After at least another hour, with Josh leaning against her shoulder, he said, “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I can’t, either, but somehow we made it, and now you’re here, too.”
Josh sat up, pulling away from her as he looked around. “What is this place? This must be one of the cavern systems that Claire told me about. It is, isn’t it?” He shifted toward Adrien.
“Yes, in South Africa.”
Josh nodded. “I’d like to know more about your world.” How old he sounded, but then he’d lived a lifetime and if anyone understood what that was like it was Adrien.
Lily watched as Adrien pulled up an ottoman and sat down in front of her son, answering question after question, anything Josh wanted to know, leaving very little out. Josh often referred to Claire and all that she’d done for him and told him during his time at Kiernan’s home.
One day she’d want to thank the woman for what she’d done for Josh, because it seemed to Lily that single-handedly Claire had saved her son.
When Josh’s questions finally stopped, at least for now, Adrien had his housekeeper prepare a light meal of one of her fine soups and homemade breads.
Lily ate as well, as did Adrien since it seemed to them both that otherwise Josh wouldn’t have eaten. The housekeeper had prepared him a room, and when Josh’s eyelids grew heavy and he was weaving in his seat at the dining table, Lily finally agreed it was time for bed.
But she hated to let him go. Now that she had him back, she didn’t want him out of her sight. She tucked him in and sat in the chair next to his bed until he was sound asleep. She would have stayed there as well, but she needed to be with Adrien as well, to talk everything over with him and plan their next steps.
We won’t be far, just down at the end of the hall. Adrien cupped her face with his palm. This compound is well hidden and fortified for security. We need to plan where to go next, and he needs to sleep after all he’s been through.
Lily shifted her attention to Adrien. The new double-chain intensified what she sensed from him. She felt his love and his appreciation for her as Josh’s mother. She also felt his profound gratitude that she’d donned the second chain.
She smiled at him. I understand that and I will comply. But just a few minutes more?
Of course.
Adrien’s heart had never been so full, not in his entire life, not in four centuries of hard living—and a woman had done this.
Three days ago he’d been chained to a cavern wall; now he was free, powerful enough to stand up to Daniel and to protect his family, and he had a woman in his life who he loved with all his heart.
In a way the boy had brought her to him, and for that reason alone he would cover Josh with a shield of his protection so that no one would ever get to him again.
Though he’d started a war tonight against Daniel, he might not be the one to finish it. His first priority had to be Lily and Josh and he knew that Daniel would come after all of them with a vengeance. Daniel had been denied a kill and he’d been humiliated in front of an assembly of Ancestrals. Above all things, he’d want Adrien dead.
While waiting for Lily, Adrien made his call to Gabriel. Together, they decided on a hiding place deep in the Amazon, in a cavern system hidden behind multiple layers of Ancestral disguising skills. Gabriel and some of his closest Ancestral allies had unequaled disguising skills and they’d successfully hidden away a number of Daniel’s enemies, keeping them safe until the vampire world could figure out how to unseat the most powerful despot ever to take hold of the Council of Ancestrals.
Lily. He called her name. She turned toward him a little, but her body still faced Josh’s bed. Her fingers were pressed to her lips. Her eyes glistened with tears.
Telepathically, he reassured her that they were together now and would stay that way, which brought a deep sigh flowing out of her and her shoulders finally loosened and lowered.
Only then, when she was sure Josh would be safe, did she move toward him. He opened his arms and she stepped inside the circle of his embrace as he held her fast. “I swear,” he whispered, “that I will protect you and your son, above all things, even above the vengeance I want to bring down on the head of my father. I owe this to you, on behalf of my people, to do this for you.”
The chains vibrated heavily. It was as though a wave crashed through Lily, and she began to sob. He carried her from her son’s room to his bedroom, now their bedroom.
He sat down on the side of the bed and held her in his arms for a long, long time, and let her cry it all out, the years of separation, the years of believing Josh was dead, and the horror of having gone through a near-execution with her son as a witness.
He felt her pain because of the chains and because he knew what suffering was. As she wept, he also felt her begin to heal, and in her healing he was healed as well.
Lily rested her head against Adrien’s shoulder. She fingered the lapel of his finely tailored tux. She felt emptied of emotion, yet full, so full.
