Rises the Night

agreed, knowing that it was to my benefit as well as your own, since it would keep your pretty skin from being caught in the crossfire and myself from being forced to take sides. And, might I clarify, I did so without requiring any compensation. Do you not think that heroic of me?'

'Heroic? Or self-serving? After all, it appears you took great advantage of the situation and got your compensation after all.'

'Now, Victoria, you must admit that our lovely intimacies were a long time coming, and in truth, were merely an unexpected benefit of my task. Truly, my only intent was to see you safely out of the way while things progressed the way they will.'

'What do you think I am, a helpless female? I am a Venator! I didn't need to be spirited away, you bloody fool! I needed to be there!' She pulled at the ropes around her wrists, causing whatever she was tied to to creak softly. When she saw the interested gleam in his eyes at the reminder of her helplessness, she quickly started up her inquiries again. 'Who asked you to take me away? Beauregard?'

He appeared to be enjoying the situation quite immensely, which made Victoria all the more determined to wipe that sardonic grin from his beautiful mouth. 'You mean you haven't figured it out yet?' He laughed. 'You really don't know? It was Max, of course. Max, who would never have asked such a thing of me if he'd had any other choice—which, of course, he did not. Poor sot.'

Victoria stopped. Yes. It made sense. Max had told her to leave Rome, had known she would not listen— which, of course, she wouldn't have—and had taken matters into his own hands.

'Why is there such enmity between you and Max?' she asked.

Sebastian shook his head. 'That is not something I wish to discuss with you at this time. But feel free to ask any other questions you might have. Perhaps you will hit upon another topic of interest. We do have some time to kill. Unless you would like to indulge in some other pleasant activities.'

'You truly are addled if you think I will ever let you touch me again.'

'Now you are beginning to sound like those heroines in Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, not Venatorial at all. Is this what happens when the best has been gotten of you? It's a wonder you made it as far as you have if you fall into those clichéd protestations.'

'Why don't you untie me and we'll see how much of a Gothic heroine I am.'

'And allow the Venator her full strength?' he replied in mock horror. 'I think not. Although…' He moved and was suddenly sitting next to her, his hip touching the side of her waist. 'I don't know why I shouldn't take further advantage of the situation; for, as you've pointed out, once you've been set free, I'm not liable to get within a few yards of your lovely person. Which I would find to be quite distressing.'

He curled his fingers firmly around her jaw to hold her head in position and bent forward. She expected a rough, controlling kiss, but was surprised when it turned out to be soft and gentle: the antithesis of the forcible way he confined her. She told herself she kissed him back just to lull him into complacency. When, after a moment, she tried to bite his lip, he pulled back, laughing, and released her face. 'There's my fighter.'

He trailed a finger along her chin, over her neck, and down through the little dip at the base of her throat to the swell of her breasts, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in his wake. 'Very tempting, you are, my dear; so much so that I've risked more than I should have since we met. But, then, I am not the first Vioget to allow a woman to influence my better judgment. The men in my family do have their weaknesses.'

Sebastian had not moved from his place next to her side, and the warmth of his legs next to her body was becoming unbearable. He'd shifted and was leaning over her, propped up on a palm on the other side of her arm, his cravatless shirt brushing her gown.

She didn't give him the satisfaction of asking the obvious question; just glared and tried not to think about how near he was. She refused to notice the way the pulse beat calmly in his throat, and the way the shallow opening of his shirt exposed just a bit of the golden hair that grew on his chest. And how one of his fingers played gently with the curls near her ear, sending uncomfortable prickles along her neck.

Instead, she focused her attention on the fact that he'd tricked her again. Certainly he claimed it was to keep her safe… but he was the grandson of a powerful vampire. She couldn't trust him, even if he was a delicious lover. Their lovemaking had merely been a way for him to catch her off guard and abscond with her somewhere to keep her safe.

Her! A Venator!

'My great-great-grandfather was deceived into his current predicament by a lovely, conniving female vampire centuries ago. And my father was mauled and killed by a lascivious one. She happened to be the first of the only two vampires I ever killed.'

'You claim you are no member of the Tutela.'

'I am not a member of the Tutela, Victoria, although there may seem to be similarities between us. The Tutela is interested in protecting vampires as well as attaining their immortality. They wish to see the vampire rise in power and are fascinated by their lives. I have no desire to become an immortal, nor to see mortals destroyed. The price is too high, and I find little to recommend their lifestyle. If one can call it that.'

'But if the vampires have taken two members of your family from you… I don't understand how you can ally yourself with them in any fashion.'

'My grandfather wasn't taken from me. To me, he is who he is and has always been, and I love him. If he were killed by someone like you, he would be damned for all eternity.' He sat upright, looking down at her with an unfamiliar expression. 'Damned for eternity, Victoria, with no chance of reconciliation. Do you understand what that means?' She'd never seen him so flat and humorless. 'Every vampire was once a person, someone's beloved mother, daughter, father, or son, Victoria. As you have cause to know. Sending one to his death is tantamount to passing judgment.'

'The vampire is damned only if he has chosen to feed on a mortal; if he has not done so then he can be saved from that eternal hell. And Venators are called to pass such judgment as part of their calling,' Victoria told him fiercely, trying not to think about the man she could have killed back in the streets of St. Giles, when she had passed judgment she'd not been called to do. 'We are given that gift and meant to use it to eradicate the evil in this world.' She had tried and condemned a mortal being, and she hated that she'd done so.

'And I would refuse that burden of passing judgment. All vampires are not wholly evil, Victoria, as I well know. If they were the arbitrarily bloodthirsty cretins you believe them to be, I would not be here right now. My grandfather would have turned me or mauled me long ago.'

'But once a mortal is turned to a vampire, he ceases to be the person we once knew. He becomes a monster, a demon, driven only by his need. I have never met a vampire who hasn't been set on taking from another. I've seen the carnage they leave, the way they mangle and tear and destroy men and women. They are damned for a reason, Sebastian, damned because they take promiscuously, and without need, because they must drain the life of others in order to exist. Knowing that I could prevent it from happening, that I am called to protect mortals, I could never abstain from doing so. I cannot see how you can forgive that evil, even in your own grandfather.'

'And that,' he said lightly, standing, moving away from her both physically and emotionally, 'is what about you attracts me so, to my great regret. Your conviction, your bravery, your sacrifice. Your strength. How, even when presented with an argument, you are not easily swayed. Let me ask you something, Victoria. If my grandfather, Beauregard, walked in this room, and I gave you a stake, would you kill him here in front of me?'

She looked at him, her heart thumping along harshly, audible in the sudden silence. Sebastian was not an evil person; she knew that. He might be an opportunist, he might walk a tightrope and play two sides, but she could not believe he wished evil on anyone. Even her.

Especially her.

'Knowing that with one plunge of the stake, you would send him—or any being—to an eternity of Hell?' Sebastian stood over her.

Knowing what she knew, would she? Would she pass that judgment on the man—no, the immortal, the vampire—whom Sebastian knew and loved?

How could he love a vampire?

'I don't know.' Her voice was a whisper; it was the best she could do. 'If he… I don't know, Sebastian.'

His mouth caught at one side. 'It appears you might be able to see at least some shade of gray, unlike your