But what happened next stunned Lily: The warm smile that broke over Adrien’s face transformed him completely as he turned to hold out his arms to a boy of maybe six or seven.

The lad half leaped, half flew into Adrien’s arms. He swung him in a circle, hugging him, even levitating and whirling faster so that the child laughed, the sound bouncing around the domed, carved ceiling of the large cavern.

Because of the chain, she sensed Adrien’s love for the boy. Even without the chain, though, she could see the affection on his face.

All that love. From a vampire. From Adrien.

The dizziness Lily had experienced earlier returned, but for a completely different reason.

The boy put his arms around Adrien’s neck. “I’ve missed you. We all have.”

“I’ve been away for a year, but now I’m back.”

“The alarm sounded,” the boy said, his eyes wide. “All my friends had to go into their hidden homes, did you know that?”

Adrien glanced at Alfonse. “No, I didn’t.”

The boy glanced at Lily, then his eyes widened further. “You’re a human.”

Lily nodded. “I am.”

He frowned. “But you’re just a girl. Why would the alarms sound because a female human came into Trevayne?” He glanced from Adrien to Lily then to his grandparents.

Giselle rose from her seat and took charge of him. “Come, Jean-Luc. You should have been in bed an hour ago.” The boy stared over his shoulder at Lily as he walked away, half dragged by his grandmother who promised more information about the human once he was in bed.

Jean-Luc waved and smiled at Lily, the tips of his fangs showing.

Lily waved in return, knowing that what had happened in the past few minutes had overturned her world.

Adrien spoke quietly to Alfonse, which gave her a moment to gather her thoughts once more and to look at the vampire who had killed others of his kind in front of her, whose dark nature both made her afraid and excited her, and who had just shown a very human response to a vampire child.

She looked away from Adrien, feeling more confused than ever about this world she’d just entered. She’d had a strong opinion about vampires, which kept being confirmed over and over again. But other situations, like this one, had arisen to obliterate at least some of those preconceptions.

The one thing she knew for certain, however, was that Adrien couldn’t have faked his obvious love for Jean-Luc. But even beyond this, he had interfered with Giselle’s enthrallment skills, allowing Lily to keep secret the one piece of information that could keep her son alive.

Adrien called to her, “Come, Lily. Alfonse is going to take us to the vault now.”

She rose, nodding, but as she met his gaze, the shift in her emotions traveled through the chain’s constant stream of communication between them. Desire for Adrien, ever-present anyway, sharpened suddenly.

He narrowed his gaze. What is it?

She shook her head and felt another wave of heat rise up her cheeks. Damn the chains. She could hardly keep her shift in emotions secret from Adrien. Nothing. Let’s go to the vault.

When he opened his arm, she shivered as she stepped onto his foot and slung an arm around his neck.

His gaze narrowed. This isn’t nothing. I can feel your desire.

But she placed her free hand on his chest. Please, Adrien, don’t push me. I’m barely holding myself together.

She half expected him to say something sarcastic. Instead, he murmured against her cheek. “No worries, Lily. Let’s see what the vault says, then we’ll head back to Paris to get some sleep. I can feel your fatigue, and you’ve been through hell tonight. We both have.”

His sudden concern didn’t help her response to him. Her heart swelled, tightening her chest.

Then Alfonse suddenly passed through the stone wall to her left and Adrien put them in motion. Her stomach turned once more since Adrien had to go faster than usual in order to keep up.

Lily had thought the trip would be short, but Adrien informed her that some of the cavern systems were over a hundred miles long. She was aware suddenly of just how little Kiernan had really told her about this world.

Though her head ached, and her stomach boiled, she asked, How many vampires live in this one system? She thought a few hundred maybe.

Over twenty-five thousand.

Lily held on tight, afraid that this new, inconceivable piece of information had also just changed her perception of the vampire world. But she wanted to know more. And how many children?

Not many, because we’re long-lived. Only three hundred.

Three hundred vampire children, all of them loved in the same way that humans loved their children. But a new truth dawned, one closer to Adrien—that some vampire children weren’t loved, but had endured hell growing up. She knew in her bones that Adrien had suffered terribly in his childhood.

She fell silent after that, struggling against the pain beating within her head, and the nausea that threatened her.

