did.”
So that was why Katerina wasn’t very fond of Sebastian. His grandfather had tricked her into becoming a vampire. “But what about Brughard?”
“She turned him herself, but he was slain some years ago.” Antonнn’s gaze drifted to Sebastian. “By a young Venator staking his first undead.”
At that, Sebastian looked up, brushing the hair from his face. “Why don’t you put a stake into him, Victoria? He’s beginning to annoy me.”
“And so now her husband is damned to Hell… not a bad thing in my book, of course, but apparently Katerina meant to keep him alive for a lot longer.”
“She thinks the ring will bring him back?” Victoria asked. “How?”
Antonнn shrugged as well as he could, bound thus. “I said she was mad. But she believes a bargain might be struck with some holy or divine entity. She gives them the ring, and her husband is rescued from Hell.”
“There is no way to rescue an undead’s soul from Hell,” Sebastian spoke suddenly. His face looked grim in the low light. “Once an undead drinks from a mortal, he’s damned for eternity.”
“I have heard otherwise,” replied Antonнn loftily. “Lucifer doesn’t like it one bit, but he’s had to release more than one of the vampire souls he’s collected over the millennia.” He nodded knowingly. “It’s never a pleasant time for us, of course. Lucifer is-”
“Give him some wine and shut him up,” said Sebastian suddenly. Victoria was struck by how much he sounded like Max at that moment-sharp and terse. Perhaps he was as tired as she felt.
Or perhaps there was something else bothering him… besides the reminder of what he’d done to Giulia. And Burghard.
She rose and found some
Antonнn was thirsty, and gulped the wine she held to his mouth. When she pulled the cup away, he looked up at her with hopeful red eyes. “How about a bit of something else?” he asked thickly. “Your wrist… I could make it easy and quick.”
“Why would I do anything for you?” she asked, although a thought had been teasing her mind.
“Because I’ll tell you how to get Katerina. The way to get to her.” His voice lowered, and he glanced at Sebastian as though afraid he would hear.
“The same way you took me to her lair at the cemetery?” Victoria said.
“I didn’t expect those demons to be there.”
“You said you’d heard about the demons, stories. How long ago did you start hearing about them?”
“More than a month.”
“Is Katerina frightened, too? Or merely inconvenienced?”
“She is frightened. All of the undead are frightened. There’s been nothing like this before.” His eyes were fastened on her white wrist, showing from the cuff of the clean man’s shirt she’d donned after her bath. “Please. Just a bit. It won’t hurt you.”
Victoria didn’t reply. “Is it true that an undead soul isn’t damned if he didn’t drink from a mortal? Is it true?”
Antonнn looked at her, and she allowed herself to meet his eyes. The tug of his thrall, weak though it was to someone like her, tickled around her, and she allowed her breathing to grow heavy. Yet she was aware of everything. She knew she could blink, could turn away at any moment. “Is it true?” she asked.
She allowed Antonнn to lure her, to tease and pull and to think he was gathering her in with his strength. She felt it, felt the curl of warmth and pleasure slip under her skin… but not completely. Raising her arm, she watched his attention move to her wrist as though it slogged through water. The gleam in his eyes burned hot and red, and his breath whistled from behind his teeth and fangs. Warmth… softness…
“Victoria!”
Sebastian was there suddenly, and Victoria turned in surprise.
Before she could react, he pulled her from the vampire, jerking her up and away from where she’d crouched. The heat still simmered in her veins as she caught herself from falling. She steadied her staggered breath, dragged in air from between her lips.
“What are you doing?” he demanded over Antonнn’s cry of annoyance.
She glanced briefly at the vampire. She’d known exactly what she was doing, but she wasn’t about to explain it to Sebastian.
“Isn’t it enough that you had to bring him here? And now you do this? What are you trying to do?”
“Sebastian,” she began, the last remnants of the vampire’s thrall slipping off her like a silken shroud. His fingers dug into her arms, and she pulled away with such force that she bumped into the table. The pages he’d been reading fluttered onto the floor, but before she could bend to retrieve them, he caught her shoulders.
Not so roughly this time, he closed his fingers over her. “Is it that you didn’t trust me?” he asked. “Or that you didn’t trust yourself?”
Then she understood. They would have been alone in the chamber with Max gone; Sebastian thought she’d brought Antonнn as a chaperone of sorts. “It’s neither, Sebastian. You know that.”
She stooped, pulling away from his grip, and picked up the papers from the floor. “What have you been reading all this time?” But when she saw the ornate
But Sebastian had turned away. Victoria set the manuscript on the table, and as she took a step toward him, she heard a choking, snorting noise from the corner. A glance told her that the
“It’s hard enough,” Sebastian said, looking out the window that framed Tэn Church, “to be here. In Praha, with you. Both of you. Stay away from Antonнn. Don’t tease him. You don’t know… you don’t know what you looked like, Victoria. Just now. Your eyes half closed, your face like that…”
She swallowed. Her throat constricted roughly, audible in the quiet moment. She had had a purpose; she would have let Antonнn feed from her, just a bit. She had a reason.
But she didn’t have to explain it to Sebastian.
“I told you that I wouldn’t be a gentleman about… it…,” he said, still looking out the window. “And so if you brought Antonнn here because of that, I suppose I cannot blame you.”
Victoria couldn’t hold back an angry snort. “Sebastian, the day I use a vampire as a shield from my own desires is the day I’m finished as a Venator.”
“Your own desires?”
“There’s no arguing the fact that we’ve been together, that there is attraction and affection between us. I wasn’t pretending. But I’ve no intention of acting on it again.”
“I told you I wouldn’t be a gentleman about it,” he said again, in a steadier voice. “But I was wrong. I don’t think he’s worthy of you, Victoria. And I don’t like the way he has acted toward you, in the past and during this trip. But you’ve made your choice, and if he makes it through the Trial, I’ll leave you be and wish you well.”
The words hung there, unspoken. But they both heard them, and they left Victoria cold.
“I’ll go in first,” said Sebastian, his hand wrapping around Victoria’s arm to stop her. “Katerina will be suitably distracted, and then you can take her by surprise.”
They stood in the narrow passageway known as Goldsmith’s Lane. Prague Castle reared up beyond its stone wall, which made one side of the street. Tightly packed houses had been built flush against the stone enclosure, and another row lined the other side. This created a crooked little lane barely wide enough for two horses to pass through, side by side. The houses themselves were tiny, but decorated with colorful shutters thrown open.
The sun shone boldly down, more than halfway across the sky, but still high enough to burn hot and cast short shadows. People passed by on their way to and from the castle, the goldsmithies, and on other errands. Victoria and Sebastian had stopped in front of Number 75’s pie-sized stoop, but their destination did not lie through that red door.