She released a sigh then another, heavy exhalations of all that she felt, the relief that she was safe and that Josh was under Adrien’s roof, hidden in a cave protected by Ancestrals.
Safe. She was safe and so was Josh.
And though Adrien held deep concerns for his brothers, she and Josh were his priority.
“What about Lucian and Marius?” She rubbed the fabric between her thumb and forefinger over and over.
“Daniel won’t kill them. Their deaths right now couldn’t serve him at all. He needs them to form tracking pairs.”
Lily frowned. “So Daniel can’t use Quill and Lev?”
“No, neither of them has that ability.”
She shifted to look up at him, her head cradled in the nook of his elbow, his hand rubbing her bare arm. “But you’re worried about Lucian and Marius.”
“Yes. And no. Before I met you, I’d thought of little else than helping to keep my brothers safe. At the same time I felt powerless. Then you arrived and changed everything. You created this enormous miracle in my life and now I’m trying to think about Lucian and Marius in those terms—that maybe something will come into each of their lives to change their futures as well.”
She shifted to stroke his cheek with her fingers. “Like Claire? Do you think she intends to form a bonding pair with Lucian?”
Adrien nodded. “I believe so. Why else would she have told Josh the things she did. She must have learned about Lucian’s chain and schemed to steal it. I’ll alert Gabriel so that he can keep an eye out for Claire. Hopefully that will give Josh some peace as well.”
“What if Daniel is waiting for her and decides to use her like he used me? Maybe you should try to intervene?”
He leaned down and kissed her. “I can’t answer for what is about to happen to Lucian or Claire, and I wish I could go to him, but you’re my responsibility now, both you and Josh.”
She wanted to protest, her guilt rising, but he kissed her again and a soft smile curved his lips. “No guilt, Lily. I don’t know exactly why events unfolded as they did, why you were brought into my life, but you’re here. Lucian and Marius are men, very powerful vampires, and what I trust in the most right now is that each will figure things out, how to survive.
“But there’s something more. Gabriel is working behind closed doors with other Ancestrals, and intends to create a counterforce against Daniel. He wants to retake the Council, and in time he will. So I will trust in that, in those vampires of Ancestral status, like Gabriel, and those aligned with him, to do what needs to be done.”
“But you should be with them.” More than anything in life she didn’t want to be a hindrance.
He shook his head. “If Daniel knew he could find me, he’d turn his attention toward me. The Ancestrals want his attention fixed on my brothers and on still hunting for the extinction weapon. They can track him better.”
“Did you give Gabriel the location of the weapon at the Black Cavern system?”
He nodded. “They’ve been there and destroyed it.”
“But it’s not over.”
He shook his head. “There were several groups experimenting at the time. Gabriel and many of the Ancestrals believe there was more than one weapon, and some of them in pieces, hidden in different systems.”
“That would explain why, when I thought about the weapon, I’d get so many readings, all over the globe at the same time. But Adrien, shouldn’t you and I be looking for them, perhaps now more than ever?”
He caught her hand and kissed her fingers. “In one sense, yes. But Gabriel and I both believe, as do many of the Ancestrals, that Josh should be our focus. I know that won’t make sense, but Josh, a mere child, didn’t deserve to become embroiled in what is essentially a vampire problem. He didn’t deserve to lose his mother, or his family. If I go with you both now, we can atone to you and Josh to some degree for what was taken from you because of my father. Please, don’t protest. The decision has been made. We’re going to the Rain Forest Caverns.”
Lily felt his determination and knew he wouldn’t be moved, which also gave her a tremendous sense of relief. She rested in what appeared to be a group decision to let her, and her tracking ability, disappear into the jungles of South America.
With her biggest concerns laid to rest, she looked into Adrien’s beautiful flecked teal eyes and finally began to relax. Josh was now safe, the future settled, and she could focus on the miracle that had become the man, the vampire, cradling her in his arms.
She pushed her fingers into his hair, shoving the beautiful strands away from his equally beautiful face. Love flooded her heart, an intense love, surprising and miraculous, because of the chains that bound her to Adrien. Tears filled her eyes all over again.
“Don’t cry.”
She chuckled softly. “These are just tears of profound joy and gratitude. I didn’t think we were going to make it.”
“But we did, didn’t we?”