Finally Adrien began to slow, and as he passed through one last tunnel that ended in a large cavern, the pain eased. With her feet at last on solid ground, she clung to Adrien. He didn’t let her go but continued to support her with his arm around her waist until the nausea subsided.

At last she opened her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Lily,” Alfonse said. “Adrien tried to tell me to slow down, but I couldn’t, not without giving away our location.”

“Understood. It’s okay. I wish I could say I’m getting used to altered flight, but it’s rugged.”

CHAPTER 7

Adrien let Lily go, but didn’t want to. Something had changed between them, though he couldn’t say what exactly. Lily’s emotions came at him, her sudden strengthened desire for him that only fueled his own incomprehensible and powerful need for her. But more than that, he could feel her bewilderment, her confusion probably because of what she’d just witnessed, given her low opinion of vampires.

He didn’t know exactly why he’d intervened, preventing Giselle from reaching into Lily’s mind and extracting the truth from her, the real reason why she was on this mission. But some part of him wanted her to trust him enough to tell him, wanted her to feel good enough about his character that she could reveal the truth that frightened her.

“Is this the vault?” Lily joined Alfonse by a stone pillar in the center of the space. Stalagmites and their companion stalactites marred the area, a sure sign that no one had been here in a long time to do cleanup and repairs.

Alfonse put one hand on the stone and with the other shaded his eyes. Adrien sensed his concern about the contents—that he even debated turning anything over to Adrien.

He straightened his shoulders suddenly and met Adrien’s gaze. “Except for Sebastien’s orders, I wouldn’t do this, not for you, not for anyone.”

“I understand.”

Alfonse drew in a deep breath. “Adrien, you’ve got to find a safe place to hide Lily. Giselle and I debated saying anything to you, but the underground rumors are that Silas has seen Lily in a vision destroying the vampire race, or at least that’s what he’s telling everyone. Which means that his followers will be after her, to kill her.”

“Do you actually believe what’s being said?”

“The fanatics believe Silas, just as they believe these documents are a threat to our way of life. But Sebastien and I and many others have greater faith in our ability to survive Daniel’s current plan to acquire the weapon, which is why we’re entrusting you with the documents.”

“Why do these even exist?” Lily asked. “Why weren’t they destroyed?”

Alfonse shifted in her direction, his gaze falling to Adrien’s hand, the one around her waist, the one that held her and supported her. “If the weapon truly does exist, there’s a good chance more than this set of designs is out there as well, maybe even more than one weapon. We need as much information on the side of good as the other side might have.” He lowered his chin, once more holding Adrien’s gaze. “We get that the end point for you involves Daniel, that he’s behind your having been hauled into Lily’s mission, that he’s made use of your abilities to create a tracking pair.

“But we also believe an opportunity exists as well, something you’ll be able to do to change the course of our history once you reach the end of this mission.” Suddenly he switched to telepathy: And Adrien, Sebastien is right about your connection to Lily. Something astounding is happening between you. I know how you hate humans, but even I’ve felt it—certainly Giselle has—that Lily has something extraordinary to give you, if you’ll open yourself up to her. But you can’t hold back. It might even become a matter of life and death for you to establish a deeper connection with this human, deeper than you’ve ever had with anyone.

Adrien grew very still. The last thing he’d expected was Alfonse encouraging him to explore a true bonding with Lily, the kind that for Alfonse had led to marriage to Giselle. He shook his head. What you’re suggesting can’t be. You know what I am.

At that, Alfonse’s lips quirked. Yes, I know what you are. But do you?

Lily glanced up at Adrien. “Is there something I should know?” she asked, looking from one to the other.

“No,” Adrien said.

Alfonse struck the pillar with a single sideways motion of his fist, which depressed a stone lever. In turn, another part of the broad base of the pillar slid open.

Alfonse squatted and pulled out a black metal box. He set it on the floor then slid it across a flat stretch of ground that Adrien realized comprised pavers of some kind, very old. Even this deep into the Trevayne system, though perhaps millennia ago, vampires had worked the cavern.

Adrien released Lily then dropped to his knees. He opened the lid. Inside were a dozen documents or so. He flipped through them and found several engineering schematics, but unlike anything he’d seen before, as though designed with some kind of code.

He glanced up at Alfonse. “Have you looked at these before?”