As Shadows Fade (Page 42)

“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 R on the bottom of one page, she didn’t need him to tell her. She recognized Rosamunde’s sign. “Do you find them fascinating?”

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 salvi had worked, and Antonнn was snoring with alacrity.

“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.”

But if he doesn’t …

The words hung there, unspoken. But they both heard them, and they left Victoria cold.

If he doesn’t.

“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.

Instead, a small staircase led down to a door directly beneath Number 75. The top of the flight was framed at the street level by an iron gate to protect unwary passersby from tumbling down the hole-a necessity in such a narrow thoroughfare. The subterranean steps reminded Victoria a bit of the entrance to the Silver Chalice.

“And if Katerina isn’t there?” Victoria asked, although she was quite certain Antonнn had been telling the truth about the vampiress’s location, for Victoria had promised him a reward when they returned if he had. He’d licked his lips hungrily and nodded enthusiastically, knowing that he had no chance of leaving the inn during the flush of sunlight.

Little did he know she had other plans for him.

“Unfortunately, I can fairly assure you that Katerina is here. We’ve met in this location before.”

Sebastian slipped past her and started down the steps, the iron gate clanging in his wake. Victoria was left to wonder in just what manner he’d “met” Katerina. At least she was certain they hadn’t been lovers.

Her stomach pitched when she considered the possibility of a mortal and a demonic undead being intimate. Black spots danced briefly before her eyes, and a definite nausea churned in her belly. That thought crept too close to those moments with Beauregard, in his chamber, when he drained nearly all of her blood… when she was helpless and under his thrall, wrapped in pleasure and sensuality… images that remained soft and vague in her mind, memories that she couldn’t allow herself to contemplate.

She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

And then there was Max. And Lilith. And her control over him, her obsession with him. The flat expression in his eyes could hide much horror.

Victoria swallowed hard, shoved the thoughts away and concentrated on the chill at the back of her neck. Stupid to allow her mind to open to such repugnant ideas. They only served to weaken and distract her.

And she wouldn’t wait any longer.

None of the pedestrians on the street around her seemed to notice when she lifted the latch on the iron gate and slipped through, then down the steps. It stank of urine and damp, and she found she needed to take care to avoid stepping on unpleasant substances as she descended. It certainly no longer reminded her of Sebastian’s clean and well-run Chalice.

The stairs went down below the earth, down, down, down so far that no sunlight filtered down the spiral stairs. When at last the steps ended, she saw a single horse symbol carved on the wall in front of her, next to a door. The Lone Horse.