Rises The Night (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 2)

He was looking at Max, who stood with his back to the door. Perhaps he was leani

ng against it; Victoria wasn’t certain. He still held a stake in his hand, dangling at his side.

“Akvan’s Obelisk is destroyed,” Max told him.

Beauregard lifted his chin, clearly surprised. “You succeeded, then. I didn’t wish for Nedas to have that immense power any more than Lilith does. And you are still alive? How convenient for me.”

“Not by any fault of his own,” Victoria replied. She moved, and the sword glinted in the moonlight.

This drew Beauregard’s attention, and he jerked his head in command. “You will no longer need that. And where is Nedas?”

Sebastian stepped out from behind the cluster of vampires, his gaze steady on Victoria as he walked toward her.

“No,” she said, stepping back toward Max, holding the sword in front of her.

“Nedas is dead,” Max replied to Beauregard.

“I’ll take it. Now, Victoria,” Sebastian commanded. She couldn’t see his face well, but the steel in his voice was very uncharacteristic of his charming personality.

Max moved behind her. He reached around and closed his fingers around her wrist, holding her back with his other arm around her waist, while Sebastian plucked the sword from her weak grasp.

“What are you doing?” Victoria struggled in his arms, kicking back at Max and forward at Sebastian, until Max released her suddenly and she tumbled to the ground.

“Easy, Victoria.” Sebastian stood next to his grandfather, looking down at her. “You were not wanted, nor expected, to be here.” He didn’t offer her his hand to assist her to her feet.

“We have your incompetence to thank for our current situation, Vioget,” Max sneered, still leaning against the door.

Sebastian raised one eyebrow. “I see that you have managed to keep her under control as well.”

“I had a few other tasks to accomplish.”

Victoria struggled to her feet, trying not to think about how many times she’d had to do that in the last day. And how much more difficult it was becoming. “Did she really send you?” she demanded of Max.

“Yes, Lilith sent me. Ostensibly as a gift to her son—a Venator pet, as she said. One that would bring the secrets of the Venators to the Tutela and the vampires, and support them when Akvan’s Obelisk was empowered. I was the perfect candidate, as I was once Tutela. A long time ago.”

“When—”

“Silence.” Beauregard stepped toward her, eyes suddenly gleaming like pink rubies, his fangs long and lethal. Until now she hadn’t known he was a Guardian vampire. “You are not in control here. Now, both of you, back inside.” He turned to Sebastian, looking in disgust at the sword. “Get that out of my sight.”

Victoria didn’t move, so Beauregard snapped an order at two of the vampires who flanked him. They grasped her by the elbows and easily hustled her toward the door, which Max had opened.

Three vampires spilled out, fangs extended, eyes red, ready for battle. There were more, crowded in the doorway behind them.

When they saw Beauregard, however, they froze.

Victoria looked back to see Beauregard smiling at the new arrivals. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. It gave her, one who’d seen altogether too many vampire expressions, an uneasy feeling in her middle.

“We have detained the ones who attacked you and killed Nedas this night,” he announced, stepping forward with a commanding air. “As your new leader, I shall impose retribution. Immediately.”

It was a familiar scene in some ways, when Sebastian brought Victoria out onto the opera stage where only a short time ago the greatest of evil sources had burned and sizzled. Ironic how it had metamorphosed from the scene of a bright, loud performance only days earlier, complete with the swell of music and the clear vibration of song, to a blackened shell, with half of the floor destroyed, and the seats filled not with patrons, but with immortal undead, waiting and watching for their own performance.

She had given up deciding whether she should be angry with Sebastian, or resigned to his actions and thus angry with herself. Hadn’t she always known he wasn’t to be trusted, even when she made love with him? And now here they were, with no longer any question about where he stood and what was important to him.

Squarely opposite her.

And Max…where did Max stand in all of this? He’d destroyed the obelisk, but had forced her to give the sword up to Beauregard—and Sebastian. Of course, they were outnumbered and would never have been able to fight their way through the group of vampires. But it still made her uneasy.

Beauregard was seated in the center of the stage in a large chair that Victoria recognized as having come from the props area. He looked regal and powerful, with his eyes glowing and upper fangs pressing gently into the flesh below his lower lip.