by Колин Глисон
Either way, Victoria knew, it was very rare for the two races to be together, or to cooperate in any way.
Then she remembered her mother, and her apprehension exploded into full-force terror. Lady Melly and her two friends could still be in the villa, under the control of the vampires and the demons. Zavier could not have fought off all of the undead that had attacked her and Max. Her only hope was that he’d sensed the presence of the vampires in time to bring the ladies—and the other guests—to safety.
Or…a new thought alleviated her anxiety a bit. If Regalado was after the key, perhaps he meant to use her mother only as a hostage or bait. In which case she wouldn’t be harmed.
She hoped.
“Max?” she said softly. She thought she’d heard a faint shuffling sound, perhaps even a groan. It was either Max or some other creature—either of which was preferable to other options, such as the undead…or those of the eight-legged persuasion.
There was silence, and Victoria closed her eyes again and listened this time for something closer to her. She was sure she heard something, sensed some other presence.
One thing was certain: If Max was indeed here, he must be badly hurt if he made no sound. This greater worry galvanized her into action.
Her legs weren’t tied, so she used her splayed hands on the floor behind to help shift herself from the ground and move onto her knees. Her head began to pound angrily above her brows as she came upright, and there was something wrong with her right leg…it was stiff and it ached. Horrendously.
Victoria tried to follow the wall so she could keep her bearings in the chamber and investigate every part of the room.
Suddenly she heard voices, and the cold prickles at the back of her neck increased. Before she could think of anything to do that might be proactive, a door opened across the room from her. Immediately Victoria sagged against the wall, half closing her eyes, pretending to be unconscious. Even a moment’s reprieve could help her make a decision or gather more information that would help her escape.
With the opening of the door a bit of light spilled into the room. Shadows blocked the entrance, and the rotting death-smell of the demon became a bit stronger—but not enough to alarm her. Whoever or wherever it was, it was not standing in the doorway.
Through her slitted eyes, Victoria saw that the chamber was not much larger than a parlor, and it was fairly empty. There was a large, lumpy shadow halfway across the room that spiked her concern for Max; if she’d kept going on her path around the perimeter, she would have brushed against it at one point. There were no furnishings, one door, and nothing else.
All of this she had taken in during the instant after the door opened. Now Victoria waited, her muscles tense, forcing her breathing to steady.
And suddenly something large and unwieldy came tumbling into the room. It landed on the floor in the middle of the chamber in an ignominious heap, barely illuminated by a small lantern hanging beyond the door.
“Do not fear,” said a voice from the entrance. It sounded familiar, but Victoria couldn’t see enough to recognize the speaker. “You won’t be here long. Akvan will soon be ready for you.”
Akvan? Good grief…was that the demon she smelled?
Before Victoria could react, the door closed. She heard the heavy grating of a bolt being drawn.
“Ouch,” grumbled the heap on the floor. “Wasn’t beating me enough? Why did they have to pitch me in like a horseshoe?”
Victoria’s mouth fell open; fortunately, it was too dark for him to see what must be incredulous shock on her face. “Sebastian? Is that you?”
“In the flesh. Or, rather, what’s bloody left of me.”
“How on earth did you get here?”
“Why are you so surprised to see—er, hear—me? I was under the impression that you were looking for me. Or, be still my heart…was that nothing but a false rumor?”
“I had hoped to see you in a more…conventional situation. But, yes, I was looking for you. I have to ask you something.” She was scooting on her rump as quickly as she could toward where she remembered seeing him fall. The room was, of course, dark now, but that short while of illumination had helped to orient her. At least she knew the location of the door, and how large the chamber was. And if that big lump was indeed Max, she could do more to help him if her hands were untied. “Did he say that Akvan was ready for you?”
“Yes, he—Ow!” he snapped when her shoe rapped sharply against something…soft. “I appreciate your delight in seeing me, Victoria, but can you take a bit more care? That was my…er—”
“Never mind,” she replied, feeling her face heat in the dark. “If you would untie me? Then perhaps we can figure some way out of here.”
