When Twilight Burns

Twenty-Two: Wherein a Taut String Snaps at Last

When Victoria broke through the surface, she realized the gentle current had carried her away from the bridge. Her clothing was heavy and clinging, and though the water’s temperature wasn’t a shock, it was muddy and smelled unpleasant.

She wasn’t a strong swimmer, but the summers she’d spent wading and splashing in the small lake at Prewitt Shore came back to her, and she was able to keep afloat and paddle awkwardly toward the edge.

She’d hardly gone far downstream, however, when her foot struck the mucky bottom of the canal near its bank. One of her slippers was gone, and the other one sank into the sludge. Her stake had disappeared when she fell, but she half swam, half slogged her way to the shore, knowing that she had others hidden. When she clambered to the top of the sloping bank, her split-skirted attire was plastered to her body, making movement awkward and slow.

By the time she got back on land, and rushed as quickly as her sodden clothing and bare foot would allow, the king’s cortege had reached the bridge. Crowds of people surged toward the carriage, and she could hear frantic shouts from the center of the procession.

“Keep close! Keep close, by God!”

She recognized the king’s voice ordering his guards. He was known to be leery of large crowds, especially ones that verged on moblike behavior, for he didn’t want a repeat of the kinds of horror toward royalty that occurred during the French Revolution. She couldn’t blame him in this case, for the entire environment of close, looming buildings shadowing a narrow bridge, and the thronging crowds, would have made anyone nervous- especially someone like herself, who knew there were more than mortals to be leery of.

Victoria hurried toward the crowd, stones and sharp-edged bricks cutting into her foot. She saw that the king’s carriage was broaching the bridge, ready to cross. The mob was pushed away and the coach started over the span. Even from her vantage point, Victoria could hear the creaks and groans of the wooden trestles as the royal vehicle rumbled across.

But she couldn’t see any gleam of red eyes, either above or below the bridge. The back of her neck was no longer chilled, and despite the fact that she was soaking, nor was the rest of her body. It was a warm night, and the sludgy, rank mud had already begun to dry on her skin.

About the time the carriage reached the other side of the bridge, Victoria felt a presence behind her, and heard the long, deep breaths of someone who’d been working hard. She turned to see a dripping Max standing there, also watching the coach traverse the canal.

“Safe,” he murmured.

“I can swim,” she said tartly. “Even in a gown. I didn’t need your help.”

“I was speaking of the king, Victoria. He’s safe. We can go home now.”

Pressing her lips together in annoyance, she looked at the bridge. Now that the king had crossed, the crowd was beginning to disperse. The threat did appear to be over, for the remainder of the route to Carleton House was through safer, more well-lit areas. And it wasn’t more than a short ride.

Then she recognized a familiar silhouette as he hurried toward her. He was not wet.

“All right, then, Victoria?” asked Sebastian as he approached. “They’re gone. The ones we didn’t get have run off.” He looked at Max. “Get a bit wet, Pesaro?”

“Felt good,” Max replied. Then, with a curt nod, he walked away.

Victoria turned to Sebastian, fully conscious of the smell emanating from her person and the press of stones against her bare foot. “I have to return the horse Barth borrowed for me.”

He looked down at her. “Will you bite my head off if I suggest that you go home with Barth in the carriage so you can divest yourself of those wet clothes? The horses are Brodebaugh’s; Kritanu and I will take them back. Much as I’d like to be there to assist you with your toilette…” His head tipped to the side, blocking out the moon behind him. It had waxed into a new quarter in the last week, and it shone bright and bold, casting a silver gilt over his curls. “… I think I shall pass on the opportunity this evening.”

“I do smell rather rank,” Victoria agreed. “I daresay the canal water isn’t much cleaner than that of the sewers.”

“I daresay you are right.” They both chuckled, and Sebastian moved toward her for a kiss. Then he thought better of it and straightened. A wry smile ticked at the corner of his mouth. “Good night, then, Victoria,” he said, something like regret tingeing his voice.

She felt him watching her as she walked away.

The dried sludge from the canal made Victoria’s skin itch, and had saturated her hair, which had fallen in smelly, dripping strands about her shoulders. The special frock with the split skirt would have to be burned, and her remaining slipper was so stained that it no longer showed a hint of pink.

