by Lori Devoti
Victoria kicked out again, but missed, and her foot got wrapped up in the layers of her costume. But her stake was still in her hand, and with all her effort, she slammed her face forward, bringing all the force of her jewel-strewn hair with her forehead into the vampire’s face.
He cried out in surprise and she wasted no time, her arm whipping around to shove the stake home. Poof. He was gone.
And then there was one.
The vampire scrambled to his feet from where she’d shoved him against the wall moments earlier, and Victoria stumbled after him, turning to chase him toward the door.
But Max was standing there, and before the vampire took two steps, Max’s arm moved. Casually. Poof.
Victoria fought her breathing into a regular rhythm; the last thing she wanted was for Max to see her panting while he stood there as if he’d just arrived for tea.
He’d also disposed of his mask, and the expression on his rugged face was one of bald annoyance. “Whatever possessed you to wear such a ridiculous gown?” he asked. “How in the bloody hell did you think you’d be able to fight a vampire in that? Or did you think they might stay home tonight, merely because you wished to attend a masquerade ball?”
Victoria lifted her chin, infuriated despite the fact that she had already bemoaned the fact herself. “I don’t see any vampires about, so apparently I managed the task just fine.”
“You very nearly didn’t. That one nearly had you over the chair.”
“But I did. No thanks to you,” she added, realizing that he must have been standing there, watching, as she and her skirts battled three undead on her own. Blasted arrogant man.
Victoria suddenly realized Phillip must have long been waiting for her, and she shoved the stake back into its little hiding place. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, starting toward the doorway blocked by Max.
“Ah, yes, waltzes and walks in the moonlight await. I do hope you enjoy your evening,” he said. He stepped back to allow her to brush past, her gown catching for a moment before she made it through. “And, for the sake of the guests here, that no other undead manages to breach the party.”
“Good night.” Her teeth gritted so hard her jaw hurt as she hurried along the corridor back to the foyer.
When she arrived, there was Phillip, waiting for her, holding a much-needed cup of lemonade.
“Ah, there you are,” he said, his attention scoring over her in a way that made her face heat up. “Whatever happened to your mask?”
She looked up at him. “It’s nearly midnight. And,” she added, sweeping her lashes down demurely, “I thought it might get in the way.”
Phillip pulled off his mask, then slipped his arm through hers, lining her next to his tall body. “Indeed it might,” he said. Then, pausing, he reached out to brush something from her shoulder. “Wherever did you get so dusty all of a sudden?”
Victoria smelled the mustiness of undead ash and looked up at him. “I stumbled into the wrong chamber, and stirred up a bit of dust,” she explained, smiling up in delight at the expression on his face.
“Indeed?” he replied, his hooded eyes dark and seductive. “Well, I certainly hope that stirring up dust doesn’t become too much of a habit.”
Victoria merely smiled. Little did he know.
-o0o-
Follow the rest of Victoria Gardella’s adventures in The Gardella Vampire Chronicles:
The Rest Falls Away - Book One
In every generation a Gardella is called to accept the family legacy of hunting vampires and this time, Victoria Gardella is chosen to carry the stake.
Rises the Night - Book Two
Victoria Gardella has been a vampire slayer for over a year, balancing her life as a peer of Society with the dangerous role that takes her out on moonlit streets.
The Bleeding Dusk - Book Three
As Rome prepares for its Carnivale, the new leader of the city’s vampire hunters – Lady Victoria Gardella Grantworth – must prove herself as never before.
When Twilight Burns - Book Four
After narrowly escaping from Rome, Victoria returns to London, where not even sunrise can stop a vampire’s carnage...
As Shadows Fade - Book Five
Demons, enemies of both mortals and the undead, have found their way to earth. To defeat them, vampires and slayers must fight side by side. But Lilith wants a prize in return for her cooperation – a small price for the world, but too high a price for Victoria.
About the Author
Colleen Gleason is the international best selling author of the five-book series The Gardella Vampire Chronicles and the Regency Draculia historical vampire series..
She also writes a post-apocalyptic paranormal series for HarperCollins as Joss Ware. She lives in Michigan with her family and writes full-time.
It always makes her day to hear from readers.
You can find Colleen on the Web at: colleengleason.com and josswarebooks.com
Book 3 - Reunion
F E Heaton
Reunion
The Law Keeper for the Venia bloodline, Marise’s duty dictates that she must investigate the attempt on her lord’s life by another vampire, even when she doesn’t want to return home.
When she sets eyes on her lord, Marise realises that she might have been called for another reason and that the attack might not have been by a vampire after all. Her only source of information is a guard who was mortally wounded during the attack—the man who broke her heart fifty years ago.
