As Shadows Fade (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 5)

And beneath all of that, also pounding at him, was the need to find Victoria.

He shoved the woman at the nearest man, ordering him fiercely, “Hold her!”

And he pushed his way through the surging crowd, ramming people into one another and the walls to get by, to get it through their thick heads that he was there to help them.

As he reached the trio of vampires in the front, he saw the tall, dark figure of Brim appear from behind them.

“Where is Victoria?” Max shouted, barely looking at the undead he was striking. The poof and subsequent explosion told him his black stake had done its trick as he sought Brim’s eyes.

Brim staked another of the undead from behind as his mouth tightened in worry. “Thought she was with you. ”

Max’s world stopped, then released into the fury around him. “Take this,” he said, shoving the last vampire toward Brim, who easily dispatched the undead before Max had even passed him.

He calmed himself even as he ran off. She’d be all right. She had to be.

Twenty-five

The Temptation of Sebastian Vioget

The blood.

He breathed the iron scent, felt the driving need for it. A red haze filled the room, clouding his vision, his senses.

Victoria’s blood.

He swallowed, the unfamiliar fangs nipping his lips.

Oh God.

Could he even say that anymore, with a damned soul? Oh God?

Would He hear? Would He care?

No… Sebastian drew in a breath that felt like no breath he took when he lived. He wasn’t damned yet. Not yet.

It enraptured him… the smell … the sound, the faint whistle, of Lilith’s gentle sucking. Each low gulp pounded in his ears, drummed through his body.

He could fairly taste the thick, heavy iron, feel it running down his throat. His heart pounded, its rhythm matching that of his sire, of Lilith… but fighting to control Victoria’s. His hands closed around her slender ankles, holding her prisoner as she writhed and bucked and twisted.

The little noises she made under Lilith’s hands and mouth, the little gasps and heaving breaths, reminded him of other things, other writhing and bucking, and he felt the need pound through him even stronger.

The haze grew heavier. Darker. Burning.

Lilith pulled away from Victoria’s neck, leaving Sebastian with a full view of the hot crimson blood, shining in thick trickles down her flushed, damp skin. Her grimy shirt was torn away, by his own hands, and one white breast half bared from the struggle. Black hair plastered to her jaw and neck, a mass of curls on the pillow beneath her, and her lovely red lips parted, gasping and panting.

He swallowed again, felt the trembling of his fingers.

Lilith said something he barely heard, but he knew it was his turn. She wanted him to feed.

He wanted… Oh, he wanted.

He couldn’t.

But his mouth watered; his fingers shook. He felt the burn in his eyes grow hotter, stronger. His heart pounded, echoing through him to his fingers, his knees.

He had to. He must.

Then a sudden sharp movement from Victoria, her arm winging out from nowhere. Lilith froze, her eyes wide as she looked at him over her shoulder… and then, unbelievably, she jerked from some great force… and then… poof.