By the time Verbena had finished bathing her mistress and washing the stench from her thick mass of hair, it was past midnight. She toweled the hip-length curls as dry as possible, then coiled them into a loose, sagging knot at the back of her neck so that it would be able to dry without tangling too much. Victoria dressed, not in a night rail, but in the loose trousers and tunic she wore when training, along with soft slipperlike shoes. She had a suspicion that Sebastian might come to the house with Kritanu after they brought the horses back, and she thought it might be best if she weren’t in her bedchamber if and when they did.

After dismissing her yawning maid for the night, Victoria went down to return the kadhara knife to the cabinet in the kalari training room. She was surprised to find it lit by a lamp that cast a golden glow over the area, and thought she might find Wayren within. But it was Max.

He was standing at one of the cupboards, apparently also returning a weapon to its rightful place. At first he didn’t hear her enter, and she noticed that he was garbed in clean clothes similar to her own-trousers and a tunic in undyed linen, bare of foot, his dark hair loose and making damp marks on the back of his shirt.

Victoria felt short of breath, and realized that her stomach was coiling and loosening with nauseating speed. She stepped into the room, letting the door close silently behind her.

Max turned. She saw his attention flicker past her. “Where is Vioget? And Wayren?”

“So you cannot deign to speak to me if no one else is present?” Victoria countered, stepping into the room. For some reason, she felt as though she was in control… despite the fact that his face still bore that flat, empty expression.

But the rest of him… Her mouth went dry and, suddenly, her heart was thumping so hard she was certain it was audible. The sleeves of his hip-length tunic were rolled halfway up his arms, showing an expanse of swarthy skin and muscle that would never be revealed in polite dress. And the loose neck of the shirt made a vee below the hollow of his throat, exposing the same dark hair that grew on his legs and scattered over the tops of his long, elegant feet. He was still wearing the leather thong and silver cross she’d noticed around his ankle before, but no other adornment. Except, perhaps, a vis bulla-her vis bulla-beneath the shirt. Her lungs tightened.

“I was just leaving.” He started toward the door, and she remained in place. He’d have to brush past her to go.

“I want to talk to you.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” Anger darkened his eyes and for a moment she was almost afraid of his expression. It was so cold… she’d never seen such blatant loathing.

“That’s fine, for you need say nothing. I want-”

He exploded then. “I don’t give a bloody damn what you want, Victoria. I want nothing to do with you. Stay away from me until I leave. Which won’t be soon enough.” Max stalked toward the door, passing her in a swish that stirred the air like a miniature cyclone.

But Victoria was angry now as well. She lashed out and grabbed a muscled arm, yanking him back before he could touch the door handle.

He whipped from her grip, and now they were face-to-face. His eyes blazed and his mouth compressed with fury. “Leave it, Victoria. You’ve done enough.”

She closed her fingers around his wrist. She was strong enough to hold him, and he knew it. “Max, let me explain-”

“There is no explanation for what you did.” He was facing her now, and he grabbed her shoulders so hard she knew his fingertips would leave little black bruises above her collarbones. “You had no right to imprison me. No bloody right.” He was nearly shaking her, and she raised her arms between them to break his hold, shoving his hands away.

“I was afraid for you-” She grabbed at him once more as he turned, and this time when he whirled, she saw that he was no longer holding back. His face was black with fury, and his teeth were bared in a nasty smile.

“Afraid. For me.” He slashed down and broke her hold on his wrist, sending a numbing shock along her arm. “Poor helpless Max. You had to lock me in a goddamn room while you and Vioget and Kritanu went out to fight vampires? Damn you, Victoria. I’ll never forgive you for that.”

She shoved at him, hard enough to send him stumbling backward. “Listen to me, you bloody lout.”

He caught himself and lunged back up at her. “You want to fight, do you?”

“You know I can best you, Max. Then you’ll have to listen to me, instead of running away from it-as you always do.”

“Try it.” His smile returned, hard and unfriendly. His eyes glinted with challenge.

She kicked out suddenly, and he blocked her thrust with an angle of his powerful thigh, then responded with a shove that knocked her back two steps. Furious that he’d taken her by surprise, she twisted around and grabbed his arm, slipping it over her as she neatly flipped him to the thick mat on the ground. He yanked her leg, pulling her off balance so that she was forced into a somersault that loosened her knot of hair.

Then he was up, breathing easily, as though he’d just stood from a chair, dark hair loose, brushing his shoulders and falling in his eyes. He crouched, ready for her, and she matched his stance as they circled in the room. It wouldn’t be a battle of pure strength, but one of timing and the unexpected. In that, they were evenly matched.

“I didn’t want anything to happen to you, you blasted fool,” she said, lunging.

