The moment was shattered by Marcus bursting through the penthouse door.
"They've found us," Marcus panted, and Adrian noticed for the first time that the well-dressed man had blood on his collar. "Viktor's forces. At least thirty vampires surrounding the building. They're demanding we hand over the human."
Kieran was on his feet instantly, his entire demeanor shifting from vulnerable to lethal. "How did they find us so quickly?"
"Tracker on the boy. Must have been placed when they cornered him."
Adrian felt his stomach drop. "On me? Where—"
Kieran moved with inhuman speed, his hands running over Adrian's clothes, his jacket, his—Adrian yelped when Kieran's hand slid into his jeans pocket, pulling out his phone.
"There." Kieran crushed the device in his hand like it was made of paper. A tiny chip fell out, blinking red. "GPS tracker embedded in the SIM card. Clever."
"That was my phone!" Adrian protested.
"I'll buy you ten phones. Twenty. A thousand." Kieran was already moving toward a hidden panel in the wall, pulling out weapons that made Adrian's eyes widen. Swords. Actual swords. And guns that looked decidedly not-standard-issue. "Right now, we need to get you out of here."
"I can fight," Adrian said, standing up. Both men turned to look at him like he'd grown a second head. "What? I took self-defense classes!"
"Against humans," Kieran said, his voice gentle but firm. "Not against creatures that can move faster than you can blink and have a hundred years of killing experience."
As if to punctuate his point, the windows exploded inward in a shower of glass.