She leaped into the room and slammed the door shut, keeping her attention on the vampire, and her fingers wrapped around her stake. Drawing in a deep, cleansing breath as Kritanu had taught her, she froze in an offensive stance and looked at the vampire.
"Release her," she said, gesturing with her head toward the woman, who'd not moved one whit. Scared stiff, she was.
"I think not," the man purred. He stepped from around the settee and Victoria suddenly, fully understood what Aunt Eustacia meant when she spoke of the allure of the vampire. It crackled in the room, this awareness she felt, an inexorable drawing toward him. As if he held her strings in his hands and was tugging ever so gently.
Without conscious thought, she dropped her hand to her belly and touched the vis bulla through the froth of her skirts. The headiness lessened. Her fingers gripped the stake. He stepped closer.
His eyes, still normal, but gleaming with a fierceness she'd seen only once—in the gaze of a mad dog that had had to be shot—never left hers. A smile curled his mouth.
"So you are the one. A woman Venator. "
"You seem to have the advantage of me," she replied coolly. "But that's no matter, as you won't be around long enough to enj
oy it. "
A low laugh issued from his mouth, and she saw the gleam of fangs. His eyes narrowed, the pupils pinpointing and the irises burning pale pink, then delicate ruby red.
"I've never had the taste of a Venator before. I'm sure it will be most fulfilling. Quite delectable. "
Without warning he launched himself toward her, moving with such lightning speed that it seemed as if he'd flown on a breath. His hands closed over her shoulders, taking her by surprise. She dropped the stake, and he laughed when it fell onto his boots. His grip was painful, his sharp nails digging into the soft parts of her shoulders as she struggled against the agony and the fear.
Before you, there have been only three other female Venators in the last century of battle against Lilith. Two of them died hideous deaths shortly after they were inducted into the Legacy and received their vis bullae.
She was damned if she was going to give Max the satisfaction of being the third.
Victoria tipped her head back, then slammed her forehead into the face of the vampire, thanking Kritanu for making her practice this move so many times. She felt the squash of his hooked nose giving way beneath the onslaught, and his reaction to the pain allowed her to jerk from his grip. She lunged to the ground and closed her fingers around the smooth ash stick, but before she could rise, he recovered and sent her sprawling.
Frothy pink skirts wrapped around her legs as she rolled onto her back; then they slid back like skates on ice as she drew her knees to her chest and kicked out with both feet. She caught him in the chest as he rounded on her, and propelled him away into a small table. The table fell over, scattering its contents over the rug. The vampire landed on the floor and she followed him, rolling after him on the rough Persian rug, stake at the ready.
She was just about to plunge it into his chest when something wrapped around her neck from behind: a strong, slender arm, ending in a white glove. Skirts of blue—a color that did not match Victoria's dress—tangled around her feet.
As the arm pulled on her, Victoria slammed her head back, cracking into the woman's face. But the male vampire was reaching for her shoulders again, yanking her down toward his bared teeth.
She kicked out with her feet, blindly, not in the measured way Kritanu had taught her, and felt panic begin to clamp her chest. Two of them! She'd been fooled again!
She felt his hot breath on her neck, felt the tug of his calling, the promise that if she would just relax… just let go… there would be no pain, only pleasure. Ecstasy. Release.
His breath hypnotized her; his burning eyes scored into her, promising.
She vaguely felt a movement behind her, and then the jolt as he pushed someone away, growling in anger. The woman, she thought in the back of her mind. He wants me for himself.
The smooth wood slipped from her fingers. He breathed again, drawing in her strength. Her head swam.
She closed her eyes.
Chapter Four
The Marquess's Thirst Remains Unquenched
Maximilian brushed past the butler, who would have announced him if given the chance, and hurried down the wide, sweeping staircase at the Dunstead home. Two Guardian vampires on the loose and here he was, chasing down a novice Venator who was more concerned with filling her dance card and juggling beaux than wielding a stake. Only the slight chance that the vampires might find her first had convinced him that he must notify Miss Grantworth by tracking her down at a bloody dance.
A quick scan around the crushed ballroom told him she was not attempting that ridiculous waltz. The back of his neck remained neutral: no vampires in the vicinity. Frowning, Max pushed around a cluster of tittering debutantes who gawked at him from behind fans in every shade of pink. He flung them a glower meant to send them cowering, but more than one of them looked at him with promise in her eyes and a pout on her lips.
Blasted English twits. Nary a thought in their minds but what was in a man's purse or his pants. Or both. No wonder so many of them were targets of vampires. Easy marks.
Max pushed through the room. He had the urge to leave, to get back on the street and track down the Guardians, but he also had to report to Eustacia that he'd first done his best to locate Victoria. He'd make his way through the entire perimeter of the room, perhaps stick his head out onto the terrace, as it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that the virginal Miss Grantworth had found an excuse to walk in the moonlight… and then he'd leave.
He'd made his circuit and seen nothing of his quarry, and was just about to slip out onto the terrace when he felt the barest coolness on the back of his neck. Max stopped. The chill was faint, just barely there; but since there was no draft and his nape was thoroughly covered with a healthy mass of hair, there was no mistaking it. He looked around, scanning the room again, and then down the hallway that stretched away up five steps. There.