Bloodspell (42 page)

"It's not really any of your business, is it? After all, you won't even help your own brother. You disgust me," she said. His eyes widened at her arrogance. "For everything between you and Christian, if you were in danger, he would be the first person at your side, just like he was the first person here when the Council wanted to kill you. He saved you from that fate." The bored expression on Lucian's face incensed her, but when he finally raised his eyes to hers, they were filled with a simmering, dark hatred.

"That's one of my brother's greatest flaws. His need to
save
people who don't need saving," he said. "I, on the other hand, leave the cards to fall as they must."

"So you would just let him die?"

"If it is meant to be, who am I to stop it?" He looked at her with hooded eyes.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," she said, staring at him with undisguised loathing, wanting nothing more than to escape his cloying presence. She glanced at the control panel, releasing the stop button with a quick thought. The elevator whirred to life. Lucian smiled his despicable smile.

"Why in such a hurry? Care to stay for a bite?" he asked, grinning widely, his teeth gleaming and sharp.

"Trust me, Lucian, you won't like what you get," she said. "And I don't want to hurt you." Lucian laughed, a deep full-throated sound that echoed in the elevator.

"You ... don't ... want ... to ... hurt ... me?" he repeated with staccato-like mockery. At that precise moment the elevator glided to a stop on the tenth floor, and they stared at each other in the charged silence. As if things couldn't get any worse, Lena walked in, her face the picture of surprise at its unexpected occupant. Lucian looked even more infuriated by her untimely entrance.

"You did say to meet you on ten," she said, addressing Lucian and eyeing Victoria with barely veiled distaste. The venom from their last encounter before the Council hung thick in the air, and Lena's flawless face with its ice-blue eyes, generous lips and white-blond hair taunted her with its perfection. Victoria stifled her jealousy, knowing that she was in a very small space with two hostile vampires who would kill her without a second thought if she faltered for an instant.

Christian
loved
her, and that was all that mattered.

"Lena," she acknowledged.

"Baroness, actually," Lena returned coolly.

Lucian had settled back into his teasing humor after the passing flash of annoyance had disappeared. He'd enjoy watching Lena have her way with her after he was done. The witch had been stupid to come to Paris without his brother's protection, although Christian had certainly seemed incapacitated when he had checked. Before they broke her, he would find out exactly where Christian was and save himself the legwork of trying to locate him to ensure his long-awaited demise.

"Tori and I were just discussing dinner plans," he said to Lena.

Lena's eyes narrowed. She had warned Lucian about this witch's abilities and still he didn't listen. His arrogance would cost him. She glanced at Victoria, whose skin was flushed as if she'd just finished running a marathon, even though her breathing was slow, calm. Lena couldn't see why Christian was infatuated with her, this woman-child. She was quite ordinary, with the exception of her eyes, which were an unusual emerald color.

Victoria turned from Lucian to Lena, her look measured. It was at that same moment Lena realized that she had been mistaken about the color of Victoria's eyes. They weren't green at all ... they were jet black.

"Lucian," Victoria said carefully, watching them both, "if you try to hurt Christian in any way, I will forget my promise not to hurt you because you are his brother."

Lucian was incredulous. He couldn't believe that she was still threatening him. Why he ought to kill her right there! His glance dropped to his mother's ring gleaming on her right hand and anger flooded into him, fueling his rage. With inhuman speed he lunged toward Victoria but to her magical, blood-inspired senses, it looked like he was moving in slow motion. She let him get within inches of her.

"Confuto," she said, as she'd done with the other vampires. Lucian's body froze in mid-leap. Lena snarled but she found that she couldn't move either. Victoria's blood boiled and without thinking, she almost said the words of death it whispered seductively.

Careful,
she warned herself, the blood would kill deviously and without conscience, and losing control to it was the one thing she could not afford. She tore her eyes away from Lena with effort.

For the first time since he'd met her, Lucian looked at her with new awareness. Too late. She leaned forward and touched his face, feeling his muscle flex beneath her touch. "Like I said, because you are his brother, I'll be generous, but come near him, Lucian, and I won't be this kind," she said.

She could see the rage, the hatred and the new fear burning in his eyes. He wanted to hurt her so badly that she could smell it. Slowly, unhurriedly, she took out the pocketknife she had used with Enhard, and Lucian's eyes narrowed. "It's not for you, don't worry."

Victoria repeated the cut, slicing diagonally across her palm, letting the blood pool in her cupped palm. She knew they could smell its heady scent in the confined space and she was careful not to let a single drop fall. Lucian's body strained against the magical bonds and his eyes were feral with uncontrollable hunger, as were Lena's. Victoria smiled and said, "Transeo."

As before, her body melted into the air and the last thing she saw was Lucian's enraged face as he lunged into open air just where she had been standing.

Lucian stood in the elevator, clenching and unclenching his fists. The hunger was so fierce he could barely control himself.

He had never been so deliriously happy in all his life.

"Did you see it?" he said. Lena stared at him confused.

"The blood?" she asked. When he nodded, she continued. "I could barely stand to look at it. The smell alone was like nothing else I have ever smelled, it felt like my stomach was eating itself I became so ravenous. Why?"

"It was as dark as I have ever seen."

"So?" Lucian glared at her obtuseness.

"Le Sang Noir ... it's her."

VICTORIA HOPED HER Mini would still be where she'd left it in the parking lot at 125th Street. If not, this would end up being one of those teleportation jumps gone tragically wrong. She didn't have a choice because it was the place she knew in New York that had the lowest variability risk. She couldn't go to Angie's apartment because that would be too dangerous, and there was no way she could just pick a spot in the city and hope for the best, far too risky.

