“This way,” Max said, trying not to think about what else was going on deep in the chambers of this mountain. She wears two, dammit. “Hurry.”

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. Damn and blast.

“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.

Bloody damn hell. Idiots.

“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 Temptation of Sebastian Vioget

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.

Oh God.

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 smell … the sound, the faint whistle, of Lilith’s gentle sucking. Each low gulp pounded in his ears, drummed through his body.

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.

He had to. He must.

Then a sudden sharp movement from Victoria, her arm winging out from nowhere. Lilith froze, her eyes wide as she looked at him over her shoulder… and then, unbelievably, she jerked from some great force… and then… poof.

She was gone.

Unbelievably gone.

The control, the power over him waned… released. He breathed on his own. He smelled ash and roses and… blood.

Still, the blood.

The craving hadn’t eased. No, it pounded just as fiercely.

“Sebastian.” Victoria’s voice penetrated the haze, just a bit. She twisted and moved, and he saw that she was trying to free her manacled hand while she kept her eyes on him. She had a stake in her hand.

A stake that, he realized, could kill him now.

He didn’t remember moving, but then he was on her, his hands holding her delicate shoulder to the pillows stained with her blood, knocking the stake from her hand. His weight pressed her into the softness as he’d done before, and he smelled her… She surrounded him, her blood, her scent, her skin.

She fought against him with one hand; he heard her say his name, urgent… pleading. Victoria, pleading.

But he didn’t care. He couldn’t stop himself… The red haze blazed through him as he covered her mouth, tasting her, smelling the blood that would soon ease his craving. He crushed her lips, his hands sliding over her skin even as she arched and twisted, her stake just out of reach, his weight and vampire strength… and the manacle… holding her in place.

Overcome by unbounded craving, he needed to taste, to kiss, to fuck, to possess, to control …

“Sebastian.” Her voice was sharp, a bit thready, in his ear as she yanked her face away.

The blood was there, beneath her ear, there in front of him. He lost everything else, everything but that beckoning red streak.

It was there… teasing, taunting… he shouldn’t. There was a reason… He shouldn’t, he couldn’t… but saliva pooled in his mouth, and the blood coursed from the wounds in her neck, the distended vein that swelled, teasing him, even as he watched, as she writhed beneath him.

“Giulia,” she gasped. “Sebastian, remember Giulia.”

She moved sharply, knocking him askew, and he felt her hand moving toward that stake.

No.

He grabbed her wrist, but she twisted and yanked, forcing him to release her grip. He moved forward, into her throat. His lips brushed against her hot, salty skin, and the blood… He touched it, warm and sleek, with his mouth.

Pleasure, lust, craving blasted through him at the faint iron sense on his lips. More. More.

He opened his mouth, his fangs, still so odd, slipping out, sliding against her skin.

And then he felt something in his back. Sharp.

“Sebastian.” Her voice, low, gasping, pleading. “You cannot.”

He scraped his fang over her skin, sliding over the saltiness, a bit of that luscious blood slipping with it. The stake pushed harder-how had she gotten it?-but she said, “I’ll do it. I don’t want to, but… I’ll do it.”

He needed this… He couldn’t see, think, conceive of anything but this… The blood on his lips touched his tongue. Pleasure burst inside him, and he nearly shoved his fangs in right then. Nearly.

“Sebastian, think of Giulia. You can’t. Please. Don’t. You’re stronger than this.” Her breasts moved against him as she drew in the breaths to plead. “You wear the vis bulla .”

The vis bulla that burned every time he touched it now; it annoyed the skin at his belly when it touched, a constant burn. But he wore it…

Wayren. Her face popped into his confused, red, blazing mind. The heavy silver ring on his left hand.

His head felt heavy, but… Giulia .

He didn’t care. He cared about nothing, nothing but the blood. The need, the driving pull.

It called to him. That siren song lulled and teased and pulled, and with one movement, it would be over. Pleasure coursing through him. The need sated-the need he’d fought.

Victoria heaved suddenly, powerfully beneath him, shoving him off balance. He slipped to one side, and she slammed him with a knee, in the side of the face, then followed with her other foot.

He tumbled onto the floor, and she scrambled on the bed, frantically working on the manacle. It fell away with a clink, and the stake was in her hand by the time he gained his footing.

Breathing hard, he looked at her: the face he would never forget, the woman he loved, the eyes, sharp but pleading.

“You’re strong, Sebastian. Don’t.”

She sat there, unafraid, free now, waiting. Stake in her hand. A breath away.

He swallowed. Reached for her.

His fingers closed around her arm, her warm arm.

“I’ll kill you before I let you feed. I won’t let you damn yourself. But I want to know why.” She beckoned, gave him a look that burned through him.

The desire bumped again, and he thought he might move, lunge toward her. Get one taste before…