He made her feel. He’d brought pleasure to a life that had once been so simple, so normal and easy and bland, and had become stark and dark and violent. With his irrepressible charm and unabashed flirtation, Sebastian had made her heart beat faster and her body reawaken from the grief-imposed stupor resulting from Phillip’s death. Even now, as they faced each other, her belly flipped deep inside, knowing there was more to come. And she was ready for it. Her heart rammed in her chest as she remembered the way his hands would glide over her bare skin….
“Believe me, I didn’t want to stay away, Victoria,” he said, his mouth hovering in front of hers, his lips twitching in a racy grin, and the clove scent on his breath a light brush over her skin. “I wished only to keep you safe.”
“Safe?” She reared her head away from him so she could look directly in his eyes, knowing that her own were narrowed in annoyance. “What did you mean to keep me safe from? The vampires I hunt every night? That is a poor excuse and another false note. Can you not even once be truthful?”
“From Beauregard.” His voice had chilled, and eyes that had been soft and coaxing a moment earlier had flattened. “You have no idea—”
“I can protect myself.”
“I am fully aware of your Venatorial qualities, for you see fit to remind me of them—as well as my own shortcomings—at every opportunity.”
“I am who I am,” she told him. “I told you this last autumn—I made the choice, and if it’s too much for you to bear, knowing that I’m stronger and faster than you, that I have no need for you to protect me, that I’m not like other women who will sit at home waiting to be taken care of by the men in this world, then begone with you, Sebastian. I need you no more than you need me.”
She realized suddenly that she was crying. My God, crying! Victoria, Illa Gardella, who’d not even squeaked in shock when her beloved aunt was killed in front of her, had tears rolling down her cheeks.
Now she was angry—at herself, at Sebastian, at the choices she’d made and the losses she’d endured—and she tore herself from his hold, turning away to focus her attention on something else…anything else. Anything.
The sparkling water of the fountain caught and then mesmerized her, soothing in its rhythm, beautiful in its clarity, comforting in its holiness.
And then…the realization came…a suspicion that must have been buried deeply suddenly came billowing out. She whirled toward him just in time to see Sebastian reaching to gather her back into his arms.
She went willingly, meeting his mouth with all of the angst and anger that had built inside her since she’d had those five dreams that called her to her duty as a Venator.
Their mouths slipped and devoured as though released from a great restraint. His hands slid around to pull her hips sharply against his; then one moved up her spine, pushing her closer as he moved his lips from her mouth along the edge of her jaw, murmuring her name against her skin.
Victoria felt the dampness of his wet shirt seep into her hands, the warmth of the texture of fine linen molding to his chest under her palms, and then the direct heat of flesh beneath her fingertips as she slipped them under the hem of his shirt.
Sebastian caught his breath and tried to shift smoothly away, as he’d done every time in the past, but she was too fast for him. She’d found what she sought.
He froze and stepped back. Looking down at her, his face arrested and still, he said nothing.
Victoria’s hands fell to her sides. “So, will you tell me why you wear a vis bulla in your navel? Or will it be more lies and prevarication?”
To his credit, he hesitated for only an instant. “I’m born to wear one just as you are, Victoria.”
Her throat crackled as she swallowed. “You think I’d believe that you—a man who refuses to kill vampires—are a Venator?”
“If you don’t believe me, ask Pesaro. He is well aware of it, as is Wayren.”
It was true then. Max didn’t lie, and Sebastian would know she’d ask him.
Victoria sank down into the chair on which his coat hung. She had so many questions, such a swarm of emotions, that she didn’t know where to begin.
He must have understood, for he stood over her, abashed and sober, so uncharacteristic of the brash Sebastian she knew that Victoria nearly softened. He was like a young boy who’d been discovered swiping biscuits from the kitchen, ashamed and hesitant.
She almost smiled, but her growing disappointment and anger held it back. There were so many thoughts barreling through her mind, so many things that suddenly made sense. But she seized on one. “That was why you never undressed when I…when we—”
“I didn’t want you to know,” he said simply. The fingers of his left hand closed and opened, closed and opened as he looked down at her, still unsure, still caught.
Why? Why would he hide such a thing from her? Then she thought maybe she knew. “Beauregard. He doesn’t know either.”
But Sebastian shook his head, still sober. “He does know, and, as you might imagine, he appreciates the irony of it—the grandson of one of the most powerful undead in Italy is a vampire hunter.”
“You don’t hunt vampires because of him, even though you’re a born Venator?”
“It’s not that simple.” Then, as if shaking off the discomfort of the moment, he bent toward her, resting one hand on each of the chair arms to bring his face closer to hers, a provocative grin lifting his lips. The charmer had returned. “But you need not fear, Victoria, that we’re too closely related by blood to carry on with our…previous activities. The Gardella name hasn’t been part of my mother’s family for centuries, if not longer.” He shifted to one hand, lifting the other to brush it over her cheek. “You and I are only distantly related. And for that I am immensely thankful.”
Victoria jerked her face away, anger spiking through her again. He acted as if that were the most important issue at hand. “If you find it necessary to hide your calling, why do you bother to wear a vis bulla?” That was perhaps what incensed her the most—that he wore it, but didn’t use it. It was blasphemy.
And it also explained, perhaps, the contempt in which Max seemed to hold Sebastian.
Max had handed his vis to her when he walked away from the Venators, and Victoria herself had removed hers when she took a year to grieve for Phillip, knowing that she didn’t trust herself to wear it. She’d almost killed a man—a mortal—because she’d been overcome with grief and anger about Phillip, and the vis was a convenient weapon. It had been much too easy to let her fury get away from her and take over her actions. But once she regained control of herself, she’d worn it again, just as Max had done.
“I move among vampires, and among them it’s known that I’m of Gardella blood, and also that I’ve been Chosen. Beauregard, as I said, appreciates the irony, and the others respect me. I’ve taken great pains to keep it a secret from everyone else.”
“That was why you were so comfortable being around the undead when you owned the Silver Chalice. It was a way for you to protect your grandfather’s friends.”
He must have read the abhorrence in her face, the confusion in her eyes, for he took her reluctant hands and tugged her out of the chair with ease.
And this was why, she realized now, he’d always seemed unusually strong. Even from the beginning.
Anger shot through her, sparking her emotions so that her cheeks burned hot. He’d taken care not to appear too strong or too capable as they’d faced vampires last year when Dr. Polidori was killed by the undead after writing a novel that told too many of the vampires’ secrets. He’d done just enough to let her think she’d saved them both, that she’d been the one to protect them all. She’d almost died, and so had he. And he’d never told her.