The Rest Falls Away

Chapter Twenty-Five The Marquess, the Venator, and the Innkeeper Go Missing

Victoria had just returned to St. Heath's Row after a dinner party at Grantworth House when the message arrived.

She'd been hard-pressed to explain to her mother why her new husband hadn't attended with her; and it was even more difficult to extricate herself from the after-dinner socializing… but she had pleaded exhaustion. Apparently the blue-black circles under her eyes were enough to convince her mother that she was unfit for a late night. And if Lady Melly believed the reason was due to an impending happy event, well, Victoria was too heartsick to fight with her on it.

Thus, she had just begun to unpin her hair when the messenger arrived to deliver a note.

She didn't recognize the handwriting, but the seal was gold and bore the imprint of a bold V surrounded by trellises and cups. It could be from only one person… she tore it open.

I am in possession of something of apparent value to you, although your actions in my coach led me to believe otherwise. He will be safe until you arrive. You have my word.

S.

His word?

She threw the note on her dresser and called for Verbena to help her change. A visit to the Silver Chalice required some preparation.

But when Victoria arrived at the Chalice, or what had been the Chalice, it became clear that no preparation could have readied her for the scene that faced her.

It was three o'clock in the morning, and where the bar should have been overflowing with customers coming and going on the steps, it was silent. The acrid smell of burned wood, spilled blood, and fear assailed her as she hurried down the steps.

The place was in shambles. Tables, cups, chairs, bottles… even bodies, the piano… everything was strewn all over the floor. Half of it was burned; the place stank of ash and oil.

Victoria walked into the room, hoping to find something… anything to tell her what had happened.

Max was supposed to be here, she remembered suddenly.

Had he been caught in this? Was he dead?

And Phillip? Sebastian had promised to keep him safe...

Cold settled over her, a deep, penetrating, final iciness.

Max. Phillip. Sebastian.

They had all been there.

Max opened his eyes.

The room was hot and shadowed, the only illumination from flames licking one long wall. At first he thought he was in hell… but then he realized he wasn't so lucky.

"Maximilian." He tried to block her voice… but he was too weary. His strength sapped away, he had little resistance. Especially to her.

"Look at me, Maximilian," she crooned, her words bumping over him like a gentle hand.

He closed his eyes.

"Why do you turn away? You know you cannot deny yourself."

He pulled himself up from his sprawled position on the floor. His hands were not restrained, but she would have no need to do that. He was powerless in many ways in her presence.

"It has been so long since you have come to me, Maximilian."

The way she said his name made him feel as though a thousand centipedes scuttled over his skin… yet… it lingered on the air, his name from her lips. A chain that bound them together.

"I did not come to you, Lilith." It took all he had to make those words easy, smooth. To say her name to her face.

Her laugh, low like barely a breath, curled around him. "You always did need a bit of persuasion. Come here, Maximilian. Come to me."

He stood, then forced his limbs to do his bidding and not hers… and leaned against the wall, settling one of his hands over his left nipple, touching his vis bulla. Thank God even she could not touch that.

A wave of strength flowed through him and he concentrated on it, pulled the force from the holy silver he wore.

And he turned, then, against the wall to look at her.

She lounged on a long white chaise. Her eyes—he could meet them for only a moment—were almond-shaped, beautifully lashed, deep-set… and blue ringed with red.

"Ah, you are more yourself now, aren't you, Maximilian? I much prefer you in your alpha state than that mass of weakness my servants dumped here last night."

"Last night?"

She nodded once, regally.

"Is Rockley dead?"

"Rockley? Oh, no… no, my dear, I have other uses for him."

Max closed his eyes. If the man had kept his mouth shut, and never told the vampire his name, he would be dead. And safe.

The connection to Victoria wouldn't have been made.

"Now, Max, my dear, it has been too long. You must come to me." The liquid summons in her voice pulled at him. His hands and feet began to tremble with the effort of keeping them motionless, under his control.

Sweat gathered at his frozen nape, dripped down beneath his shirt. The scars on his neck burned and throbbed, responding to her call. >

Still he resisted. He rolled along the wall, away from her.

He felt her move; his eyes were closed in concentration, but he felt her come toward him. He steeled himself, felt the wall under his hands and cheek, and tried to grip it. It was too smooth.

Tall as a man, she breathed on him from behind. Her presence cloaked him, smothering and stifling… and she was not yet touching him. One of her hands reached up—he felt the air move—and she touched his hair, smoothed it, stroked it, while she drew in her breath in a long, languorous caress… and exhaled.

She tipped his head to the side gently. He let her.

She stepped closer and now he felt her breasts and the curve of her mound pressing into his spine and his rear. He moved his hand between himself and the wall, touching the vis bulla, and breathed.

His neck was open to her; she was tall, tall enough to press her lips, one cold, one hot, to the skin there. He shuddered when she touched him. Closed his eyes. Waited.

She toyed with him. Laughed against his skin, breathed on its moisture, scraped him with one sharp incisor. Her heartbeat became one with his. She melted into him from behind. His shirt was wet everywhere; he could hear nothing but her pulse.

When she ran her long, sharp nails from his shoulder to the base of his back, he felt his shirt give under them. It fell away under her hands, and when she pressed up behind him again, touching his bare back, he wanted to let go. Stop fighting.

The smell of his blood from her scoring nails filled his nostrils… she closed her lips over the edge of his shoulder, where the cuts had begun, and where they were the deepest, and he felt her tongue slip through the wetness.

She sighed, and her lips curved with pleasure against him. "Maximilian… you taste like no one else."

He marshaled his strength. "I do not consider that a compliment."

Laughing in delight, she sucked hard at his shoulder. "Taste." She pulled his head back at an impossible angle, and covered his mouth with her blooded lips.

He tasted it, the heavy iron flavor, her cold, slick tongue. He took her kiss and wanted more. Damn it. He wanted more.

Her hands slipped around under his arms, over his belly. They curled up over the center of his chest, raising the hair that grew there. He arched back, lifting his chest, tipping his head back at the command of her hands. They slipped apart, to the sides and over his nipples, and she jerked, startled, and removed them. Laughing.

"That is another thing about you, Maximilian… you are the only one to give me pleasure and pain, rolled into one." And then she pulled away, stepped back; he felt the coolness of her absence on his bare skin.

He breathed deeply, resting his forehead against the wall. When she brushed his vis bulla, her pain had given him a needed jolt of strength. It had been like that every time before… she craved that combination of pleasure and the unexpected zaps of pain when she came near the holy silver cross. She liked the power it gave him, too, the added strength that allowed him to fight her when he touched it.

Because she knew she would always win.

Max became aware that she was speaking to someone, and he turned, focusing, in time to see Lilith's gleaming white smile. "I'm afraid you will have to wait a bit longer, dear Maximilian. My guest has arrived, and they are showing her in."

Max turned from the wall, the fog and rapture sliding away. Things had gone from worse to unimaginable. The guest could only be Victoria.