He sidestepped and kicked around from behind to trip her. She caught herself and staggered backward, pulling him with her. Max tumbled and rolled neatly to his feet, turning once again to face her. “You bloody castrated me, Victoria. You did me no favors.”

“Lilith wants you.”

“And she wants you, damn you. Even more than she wants me.”

“No-”

“But I didn’t drug you. And lock you up. For two days.” He blocked her blow with his arm, using the momentum to twist her around.

Victoria spun back to face him. “No, you simply paid Sebastian to kidnap me last fall.”

The fact that Max had asked Sebastian to abduct Victoria to keep her from questioning his seeming loyalty to the Tutela, and thus ruining his plans to get close to Nedas and his demonic obelisk, had continued to be a bone of contention between them. That had also been the first time she and Sebastian became lovers, in a carriage, of course-a fact about which Max never hesitated to remind her.

She balled up her hands into fists that, small though they might appear, held inhuman strength. “To keep me safe,” she said, punctuating her words with spars that slapped violently against his raised palms as he blocked her, “as you claimed.” She whirled around suddenly with a solid kick toward his abdomen, which connected with his side as he lunged out of the way. “How dare you claim injury when you did nothing less to me.”

Max laughed coldly, ducking her blows and responding with one of his own that spun the air by her ear. “You talk as though it was some great tragedy,” he said, backing up into a crouch again, “that you ended up in a carriage with him. The way I heard it,” he said, taking a swipe at her, “it was no hardship for you after all.”

She kicked out, clipping the edge of his jaw. She heard his teeth snap shut and she tossed him a tight grin. “At least I didn’t act the coward and pay someone else to do my dirty work.” She leaped at him; he blocked her lunge and caught her by the arm. Ducking under her, he flipped her over as she’d done to him moments before.

She flew through the air and landed on her back, the breath knocked out of her for the moment before she sprang to her feet, brushing a long strand of hair from her face. He was already halfway to the door.

“Where are you going?” she demanded, throwing herself toward him. Her leap knocked him to the floor, and they tumbled there in a tangle of limbs. She landed on top of him, but he gave a great twist and she flipped onto her back with a loud smack, pulling him with her. “Coward!”

“I’m getting the hell away from you,” he said, rearing over her. His head blocked the lamp and left him half-shadowed. “Because if I don’t, God help me, I’ll be doing this.” And his face swooped down toward her, fingers once again digging into the soft spots on her shoulders.

It was a furious, ferocious kiss; a desperate smashing and grinding of mouths pressing against teeth, a slip-sliding of lips, the deep, long swipe of tongue… and then more and more, so that she became completely breathless… but unwilling to stop to breathe. Victoria’s fingers grasped the sides of his face as if to keep him there, even to pull him closer, feeling the throb of veins in his temples, and the slight dampness of his warm skin, the rough stubble under her palms.

His hair was as silky and heavy as it looked, and she curled her fingers up onto his skull, the tendrils wrapping around her hands as she arched beneath him, feeling the pull of her hair trapped beneath his hands, pressing her belly up into his, curling one of her ankles around his hips to pull him down closer. Their legs shifted and moved, trousers crumpled, rough hair scraped against warm flesh, toes and heels thumped against each other and the mat as they rolled and continued their battle in the most elemental way of man and woman.

Victoria tore at his tunic, pulling it up, slipping her hands under the linen to feel the slabs of muscle on his back. Warm, they shifted and rippled beneath her fingers as he lifted onto his elbows and dipped to move his face along her jaw and to the hot, sensitive part of her neck. She turned her face away, eyes closed, as he kissed, devouring her skin with his firm mouth, sending exploding sensations through her as she tried to keep from moaning like a cat in heat.

Then suddenly, he stilled, as if caught. Poised over her, his face against the side of her neck, buried in her curls, his breath moist on her skin. She felt the brush of his lashes, the sift of his hair over her cheek, the thump of his heart reverberating in his body, so close to hers… but his lips had lifted. His rough breathing mingled with hers in the silence.

She tightened her hands on his body beneath the linen shirt, folding her lips together, ready to speak his name.

“Don’t,” he said sharply, his mouth moving against her neck. “Don’t… say… anything.”

Tension radiated; she felt it trembling beneath her fingers on the smooth skin over his ribs, in the deep, long breath he took, expanding under her touch.

She felt it when he gathered up, ready to pull away, and she tightened her fingers on him.

