon.

When Rumy came in, however, he wore a serious scowl.

“What’s wrong?” Lucian offered Rumy his chair, but the short vampire paced instead.

“We’ve just had word that Daniel is offering a big reward to anyone who can give him solid information about the whereabouts of the remaining extinction weapons.”

Lucian’s nostrils flared. “How much is the bastard offering?”

Rumy turned toward him. “Millions, in increments, depending on the value of the information given. That asshole has set up a goddamn tip line.”

“Oh, that’s bad,” Claire murmured.

Lucian glanced at her, then back to Rumy. “Well, the good news is that it won’t be an easy process—he’ll have thousands of crackpots leaving false information. That alone will slow him down.”

“But his organization is big enough to handle it. I think we’re in serious trouble. All he needs is the right bead on the weapon, and he’ll gain control of everything,”

Claire tilted her head. “Do you think he did this because he no longer has you under his thumb?”

“Maybe. This move smacks of desperation.”

Rumy rubbed his thumb against the side of one of his always present fangs. He finally sat down on the edge of the bed, facing the table. Lucian’s gaze fell to the low steel bar that could be raised to hold one of the restraints. He didn’t want the reminder that at some point he’d once more spiral with blood-madness.

“Rumy, is something else on your mind?” Claire asked. “Please, don’t hold anything back on my account.”

Finally Rumy met her gaze. “Here’s the thing, Claire. I have a connection who found out who Zoey went to after she was abducted, because the truth is she never went to auction. Daniel kept her for himself.”

Claire put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lucian watched tears rush to her eyes—this woman who wasn’t a weeper. But he couldn’t fault her, not when she’d just heard that her good friend had been at Daniel’s mercy for the past two years, if she’d even survived that long. He couldn’t imagine a worse fate for a young human female than to be taken into Daniel’s Dark Cave system.

Claire, to her credit, straightened her shoulders. “Is there even the smallest hope she’s still alive?”

“We have no way of knowing.”

At that, Lucian shifted his gaze back to Rumy, and a certain suspicion entered his head. “You haven’t told her everything, have you?”

Rumy met Lucian’s gaze. He didn’t blink, but his tongue flicked out and licked both of his fangs. “I didn’t think it was wise.”

Lucian’s temper shot through his skull and he was on his feet. “What the fuck? Rumy, are you telling me you sent Claire into that pit of hell to rescue me without letting her know the score first? Dammit, she should have had the facts laid out for her before she made a decision to do something that dangerous. You used her.”

Rumy spread his hands wide. “I was thinking about you, boss, and about our world.”

Lucian didn’t care. “The day we set the worth of our society above the value of the individual is the day we’ve lost the right to survive as a species.”

“Lucian, as much as I want to believe that, we needed you here, doing what you’re doing now. I didn’t know what else to do. Adrien had to go underground to protect Lily and Josh. And you needed out of that hellhole. Daniel would have found a way to force you to do his bidding.”

“You had no right to do this.”

Claire felt so sick to her stomach that she struggled to hold down the meal she’d just eaten. Daniel had bought Zoey, and Rumy hadn’t told her something so critical that Lucian was actually yelling at him.

And though she’d asked if Zoey was still alive, something about Lucian’s outrage indicated that her friend was probably long dead.

She stared at the beige carpeting beneath her bare feet, working at taking in long deep breaths and trying to ease the constriction of her throat.

Lucian paced now, while Rumy sat like a schoolboy in trouble staring up at his teacher.

Claire spoke up. “I want to know everything.”

Lucian turned to her and nodded. He stopped next to his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, then turned to glare at Rumy. “Give her the statistics. All of them.”

“Fine.” Rumy met her gaze, but he’d never looked sadder. “The sex trafficking of humans in our world is brutal beyond description. I don’t allow anything like that in the clubs in my complex. There are organizations, like Starlin, that have built empires around trafficking, but everyone knows I disapprove of slavers of any kind. Everyone who works for me earns a decent wage.”

“I believe you, but I think you’re tiptoeing around the subject. What stats was Lucian talking about?”

Rumy drew a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling. “In the initial stage of captivity, a small percentage of humans, about fifteen percent, will not live beyond the two-week mark even if they’re treated well.”

Claire’s throat hurt. “And after two weeks?”

“A second transition occurs at six months, but the survival rate at that point drops to fifty percent.”

Claire tried to process what he was saying, but she kept stumbling over the 50 percent figure.

Half.

Half died at six months.

Had Zoey even made it to the six-month mark?