Born in Chains (Men in Chains) Read Free Page A

down.
    Only then, with the touch of her hands easing him, did he realize he was in a full state of arousal.
    What the hell was this human doing to him?
    *   *   *
    Lily’s heart pounded so hard that she’d grown deaf from the sound of the rhythmic rush through her ears. Her fingers felt the split of skin beneath her hands and even wetness from Adrien’s open wounds, but it just didn’t matter. All that mattered was quieting the vampire so that her ears would stop feeling like knives were slicing them up.
    He thrashed in his chains, hurting himself even more. His wrists and ankles now bled in long red rivulets. His eyes had a red hue and he’d bared his fangs. She could feel his hatred of her as much from the chain around her neck as the power emanating from his body.
    He looked like a madman, his body gyrating, his muscles from stem to stern flexing and rippling as he tried to pull away from the wall to get to her.
    And yet he was aroused, which told her the other part of the story, that he had a powerful drive toward her he didn’t want to have. This had all the makings of a nightmare.
    She ignored that his erection pressed against her stomach. He didn’t even seem to notice his sexual state. Instead, his eyes bored into hers, and as she kept her hands flat against his chest, he finally grew still, though his nostrils moved like bellows with each breath.
    The other vampires in the cavern grew quiet as well, as though sensing Adrien’s growing calm. The three men were half-brothers, though she knew little else about them except that they served as a type of policing force for their kind.
    As she stared up at him, chills raced over her shoulders and down her arms. Her chest tightened as a strange sensation gripped her deep in her stomach, something that emanated from the chain around her neck. Kiernan had told her it would recognize Adrien since the specialist—something called an Ancestral in the vampire world—had used Adrien’s blood to create the chain.
    She opened her mouth to tell him about her current mission and what she needed him to do, but all she could seem to focus on was the shade of his eyes, an exquisite shade somewhere between blue and green, almost a teal but quieter, softened with faint brown flecks.
    She realized that she could see really well in the dark, another result of the blood-chain. Essentially, once connected, she’d be siphoning more and more power from the chain and from Adrien himself after she’d bound him with the matching chain. In the meantime, she could already feel the chain at work on her. The vision alone had told her that much.
    She looked at his lips, full and sensual. He strained toward her, leaning into her. “You’re my enemy,” he hissed.
    “And yet you desire me.”
    “I want you on your back, human, then I’ll make you feel just how weak you are compared with my kind.”
    “You speak of my weakness, but I’m not the one hanging from massive chains in a prison. You are. How did you get here, vampire? What brought you to this cavern?”
    “Treachery,” he muttered.
    “Of course. Your kind always has an excuse. But at least we seem to understand each other, I hate your kind and you despise mine. We ought to at least be on an equal footing when I take charge of you.”
    “What does that mean?”
    She backed away slowly, and as her hands left his chest his gaze fell to the chain at her neck. His eyes narrowed.
    “I’ll be taking you out of here.”
    “You’ve got a blood-chain.”
    “I do.”
    “And you’ve got the matching one?”
    She nodded. “I was hired by a private individual to take you into my custody and make use of your powers.”
    He scowled. “Daniel would never allow that unless he’d sanctioned the release.”
    “Who exactly is Daniel?”
    Adrien snorted. “Daniel Briggs, the vampire in charge of everything right now, including this lovely prison.”
    “I report to Harris Kiernan, no one else.”
    The vampire hissed. “He and