But the crowd above shouted her down this time, calling her a liar and a traitor. Of course the closest seats were taken by Daniel’s men, so that was no surprise.
She moved quickly down the same set of stairs that led to the base of the Pit. But that’s when everything shut down for her because standing opposite, past two tables made of slabs of black granite, Josh stood staring at her, manacled at his wrists as well, a dark heavy chain looped between them.
Daniel waited beside him, his arm resting over the back of Josh’s young shoulders.
And Daniel smiled.
She stopped in her tracks, staring at the child she hadn’t seen in two years. “Josh,” she whispered.
A thrashing began deep within her soul, a need to get to him, to hold him, to protect him, to beg him to forgive her for being unable to help him.
But looking into his eyes, his expression now old beyond his years, all such maternal thoughts ceased. She grew very still as she met his gaze. Instead, she opened herself to her siphoned ability to sense what others were feeling and directed that power toward her son.
The first thing she felt was the depth of his fear, which he’d been living with for two years, fear of his situation, of the guards around him, of the arm resting across his shoulders. So much fear, which prompted another resurgence of her mother-guilt and a second internal flailing.
But again, the serenity in Josh’s eyes stopped what was useless in this situation.
What she felt next, however, was a determination so similar to what Adrien exuded, her heart finally began to settle.
“I love you,” she called out.
He didn’t speak, but nodded slowly and never lost eye contact. So restrained, so grown-up, long before he should have been, all the heinous signs that he’d been through a severe trauma.
Josh was taller now at ten and came to Daniel’s shoulder. His hair was slicked back and his cheekbones looked sharp, as if he hadn’t been fed as well as he should have, or maybe he’d been unable to eat. He wore a black T-shirt and black jeans, and he was barefoot. Even from here she could see that his feet were filthy. But a child without shoes was a child who couldn’t run away.
Maybe more than any other thing the sight of his feet did her in. Something inside her began to scream. She arched her neck and let the sound pour out of her. She screamed until her lungs ached and her vocal cords could take no more.
When she stopped, she was staring up at the tall domed ceiling at least five stories up.
And the crowd was finally silent.
When she looked back at Josh, it was Daniel who caught her eye. His gaze had a foggy appearance and his lips were slack. No doubt he was euphoric because she’d just given him exactly what he craved the most: the suffering of others, the pain of others.
When she glanced at Josh again, his eyes were tight and he mouthed something. It took her several seconds before she understood he was saying, simply, Mom. She nodded and using her telepathy said, I’m okay now. I love you, Josh. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
He didn’t say anything in response, but held his lips together tightly, two white lines.
So here she was, Lily Haven of Deer Valley, Arizona, and of Manhattan, soon to be executed, standing halfway between her kidnapped son and the man she loved, with no way out.
The sounds of Lily screaming her anguish at the sight of her son had quieted Adrien, had brought him out of his rage and into the present moment. His senses sharpened as the emotions of the now silent spectators hummed through his veins.
The guards grabbed him once more. Though he resisted, he was quickly overpowered, picked up, and thrown onto a hard slab of granite, one of two altar-like tables in the Pit. More chains were wrapped around him, securing him, chains that held Daniel’s powerful signature and kept him immobile.
He stared up at the tall, curved black ceiling, his mind rolling backward to being a child. How many times had he been in this position, chained to a table and subjected to knife cuts, delivered close-up so that Daniel could watch him suffer? How many times? A hundred? A thousand?
And how much Lily’s screams had fed the beast that lived inside Daniel, the one that needed the pain of others to thrive and to be satisfied.
He didn’t want his father to win so Adrien lay very still, gathering his thoughts. He had to figure this out. He’d gained Ancestral status. Surely there was some way to access his power and overcome the chains.
The guards moved Lily in the direction of the second table. Surprisingly, mother and son didn’t speak, but then what could be said? He’d watched Josh’s reaction to his mother’s screams, he even remembered what that was like. How young he had been when his own mother had screamed her pain, her anguish.
But he wouldn’t bring those memories to this table.
This table belonged to now and not to the past. This table was about creating a new set of memories.
He glanced at his father, who smiled. Of course.
Join me, Adrien. Daniel’s voice pierced his mind. And all this will end. I will even spare the human’s life and her son’s. Just say you will serve me and I will end this suffering.
For a split second he considered agreeing to it, if for no other reason than to spare Lily and Josh, but reason returned.
He also knew that Daniel wouldn’t keep his word. He’d never let Lily and Josh go.
Adrien responded with a single word: Never.
How unfortunate, but have it as you will.
Lily stood beside the granite slab, a guard on each side of her, as she waited to be chained to her place of execution. She didn’t look at Josh again. How could she without falling into another round of screaming anguish.
Quill’s voice, loud and strong, sounded through the arena as he stated again the reason for the execution, the illegal hunt for the extinction weapon.
The crowd responded with shouts and condemnation.
Her eyes began to burn. Once more she looked up at the gleaming black dome of the ceiling. She had heard that in a spiritual sense obsidian meant “truth.”
What was the truth of this situation? Why was she here? What had gotten her here? Why was she trapped in a way that prevented her from helping either her son or the man she loved?
From the time of her husband’s and daughter’s deaths, grief had dominated her life, a pain so deep that for a long time, until she’d been contacted with news that Josh was alive, she’d felt nothing but a numbing pain without end. She had lived that pain and it had ridden her hard, for months turned to years.
Meeting Adrien had been like setting a lit match to a gasoline-soaked bonfire of sexual and emotional need. Her relationship with him had simply exploded until now that bonfire burned in her heart.
She loved him, a new love born out of this impossible situation.
Grief was still with her and she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she would grieve for those she’d lost until she drew her last breath.
But the chains had birthed something new in her. She’d come alive in the course of the past few nights, alive in ways never before imagined, bursting with strength and passion, and the awareness that she was bound to a vampire in a way that gave her unexpected powers and the ability to live in a secret vampire world.
In a sudden revelation, she understood the lesson of the chains, of her bondage to Adrien, of what they’d become over the past three nights: Their real power came from working together, back and forth, functioning as a team.
But in what way could she work with him now?