Free Blood Legacy by Vanessa Redmoon Page B

here, and I—”
    “Nonsense. You have just as much a right to be here as any of these sycophants, these hangers-on . . . More of a right. Because I asked you here, and you are under my protection.” His face coiled into a snarl once more, a fleeting reminder of the predatory instincts that lay under that handsome face, but he quickly smoothed it away. “Though some are hasty to forget it, you couldn’t be safer than here. With me.”
    Safe. An odd choice of words, coming from him. But as I rubbed at the soft, uninjured stretch of my neck, I had to admit there was some truth to it.
    Victor cleared his throat. “As for why I asked you here . . . Well . . .” Our eyes met once more, but he laughed, half-smiling, and glanced away as an outburst of delight sounded from the exhibition hall. “Perhaps we could speak in private?”
    I nodded dumbly, and, my hand enclosed in his, Victor Bressov led me from the exhibition hall and up a darkened staircase.
     

Chapter Five
     
    “You still don’t believe me,” Victor said, as we wound ever higher up the peak of Bressov Tower.
    “That I’m an agonie ?” I asked. I wanted to laugh it off, but after everything that had happened that day, I no longer found humor in it. “I suppose the more important question is, what does it mean to you?”
    His boyish grin faded; we reached the peak of the staircase, and heavy shadows fell like curtains across his face. “Everything. It changes everything. I don’t know where to begin . . . How to explain to you . . .” He shook his head, guiding me down a dark hallway. “I’m sorry. This all must seem terribly surreal.”
    “That’s one word for it.”
    Victor keyed in access to a nondescript door that led into a stone foyer, then opened a heavy iron door beyond that. My breath caught in my throat as I glimpsed the chamber beyond—another chapel-like chamber, filled with guttering candles and the heavy, sweet scent of musk. It was just like in my hallucination. I tried to peer between the colonnades for the dais that I somehow new, deep in my gut, that I would find, and what I would find upon it, but the shadows were too thick. Victor escorted me onward, through the edge of the chamber, and to another set of doors that opened onto a balcony and the brisk night air.
    New Sanguinus stretched luxuriously before us, the lights that were so harsh up close twinkling like jewels from this height. Above us, the Bressovs had requested the skies cleared of clouds for the night, and the inky night echoed the city with a few bright stars and a heavy, gravid moon that watched us from behind the spires of downtown. I strode to the balcony railing and risked a glance down—and down, and down—at the insignificant specks of lev cars darting between buildings and lazy mag-lev trains giving chase to them like snakes through the grass.
    “When I was turned,” Victor said, still several yards behind me, “New Sanguinus was multiple cities, not the gaudy clump of humanity that it is now.”
    “And how long ago was that?” I asked.
    “Several hundred years ago. Back when there was no order to the Vampyrs or the Families. We were fractured, squabbling clans who hid underground from humans and the sun alike.”
    “Instead of united, squabbling clans?”
    Victor chuckled at that. “Exactly.” I heard him step closer toward me, but he maintained a respectful distance. “I was a foolish, idealistic youth at the time, living in a country on the brink of revolution. Sorry—a country is like the Republic, only there were dozens of countries back then, instead of just the one.”
    I rolled my eyes. “I’m not completely ignorant. There are a few contraband history books down in Undertown, you know.” I turned away from the balcony and propped my elbows against the railing. “But why are you telling me all this?”
    “Because I want—I need—you to understand. ” His hand fell upon my shoulder, warm and steady, with none of his signature