He barely heard the words, hardly registered her presence before Flora sank her awful fangs into the curve of his neck.
TWENTY-SEVEN
~ A Desperate Battle ~
Macey hit the ground hard, with the breath knocked out of her. Just after she thumped onto the floor, she heard the hollow sound of a wooden stake landing next to her.
Everything was quiet in the space—an empty, unused orchestra pit. The edges were shadowed and dark, and the only light came from the opening in the stage above.
Macey picked up the stake, heart pounding…for by know, she thought she knew what Iscariot had planned.
And just as she rose to her feet, something shifted at the edge of darkness…then moved slowly into the light.
“Sebastian,” she breathed. Though she’d prepared herself, the sight of him—battered, bloody, and wild-eyed—knocked the breath from her. Anguish and hunger burned in his eyes as she moved closer to him, still holding the stake. She could see he’d been fed on, that so much blood had been taken from him…
“Get away,” he said. “What the hell are you thinking…” His eyes burned hotter, and his nostrils flared as if he’d caught her scent.
Macey stopped, fully aware of her predicament.
I want the Rings of Jubai. And Sebastian Vioget’s soul.
Iscariot’s desire was clear: she was to battle Sebastian to the death. Killing him would release the rings, but by marking her, drawing her blood so viciously and thoroughly, Iscariot had ensured Sebastian would be unable to fight the temptation to taste mortal blood for the first time—thus losing his soul.
He should be weak and helpless, with such a loss of blood…but it had only made him desperately hungry. The scent of her own fresh blood would be filling his nostrils, and he would go for her—inhumanly strong in his weakness and need.
Her rough breathing filled her ears—no, that was Sebastian’s. He was breathing, and his heart was beating…Macey felt its thudding, the power of it trapped inside the pit with her. His immortal pulse throbbed, pounding like an insistent drum, determined to capture her own heartbeat. To control it. To subdue her.
She saw, now, that Sebastian was crouched on the floor, his arms wrapped around his bent knees, each hand gripping the opposite wrist. Blood oozed from the imprint of his fingernails into his own flesh. He was holding himself back.
“Go,” he groaned, burying his face in his knees. His body shook visibly. “Get out of here.”
Macey didn’t bother to look too closely for an exit—not only would Iscariot have ensured there wasn’t one, but she was not about to leave Sebastian here. Never.
She would kill him first.
She would kill him, and take the rings if she needed to.
Then Macey remembered, somehow in the midst of this turmoil, the copper ring she’d found in his bedside table. If it was one of the Rings of Jubai, Iscariot wouldn’t have them all even if Sebastian dies.
“Sebastian,” she whispered, moving as close as she dared, while wiping away as much of her blood as possible with the flap of her shirt. “Are you wearing all the rings?”
He lifted his face and she nearly fell backward. That was when she knew there was no hope.
His eyes…they blazed with hunger and pain and lust. She didn’t know whether he’d even heard her…whether he even cared. Whether he even knew it was she, Macey.
His fangs: they were long and sharp and lethal, desperate for their first taste of mortal blood. His fingers had slipped and were digging viciously into the backs of his hands now. But even in the faulty light she could see how he trembled with desire, and how desperately he fought the need to lunge for her.
Macey felt cold and empty. So it would come to this. It was the only way. If Victoria Gardella could slay her husband…
She gripped the stake. No matter what, she’d kill Sebastian before he tasted her. That was the only way possible to save his soul, and—perhaps, if he’d somehow fulfilled his long promise—Giulia Pesaro’s as well.
Sebastian was starved and beaten, and he was weak—not so much physically as emotionally and mentally. Whatever Iscariot had done to him, it had made the Venator-turned-vampire into the most vulnerable of men.
And it was Macey he wanted. Only Macey that could cause him to lose control, to succumb to the desire that had festered and been controlled for more than a century.
Not just any mortal, but she: the manifestation of the two women for whom he’d made his sacrifice.
“That’s not much of an entertainment.” Iscariot’s impatient voice traveled down into the darkness. His shadow moved around near the rim of the stage. “Shall we spice things up a bit?”
