Lucian pulled Claire close. He felt her rage building right alongside his own. His instincts told him to get the hell out of there and take Claire to safety, but he remained rooted to the ancient stone floor, his gaze never leaving his father’s face.
He’d done that as a small boy, watched Daniel like a hawk, reading all the signs he could to see if he could escape a forthcoming punishment, or take the blame for Marius or Adrien so that he’d go under the whip and not his younger brothers.
A primal, childhood fear moved within him at the sight of the man who had done so much damage, not just to his own body and psyche or even to his brothers, but to his world. Claire was beside him right now because of Daniel, caught in his web as well.
“So, it seems Claire’s gift differs from Lily’s. Lily had these revisiting visions, you see. But you can see through even the most powerful disguises.”
He turned to stare at Claire. “I’m sensing something here, something that I felt when I killed Marius. Now I get it. You were there, weren’t you? I couldn’t see you and I could barely feel your presence, but I knew something was off. The power you siphon and use from my son has a flavor, something I can taste on my tongue. Yes, you were there. Of course you were, and you got Lucian out. How? Come on, Claire, you can tell me.”
Claire’s nostrils flared. “The chain-bond did the trick, gave us enough shared power to bust Lucian out of your preternatural charge, you f**king bastard. Now what happened to Zoey? She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Daniel’s eyes took on a familiar darkening glint. Lucian knew from long experience that his father loved a challenge. Claire’s spirit appealed to him.
“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.