Page 5 (1/2)

And she wasn’t quite sure, as she stood there looking after Sebastian, which type she preferred

The temperature at the back of her neck had returned to nor that there weren’t any other undead in the vicinity, so Victoria decided she ought to examine the parlorlike chaland, he’d said Clearly, Beauregard had been busy educating his great-great-great- (soe

Victoria pursed her lips as she looked over at Sebastian, who’d opened a small door that had been revealed with the movement of the throne It would be best if she tried to find out what he was after, even though he was obviously not inclined to tell her

She started toward hiinally thought were bundles of clothing or blankets But frole

"Dear God"

She was at the side of the bodies in an instant, Sebastian and his cubbyhole forgotten for the moment

He looked over "What is--oh Damnation"

There were three of them in heaps on the floor, tossed near the wall like trash Blood--dried, congealed, pooled--was on their ravaged faces and hands, on the floor, spattered low on the wall The stench filled her nose, and her fingers closed into each of her pal even

"Victoria" Sebastian was there, his face suddenly close to hers

She grabbed in a deep breath and shook her head "I’m fine"

He knelt beside the bodies, heaped on top of each other haphazardly, and gently moved them so that their faces were revealed--or as left of the was in shreds The vampires hadn’t merely fed on them, they’d mauled and destroyed them Even tortured then

"This is what you allowed to walk free when you turned your back on the Venators," Victoria said, her voice cold "How many innocents have suffered like this when they could have been saved?" The fury burned through her, and her fingers were shaking The haze colored her vision and she felt rage surging through her like a teaone wild

And then she turned over the last body, and saw the familiar face

Three

Wherein Our Heroine Succu to wrap the corpse in but her coat, and Sebastian’s too, which Victoria ih the body was cold, he couldn’t have been dead for long, as the pools of blood around his nor other vermin had yet discovered the destroyed flesh

"Who is it?" Sebastian asked His sensual voice was clipped, no doubt by anger at her sharp accusation It wouldn’t be guilt Not Sebastian

Victoria cared little for his sensitivities She had said what needed to be said, even though it angered him

"It’s Briyani, Max’s Comitator," she told him "Kritanu’s nephew"

Victoria carefully wrapped up the young man, who’d been perhaps only five years older than her oo decades He’d been a s with his uncle, who had helped her and Max escape fro a terrible fire

Not a Venator, no, but Briyani had been just as iainst the undead He had been Max’s Comitator--his assistant, valet, and an expert who trained him in the Indian martial art of kalaripayattu