Macey had no chance to react or respond, for all at once, there were more dark figures struggling over the top of the pit, and then someone was flung down inside.
Grady.
He landed so close to Sebastian that Macey actually heard the Venator-vampire groan with desperation.
But Sebastian could resist Grady. This was merely Iscariot’s way of upping the ante, of bringing more temptation to Sebastian, to overwhelm him with the scent and sight and proximity of fresh blood.
Macey grabbed Grady by the shirt and yanked him away from Sebastian while whispering in his ear, “Find us a way out of this place.”
She couldn’t see his face, but she felt him tighten, as if to argue—but then he nodded. He squeezed her arm with his bound hands before he crawled off…just as Sebastian let out a tortuous, keening cry—and lunged.
Macey vaulted to her feet and slammed into him as hard as possible, forestalling his attack on her. They crashed into the wooden wall of the pit, which in the back of her mind gave her hope that they could somehow find their way out of this place. At least it wasn’t brick.
His hands grabbed for her, wild and furious. His eyes were no longer Sebastian’s, but that of a desperate demon. His beautiful, chiseled features were stretched into madness and starvation. He knocked her onto her back, his full weight slamming her onto the concrete floor, her head whipping back once again as he knocked the breath from her lungs.
Light and dark flashed in her eyes, and pain radiated like an explosion in the back of her skull, but she still had the stake gripped fiercely in her hand. Ready. One thrust…that’s it. One—
No, she thought. No.
Sebastian was on top of her in a horrible mockery of lovemaking, the skill for which he was so well known: his powerful arms and legs wrapped around her, his hips and torso molding against hers. His face was a mask of darkness as it sank down toward her as if prepared to devour her with a kiss.
“Do it,” he said from between clenched teeth. His mouth was next to her throat. She felt the heat of his lips moving against her, the smooth sensation of fang as they slid along her skin. “God, Macey, do it.” He vibrated against her, struggling with the demon inside him.
“No,” she cried, and slammed her head sharply into the side of his temple, then shoved him off with a strength she didn’t know she still had.
She staggered to her feet, bumping against the wall, and saw Grady a few inches away. He turned and something glinted as it flew through the air toward her.
Macey caught it: the silver cross he’d just removed from her throat. Panting, heaving, she held up the cross in front of her as Sebastian pulled to his feet, also gasping desperately.
“Listen to me,” she said, moving closer so he could hear her and Iscariot could not—for the vampire master and his cohorts continued to watch from above. “Just stay back, Sebastian. We’re going to get out of here. I’m not going to—”
He laughed. It was not Sebastian Vioget’s laugh, but that of someone else. It sent dark, insidious shivers through her body, and she realized: this was no longer Sebastian.
“Do you think that would stop me now?” he said, lashing out with a powerful hand. “One who’s worn the like for a hundred years?”
He snatched the cross from her and flung it away into the darkness as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. She slammed up against his body once more, her stake trapped uselessly between them.
“There’s nothing that can save me,” he said from behind compressed teeth. “Nothing any longer.” He had her pushed back against the wall before she was over the shock at the theft of her cross. She saw the truth in his unfamiliar eyes.
“I’m not strong enough. I’m not strong enough to do this anymore. Not even for her.” Tears streamed from his eyes—red, glistening tears—as she saw one last hint of the man he’d been. She had to use the stake. There was no other choice.
He bared his fangs and plunged toward her throat.
TWENTY-EIGHT
~ The Effect of One Small Bead ~
“Noooo!” Macey cried, and ripped aside just far enough that he barely nicked her, a light, superficial scratch. “Sebastian,” she panted, trying one last time. “You are strong enough. For her, for Giulia—you can fight this! Please, Sebastian!”
But he wasn’t listening. He swung back toward her again, grabbing the front of her torn corset. It ripped, and as she stumbled away she felt something move, shifting and spilling delicately inside the side-lacer.
The rosary.
You will need it someday.
If she ever needed anything, any extra help, it was now.