“Despite the fact that I find the thought of you tied up and restrained remarkably titillating, I would be happy to release you…if only I could. You see, I am just as bound as you are. Perhaps more so, as apparently my feet are tied, while yours are not. Which was why I found it remarkably insulting that they had to throw me in here.”
Blast it. She’d realized when scooting across the floor that the knife that had been strapped to her thigh was no longer there…and she hoped, profusely, that it had been Sara Regalado who had removed it instead of George Starcasset. Or anyone else. “Sit up then, and we can move back-to-back and work on each other’s knots,” she said.
With much groaning and huffing of breath, Sebastian managed to hike himself up into a sitting position, leaning heavily against Victoria, who’d planted her feet on the ground, knees bent, in order to stabilize herself for him. He was warm and solid against her, smelling familiarly of spicy cloves and a tinge of sweat, along with a faint rusty scent. Their shoulders brushed, the fabric of what must be his shirt against the bareness of her upper back. It was damp.
“I thought Akvan was dead,” she said after he seemed to be settled against her. She groped around behind, feeling his arms as he did the same, and at last their fingers touched. His were slick, but he managed to curl them around to gently stroke the center of her palm in a tantalizing caress. Slip, swirl, stroke.
Surprised at the innate eroticism of this unexpected, simple touch, Victoria swallowed as the light tickle traveled from her palm up along her wrist and arm and made her feel…warm and sensitive, even here in this dark, dank dungeon.
Then his fingers—and again she realized that they felt wet—began to move with purpose, feeling around for the knots in the rope. She sniffed and smelled blood. “Is that blood all over your hands? And your shirt?”
“Ah, well,” Sebastian said lightly, although she noticed a bit more strain than usual in his charming voice, “the vampires became a bit overzealous in their attempts to keep me from finding y—where they were hidden, and I became rather…bloody in the process. I will endeavor to keep from staining your gown, but our positions might make that difficult.”
“They didn’t bite you,” Victoria said. It wasn’t a question.
“No, they didn’t dare. I am, after all, the grandson of Beauregard, as you well know. A fact that didn’t keep me from being relegated to these unwelcome accommodations, but at least it kept me from getting my throat torn out. At least for now. And…Akvan was dead, or at least living in Hell,” he said, at last addressing her question, “until Pesaro destroyed his obelisk. When it was shattered last autumn, Akvan was recalled back here to earth—to Rome, to be more precise, in a weakened form, as I understand it. He’s spent the last four months building up his strength.”
“So he is here? And so how did you get here? Do stop it and let me try your knots, Sebastian,” she said at last. “You’ve done little but pinch me in the…well, somewhere you shouldn’t be pinching me, and you’re obviously hurt.”
“Ah, the hero fails to save the damsel in distress.” Sebastian sighed dramatically, but his fingers fell away and she thought she sensed an air of relief in his voice.
“Well, it isn’t the first time, and I’m certain it shan’t be the last,” Victoria
replied, groping around to try to locate the knots at his wrists. His skin was warm, but sticky, and even with the tips of her fingers she could feel the brush of hair that grew under his cuffs.
“But of course…since you are the Venator,” Sebastian replied in a cool voice. “I am here because my grandfather set me to watch the Door of Alchemy over the last days. Apparently he is certain someone is about to open it—and it appears that Akvan and his fiends are the ones. I saw Pesaro skulking around it earlier this evening, and when I learned that there were several…shall we say, civilians invited within the villa, I thought perhaps I should investigate. I didn’t expect to find you here as well.”
Victoria had found the bulk of rope and begun to try to pry it loose, but the knots were tight and she was in an awkward position. “You decided to investigate, or was your real intent to find some way of bedeviling Max?”
“Why should I bedevil him?” Sebastian asked, his voice properly shocked. “In fact, he owes me his life.”
