Bloodspell (The Cruentus Curse, #1)(86)

"And what do you see then, with me?" Victoria directed her question at Fardon, who smiled at her boldness and then frowned soon after, his eyes widening.

Aliya was right, Victoria couldn't distinguish between her conscious and unconscious, but her blood certainly could. She let her energy flow, following the guidance of the blood magic, and kept her mind a blank slate. The harder Fardon focused, the more elusive what he was searching for became. She could feel his mounting frustration and smiled inside.

"I see nothing," he said after several minutes. He exchanged a baffled look with Aliya who had put a calming hand on his arm as if she'd also sensed his frustration. She watched Victoria circumspectly.

"That's impossible," she said slowly. "No, not impossible, but it would take a very accomplished witch to block Fardon. Not many can thwart his Seeing ability. And yet you do so effortlessly ... and untrained

"Maybe there's just nothing to see," Victoria said.

Fardon frowned. "There's always something to see!"

Victoria remained silent, and they stood staring at each other, at a curious impasse until a knock on the door interrupted them.

Christian walked into the room without waiting for an answer, clearly looking for Victoria. He took in the scene right away—Victoria's discomfort, Fardon's interest, and Aliya's frustration. As soon as Victoria saw him, he didn't miss the immediate darkening of her eyes or the walls that fell into place over them. He cursed Lucian's earlier revelation for the hundredth time.

"Will you please excuse us?" he said to Aliya and Fardon.

As Aliya left the room, she looked at Christian with a shuttered, speculative expression as if she had detected something transpiring between the two of them that had made her suddenly uneasy. She frowned but left as he'd asked.

Christian closed the door. He stared at Victoria where she sat on one of the chairs staring into space, steadfastly refusing to look at him.

"Tori, please talk to me," he said. "It was a long time ago, and it ended a long time ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice was a whisper.

"Because it doesn't mean anything. You have to believe that."

"She still loves you, you know," she said finally, looking him in the eyes. "And I can never compete with that, Christian."

"Compete with what, exactly?" he said, detecting a strange finality in her voice.

"That she is a vampire, like you, that you gave a part of yourself to her. She is who she is because you chose her. She will always have that piece of you ... that I won't." Victoria pressed her hands to her face, her torment apparent. Christian knelt at her feet and took her hands in his. She tried to pull them away, but he held on tightly. "She doesn't want to let you go, I saw it in her eyes."

"Victoria, that doesn't matter. Do you know why?" he asked. "Because I let her go a long time ago. I don't want her. I want you. I love you."

"You love me?" she echoed dumbly.

"What do you think this is all about?" he asked. Victoria turned her face away, unwilling to look in his eyes, knowing what she saw there would be her undoing. She shook her head in angry denial, refuting his gently given words.

"No. You were right. What we are doing is wrong. There's a reason for the laws," she said, bleak. "They hate us ... they hate me." And then fire flashed again for an instant in her eyes as she remembered something else. "And I can't believe you never told me you're a stupid Earl or whatever!"

"A Duke. My father was the cousin of the King of France. Remember? I did tell you that he was the Duke of Avigny." As he said the words, Victoria remembered that he had said that, but at the time she had been more concerned with what had happened to him to make him what he was, rather than details about who he was. She nodded. "Well, that same title has passed to me and its royal lineage is recognized in our world," he said.

"And Lucian?"

"He has other titles, but as first-born, I inherited this one. Although it means little to me, and I would give it up in a heartbeat if I could."

"Couldn't you?" she blurted out.

"Only by dying."

Victoria blanched at his response, knowing that Lucian would be more than happy to have him dead.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Don't you know by now that I do as I like? Tori, I gave you my mother's ring because it is my pledge to you, not to anyone else ... to you. It doesn't matter to me what the rules are in my world or in your world, I only care about us and our world because anywhere that is, is where I want to be. It's the only place I want to be," he said, desperately willing her to believe him, to trust him.

He could see her on the verge of it, just about to grasp the hand he offered, when suddenly the door swung open and Enhard walked in, taking in the scene of Christian, a vampire royal, kneeling before Victoria.

His glacial response was all Victoria saw, and the tiny flicker of warmth struggling to stay alive between them abruptly faded, her expression deadening in seconds. Christian clenched his jaw swallowing his ire at Enhard's untimely entrance and whispered, "Please Tori, trust me."

"I can't, Christian." Her eyes closed in distress. "I'm sorry." She couldn't even look at him, knowing what she would see in his face.