It seemed to take forever for these little movements, and Victoria felt the strength draining from her as the blood coursed from her veins, straining for relief, for release.
Then Lilith stopped. She gave one last, gentle, sensual suck, then withdrew her fangs. Settling back, she looked down at Victoria, whose chest rose and fell as though she’d been running. She could barely focus. The red eyes lulled. The heat pressed down on her… She felt warmth trickling from her neck, leaking down, iron-scented, into the crease of her shoulder and seeping into the fabric beneath.
“There, now,” Lilith said in a husky voice, looking back at Sebastian. “See how I’ve prepared her for you. The fight is gone from her… Perhaps now you’ll not be so reluctant to feed.”
He didn’t speak, but through the fog, Victoria saw the need… the deep lust and craving in his eyes. His nostrils flared wide, as though drawing in the scent of blood like a man draws in oxygen, and he was breathing just as harshly as she was. His lips, as full and sensual as they’d been when he wooed and coaxed her, parted.
Sending up a last prayer, she drew in a deep breath and tore her eyes fully from Sebastian’s enthralling red ones. It was a physical break; she felt the ties loosen, but not completely disappear, as she pulled away. The incessant tug eased… The stake in her hand rose, flying up as if of its own volition. She saw it as if from underwater, from a distance: slow and foggy… the point slamming into the white skin in front of her.
Lilith jerked aside in time, and the stake pierced, not her heart… but the soft part above her collarbone, slamming in deep. Victoria cried out in frustration as the vampiress froze above her.
Froze, and was, indeed, still. Her eyes wide, shocked, her bloodless lips parted.
The green ash stake protruded from her skin, and Victoria had a last bit of consciousness left to yank it free, then drive it directly into the vampire queen’s heart.
Brushing away the last of the vampire ash, Max tucked the stake into his trousers and turned back to the door. Using a knife blade, he wedged it down under the metal to work the lock’s hasp free. He shoved and jimmied, and at last the groan of the brass came free. Working as fast as he could, he pulled the lock off and tore the door open.
The people poured out, more than a dozen of them, terrified and blank-eyed.
“This way,” Max said, trying not to think about what else was going on deep in the chambers of this mountain.
But something pushed at him, nagged… Impatience screamed as he urged the captives out of their prison; many of them stumbled or were too dazed from shock to understand. As they streamed out of the room, a vampire made the mistake of coming around the corner, apparently running from some other threat. The undead found himself skewered on Max’s stake before he realized it.
“Is that everyone?” Max asked one of the men who seemed somewhat lucid.
“Yes,” the man managed. “But this one can’t walk.”
Without another word, Max slung a tottering woman with glassy eyes up over his shoulder. “Here,” he said, fumbling for the cross around his neck. With a good yank, he broke the heavy chain and handed it to the man. “Hold this in front of you if you see any of them.”
He gave another woman a vial of holy water, and yet another vial to a second man. The back of his neck chilled, shifting, portending the approach of more undead. The would-be victims had moved out into the corridor, and he heard shrieks and screams as he came around the corner.
The prison behind him, a deadweight woman on his shoulder, Max found himself back in the melee again.
Stake in hand, he pushed through the terrified mob, which had been stopped by three large vampires blocking the corridor.
“Throw the water!” he shouted as the crowd surged back, away from the vampires. He pushed forward, they stampeded back, and he felt the woman over his shoulder begin to awaken and fight his hold. The vampires lunged toward the group, fangs out, eyes burning, and the prisoners fell back, into Max, and he nearly lost his balance.
“Let me through,” he bellowed, but no one heard him over the panic.
He couldn’t put the woman down, or she’d be trampled in a moment, but she severely limited his movements. And now she was fighting him, like a crazed cat, pummeling his back already sore from claws and talons.
And beneath all of that, also pounding at him, was the need to find Victoria.
He shoved the woman at the nearest man, ordering him fiercely, “Hold her!”
And he pushed his way through the surging crowd, ramming people into one another and the walls to get by, to get it through their thick heads that he was there to help them.
As he reached the trio of vampires in the front, he saw the tall, dark figure of Brim appear from behind them.
“Where is Victoria?” Max shouted, barely looking at the undead he was striking. The poof and subsequent explosion told him his black stake had done its trick as he sought Brim’s eyes.
Brim staked another of the undead from behind as his mouth tightened in worry. “Thought she was with you.”
Max’s world stopped, then released into the fury around him. “Take this,” he said, shoving the last vampire toward Brim, who easily dispatched the undead before Max had even passed him.
He calmed himself even as he ran off. She’d be all right. She had to be.
Twenty-Five
The blood.
He breathed the iron scent, felt the driving need for it. A red haze filled the room, clouding his vision, his senses.
Victoria’s blood.
He swallowed, the unfamiliar fangs nipping his lips.
Could he even say that anymore, with a damned soul? Oh God?
Would He hear? Would He care?
No… Sebastian drew in a breath that felt like no breath he took when he lived. He wasn’t damned yet. Not yet.
It enraptured him… the
He could fairly taste the thick, heavy iron, feel it running down his throat. His heart pounded, its rhythm matching that of his sire, of Lilith… but fighting to control Victoria’s. His hands closed around her slender ankles, holding her prisoner as she writhed and bucked and twisted.
The little noises she made under Lilith’s hands and mouth, the little gasps and heaving breaths, reminded him of other things, other writhing and bucking, and he felt the need pound through him even stronger.
The haze grew heavier. Darker. Burning.
Lilith pulled away from Victoria’s neck, leaving Sebastian with a full view of the hot crimson blood, shining in thick trickles down her flushed, damp skin. Her grimy shirt was torn away, by his own hands, and one white breast half bared from the struggle. Black hair plastered to her jaw and neck, a mass of curls on the pillow beneath her, and her lovely red lips parted, gasping and panting.
He swallowed again, felt the trembling of his fingers.
Lilith said something he barely heard, but he knew it was his turn. She wanted him to feed.
He wanted… Oh, he wanted.
He couldn’t.
But his mouth watered; his fingers shook. He felt the burn in his eyes grow hotter, stronger. His heart pounded, echoing through him to his fingers, his knees.
