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  When Twilight Burns

  ( Gardella Vampire Chronicles - 4 )

  Колин Глисон

  After narrowly escaping Rome with her mortality, vampire hunter Lady Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacey returns to London—where not even sunrise can stop a vampire’s carnage. Not only is Victoria unable to detect the vampire with her heightened senses, but she’s being framed as the prime suspect behind the killings.

  Meanwhile, the legacy of a vampire’s touch has left his blood boiling in her veins and forces her to fight evil on two fronts—against the new breed of undead threatening London and the darkness within herself…

  Colleen Gleason

  When Twilight Burns

  For Linda,

  for all those mornings and afternoons on the phone.

  Every day.

  And in memory of my grandmother,

  Laura Genevieve.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I owe big thanks to my agent, Marcy Posner, and my brilliant editor, Claire Zion, for the unwavering support and assistance for this book.

  Everyone at New American Library, from the editorial staff to the art and publicity departments, as usual, has gone above and beyond in support of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, and I thank you again for the great covers and promotional designs.

  Special thanks to Devon Wolfe for putting Victoria and Sebastian in the sewers of London, and to Tammy, Holli, and Jana for keeping me honest during the writing process. Hugs to Trish M., Kelly, Kate, Jackie Kessler, and Kathryn Smith for their support. And a special thanks to Robyn Carr for just about everything.

  My on-line friends and bloggers continue to support the series, and I’m wholly indebted to Carl Vincent, Nancy Horner, Cheya Weber, and the gals at Estella’s. Also big, grateful shout-outs to Michelle Buonfiglio and her Bellas, Romance Novel.TV, Chris A., Bam, the rocking Smart Bitches, Dear Author, Zeek, Book Fetish, and the wonderful ladies at AAR.

  Thanks also to all of my fans, who keep in touch with their opinion on Victoria’s love life, particularly MaryKate (I so don’t want to have to throw down with you!), Danita, Beth, Jeannie, Shahenda, Andrea, Kristin, and everyone else. And also congratulations to Melissa and Deb, who won the chance to make cameo appearances herein.

  Most of all, as always, I thank my family for their love and support and enthusiasm for everything from cover flat arrivals to typing The End. I couldn’t do it without you.

  Prologue

  Wherein Our Heroine Has a Rude Awakening

  Victoria opened her eyes.

  A ring of faces looked down at her: Max, his face shadowed but sharp-eyed; Sebastian, golden-haired and tense; Wayren, near the foot of the bed, her pale oval face tight. Ylito and Hannever stood above Victoria’s head, frozen and watchful. She knew from the pattern on the stone walls behind them that she was in the Consilium, the secret, subterranean space belonging to the Venators. The vampire hunters-of which she was the leader.

  “What-” Her head felt soupy and her eyelids heavy, and suddenly she remembered. “Beauregard!”

  As memory sliced through the fuzziness, she tried to pull up, but her ankles and one of her wrists were caught fast. Someone’s-Max’s-fingers tightened around her left arm, keeping it pinned onto the bed beneath her, and before she could react with the anger and confusion erupting inside her, a splash of water caught her over the face.

  The cold seeped down into her hair and over the warm skin of her neck, and she jerked beneath her restraints. “Why did you do that?” she said, glaring up at Ylito, who’d tipped the vial over her face. She raised her free arm, near Sebastian, to brush some of the water from her eye.

  No one answered… yet, something in the room had changed. Eased. Sebastian glanced at Wayren, who was looking at Ylito over Victoria.

  “Is it possible?” asked the ringlet-haired man.

  “I don’t know how it can be, Ylito,” Wayren replied.

  The tightness in her dear friend’s face had softened, and her countenance had taken on more of that serene look Victoria was used to seeing.

  What was happening?

