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Suddenly the hidden world of the vampire looked very different to her, full of beauty and subtlety, romance, and even children and families. She was looking at the opposite side of Lucian’s civilization. “I had no idea.”
“I guess you haven’t seen much beauty in our world over the past few days, have you?”
She shook her head as the gondola left the cavern behind and entered what appeared to be a long, dark tunnel. She heard a soft moan in the distance. Is that what I think it is?
These gondolas are meant to be very private.
But this tunnel carries sound.
Lucian chuckled softly. He squeezed her hand. I wish we were here under very different circumstances.
I’m trying hard not to think about it.
But the dark tunnel ended, bringing the gondola into an immense new cavern and another display of vampire artistry. Realizing that the ride wouldn’t get them to their end point for at least another twenty minutes, and needing to keep from thinking about how she wished Lucian would kiss her, Claire let her mind drift and her eyes take in the sights in front of her.
The entire ride was linked with dark tunnels, which created the ideal preparation for the next extraordinary display.
Just as the fourth cavern opened up, which involved a thematic use of obsidian and white crystals, Lucian nudged her. Look how the river turns at the exit point.
She sat up straighter and fixed her gaze at the far end of the cavern. Yes, it turns almost parallel to the rest of the ride; a ninety-degree turn.
Exactly. Now all we need to find is the serpent pillar.
Yeah, but have you given any thought to busting through the electrical field? And before you dispute what you’d be up against, remember that I saw what Tasers did to you in Daniel’s Dark Cave system. You were incapacitated.
I wasn’t an Ancestral then.
But she felt his doubts and maybe his remembered experience, the pain of having had that much electrical current disrupting his vampire circuitry.
She forgot about the black and white crystals, her gaze now fixed across the cavern despite the switchback path of the gondola or the occasionally extreme height of some of the sculptures.
Setting the rose aside when the gondola made the ninety-degree turn, she held her breath.
There, to the left, it’s a disguise, Lucian, can you see it? The most beautiful blue.
I don’t see it.
That has to be the hidden cavern.
At the same time, she saw the six-foot stone statue in the shape of serpent.
There’s the serpent. Her heart started pounding in her chest. I see it.
I’m going to throw us through the field and it’s going to hurt. But we don’t have to do this, Claire.
Like hell we don’t. I’m ready, Lucian. I can take a little pain. Just say the word.
Ten feet remained until they would enter the next tunnel.
Just tell me where the disguise seems thinnest.
Claire’s heart thumped in her chest, her gaze rising. Near the ceiling line, but it’s very jagged.
Give me the distance; it’s time to go.
Twenty feet straight up, then over eight feet, no more.
Ready, Claire?
Hell, yeah.
She wasn’t exactly prepared for how he simply lifted her up and launched her into the air, holding her only by her arm.
The electrical field burned and jolted her senses. When she landed, she felt like she’d fallen on pillows because her mind was floating, making sense of nothing.
Then she blacked out.
* * *
Lucian couldn’t move, and the space was very dark. Something sharp pressed into his face, his neck, and other parts of his body. Where the hell was he?
His mind faded in and out, the way his early recovery from blood-madness had felt, when only one thought out of three made any sense at all.
Now he remembered. Shit, that had hurt. Where was Claire?
Claire.
Nothing came back to him.
Claire.
Still nothing. He wished like hell he could see, but he’d been in this situation before, every damn time he’d been Tasered.
Light suddenly flooded the cavern. Oh, now he understood what had happened: He’d short-circuited the light show. Great. They’d probably have security on them soon.
Sure enough, a few seconds later a team of eight tough-looking vampires flew through the cavern, high in the air, searching. The electrical fields weren’t functioning yet, either, and the gondolas had stopped moving.
He sat up but as several glanced in his direction, he realized they couldn’t see him. He and Claire were behind the disguise.
Hey, you’re sitting on my hand.
Claire?
He turned slowly, his mind still like mush, but rose at the same time. She drew her hand back.
“You have a hard ass, you know.”
He looked down at her. She had welts across her face, a fine array of electrical burns.
He caught her chin in his hand. “You okay?”
“Do I look okay? Because by the strips of pain in rows over my face, I’d say I got fried.”
He peered closely. “You’re healing fast, though.”
She sat up. “That did not feel good.”
“But we made it through.”
“I take it if I hadn’t been siphoning your power, I’d be toast?”
“Burned to a crisp.”
She lifted her right fist. “Go, vampire power.”
He chuckled, then laughed. “Claire, you’re too much. Does anything ever get you down?”
She rose to her feet, sniffing. “Oh, this is bad. The electricity singed my faux fur and now it stinks.”
Still sitting on the ground, he looked up at her, marveling. Nothing about Claire was in the ordinary style. She’d been knocked unconscious and her face was burned, but she acted as though nothing much had just happened. He admired her more than he wanted to admit.
Glancing down at him, she lifted a brow. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you need me to help your sorry ass up?”
He rose, shaking his head but still chuckling.
Her gaze slid past him. “Those vamps in flight can’t see us, can they?”
He turned around, watching them fly over their now empty gondola. “Not even a little. They can’t hear us, either.”
“Good deal.”
He glanced around. “All right, let’s get going. Who knows what we’re going to find next. Although all I’m seeing is a dead end, a wall of rock all the way to the ceiling.” His gaze traveled at least fifty feet to the top of the cavern, then back down. Yet something seemed off. For one thing, he couldn’t bring himself to shift into altered flight and pass through it, as though something blocked him.
