The Bleeding Dusk

She had a suspicion she knew from whom they’d come, and the thought made her stomach shudder.



To her relief, Max did not take the hallway where the vampires had led her, but turned in the opposite direction and set a surprisingly rapid pace down the hall. For all his injuries, he still moved with the grace of the hunter he was.



With an impatient gesture he motioned for Sebastian to close the door behind them, but didn’t wait while he locked it again.



Apparently Max did have the directional sense of a bird, for he led them unerringly down the passage and through a door that opened to a flight of ascending stairs. Just as she stepped onto the first one Victoria heard shouts of alarm behind them, and felt the sudden wave of increased chill over the back of her neck. The door closed after them, and she followed Max up the stairs, hearing Sebastian pounding along in her wake.



At the top Max turned left and hurried off down another passage. Victoria realized he was stumbling a bit at about the same time she felt her breath drawing in more sharply, and the increased dampness at her hip. The edges of her vision were shaky, and her knee nearly buckled once as they turned a quick corner, but if Max could move like that with two more serious bullet wounds, she, with dual vis bullae, would keep up with him.



At last they came around another corner and up a second flight of steps and into the hallway that looked familiar to her…the room just beyond the ballroom, where all the people had been gathered.



She stopped, and Sebastian nearly plowed into her. “We can’t go without the others.” She dug into her pocket, her fingers tangling in the leather thong necklace and receiving a shock from its smooth pendant before finding the wooden stake.



“Victoria, no,” he began, but Max had heard them and he spun around.



His normally swarthy face was tinged with gray. “They’re all dead. The vampires fed on them—didn’t you smell it? There’s no one here to save but us. For now.”



“Much as it pains me to say it, he’s right,” Sebastian said. “Most of the guests made it safely from the villa, but the ones who didn’t…they were dead long before we were even untied.”



Victoria wanted to argue. She wanted to snap at them and tell them they were wrong. The sudden wave of black fury was so surprising that her breath caught and she coughed on the malignant words she’d wanted to speak.



Max looked at her strangely; then he grabbed her arm and began to pull her after him. Not the least bit gently.



She remembered little of the next few moments, and then suddenly they were out of the villa, out into the crisp dawn air where the faint yellow in the sky brought texture and shape to the unkempt gardens.



Max whirled her around to face him, his hands on her shoulders as his eyes blazed down into hers as if trying to find something that was missing. As if he wanted to shake her. Victoria dragged in a breath of clean air, and the dull fog slid away taking with it that frightening anger. She blinked.



He released her abruptly, muttering something she couldn’t hear, and turned to Sebastian, who’d stood there watching. “Go back to Beauregard,” he told him shortly. And then something else, low and staccato.



“No,” Sebastian said quietly, and with unusual brevity. Then he turned away. He looked at Victoria, and she realized they’d all begun walking and were approaching the wall of the villa’s grounds. Beyond it was the street, and perhaps even Oliver, waiting with the carriage.



Or—Victoria’s thoughts flew away as she was caught up in Sebastian’s strong hands and pushed against the stone wall. He’d surprised her, and before she could shove him away, he was holding her shoulders there, pinned under his fingers as he leaned close. She drew in her breath, half wanting him to kiss her and half wanting to send him spinning away for his effrontery.



But before she could make her decision, he spoke. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but stay away from my grandfather.”



“He deserves to be staked,” she replied smartly, just before he bent to kiss her, catching her off guard again. When, moments later, he released her, Victoria opened her eyes to see both Zavier and Max standing there.



Sebastian was gone.



Max looked bored.



And Zavier looked as though she’d just turned into a demon herself.



Twelve



Lord Jellington Acquires a Rival



Victoria clawed her way out of the dream and came back to reality, panting as though she’d been running.



Her skin was slick and her fingers fisted so tightly she could barely pry them open. The images stayed with her, even as she tried to focus her gaze on the familiarity of her bedchamber. But all she could see were the vestiges of glowing red eyes, glittering black shards, an ebony face with twisted green horns and an evil smile. Max, Sebastian, Aunt Eustacia…even Phillip…all with drawn, elastic faces in horrific expressions, and claws, and streaming blood.She made herself sit up, shake off the terror of the nightmare, and tried to slow the rampant pounding of her heart. She reached for the bellpull to call for Verbena.