  And then the recognition of a searing pain in her neck, and the memory flash of shadows and blood and long, sleek fangs brought it all back to her. Beauregard… she’d been with Beauregard, the master vampire… his cold and warm mouth on hers, his teeth sliding into her flesh… the brush of skin against skin… the rusty taste of blood… on her lips. Pooling, rich and heavy, on her tongue. Filling her throat. His hands, smooth and sure… everywhere…

  He’d bitten her, fed on her. Had she drunk his blood? Oh… God…

  Her heart was racing now, and she wanted to struggle, to whip off Max’s firm hold on her arm, to sit up and demand to know what had happened. But the others were talking, above her, around her, as if she wasn’t there.

  For a moment, Victoria was afraid to know.

  And then, Wayren was touching her, smoothing her hands down over Victoria’s face, her wounded throat. Light and warm and sure, the pressure was soothing, spreading relief through her body. As she touched her, Wayren hummed a chantlike prayer deep in the back of her throat, and Victoria felt the vibrations coming through Wayren’s fingertips, rippling through her body.

  “The two vis bullae.” Max’s quiet voice broke into the charged silence. He stepped back, releasing Victoria’s wrist and, she noticed for the first time, the stake that rested on the table next to him.

  Dear God, he’d been ready to stake her. She understood in an instant: they’d feared Beauregard had turned her.

  Her mouth dried and she swiveled her face to look toward him, but Max was looking intently at Wayren. “She wears two of them, does she not?” he asked.

  And then she realized what had happened, even as they discussed the situation above her head, above her prone body: it was only because of the two holy strength amulets that she wore, the badges of her Venator calling to hunt vampires, that she’d been saved from becoming one of the very undead that she vowed to destroy.

  A chill wave rushed over her and Victoria closed her eyes, the conversation around her becoming a distorted buzz. When she looked again, she found herself caught by Sebastian’s dark amber gaze. He was looking down at her, a frozen expression on his handsome face.

  It took her a moment to remember what had happened, and for the anger at his betrayal to bubble up inside her aching body: he’d stolen from the Consilium, from the Venators.

  Her sometime lover, sometime enemy had deceived her in even more ways than she had expected.

  He was a Venator. Born of the Gardella family tree.

  A Venator who had disdained his calling for years because of loyalty to his great-great-great-grandfather, Beauregard. One of the most powerful of vampires.

  Her fury abated slightly as another scrap of memory slipped into place: Sebastian, thrusting himself between her and Beauregard, shouting at her to leave, even as she shoved a stake meant for Beauregard into Sebastian’s shoulder… and the blood, blood that wasn’t supposed to be there… She saw the crusty bloom even now on his sweat-stained shirt.

  And then another memory consumed her. A dark, liquid one, of heavy, deep pleasure… lush shadows and dangerous pleasure and heat… hands, and lips, and tongue… And Sebastian, again, his face pale and desperate, pleading with Beauregard for her release. And her own laugh, welling up from deep inside her, husky and low. Derisive. Dismissive.

  And then the handsome face of Sebastian’s grandfather bending to hers, his fangs sleek and lethal, his lips warm and cold.

  Oh God.

  “What about Beauregard?” she said suddenly, her voice commanding their attention. She sat up and the room hardly dipped at all.

  “He’s
dead,” Max said flatly, his face still in shadow.

  A modicum of relief seeped through her body, and she looked at Sebastian. From the expression on his face, she realized he’d done the impossible: he’d killed the six-hundred-year-old vampire who had been his grandfather.

  She reached for his hand and his fingers closed around hers. She squeezed them: in thanks and apology. “Will you join us again, now?” she asked in the strong, demanding voice of Illa Gardella, the leader of the Venators.

  “I will.”

  And then, with belated horror, she remembered: Max.

  Victoria turned to look at him and their eyes met. The studiously flat expression there told her all she needed to know. Sebastian might be taking his rightful place within the ranks of the Venators, but Max no longer could. He’d given up his Venator powers in order to destroy the thrall Lilith the Dark, Queen of the Vampires, had held over him.

  One:

  Two Dogs Circling

  “Lilith won’t know I’ve severed her hold on me until she tries to exert it,” Max said. Exhaustion trembled in his muscles, and he swore he could feel his eyes sinking more deeply into their sockets.

