"You still wear your vis bulla." He stepped closer to her, his boot-clad feet grinding on the brick-and-mortar terrace.
"Does that surprise you?" She felt the knob of the door behind her, but other than closing her fingers over its cool brass, made no move to turn it. He was very, very close, but she was not unsettled. After all, she'd faced down numerous vampires, and a demon. And even the Queen of the Vampires. A mere man was no danger to her.
"I assumed since you'd left London that you'd also left your Venator days behind you. Or perhaps you wear the vis bulla in order to protect yourself from overly amorous suitors like Mr. Starcasset."
"George"—she used his given name deliberately—"was not overly amorous until you poked your elegant fingers into the mess."
"You consider my fingers elegant, then?" Sebastian's smile flashed. "Two compliments in one evening… how completely unexpected."
"I have not left my Venator days behind me. Why would I do that?"
His shoulders moved in a nonchalant shrug. "I thought perhaps after what transpired with Rockley, you might have decided to walk away. After all, you'd done your duty, and look at the result. You lost the love of your life."
"Walk away? The question would not be whether I would, but how could I shirk my duty? After seeing firsthand the evil of vampires, how could I?"
She realized he was closer. She could see the brush of long eyelashes and the slender line of the dimple that barely showed when he was not smiling, as now. "There's always a choice, Victoria."
"I made mine. I would not walk away. Nothing would make me walk away, now that Phillip is gone."
"Nothing?" The word hung on the air between them, as though Sebastian saw the truth in her eyes and hoped to discern it. She held his gaze defiantly.
"Nothing."
His shoulders moved as he heaved in a long breath, then exhaled as though savoring it. "You are quite an admirable woman, my dear. Perhaps even out of my league." He reached for her again, slowly and easily, and closed his fingers around her wrist. "What is it that you have been clutching here this whole time?"
Again she pulled away, but not so harshly. His fingers were surprisingly strong; it was an effort to break his grip. And then she opened her hand so that he could see the amulet shining in her palm. "I am quite glad you asked. I believe this is yours?"
Taking it, he needed only a glance and then turned his eyes back to her, still standing close enough that she could smell cloves, see the sprinkling of golden-brown hair beyond the cuff of his shirt. "Do you know what this is?"
She shook her head, and his expression eased a bit.
"Ah. So why do you attribute it to me, if you do not know what it is?"
"I found one at the Silver Chalice, and then one here tonight. You are the only common factor in both places."
"Thus and so you came to the conclusion that this was mine. In that case, perhaps I'll choose not to be offended. You found one at the Silver Chalice you say? When? Where?"
She explained, and included the fact that she'd met and beheaded a demon.
"A demon? With a vampire?" He turned away, moving from her side and breaking the intimacy his proximity had given. "Nedas has taken no chances."
"Are you going to tell me what it is, or are you going to mumble to yourself about things I don't understand—and thus can't help with?"
"Ever the impatient one, aren't you?" A quick smile brought the dimple into relief; then it disappeared as his expression sobered. "This amulet belongs to a member of the Tutela. Do you know anything about the Tutela?"
"No."
"The Tutela is a secret society, an ancient one. Hundreds of years old, as I've heard it told. Started in Rome, probably in the catacombs right next to the Christians, if you can believe the irony."
Standing across the balcony from her, he shrugged off his coat, letting the dark material crumple into the shadows at his feet. Now his white shirt, buttoned but not cravated, caught the moonlight and fairly glowed in the darkness that was his backdrop. "Oh, do not fear, I am not preparing to ravage you. This jacket is rather stifling, and it's not as if you haven't seen my shirtsleeves in the past."
Instead of the grin she expected, he merely gave her a look that sent her stomach to tingling. When she made no response, he continued, "The Tutela protect vampires." He unfastened the wrists of his shirt with great nonchalance. "They have done so for centuries."
"Protect them? How? Like offering an establishment where the vampires can come and drink with mortals?" Victoria replied archly.
Although his broad shoulders and darker, muscled arms glowed in the moonlight as he rolled up his sleeves, his face was in shadow again. How did he manage to do that—show off his physique while hiding his expression?
Or perhaps it was merely that Victoria could not help but notice the way his shirt clung to his waist and molded the very same shoulders she had had occasion to hold on to. And perhaps she didn't really want to know what was going on inside his head.
"Now there you go, bordering on insult again, my dear. Surely your aunt has taught you better than that. No, their purpose leans more toward providing mortals for vampires to feed upon. Bringing innocent people to the undead for their pleasure and nourishment. And gadding about during the day and protecting the interests and secrecy of the vampires while they stay safe in the darkness. Doing the evil work that the undead cannot, or will not, do in an effort to stabilize and increase their power. Members of the Tutela are the whores of the undead."
"But why? Why would anyone do that?"
Sebastian shook his head. "Such an innocent you are still, even with all that you have experienced and seen. I do not know if I would wish for that to change or not." He braced his hands back on the rail. "There are some people who yearn for immortality. Who find pleasure in being fed upon by an undead. Who believe that if they protect the vampires, they in turn will be protected from the evils in this world."
The flash of a memory stunned her. Bodies, bloody and ravaged, mutilated from the neck to the legs… the blank eyes, the gashes below the jaws, the tears in the chests, the rank, dull smell of blood. The sight she'd faced after the only time she'd been too late to stop a vampire raid last summer, shortly after she and Phillip had been married. It still had the power to send oily nausea into the back of her throat.
When she relived that image, she could not understand—could not fathom—how any man or woman could protect such creatures, let alone fraternize or mingle with them. "I cannot comprehend it," she finally said, when the memory eased and the silence had stretched long enough.