A masculine voice, muffled by the heavy wood of the door, called out, “Adrien, get your fucking ass in here.”

He smiled and leaned down to Lily. “Rumy’s home.”

“Oh, goody.”

At that, he chuckled once more, depressed the latch, and pushed.

Unfortunately, he met three automatic weapons pointed straight at him, all held by men in black robes; more fucking fanatics.

Rumy stood to the side of his guests offering a shrug and a roll of his eyes. He wore the usual extra-snug black T-shirt that emphasized that he worked out. He was short, maybe five-five, his black curly hair oiled and glistening in the dim light. He wore a silver belt and tailored Italian slacks, leather tasseled shoes, his typical style.

With a wry smile, he shrugged again. “Sorry, Adrien. There’s a bounty on your head and the prize is a portion in the Rio Crystal Casino. I couldn’t turn it down.” His gaze shifted to Lily. “Of course the bounty includes your woman here. You must be Lily Haven. Heard a lot about you.”

Adrien’s hand naturally dropped to Lily’s waist, especially since her body had stiffened. Holding her close, he said, “I guess somebody wants us bad.”

Rumy glanced at his armed guests. “And don’t try any of your altered flight shit. I’ve been assured these boys know how to use their weapons and you’ll be full of holes before you punch past even one of these walls.” The points of his fangs showed as he spoke, which almost gave him a lisp. He’d taken so much Double-V in recent years that he could never fully retract his fangs. He had permanent calluses on his lips from daily use. Nothing like a black-market vampire Viagra to change things up.

His operations suite had been carved out of granite in an intricate maze of rooms, each with a curved polished ceiling, marred only by discreet black tubes carrying electrical and air-conditioning. This front room had a couple of large black leather chairs near the front door and a wide wooden desk opposite. All three armed, hooded men, as well as Rumy, stood in front of the desk.

One of the back rooms of the office suite included a central command for his extensive security staff.

New question: Where were Rumy’s men?

Adrien had the beginnings of a plan, but he wanted Lily’s input, so he sent a telepathic stream. Lily, he doesn’t know that I have an increase in power and my gut tells me I could fly us both out of here, without injury, but we still need information and this is the best place.

What do you suggest?

That we ride this train to the next stop. Can you handle it?

Hell, yeah. Take them all on.

He held Rumy’s gaze. “As you can imagine, I’m not crazy about the idea of turning my woman over to your friends. Got any other ideas? I have a fortune I’d happily spend to change this scenario. Care to make a trade?”

One of the fanatics started to protest, but Rumy held up his hand. “Not to worry, my fanatic friend. My course was set the moment you stepped into my office bearing your guns.”

Inwardly, Adrien began to smile. Rumy, for all his shortness of stature and absurdly callused lips, didn’t allow anyone to bring firearms into his club, not without repercussions at some point. The fanatics with their religious bent couldn’t possibly understand the rules of an underground.

To Adrien, Rumy offered a subtle jerk of his head toward the archway at the back corner of his office, which led to the security center.

Adrien understood the signal. Rumy’s men waited in place for their boss to give the word.

Good.

As he assessed the hooded men, he didn’t know which he despised more, his father and the weak-willed Council of Ancestrals that he now owned, or these fanatics, who in the name of spirituality killed the innocent.

Spit gathered in his mouth.

But the faint pressure of Lily’s hand on his arm reminded him why he was here, that he wasn’t alone, and that these men were hopefully just a bump in the road to get where they needed to go.

Funny how just her touch reined in his all-over-the-map emotions and drives.

He covered her hand with his and gave a squeeze. He felt her try to reach him telepathically, but he blocked her, a strange event all on its own. He needed to figure this out, though, and do it quickly. The middle bastard was sweating and had his finger too close to the goddamn trigger.

“Again, don’t even think about altered flight,” Rumy said. “You’re not fast enough.”

Rumy was giving him a hint about how he wanted this to go down.

He opened up his mind to Lily and said, I need you to stay right where you are and ignore what I’m about to do. Got it?

Yep.

“I wouldn’t think of altered flight,” Adrien said.

Then he did.

He moved fast—a little too fast, shooting past the first gunman. He adjusted, gripped his gun, took the next, and just as the third asshole would have fired, he took him out of the room, carrying him straight over the water and dropped him into Lake Como.

When he flew back into the room, Rumy’s security staff had the two remaining assassins on the floor. One of them was using the butt of his gun to pound the vampires in turn, over and over, although purposely avoiding the head.

The men screamed and balled themselves up.

He returned to Lily’s side and tried to take her in his arms, knowing she shouldn’t be watching this, but she pushed him away. “Make them stop, Adrien.”

At first he thought she was distressed by what she was seeing, but the chains told a different story and he felt her determination.

“We need to know what they know,” she said. “Maybe they have information about the weapon.”

At these words, both Adrien and Rumy yelled at the guard to stop hurting the robed reptiles, but he got one last hit in before he stepped back.

Rumy glared at the men on the floor. “Nothing I hate worse than fanatics. I don’t even despise a rat in my organization as much as these assholes who use religion to persecute those who can’t protect themselves. Fucking bastards.”

Adrien chuckled. “Rumy, I knew there was something about you I liked.”

“Aw, can the flattery. Just tell me how the fuck you did that altered flight shit. Usually, you glide out of here. This time you vanished. Whoa. Hold the fucking phone.” He looked him over, his gaze landing on the chain at Adrien’s neck. “You’ve bumped up your power level with a double blood-chain, and there’s only one way you can do that. Well damn my ass, you finally made the leap. You’re on the Ancestral path.” He glanced at the chain Lily wore. “And you’re all bound up with a human and now you’ve got more power. A lot of it, too.” For half a second, panic hit Rumy’s eye.

Adrien held up a hand. “Not to worry. I have no takeover plans for you or your business. Trust me, I’m not that man.”

“Good. That’s good.” He plucked at a couple of curls above his ears then patted them flat.

The assassins had grown quiet, which meant both had dipped into vampire-healing mode and would be back at full strength in a couple of hours.

Adrien thought about killing them, and in any other circumstances that’s just what he would have done. He and his brothers dealt swiftly with fanatics who murdered the innocent. So long as there was irrefutable evidence of the crime, they held a brief trial, took off the head, and burned the bastards to ashes just to make sure they couldn’t come back to do more damage.

Their leader, Silas, knew what Adrien and his brothers did to fanatics proven to kill the innocent, who laid waste to some of the outlying cavern systems when average vampires refused to agree to Silas’s decrees. The man and his followers were spiritual tyrants, and Adrien and his brothers had sworn to battle them to the death, if need be.

Rumy sat down on the side of his desk, one leg swinging free. “I take it the trip north didn’t help much for what you’re lookin’ for.”