As Shadows Fade (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 5)

Max found it infuriating that he couldn’t shake the dreams. Nearly every morning, the remnants lingered throughout his first waking hours, leaving his stomach tight and hands shaky, and the images swimming in his memory.

One would think that sleeping only four or five hours each night after a grueling day of riding, and then bedding down in small, rented rooms with Vioget and Victoria-one too close, and the other too damn far away-that he would be too exhausted to dream.

But, alas, no.

He staggered awake from the nightmare, his hand still gripping the sword to slice off Eustacia’s head-and the image, not of hers, but of Victoria’s face, turned toward him, awaiting the fatal blow.

Max rolled off the thin bed and pulled slowly to his feet, heart still pounding, fingers still shaking. When he turned groggily and slammed his temple against a low beam in the dingy little room, he didn’t bother to hold back a bellowed curse. At least the blow helped to knock the nocturnal wisps from his mind.

Victoria looked at him curiously, but had better sense than to say anything. They’d fallen into a bit of a routine in the morning, the three of them. Max and Sebastian dressed quickly, then left to saddle the horses and find something to break their fast while Victoria prepared to leave.

Of necessity, for both riding astride and sharing a room with two men, Victoria had dressed in men’s clothing since crossing the Channel.

And she’d cut her hair.

Rather, Max had cut her hair.

They’d argued about it on the first morning, in Normandy.

“You’ll need to hide your hair better if you think to pass as a man,” Max had told her. Breeches and a shirt and coat were all good, but they’d been fashioned for the sharp angles of a man’s body, not the curves of a woman’s.

“Cut it off, then,” Victoria told him, lifting the rope of a braid and letting it flop against her shoulder. “You’ve already told me I should. ”

“But no, you needn’t go to such an extreme. Tuck it inside your hat or coat,” said Vioget from across the room. “It would be a shame to cut such lovely curls. Why, when they’re unbound, they reach nearly to your-”

“Waist. How crude to mention it,” Max cut him off. Their eyes locked and antipathy flared.

“I’ll do it myself,” Victoria snapped, yanking the braid taut with one hand, and reaching to her waist for the knife. The blade glinted suddenly in the early dawn. “Bloody damn fools. ”

“No, wait,” Max said, grasping her wrist. He hesitated… but in the end, it had to be done. “Let me. You’ll cut yourself. ”

A bloody weak excuse, but she relaxed her arm and allowed him to remove the knife from her fingers. His hand settled on the top of her warm head. Before he could think twice, reconsider, he sliced the long, thick plait right at the base of her neck.

The braid fell away, sagging in his hand, and he watched dark curls spring up softly around the tender skin of her neck and shoulders. She turned, tipping and tilting her head as though loosened from some great burden and smiled at him. “It feels so light. ”

“A bit safer, too,” he said, unable to keep from staring at Victoria with the mass of soft, rumpled tresses that fell into her eyes and face and made her look as though she’d just risen from bed.

“And very, very lovely,” interjected Vioget. “Not boyish at all. ”

“Then what was the point?” laughed Victoria.

None too gently, Max smoothed what was left of her hair back into a low tail. “This,” he said, fastening around it the leather cord he would have used for his own hair. “Wear a hat, and you’ll look like nothing more than a young man. ”

“A very pretty one at that,” agreed Vioget. Who always seemed to need the last word.

Now, after more than a week of rapid travel, Prague loomed ahead. The orange-red roofs of close-set buildings burned bright in the lowering August sun behind him, and the wicked-looking black spire of the unfinished St. Vitus’s Cathedral jutted above the sea of terra-cotta roofs. Beyond, across the sparkling Vltava, Max could barely see the dual towers of T?n Church.

“I presume you know where to find Katerina,” he said, turning to Vioget.

“Most assuredly. ”

Max nodded and gathered up the reins to his horse. “I will leave that to both of you, then. You’ll find me at T?n Church on the evening of the day after tomorrow. ” He’d already begun his fast this morning, and would be on his knees in the cathedral before the sun completely set. That would suffice as his first day of fasting, according to Wayren.

Vioget looked as though he meant to say something, but for once held his tongue. Max glanced at Victoria but couldn’t allow his attention to linger. “Be safe,” was all he said, and urged his mount forward.

Whatever she replied was lost in the scattering of rock and rubble beneath his horse’s hooves as they leapt forward.

Max didn’t look back.