  The last time he’d felt so bruised and empty had been after the battle with Nedas, Lilith’s son, last fall. Max had been forced to execute Eustacia, his mentor and Victoria’s great-aunt. Eustacia was one of the most powerful Venators who had ever lived. She’d ordered Max to sacrifice her so that he could get close enough to Nedas to destroy him and the powerful, demonic obelisk in his possession.

  It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  Now, here he was, ready to leave the Venators permanently.

  Only an hour had passed since Victoria had awakened from her ordeal, and he and Wayren had slipped away to her library here in the Consilium, the subterranean head-quarters of the Venators, in order to discuss his future. They’d left Sebastian Vioget simpering over a pale-visaged, hollow-cheeked Victoria.

  It was just as well, for that was quite obviously the way the wind blew. Although Max had had a moment of perverse satisfaction when he realized Vioget hadn’t known that Victoria wore two vis bullae.

  “But once Lilith realizes I’m free, she’ll consider it a betrayal,” he said, returning to the conversation.

  “And she won’t rest until she finds you,” Wayren replied in her even voice. She looked at him with her cool blue-gray eyes, reality shining there. “Her fury will know no bounds.”

  “How fortunate I am to be the object of such passion.” Max tasted bitterness.

  At that moment, there was a knock at the door and then Vioget came in, uninvited.

  Max glanced up, not bothering to hide the flash of animosity in his face. Still flecked with blood, dirt, and debris from his battle to rescue Victoria from Beauregard’s lair, Vioget looked weary and uncharacteristically out of sorts. Max supposed that was only to be expected, after having been stabbed in the shoulder by the stake meant for a vampire. And by his lover, too.

  Max’s lips twitched. Victoria with one vis bulla was stronger than any man-but wearing two, her strength would be superhuman. Vioget had to be in pain, even being a Venator.

  Despite the fact that Vioget had called Beauregard “Grandfather,” the man was also a born Venator. Vioget’s father had descended from Beauregard’s mortal son, many generations after the vampire had been turned undead. And his mother had apparently carried some measure of Gardella blood in her, which had passed on to Vioget in an ironic turn: the grandson of a vampire was called to be a slayer of the undead.

  “So sorry to interrupt,” Sebastian said in dulcet tones that didn’t match his disheveled appearance. He barely glanced at Max, turning pointedly to Wayren.

  She sat not behind her desk, but in a cushioned chair, dressed, as always, like a medieval chatelaine in a long, loose gown with pointed sleeves that brushed the floor. This night, the bulk of her pale blonde hair hung in two thick braids, with two finger-slim ones hanging from her temples. She wore no jewelry or adornment except for the braided leather girdle at her waist, upon which hung a ring of keys.

  “I have a matter of some urgency which I must discuss with you,” Vioget continued.

  “I imagine you do. Beauregard’s death at your hand probably won’t be well received by his undead compatriots,” Max replied pleasantly. “Especially since for the last decade you’ve fairly lived among them. You may actually need to bestir yourself to slay a few more in order to protect your hide.”

  He and Vioget had known each other for more than fifteen years, long before either even knew that vampires existed. The animosity between them had been put aside for the few hours it took to rescue Victoria, but Max saw no reason to hide his antipathy for Vioget and his years of denying his calling as a Venator. Cowardice or selfishness-Max wasn’t sure which one had driven the man-but it didn’t matter to him.

  People had been mauled, killed, and Vioget had done nothing to help them.

  Until Victoria came along.

  And, as far as he was concerned, it was Vioget’s fault that Max had had to carry a bloody, unconscious Victoria from Beauregard’s bedchamber. If Vioget hadn’t been balancing both sides of his loyalty-to the Venators and his grandfather-for years, Victoria would never have been caught between him and Beauregard.

  The other man elected to ignore Max’s comment, focusing his attention on Wayren. “The two vis bullae seem to have saved her from being turned,” he said.