"Transeo," she said.

When she opened her eyes, she was sitting in the freezing cold interior of her car, and she breathed a slow, grateful breath. She hopped on the express number five subway train and switched to the local number six train to get to the address that Enhard had given her. She hoped that Enhard would have already arrived.

Time was running out. Victoria had stayed close to Christian via the tenuous tunnel between their minds that she'd kept open despite the risk of discovery. After a time, the effort for the portal had become mindless and she barely had to think about holding it open, it was just another thing that the blood magic did naturally.

Although it had been a matter of hours, the magical wounds that Gabriel had inflicted were doing what they were intended to do, and the accelerated blood loss coupled with Christian's lack of a will to live, left him weak and floating in and out of consciousness. He was still alive but his desire to die worsened his weakened condition. He had no fight left.

The few times that Victoria had reached him when he had seemed more conscious, he had treated her voice like a figment of his tortured imagination, and kept saying how sorry he was that he hadn't been able to save her. The more she tried to tell him that she was alive and well, the more he struggled against her, convinced it was Gabriel playing some inhuman game.

Enhard was waiting in the foyer of his apartment, his face brooding.

"We have to hurry. We don't have much time," Victoria told him. "I ran into Lucian in the elevator after I saw you in Paris, and he knows who I am. I had to invoke the blood magic to teleport away from him. Now that he knows, there's nothing else standing in his way. He'll be here, I can feel it." Enhard's face whitened even though that piece of news did not come as a surprise to him. Lucian would do whatever it took to take everything away from Christian.

Realizing that the stakes were higher than ever and that there was no margin for error, they combed through the details of the plan. They would sneak in the way that Angie had brought Christian. With any luck, Gabriel would have assumed that Angie had used the first entrance. No doubt he would have already discovered that Victoria and Holly had gone, but if he hadn't, that would be an added element of surprise. Once they got in, the main objective would be to get Christian out safely. The plan had many, many holes but it was the only option they had to save him quickly and in short order.

Victoria brushed Christian's mind gently as they were leaving.

I'm coming my love,
she told him,
hold on.
She looked around the room through his consciousness and noticed that although the room seemed similar, it was different from hers and Holly's. She had no way of knowing which room it was. When the time came, she'd have to guess which door he lay behind and hope for the right one.

They walked briskly downtown and Victoria glanced sideways at Enhard. It had been a risk going to him for help, but she really had had no other choice. There had been a fifty-fifty chance that Enhard would help, given how he felt about Christian's relationship with her, but she had bargained on the strong paternal bond that he'd had with Christian winning out in the end. And it had.

"I know you don't approve," she said, "but I love him."

Enhard didn't break his stride at her softly spoken words but she could see his face tighten and knew that he had heard her. A few moments passed before he spoke.

"My mentor was a vampire called Valerius. He met your ancestor, the Duchess toward the end. From what I have seen in his memories, you look very much like her. But you're different too, stronger ... worthy of the curse you bear." Enhard raised a hand and placed it on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "He loved her, I think, but he died for it." Victoria looked at him.

"As I would for him," she said quietly.

In the exact moment that she said the words, Victoria realized something. She hadn't been able to control the blood when she'd challenged Christian at his house because she hadn't understood it fully even then. But now, it was all so clear. It was an epiphany of epic magnitude, yet she'd known it all along—it was Brigid's legacy!

Love
was the answer.

Her mind scanned through the last pages of the journal remembering what Brigid had written, "the price of the blood's magic had always been mine to set! I lost the one thing that could have saved me ... love." Her son's unfaltering love and her love for her granddaughters had been her saving grace, her one chance to salvage her humanity and control the blood curse. And she had conquered it and died doing so, but she'd done so on
her
terms. For the first time, Victoria felt hope that she would prevail.

They reached the entrance on Lexington. The metal gates to the alley were closed, most likely because it was in the middle of the day, but Victoria swept it with her mind just to be sure. Empty. Victoria kissed the ring Christian had given her and touched her amulet. She would need all the strength that both had to offer as she pulled the grates open and walked down into the darkness.

"Specto," she said. Her eyes acclimatized magically to the enveloping dark. She glanced around at Enhard and knew that he'd have no trouble with the darkness. He nodded for her to continue.

They crept to the door and Victoria scanned again; the room seemed to be empty but she couldn't be sure. Gabriel was nothing if not resourceful. Chances were, he already knew that she was there but she was hoping that he wouldn't be prepared for Enhard, which would give them a slight advantage. Indicating that Enhard should remain in the shadows for a few minutes before following, she invoked an invisibility spell and stole into the room. She felt the alteration as the protective wards within the chamber negated the simple spell of her own magic, and she gritted her teeth.
Push forward,
she thought. She didn't want to engage the blood magic unnecessarily.

The room was still in a shambles from Christian and Gabriel's fight, and she moved noiselessly to the doors in the back, her senses alert and her mind searching for Christian. Suddenly, every cell froze as she felt the delicate shift in the air.

"I knew you'd be back," Gabriel said.

Victoria turned, her features composed. Gabriel stood flanked by three people she didn't recognize, two older guys and a girl. Behind him, stood Angie, and Victoria almost gasped aloud in horror—her face was covered in purple bruises, her lips puffy with one eye swollen completely shut. She held her head down and shielded her face with her hair. Victoria's face must have reflected her horror because Gabriel smiled grimly.