Daniel was his father and had probably done terrible things to him for who knew how long.

Adrien moaned and, after a long moment, opened his eyes. He rolled his head to look at her. He tried to sit up but flopped back down on the pillow. “Lily.”

She leaned over him. “We’re safe at Rumy’s. Just concentrate on healing yourself.”

His eyes were closed as he nodded. He turned away from her to rest on his right side, the sheet sliding down to his waist, exposing his back. She put her hand lightly on a healed portion of his shoulder and rubbed gently. Adrien sighed and seemed to relax, if just a little.

She loved how he looked but would feel much better when the redness and bruises went away for good.

But as she looked, she saw a thin, silver line that ran from the top of his back, four inches from the base of his neck, straight down his spine. The line continued, so she pushed the sheet away and saw that it ended almost at his tailbone.

She didn’t understand what she was seeing. Vampires always healed … unless … the wound occurred repeatedly. This was one thing Kiernan had told her.

Her fingers trembled above the scar. The edges of the room began to spin.

“No,” she whispered. She didn’t want the vision to come. She didn’t want to see anything that related to the long silver line. And so long as her fingers hovered, the vision remained just out of reach.

She didn’t want to see.

And yet in some inexplicable way, she felt obligated to know the truth, to understand what Daniel had done to his boys.

She summoned her courage, took a deep breath, and pressed her fingers against the scar. Once more, the edges of the room spun, going faster and faster until the vision opened and she saw Adrien as a child, chained facedown to a table, trembling.

Daniel held a thin, sharp blade in his hand. “This will make you a man. The more pain you can tolerate, the stronger you will be. My father taught me and now I’m teaching you.”

He set the blade four inches from the base of the boy’s neck and began to cut, a deep cut that flayed the skin, splitting it into two parts that folded back as he progressed down the spine.

Lily heard Adrien’s screams, watched his legs thumping, his arms thrashing though bound, his body held flat by one of Daniel’s hands as he continued to cut, down and down.

She couldn’t bear watching another second. She moved her hand away from Adrien and the vision ceased, dissolving into thin air. She swiped at her now wet face, then sat back in her chair and wept as quietly as she could. She wept for Adrien and for herself, for Josh and for all her neighbors who had perished, for Lucian and Marius bound by chains in prison, for so much pain and suffering.

When her tears slowed and finally stopped, when she’d blown her nose and no longer felt as though her heart were being ripped from her chest, she marveled at the vampire recovering in front of her.

He’d survived a horrendous childhood, enduring unimaginable pain and suffering, and had become exactly what Daniel had predicted, a real man, at least by her own definition. A vampire, yes, but one who understood loyalty and service, who cared more about others than for his own safety, who could have fallen into rage and bitterness after leaving his childhood behind but instead served his world with relentless dedication. And he was the man who had swung Jean-Luc in a circle, giving evidence that he knew how to love despite the deprivations of his youth.

Her heart swelled at the memory of being with Adrien at the Trevayne system, at all the memories of Adrien.

Another truth surfaced: In this short but very intense time with Adrien, she’d grown to respect him and to care deeply about him. She might even be falling in love with him.

But as she stared at his back, her thoughts took a hard turn as she recalled Adrien’s reaction to the man in The Ruby Cave, chained to the table, the one Eve had used her floggers and chants on. Eve had told her she should put Adrien on the table, that he could benefit from it. Was this why? Did Eve know what Adrien had endured at Daniel’s hands when he was just a boy, what it would mean for Adrien to be chained to a table?

Her heart rate picked up as new thoughts tripped through her mind, one sensual image after the other, of having Adrien chained and under her control the way Eve had suggested, what it could mean to him but uncertain what it would mean for her.

She stood up from the chair, her gaze still fixed on Adrien’s perfect back and the thin silver line that told the tale of his life. She owed Adrien a lot, even her life. She wanted to repay him, at least in a way that made sense to her. Yes, this she could do for him, especially since everything in her heart told her it was exactly what he needed.

Her chain vibrated heavily now and she left the room, closing the door behind her, grateful that Adrien’s double-chain gave her the extra distance. She withdrew her phone from the pocket of her jeans and called Eve and told her what she wanted to do.

To her surprise, Eve wasn’t flippant with her, nor did she make a sexy joke. Instead, she praised Lily for having the courage to do what needed to be done.

There would be plenty of time before the gala to explore a journey into the darker side of sexual experience. Eve made several suggestions on how to go about it.

After making the arrangements, Lily showered, slipped into a cotton nightgown, and stretched out beside Adrien. His body, tense until she pressed herself up close to him, relaxed into her.

“Lily?” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep.

“I’m here.”

“Good. You need your rest.”

A tear escaped her eye. Why did he have to say that, to be thinking about what she needed when he was still raw from his wounds and still purple from so many bruises?

The tenderness that she knew to be at the heart of Adrien’s soul confirmed that she was doing the right thing to take him to Eve’s apartment in Rome, to chain him down on the dominance table, and maybe lay some of his ghosts to rest.

The heat from his body covered her in a drowsy warmth, a very welcome sensation. She had so much to think about, but the night’s adventure had taken a toll. Before she knew it, she joined him in a dreamless abyss.

Adrien awoke to darkness, his back really warm, his chest cool.

Ah, Lily was curled up behind him.

He reached for her, found her arm then her hip. She snuggled tighter, murmuring something unintelligible against his shoulder.

In the dark, he took a deep breath. She knew the truth about him now, the terrible truth about his genetics and his parentage, something he could never undo. What would she think of him now? Probably the worst, and he wouldn’t blame her.

He released a heavy sigh, but despite his distress, he fell asleep again.

When he awoke later, he was alone, although he heard the shower running.

He recognized one of Rumy’s guest suites, this one very private, in the lowest level of the Como cave system, extremely secure. Rumy had given them shelter.

He could always rely on Rumy.

He stretched his hearing beyond the walls of the suite but could hear nothing. Of course, some of the guest suites were miles away from the club and it was probably still daytime, the hour when all good vampires slept.

He sat up wondering what the hell to do next. This whole thing had to be getting to Lily. That’s when he heard the softest muffled sounds through the noise of the shower. He extended his hearing and realized she was crying.

The last time she’d wept, he’d been making love to her and her grief had overwhelmed her. Was she thinking about her lost family? Probably. Or maybe just the hell his kind was still putting her through.

He flopped back down on the bed and clasped his hands behind his head. He hated to hear a woman cry, but he also knew that tears were a release. He wished he could help, make it better, make this whole damn infuriating, impossible situation just go away.