The sight of Jascha so close to death triggers a battle in Marise’s heart, a fight between duty and desire. Is fifty years apart enough time to forgive the one you love for breaking your heart? Will Marise finally confess to everything she’s held inside and kept hidden from him? And can Jascha convince Marise to listen to what he has to say and make her love him again?
Chapter One
A simple case.
That’s what this was supposed to be.
So why did she have the horrible feeling that it was going to be anything but that?
Marise stared at the grand palace beyond the elegant iron gates. Moonlight shone brightly on its façade, reflecting off the many windows. They glinted at her, the warm light emanating from within making the house look welcoming and luring her into believing that she was home. This wasn’t her home anymore. It hadn’t been for a long time. She fought to suppress the feelings that being back here brought to the surface. The disappointment. The hurt.
The hatred.
The movement of her hand across her face as she swept her chestnut hair aside wiped her emotions away, erasing them.
Holding her hand out in front of her, Marise looked at it, waiting for it to stop shaking before she made a move. She couldn’t walk in there like this.
The car behind her pulled away.
The two guards protecting the gate came out of their rooms in the wide stone pillars either side. They looked at her, hands on their swords, waiting.
Marise took another breath, forcing the air into her lungs and cursing herself for being so weak. It had been years since she had felt the necessity to breathe and longer than she cared to remember since she’d had to steady herself like this.
It had been the last time she had seen him.
Marise tugged at the sides of her black knee-length jacket and adjusted the stand-up collar. It felt too tight even though she knew that it wasn’t.
Questions crowded her mind but she pushed them away. She was here on a mission. It didn’t matter if he was here too. He wasn’t the reason that she had returned.
If she’d had her way, she wouldn’t be here at all.
But her bloodline had called, and it was her duty to answer.
Expelling all of the air in her lungs, she raised her chin and strode towards the gates. She didn’t stop when the guards saluted her, didn’t even glance at their faces. It was their obligation to notice her. As for her, she was above them.
Walking at a brisk but steady pace towards th
e mansion, she went over the details of the case.
There had been an assassination attempt made on the lord of her bloodline, Timur. She had almost laughed when she had read the report. The very idea of someone trying to kill him, a man so strong and iron-willed that he had been the leader of his bloodline for more centuries than she had been a vampire, was nothing more than a joke in her eyes.
Only one attempt had been made in the past and that had been when the former lord of Venia, Nikolai, had been sentenced to death for revealing their existence to humans and arranging for Russian royalty to mate with a Venia. As Nikolai’s Chosen Son, Timur inherited the bloodline against the wishes of many. The man that had attempted the assassination had been dealt with slowly and very painfully. Timur had used it as a chance to show his new bloodline exactly what fate awaited any who tried to stand against him.
Marise walked into the mansion, not bothering to take in the opulence of the interior as she passed through room after room. She had seen it all many times when she was a youngling. Back then, she had loved this house and everything it stood for.
Now, she hated it with all her heart.
She stopped when she reached Timur’s chambers. The two guards outside looked reluctant to let her in. It was understandable. Their lord had been hurt during the attempt. Who better to finish the job than a Law Keeper like herself?
She had the power to kill Timur and these two men before her knew it.
It wasn’t even against the law. If she desired the position of both Law Keeper and Lady, she could take it.
Fortunately for Timur, Marise had no desire to become a slave to her bloodline and this house.
Becoming a Law Keeper had helped her dissolve most ties to her family.
It had helped her erase him from her heart.
The heavy wooden door in front of her creaked open, revealing the lush darkly furnished and low-lit interior of Timur’s office. She entered without invitation.
She was above that too.
Timur sat in an oversized leather armchair, his round belly stretching his shirt and touching the ebony desk in front of him. He ran his fingers over his hair, pushing pale gold unruly curls out of his face. He was nervous.
She was above him too.
And he knew it.
“You have read the report?” he drawled in a thick Russian accent that made her skin crawl.
It sent whispered words around her head, ghosts of the things her hated lover had said to her all those times they had been together. They sounded so alike, Timur and him.
Timur gave her a look that said he had noticed her silent struggle. She wondered if he was privy to the reason why she had left or whether he was like the rest and thought it had been because of her appointment as the Venia Law Keeper.
“I have read the report. Is that all of the information, or is there something you’re not telling me?” The hostile edge to her voice didn’t go unnoticed by him either. His brow raised a fraction. She shut down her feelings. It was her duty to be unaffected by emotions. Her judgement had to remain unclouded.
Being here was making that almost impossible.
Marise made herself comfortable in the armchair on the opposite side of the desk to him, drawing her jacket carefully out behind her before she sat balanced on the edge of the cushion. A Law Keeper had to look presentable at all times. She couldn’t afford to get creases in her uniform. Here, it was all she had to hold on to. It was the only thing keeping her steady.
“You do not believe that an attempt was made on my life?”
