The Bleeding Dusk (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 3)

“I’ve done nothing to threaten you or to harm anyone,” Beauregard continued.

“You’ve been undead for four hundred years; I’m fairly certain you’ve mauled at least one mortal during that time. And once you’ve fed from one mortal, your sentence of eternal damnation is assured. I thought I might help you more quickly on your way there.”

“Er…almost six hundred years, my dear Victoria. Six hundred. Yet, a pittance when one looks at the age of the elegant Lilith, yes?” He shifted, his eyes beginning to glow ruby, narrowing with annoyance. “Put the stake away. After all, you did send the message, and it’s not as if I’ve tried to bite you.”

“I expect it will be only a matter of time until you do,” Victoria replied.

“As you wish.” Beauregard grinned, and now his fangs flashed. They were no longer than a man’s first knuckle, but sharp as a razor. So sharp that the feel of them sinking into one’s flesh would hardly be noticeable, more pleasure than pain. His lower fangs were much shorter, but just as lethal, and hidden by his lower lip.

During their banter she’d foolishly allowed herself to relax enough that her gaze drifted too directly to his, too tightly to his ruby irises. She was snared.

Guardian vampires, the ones with ruby eyes who also made up Lilith’s personal guard, had especially strong enthralling powers. As Beauregard’s control crept over her, Victoria felt her limbs begin to soften and her head to swim. The blood in her veins surged, swelling the vessels so that hot pressure pounded through her body.

His breath began to match hers, then fought to control their merging breathing. Victoria was sluggish, but she still held the stake, and the candle in her other hand. She had enough presence of mind to realize how incredibly strong his pull was, and how difficult it would be to fight it off.

Dimly she forced herself to blink, trying to break the connection. Drawing her eyelids down was like wading upstream neck-deep in a river: slow, deathly slow. She felt movement around her, then the brush of his hand against her neck, warm and strong…. She tried to blink again, tried to recover her own breathing and slowly force herself out of the pulsing red tunnel into which she’d begun to fall, clawing back to her reality by focusing on the feel of the stake in her hand and the force of the vis bullae at her belly.

Suddenly the thrall was broken. She snapped free and pulled in a breath all her own, then raised the stake, plunging it down toward his chest—a chest that had moved closer to her in those few moments of confusion. Everything in her mind was clear and crisp again—the night, the darkness, the smell of the city, the buildings looming over them. As the stake plunged, he threw up his arm to stop her blow, stepping back.

Their forearms collided with a force that would have broken bones had they not been Venator and vampire, and she drew in her breath in annoyance, twisting away. “I knew you were not to be trusted,” she snapped, whirling back toward him, stake at the ready. “Despite your grandson’s arguments to the contrary.” She dropped her candle and leaped.

He blocked her again, and the force of her blow sent them into each other, breast-to-breast, in a parody of a lovers’ embrace before she ducked down, seeking to surge up behind him.

He feinted away, but she launched at him. Beauregard caught her by the waist and shoved her so hard she stumbled backward, catching herself against a plaster wall. Her candle flame, still burning on the ground, flickered wildly as she looked over at him, recognizing that they were at an impasse.

“Strong, brave, stubborn…and beautiful. Once again, I can understand my grandson’s attraction for you.” His lips, thinner than Sebastian’s, but of the same shape, curved in a familiar smile. The movement couldn’t help but remind her of the many times she’d kissed lips rather like them. Beauregard’s eyes gleamed behind his mask, sweeping a pink gaze over her, trying again to capture her. “’Tis a shame he saw you first, Venator. But if he does not treat his ladylove with care and attention, perhaps you will tire of waiting for him and cast your affections elsewhere. Toward power. And immortality.”

“I’m as likely to be his ladylove as he is to be a Venator himself,” Victoria replied with a derisive snort, stepping back, but ready to propel herself forward. “I trust him no farther than I do you; perhaps even less. At least I know where you stand.”

“I see.” The way he looked at her, as though he were contemplating some great question, was so different from his earlier gaze when he’d tried to enthrall her that Victoria almost looked him straight in the eye. But she remembered how easily she’d fallen moments before and resisted. “Ah, well, at the least, as you said, you know where I stand. Now, do not strike at me again,” he added when she gathered herself up to do just that. “Now that you’ve proven just as enticing and capable as I’d hoped, let us get to business.”

Wary, but no longer breathing hard, Victoria didn’t relax her stance. “Business? Was that your vampire that I staked earlier? A lure sent to pull me from the crowd? As you did last night?”

She could almost see his eyebrows rising behind the hooded mask of the domino. “I’m afraid you must be mistaken. I was otherwise engaged last evening. It was a tedious thing, but one must feed at least occasionally. Although I will admit to using that young man you slayed as one of several…what did you call them? Lures? To help me locate you in the crowd. So that I could answer your call, so to speak.”

“Apparently he was expendable.”

Beauregard shrugged. “The young ones are so bloody sure of themselves they think they are invincible once they have been turned. They do not realize that a Venator can just as easily end their immortality as they believe they can take from other mortals. It was a lesson for some of his other companions. It’s fortunate for me that most of those young, weak ones have allied themselves with Regalado and his Tutela members.”

“And so the battle rages on between the two vampire factions.” Victoria swept up the candle, then straightened from her offensive stance.

“Battle? I’d hardly call it that. Regalado and his followers are no match for me, even with their new ally. Indeed, I have my own plan for dealing with them.”

Victoria pretended to yawn. “Vampire politics: not something I’m terribly interested in—I’d just as soon stake all of you, regardless of who allies with whom. Instead, let’s talk about why you’ve enticed me to this dark alley. I can only assume the purpose is to exact some kind of payment for telling me what I want to know.”