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.
And last autumn, at the theater where Akvan’s Obelisk was being kept and when Aunt Eustacia was killed, he didn’t tell her then.
He’d even made self-deprecating remarks about himself in comparison to her, the Venator, the warrior. Now that she thought about it, she remembered bitterness in his voice when he spoke of her skill, and her assumption that he had none.
Anyone can stake a vampire, he’d told her once.
If they can get close enough, she’d replied flippantly, clearly implying that he hadn’t a prayer of doing so.
“You stood by and watched my aunt die last fall,” she said, anger bursting forth. “You watched it all happen, and you did nothing!”
His hands were tight on her upper arms, and this time he didn’t bother to hide his strength. “What could I have done? What could you have done? It was two of us—three, with Pesaro—there was nothing that could have stopped those events. You know it.”
She knew he was right, but the anger didn’t slide away. “That night—when Polidori died…Sebastian, if I’d known you were a Venator—”
His sharp bark of a laugh cut her off. “You wouldn’t have disparaged my skill with a sword? You would have expected more from me? Victoria, it was I who held back the Imperial while you were nearly mauled by that Guardian vampire. If you’d been less self-absorbed you would have realized you could never have matched against a Guardian and two Imperial vampires on your own, and wondered how a fop such as I could have matched swords with an Imperial.”