“Indeed? Somehow I cannot imagine that.” She couldn’t get a good fix on the knots; her fingers were chilled from the dampness, and her wrists sore from bending nearly double and trying to manipulate the rope, which was thick and difficult to grasp.
And then, with a twinge of annoyance with herself for forgetting, she remembered the special corset Miro had made for her, the corset he’d executed at Verbena’s suggestion. Her maid and Oliver had tried to create something similar at first themselves. But without the skills of the weapons master, it had been a disaster. Knives and stakes had protruded from every angle, and when she tried it on a blade had slipped from its place and sliced through the delicate shift to her skin. However, Miro had taken the idea and created the corset, and Victoria was wearing it right now.
But the problem was…she would need help accessing it.
“Max wasn’t terribly pleased,” Sebastian was saying. “In fact, I do believe he offered to damn me for staking the vampire that was about to maul him—it was last autumn, that night the obelisk was destroyed.”
“You?” Victoria couldn’t help a chuckle—it was a nervous one, partly because of what she was going to have to ask him to do. “You don’t stake vampires, Sebastian. Even if you could, you wouldn’t. Now I know you’re lying.” It was true—Sebastian loved his grandfather Beauregard, and as a result of his relationship with him and the knowledge that every single vampire had once been a mortal being, with family and loved ones, Sebastian refused to stake the undead, because of the eternal damnation that awaited them after their demise.
I can’t send someone’s father or sister to Hell for eternity, he’d once told her. I won’t be responsible for that.
“Shall we stop this nonsense?” she said sharply. “I want to get out of these ropes, and I think that might be Max over there on the floor—but he hasn’t moved or made a sound since I woke up. And I’m sure if he were conscious, he would have had some scathing comment for you and your melodramatics by now.”
“Oh, dear. Then my sacrifice last autumn will have been in vain.”
“I have a knife,” she said, ignoring his comment. “You’ll need to help me get to it.”
Sebastian laughed. “I’m sure they’ve taken all of your weapons, Victoria, just as they did mine. I haven’t anything but my boots and clothes.”
“Well, if the pinching of my skin is any indication, I’m still wearing my corset,” she snapped. “And that’s where the knife is.”
She felt him go absolutely still. And then, after a moment of stunned silence, she heard the soft puff of a laugh. “My God, Victoria, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Are you saying you want me to help you out of your corset? Here and now?”
She couldn’t help her own little smile, there in the dark, at the sound of pure lust mixed with shock in his voice. Even though it was not the time nor the place, the thought—the memory of his hands on her skin and breasts and hips—made that little shiver that had traveled up her arm just a moment ago turn into a longer, deeper one that spiraled down, tangling sharply in her belly. Her mouth dried and she swallowed back the absurdity of thinking of such things when they were in danger.
As was her mother.
The sudden reminder of Lady Melly’s possible fate put sharpness back into Victoria’s voice. “No, not to take it off. Just…one of the front strips of boning, on the…er…the left side has been replaced with a slender stiletto blade. I’ll need you to help me remove it, and then put it to use. Do you think you can handle that?”
“I shall certainly do my best,” he said gallantly. “Er…shall I start from the top…or the bottom?”
There was much too much relish in those words, and Victoria had to resist the urge to snap back at him, especially since the answer was, “From the bottom.” Annoying how dry her mouth had become and how unsteady her voice was.
But Sebastian said nothing, nothing at all, to her surprise. He positioned himself so that he was in front of her, but with his back facing her. Thus, he was brushing up against the side of her left thigh. As he began to move his bound hands clumsily around, trying to find the hem of the skirt to slip between it and the edge of her shift, Victoria said a brief prayer of thanks that it wasn’t Max who’d been required to help her. The idea of his strong, long-fingered hands sliding up under her gown made her stomach flutter unpleasantly.