The bedclothes were rumpled and twisted, half sagging from the bed, and sunlight—so clean and pure in comparison to the horrific malice in her dream—blasted through the filmy drapes. By the color and angle of the sunbeams, Victoria knew it was well past noon.



She started to climb from the waist-high bed, but a twinge in her side reminded her that Verbena had put her to bed very early this morning after much clucking and salving and bandaging.



After passing through the vampire, the bullet had shaved the edge of her right hip, leaving a deep red track in her skin. Her left leg had had claw marks and bruises on it that would already have started to fade this morning.



Sitting on the edge of the bed, her toes barely brushing the floor, Victoria looked at herself in her dressing table mirror. She had dark circles under her eyes and one slight bruise on her right cheek. She didn’t look that bad.



But then there was Max.



Last night, after directing her toward the carriage where Zavier and Oliver waited, he’d attempted to send her off without him. “I’m not leaving you here,” she told him flatly, walking back in his direction. “You’ve lost too much blood and you need to have those wounds seen to.”



His mouth moved in annoyance or amusement as they faced each other, both bristling with obstinacy. “Don’t be a fool, Victoria. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost a great deal of blood, and I doubt it will be the last.”



“I am Illa Gardella and I—”



“Don’t attempt to order me about, Victoria, for the only result will be your own mortification. Now be off and have your own injury seen to.” He turned and faded into the shadows, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a bridle clinking, then the soft snort of a horse.



Left with no other choice, Victoria climbed into the carriage, where Zavier waited. He said little during the ride back to Aunt Eustacia’s villa (Victoria didn’t believe she could ever come to think of it as hers, despite the fact that it was). Zavier merely watched her, as if trying to assimilate who she really was.



It had been unfortunate that he’d seen her kissing Sebastian (or, rather, Sebastian kissing her, for she’d been more a recipient than a participant in that particular instance), but there was no help for it. Sebastian had no doubt planned it thus, at any rate, although whether his intent was to annoy Max by wasting time with such frivolity or to stake his claim, so to speak, for Zavier’s sake, Victoria couldn’t say.



But the thing that bothered her most about the situation was that Max had been right. Zavier was not only hurt and offended, but Victoria knew that he wasn’t the right man for her to become intimate with in any fashion. He’d developed into a good friend and was a brave and skilled Venator, but his kiss had meant nothing to her. Having been kissed by two men last night, she knew there was only one of them she’d want to kiss again.



Now, however, as she slipped from her bed, feet touching the flat, hooked rug that wasn’t quite as welcoming as the thick Aubusson one back at home, she realized with great disgust that she’d been diverted from getting information from Sebastian about Aunt Eustacia’s bracelet.



Not that kissing Sebastian was a hardship—it wasn’t in the least, for the man had very skillful lips and hands and…well, other means of distracting her. But there was a time and a place for that sort of activity, and Sebastian was a master at disregarding propriety.



There was a brief warning knock on the door to her chamber just before it opened and Verbena bustled in. “Yer mother and t’other ladies’re belowstairs,” she said. Behind her came a short parade of servants carrying a tub and buckets of water to fill it. “They’re wantin’ t’see you, my lady, and find out what happened last night to ye.”



“Blast,” Victoria said under her breath. She needed to get to the Consilium.



“And I’m wanting to know,” Verbena said as she closed the door behind the last of the servants, “how th’ corset worked. Just so’s I can tell that Oliver so he’ll quit badgering me about it. Just because he had the first thought of it don’t mean he’s got t’know everything. And yer gown, my lady…what happened to them roses?”



Victoria sank into the hot water and sighed a long breath as she listened to the maid’s comfortable prattle. Her wounds burned, but it was more than bearable in conjunction with the pleasure of the bath. At some point, she’d need to tell Verbena that her whole coiffure had fallen apart when the vampires disarmed her and removed her stake—an inconvenience that would have to be rectified in the future. The long sagging of her hair had been a distraction.



At last, when the water was turning tepid, she stepped out into a large towel brandished by Verbena. As she turned to take a seat at the dressing table, her maid reached toward the clutter on it.



“What is this, my lady?” Verbena asked, her fingers pausing over the leather thong and the obsidian flake.



“Don’t touch that,” Victoria said, snatching at the shiny black pendant, closing her fingers around it to keep it hidden from prying eyes. It was heavy and warm in her hands for something so small, and she felt a sizzle of awareness prickle her fingers just as it had at the villa. “Just finish my hair so I can get on with my business.”