And then, after another long moment, as though released, excused, sanctioned… something… he moved again with a little shudder, a release of stilled breath. He brushed her hair away, and kissed her neck, gently now, languidly, with the same skillful lips that had done so three months ago. The tension eased beneath her fingers and, when he moved again, it was to find her mouth once more with his.

Her lips were swollen and pounding from the previous onslaught, but he took his time here. It wasn’t tender, the way he kissed her now, nor desperate and angry, as before,but… long and slow and thorough, slick and deep, drawing so much from her that she moaned quietly behind it all.

There was no mistaking his desire for her; as their bodies arched and moved, the loose fabric left little unsaid between them. She pulled at his shirt, and he lifted away long enough for her to yank it over his head. Bare skin, at last. As he bent back to kiss her again, she saw the expression in those dark, oft unreadable eyes: burning and intense.

There was no mistaking what shone in them now.

She felt warm and heady when he lifted again, and before she could protest, or worry that he meant to leave, he picked her up, settling her against his bare chest, and brought her to the pile of cushions in the corner. Her hands smoothed over the square of his shoulders, down over the dark hair and muscle, and to the silver cross that hung from one areola.

He stilled when she touched the vis bulla, almost as if he waited for her response. The last time she’d seen it, Nedas had ordered it to be torn from her skin. She could only imagine how Max had retrieved it from the vampire. When she brushed her fingers over the silver, her amulet… the one forged specially for her… she felt a leap of power sizzle through her. A clean, familiar rush.

She flattened her hand against him, the tiny, ornate cross pressing into her palm, and remembered doing the very same thing last autumn after having been disarmed. Max had forced her hand there, under his shirt, grasping her wrist with impossibly strong fingers, risking his life as he forced her to take power from his vis bulla.

It was either her, or you.

That was what he’d said when she’d demanded to know why he’d slain Aunt Eustacia. She’d been filled with hatred and the same loathing for him she’d seen in his eyes earlier tonight, directed at her. At that time, he hadn’t told her the other reasons-that he’d been ordered to by Eustacia herself, that it was the only way to save them all from Nedas’s power, that he’d had no choice- for if he didn’t slay her, Eustacia would have died anyway. And Victoria too.

It was either her, or you.

How had it taken her so long to realize?

Unwilling to wait any longer, to give him any chance to walk away as he’d done after that kiss… that first kiss against the stone wall… she pulled away and stripped off her own tunic, and then the light chemise she wore beneath it, letting her damp hair fall over her shoulders and back. Max wasted no time; his dark hands were on her immediately, large and capable over her slender torso. They pressed her back into the mound of cushions, then smoothed down below her breasts over the gentle swell of her belly. To the two silver crosses there.

He fingered them gently above the waistband of her trousers, shifting the vis bulla that had been his against that of Aunt Eustacia, then releasing them back into the hollow of her navel. Still silent, but for the quiet rasp of breath, he spread his hands wide to cover her belly, curling long fingers around her hips and sliding them gently up her sensitive skin to cup one hand under each breast.

His touch raised little bumps on her flesh and sent tingles through her limbs, curling into the center of her belly. She arched up into his palms, her hands back on his shoulders, her hair tangling under and around them, as he bent down to her. Her breasts were tight, her nipples gathered into little round peaks, and when his mouth closed over one of them, she sighed. Closed her eyes.

Sharp pleasure-pain arched down from where he sucked and teased, coiling in her belly, then shooting lower between her legs. Victoria felt the gentle burn, the gathering of desire there, and when one long-fingered hand moved down beneath the band of her trousers, she gave a soft sigh of pleasure. He found what he was looking for, and slipped in and around languidly until she had lost all shame and was moaning beneath him, pressing closer, demanding what they both wanted.

After that, there was no more waiting, no more teasing. Trousers were ripped away, and his long, strong body covered her equally bare, ready one. She wrapped her legs around him as he settled against her, and they both gasped when he moved that first time. The fullness, the long, deep stroke made her mouth dry again, her eyes flutter closed, her fingers close over his shoulders, nails digging deep.

He lifted away just as slowly, then back again, and again, and more quickly and desperately, over and over, long and filling and deep… and suddenly the build exploded, leaving her shuddering and gasping and arching up again in a wave of pleasure and sunlight and stars. He groaned deep in his chest, and she felt him tense and tremble against her with one last, sharp movement.

He sagged over her, his face down, eyes closed, dark lashes and brows only a breath away from hers. One hand rested on the cushion next to her shoulder, the other cupped into the curve of her neck and shoulder, fingers curled around her neck… as though he had to hold on to her.