“I don’t believe that no one besides you was hurt.” She leaned back, locked eyes with him and searched them. He was hiding something. She had years of experience in interrogation and there was no way his pathetic attempt to conceal the truth was going to stop her from getting the information she wanted. “I also don’t believe that the attempt came from a vampire.”
“Whatever do you mean?” He countered her move, leaning back into his plush chair, sinking into it and steepling his fingers as though it would make him look calm.
“Your wounds aren’t consistent with those a vampire would give.” She nodded to his arm where his shirt cuff had slipped back to reveal a long burn mark. “Unless the weaklings around here carry holy water?”
Timur dropped his hand and tugged his shirtsleeve down. She met his gaze again, coolly holding it and waiting to hear what he had to say. He was flustered now. A flicker of defiance was burning in his dark beady eyes. He looked ready to remind her of his status within the bloodline, but then his expression shifted and another emotion surfaced.
It wasn’t anger.
It was sorrow.
Marise gave him a moment to gather himself. It was always wise to let the party being interrogated catch their breath, metaphorically speaking. You got more answers that way.
He drummed his fingers nervously against the desk and made a series of noises that sounded like indecision. What was he hiding from her?
“The… situation… was worse than reported.”
She noted the pauses and felt like telling him that she had already figured that out for herself. She wasn’t here because a weakling had attempted to overthrow a lord of the pure bloodlines. She was here because that part of the report had been such a ridiculous lie that she wanted to see just how bad the situation was. They’d had to make this into a problem between vampires so a Law Keeper could be assigned to the case. Why? She got the impression it wasn’t just because Timur was frightened of the possibility that his time had come.
She was certain that the reason she was called here had something to do with who had attacked him.
“How much worse?” she said, sitting forwards to show him that he had her full attention.
“Two of my best guards were killed defending me. My elite… my head guard has been injured… bad enough that we fear he may not recover.”
There was a tone to his voice that she didn’t like. It was intentionally soothing and it made cold fear steal into her veins. Who had beaten this man so badly that his body couldn’t heal? What had done this to her bloodline, reducing her lord from a man of iron strength to a child hiding away from the world?
When she had entered the house, she had sensed that something was wrong. It had been too quiet and every person she had passed had looked at her in a way that unsettled her. Death didn’t usually take its toll on her species like this. Guards knew it was their duty to die to protect their family and the family accepted it also.
Her sense said it wasn’t the deaths that had shaken her noble bloodline.
It was the fact that whoever had attacked their lord had had the power to damage one of the sons of her house so severely that they were left waiting for him to die.
“Was it a message?”
Timur stared hard at the desk. Clearly, he hadn’t travelled down that avenue of thinking.
“I only ask because if this person had the power to murder two of our kin and leave a third to die from his injuries, then what had stopped him from killing you?”
A frown creased her brow as she waited for an answer. She could see that he didn’t have one and he was just buying time. Timur wasn’t experienced in battle. He didn’t have the mind for it. He was born a leader, raised to stand at the back of his army, and taught to think like a strategist, not a soldier.
A soldier could tell her just what they were dealing with.
Timur had probably panicked when faced with the attack and that’s why he was reluctant to speak. He hadn’t seen anything.
“I must speak with the high guard.” Marise rose from the armchair and smoothed down her jacket. “He may be able to give me the answers that will save your life.”
Timur didn’t respond. He was still staring at the desk.
“If this man is seriously injured as you said he is, then time is of the essence, my lord.”
He looked up at her, right into her eyes, and the fear in them rocked her. A shiver ran through her as she stared into t
heir hollow, dark depths. She dragged her gaze away and turned to face the door.
She had never seen a vampire of the pure bloodlines look so scared.
What had come after him?
And why?
Timur passed her and the guard on this side of the door opened it. She hadn’t paid any attention to him before but now she looked at him she recognised him as Tynan. She gave him a smile but in return all she got was a look so full of sorrow that the fear returned, chilling her blood.
She held Tynan’s gaze as she walked past him. What was wrong? He had always been strong, far stronger than she was. Some had said that he had deserved the role of Law Keeper more than she had. What had shaken him so badly?
Had he been out with Timur and the three guards that night?
Following Timur down the corridor, she made a mental note to speak with Tynan once she had interrogated the injured guard. Maybe he could fill her in on what had been happening around here recently. It all seemed so different to how it had been when she had left.
She could sense Tynan following a few steps behind but didn’t look back at him. His presence was a comfort but at the same time it made her think about her ex-lover and that was the last thing she wanted.
Was he here still?
She prayed to the Devil that he wasn’t. The last thing she needed was to see him again.
Her thoughts remained with the case as they walked, heading up a flight of stairs and through familiar corridors. She didn’t look as they entered the guards’ quarters and passed her old room. It held nothing but bad memories now and she didn’t need to reopen those old wounds. She was here to do a job and she was going to do it and then get the hell out.