The Rest Falls Away

breathed.

His neck was open to her; she was tall, tall enough to press her lips, one cold, one hot, to the skin there. He shuddered when she touched him. Closed his eyes. Waited.

She toyed with him. Laughed against his skin, breathed on its moisture, scraped him with one sharp incisor. Her heartbeat became one with his. She melted into him from behind. His shirt was wet everywhere; he could hear nothing but her pulse.

When she ran her long, sharp nails from his shoulder to the base of his back, he felt his shirt give under them. It fell away under her hands, and when she pressed up behind him again, touching his bare back, he wanted to let go. Stop fighting.

The smell of his blood from her scoring nails filled his nostrils… she closed her lips over the edge of his shoulder, where the cuts had begun, and where they were the deepest, and he felt her tongue slip through the wetness.

She sighed, and her lips curved with pleasure against him. 'Maximilian… you taste like no one else.'

He marshaled his strength. 'I do not consider that a compliment.'

Laughing in delight, she sucked hard at his shoulder. 'Taste.' She pulled his head back at an impossible angle, and covered his mouth with her blooded lips.

He tasted it, the heavy iron flavor, her cold, slick tongue. He took her kiss and wanted more. Damn it. He wanted more.

Her hands slipped around under his arms, over his belly. They curled up over the center of his chest, raising the hair that grew there. He arched back, lifting his chest, tipping his head back at the command of her hands. They slipped apart, to the sides and over his nipples, and she jerked, startled, and removed them. Laughing.

'That is another thing about you, Maximilian… you are the only one to give me pleasure and pain, rolled into one.' And then she pulled away, stepped back; he felt the coolness of her absence on his bare skin.

He breathed deeply, resting his forehead against the wall. When she brushed his vis bulla, her pain had given him a needed jolt of strength. It had been like that every time before… she craved that combination of pleasure and the unexpected zaps of pain when she came near the holy silver cross. She liked the power it gave him, too, the added strength that allowed him to fight her when he touched it.

Because she knew she would always win.

Max became aware that she was speaking to someone, and he turned, focusing, in time to see Lilith's gleaming white smile. 'I'm afraid you will have to wait a bit longer, dear Maximilian. My guest has arrived, and they are showing her in.'

Max turned from the wall, the fog and rapture sliding away. Things had gone from worse to unimaginable. The guest could only be Victoria.

Chapter Twenty-Six The Marchioness Is Received

Victoria shifted the heavy satchel over one shoulder, holding its heavy bulk against her hip as she followed the two Imperials into a large room. She had to blink to allow her eyes to adjust to the dark room after being in the morning sunshine.

The Imperials, swathed in black from head to toe, had led her from the meeting place Lilith had specified into the cavernous room of a ruined estate ten miles outside of London. Kritanu and Briyani, who had accompanied her, had been ordered to remain with the carriage—an order, Victoria knew, they would ignore as soon as the vampires had taken her within.

The windows were painted black and covered with boards to keep the dangerous sun from filtering in. Inside, the cool, damp air and low light made her skin feel clammy, but when they rounded the corner into what appeared to be a receiving room, there were blazing fires in large fireplaces at every corner.

Sunlight burned the undead; fire did not. A vampire could walk through a blaze and be unscathed.

At one end of the chamber was a low dais that made her think of a throne room, or a great hall in a medieval castle. In fact, this room, with tall windows boarded over and a ceiling that stretched into a large black- painted dome likely was the hall at one time. Vampires of all types were in the room, perhaps two dozen of them all told: regular undead, Guardians, and several Imperials. To the side of the dais was a large shallow dish that held a tall, roaring blaze, giving heat and illumination to the woman who sat on a massive chair in the center of the dais.

Lilith, of course.

Victoria looked at the vampire queen, meeting her blue-red eyes for only a brief moment, as Aunt Eustacia had warned, and then letting her attention skitter over the rest of her figure, which was slender, almost emaciated. Her skin was the blue-white hue Victoria had expected… but her hair, long and rippling down either side of her shoulders and over her breasts, was brilliant copper. It burned the eye, it was so bright.

She must have been older than Victoria when she was turned undead; her immortal age was near thirty. She was not beautiful, but horribly elegant. The lids of her eyes were so thin and cold they were purple; her cheekbones jutted out, forming the same colored hollows below.

Her lips curved in a welcome smile, the gray-blue of them plump and sensual. Her hands, gathered in her lap, boasted long, pointed nails. And she had five dark marks that, even from her distance, Victoria could see formed the span of a half-moon from the top of her cheekbone to the side of her chin.

Lilith the Dark was not so much dark as she was burning and frigid at the same time—ethereal, with her fair skin and narrow wrists, sinewy neck, and long, elegantly crossed legs.

'Victoria Gardella. How pleased I am that you have joined us.'

'Where is my husband?' Her voice came out strong and bold.

'Where are your manners, Marchioness?'

'I am here to make an exchange, not to have tea.'

'Well, then let us get on with it. You have interrupted my pleasure.'

Victoria followed Lilith's gesture and stopped breathing. Max. That was Max.

He stood to one side of the dais, having been in the shadows until Lilith's gesture caused someone from behind to jab him forward. His shirt hung in shreds about his waist; his arms hung at his sides. Blood streaked his shoulders, and his bare torso was covered with dark hair, slashing scars, and sweat. Her attention focused on the glint of silver that pierced one flat nipple. As she gaped, he raised his face and looked at her. His eyes were flat and chill.

Rattled and suddenly terrified, Victoria turned her attention away and back onto Lilith, who had been watching with interest. 'Two Venators as guests at one time. I have never been so fortunate.'

'Now, where is my husband?'

Then she heard him. 'Victoria!'

She spun and saw that he was being brought in the room, chained—as if poor Phillip could do any damage to the creatures in this room!—but alive. And walking on his own.

Victoria turned back to Lilith. 'He does not need to be chained. Let him loose and we will discuss our exchange.'

'Discuss? There is nothing to discuss. If you wish to have your husband back, you will provide me with the Book of Antwartha.'

Victoria smiled at her. Wayren had been at Aunt Eustacia's when the message came from Lilith. 'I will provide you with the book when you have met my requirements. The protection has changed, and the book must be given to you freely, or it will do you no good. You cannot take it from me or it will crumple into ash.'

Lilith returned the smile, and Victoria did not like the expression in her eyes that accompanied it. 'Ah, a formidable negotiator, and one who plans well. I would have expected nothing less from Eustacia's blood.' She whipped her hand and the Guardian holding Phillip dropped the chains from his wrists. 'Of course, that assumes that you really have changed the protection and aren't merely bluffing.'

'Is Sebastian Vioget here as well?'

Lilith raised her copper-orange brows. 'He is not. I sent for him, but he did not see fit to accept my