She turned her thoughts smartly away from that and found herself distracted by the gentle stroking of Sebastian’s fingers as he brushed his knuckles over the top of her stockinged leg, now separated from his touch by only the very thin fabric of her shift. The undergarment was of such fine cotton that it might not have been there at all. Her breathing was becoming a bit rough, and she tried to slow it, to steady and level it. She didn’t want to think about the tingling that erupted between her legs as her sensitive skin was exposed from under the much heavier silk of her gown, and then as it was caressed by his finger.
“I hope that you shall put me out of my misery and tell me that the skinny stick of a woman wasn’t your mother,” Sebastian said, his fingers sliding beyond the crease where her left leg joined her hip.
“Skinny woman? What are you talking about?” Her voice was a bit breathy, but maybe he wouldn’t notice. He certainly seemed to be concentrating on what he was doing, if his own steady breathing was any indication.
“There were three of them together—the dry, brittle one, the loud, large, pillowy one, and the bossy, elegant one. I was rather hoping,” he said, his fingers at last beginning to tug at the bottom edge of her corset, searching by feel for the blade, “that none of them was your mother…but since they were talking about you as if they knew you well, I realized I was bound to be disappointed.”
“You saw them? If you caused them to be captured too, Sebastian, I shall never forgive you!” She focused on irritation rather than on the movements of his fingers as they felt around her stays. “It should be there somewhere. You’ll feel the short handle protruding from the bottom of the corset…just…yes, there! I do wish you would hurry.”
“Oh, faithless woman,” he replied. “It was I, in fact, who saved the dry stick of a woman from being some undead’s evening feed. And it was I who directed the man who was supposed to be protecting them—Zavier, was that his name?—to their location so that he could whisk them to safety.”
“So they are safe?” Victoria breathed a long sigh of relief that had nothing to do with the gentle tickling of his knuckles as he worked on pulling the knife from its special slot in the corset. “Oh, how silly of me to forget, Sebastian, there is a little frog enclosure that keeps the blade from sliding out and wreaking its havoc on my gown. You must loosen it and the braid holding it in place will fall away and you will be able to—Oh! Stop that!”
He chuckled in his Sebastian way, low and laced with warmth. “But you liked it before, ma chère.”
“That was when I trusted you,” she replied smartly, feeling him pulling on the corset again instead of letting his fin
gers stray where they should not have gone. “Actually, I don’t believe I’ve ever trusted you, but that was before you drugged and kidnapped me. And why did you say you hoped Lady Petronilla—the slender one—was not my mother?”
Sebastian gave a groan of relief as the stiletto at last came free of its place in her stays, and he pulled it away.
“Take care you don’t cut me with it,” Victoria ordered, glad that the moment was over as she rustled her skirts back into place by shifting her legs. “I’ll move so you can slice my ropes—no, no, on second thought, I think it would be best if I did the cutting. If you would put the blade down, I’ll move so I can pick it up and saw your ropes.”
“What a splendid idea. At least the blood you’ll draw will mingle with what’s already there. And, to answer your question,” he said as she maneuvered herself slowly around so that they were back-to-back again, she sitting on her haunches so that her hands were that much higher, “I was particularly hoping the dried-up stick wasn’t your flesh and blood because it is a well-known adage—at least to the male population—that a woman, when aging, takes after the looks of her mother.”
Victoria had levered up the knife and was sawing delicately, and awkwardly, against the ropes. “And whatever is wrong with the way Lady Petronilla looks?” She couldn’t keep the little grunt from her voice as she felt soreness and pain radiating up her wrists from the tense, awkward motions. Her injured left leg screamed under the weight of her body as she knelt there, working as fast yet as carefully as she could.
“She is as flat as a board. Flatter, even.”
“Flat as a—Oh.” Victoria bit her lip and rolled her eyes in the dark.
“Ah, at last! I can feel my fingers again,” Sebastian said, and he wiggled said fingers against hers.
“Take care,” she warned, “else you’ll get them cut and then you won’t feel them at all. This blade is wickedly sharp.”
“It is indeed, for I’m free already.”