  “A miraculous occurrence,” she replied. “Completely unexpected. But, since I’ve never known of a Venator to wear two, there was no way to predict such a recovery. And who’s to say another such event would have the same result. At least some of her recovery must be attributed to her own strength and determination. Who she is.”

  “Yes. But… how did she come to have two of them? I am fully aware of their rarity-that each vis is cast of precious silver from the Holy Land, and blessed only for its recipient,” Vioget continued. “Victoria’s was lost during the battle with Nedas last November, and I was able to retrieve Eustacia’s and send it to Victoria to replace hers… But where did the second one come from?”

  Max settled back in his chair and bared his teeth in a condescending smile. “It’s mine.”

  He was a bit annoyed it had taken him so long to figure it out, for, after all, it was imperially logical. He’d given his vis bulla to Victoria after the battle with Nedas, when he thought he was leaving the Venators for good. The irony was that, unbeknownst to Victoria, he had recovered the vis bulla that she’d lost when Nedas’s creatures had torn it from her navel.

  And it was her amulet that hung, now useless to him, from his areola. Max’s moment of satisfaction evaporated.

  “I see.” Vioget’s jaw shifted, and he turned once again to Wayren. “Then may I assume you’ve already discussed the situation? Is it possible it’s merely a residual effect?”

  Wayren looked at him with a slight frown. “Situation? I’m not certain what you mean, Sebastian.”

  “When Victoria awoke, she didn’t react to the holy water splashed on her face, as any vampire would. She seems completely normal. Except…” Vioget looked at him. “Don’t you feel it? The vampire chill at the back of your neck, or however you sense the presence of the undead?”

  Vioget didn’t know about him? Max shrugged off his surprise in order to focus on Sebastian’s disturbing question. “What are you saying?”

  “I still feel cold at the back of my neck in Victoria’s presence.” Venators could sense the presence of the undead by a chill that prickled the napes of their necks.

  For the first time since he’d seen her sprawled on Beauregard’s bed, blood trickling from her lips, Max was unable to breathe. Yet he kept his reply cool. “No. I don’t feel anything.”

  Vioget looked relieved. “Well, that’s promising. Perhaps it’s only because Beauregard attempted to turn her, and I knew him so well, that I continue to sense his presence. After all, she did ingest his blood. It must be
some residual effect.” He looked as though he was ready to leave the room.

  “You misunderstand me,” Max was compelled to say. He would have rather let Sebastian go, let everything go, and accept the simple explanation. But. “I cannot feel anything. Any longer.”

  Vioget turned, his hand on the door. “Did you ever, Pesaro? Feel anything?”

  Max’s jaw tightened, but he plunged on. It had to be said. “I am no longer a Venator.” But he was damned if he’d give Vioget the whole story, the reasons and the trials and the burdens. The fact that he’d had no choice but to give up his powers-not in order to be freed from Lilith; no, he would have continued to bear that burden as long as he had to. But because, in order to kill the demon Akvan, who’d threatened to take over the city of Roma, he’d had to become merely a man once again.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Vioget’s gaze sharpened with calculation. “That was why you were leaving the Consilium, when I came to ask you for help with Victoria.” Max inclined his head, and Vioget looked startled, and grudgingly impressed. “You came with us unprotected by the vis bulla.”

  “I did what had to be done,” Max replied. Unlike you. He left the words unspoken, but from the tightening of Vioget’s expression, he knew they were understood.

  In clear dismissal, the blond man turned his attention to Wayren, who’d remained silent throughout their exchange. Her smooth brow was furrowed and her eyes worried as he asked, “What do you think? Can it merely be a residual effect of the near turning?”

  She lifted her shoulders gracefully. “I do not know. As you’re aware, I cannot sense the presence of an undead as you can, nor could Ylito or Hannever, as they aren’t Venators themselves. There was no one else in the room with us, and… methinks it would accomplish no good at this time if the other Venators were to be told what happened. Perhaps”-she glanced at Max-“the effect will subside as she grows stronger.”