The Bleeding Dusk (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 3)

“How did you get here?”

Sebastian’s voice drew Victoria’s attention to him. He was all too appealing in the flattering candlelight, with a boyish curl falling on his forehead and that guilty expression on his face. But before she could speak, Beauregard interrupted. “I presume she found her way here the same way in which her paramour—Zander, Zavier, what was his name?—did. Surely he gave her the direction.” He smiled, now looking directly at her. His eyes were still a normal shade of blue, and his fangs were out of sight, but Victoria was properly wary. “Or perhaps you recalled your stay here last autumn, before all of that unpleasantness occurred.”

“Unpleasantness?” Victoria said, refusing to look at Sebastian. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. “I rather thought you welcomed the destruction of Nedas and the thwarting of his plan to activate Akvan’s Obelisk. After all, it put you in a much greater position of power.”

Beauregard bowed his head in acquiescence. “Indeed it did.”

“If this is a battle of wits, you shall find yourself overmatched. In fact, I rather think you might find yourself overmatched on all counts.” She allowed him to see the stake in the hand at her side.

“Well, then, if that is the case, let us get to business. I trust you’re aware that I’ve returned your possession, and thus you’ve come to return that which is mine.”

“I have your copper armband, if that’s what you mean,” she replied. “But you’ve yet to return that which you took from me.”

“Did he not make his way back? I do hope Gardriel and Hugh weren’t too rough with him.”

He? Then, with a cool rush of understanding, she realized that Beauregard didn’t have the splinter necklace she’d lost, but that he’d been referring to Zavier all along. Or what was left of him. What had happened to Zavier had been purposeful and malevolent violence meant to send her a message.

Her head pounded as anger surged anew, setting her fingers to trembling in her effort to keep from attacking now.

Victoria drew in a steady breath and glanced at Sebastian, who was watching them sharply. She had no illusions about which side he would take…and she was glad she had a gun.

“He must have been in no condition to tell you how to find us then,” Beauregard was saying. He’d stepped from behind the table and moved casually toward her, the piece of paper they’d been examining curling in his hand. “So you came upon us quite by accident.”

Victoria’s attention was caught, no doubt as he’d intended, by the piece of parchment he gently wafted against his leg. It reminded her of the journal Max had taken from the laboratory at Villa Palombara.

The journal that had been taken back to the Consilium.

Her attention flew to Sebastian, and their eyes met.

“Let me see that paper.”

The alacrity with which Beauregard proffered it to her confirmed her suspicions before she even glanced at it, but she did take a moment to examine the single page. Then she looked back at Sebastian. “A coward and a thief.”

He met her gaze boldly, and for that she had to give him credit. But that was all.

“It was a necessity, Victoria. A matter of life and death.”

“Damn you, and your excuses,” she said, the darkness of anger closing in on the edges of her vision. She’d actually begun to trust him, to believe in him. To let him close. “Damn you, and your grandfather too, Sebastian Vioget.” She turned to Beauregard. “And you nearly killed Zavier—merely to turn my attention away, so you could send your grandson to do your dirty work.”

Beauregard smiled at her. “By the devil, you’re quick, my dear. Quick to understand, quick to judge, quick to blame. And quite appetizing when you’re angry.”

She raised her stake, flying across the room at him, no longer willing to restrain herself.

“Victoria, no!” Sebastian leaped between them, and her stake slammed into his shoulder. It was much more difficult driving it into mortal flesh than a vampire’s heart; she felt the unpleasant give as it pierced skin and muscle. “Don’t do it,” he said, gasping in surprise, his fingers closing over her arm to propel her away. “He wants—”

“Get away,” she said. He grunted as she pulled out the stake. Blood colored its tip and seeped quickly through his shirt, an unfamiliar sight. There wasn’t supposed to be blood.

But she couldn’t let that stop her now. She pushed at Sebastian with all of her strength, sending him stumbling backward as he reached again for her.

“Victoria, don’t,” he said again, coming toward her, the bloodstain blossoming on his shirt. “He wants to fight you. He wants to come between us.”

She turned to look at him, empty and angry and determined. “Either get out of my sight or you’ll go with him. I’m through with your games and lies.”

She turned back to Beauregard, who was watching them with a half smile and a glint in his gaze. “Do you really want him gone?” he asked.

“What I want is you dead.”

“But you forget, I am already dead these last six hundred years.” He lifted his hand in a nonchalant gesture, his eyes turning pink. “Begone, Sebastian.”

“No.” He moved like a large cat. He carried no weapon, nothing but himself, and stood solidly between them.

Victoria looked at him, scanning his pale face, the determined look in his eyes, the dark patch spreading beneath his left collarbone, seeing that his breathing was faster than it should be. Still handsome as sin, still appealing, still able to tug at her because of all they’d shared. Thank God he wasn’t a vampire with the strength of the thrall behind him too. “You stole from us. You betrayed us, Sebastian. I don’t…want…to…see…you.”

Beauregard had moved away toward the wall behind his desk as Victoria and Sebastian faced each other. She heard a faint, low sound in the distance.

“You’ve chosen, Sebastian,” she told him. “You made your final choice when you did this—sneaking in while we worried over Zavier, while Max was—” She stopped herself. “It was your choice. Now get out of my way so I can finish this.”

The large door burst open and four massive vampires—three men and a woman—surged in. Victoria spun to face them, her heart knocking suddenly harder and faster. The stake was in her hand, but it would be a tough battle. She crouched, ready.