When they clustered inside the inn, Max somehow slipped up behind Victoria and grabbed her arm. Hard.

Taken by surprise, she turned, but, though his fingers closed tight around her lower arm, he said nothing. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking at Sebastian.

It happened quickly. A look passed between the two men, an instant, silent exchange, and the next thing Victoria knew, a door had opened and Max propelled her into a chamber. She had the wherewithal to recognize it as the one she and Sebastian had shared with Antonнn.

Max closed the door with a deliberate clunk of the latch, his hand still gripping her arm. Anger welled up, and Victoria opened her mouth to speak as she tried to pull from his hold-but he was too strong, and he used the force of her aborted movement to whip her around.

The next thing she knew, Victoria was shoved up against the rough stone wall. Max followed, his long, strong body pinning her there as he covered her mouth with his. He released her arm at last, sliding his hands around to hold the back of her head as he molded into her from mouth to chest to hip to thigh. One strong leg slipped between her trousered ones, and she was completely imprisoned.

It took Victoria a bare second to comprehend, and her brain and body to catch up to the sudden onslaught. Then she closed her eyes, sagging gently against him as his heat and scent and strength surrounded her. Max was back.

One long, deep, ferocious kiss later, he pulled away enough to let her catch her breath and to adjust position. He captured her wrists and spread both wide above her head, clasping them with large hands as he kept her in place against the wall with the pressure of his hips and straddled thighs.

Deliciously dazed by the assault, she blinked and swallowed, realizing that her breathing sounded as though she were fighting a battle. Her lips throbbed, her face burned from sharp whiskers, and the imprint of his body left no illusion about how much he desired her.

His own breathing was unsteady, his beautiful lips full and very, very mobile, his damp hair in deep waves against his unshaven cheek. He looked down, and their gazes met.

And… she saw everything there in his dark eyes that she needed to see.

“Don’t you dare stop,” she said. “Or I’ll kill you myself.”

At that, as if he too had needed to see validation, his eyes gleamed hotter and the set of his lips changed, quirking and relaxing in a way that made her stomach plunge and her mouth dry.

Now Max turned from fierce to languorously intent and deliberate. He released her wrists, but moved in to imprison her head in place against the wall with another staggering kiss while his hands tore quickly and efficiently at the clothing between them.

He worked the button of her man’s shirt collar, yanking at it until it gave way and tumbled to the floor. His fingers slid down into the opening as her breathing quickened, feeling the warmth of his flesh against hers as he slipped and tugged and pulled at the gentle breast bindings she’d taken to wearing.

As her shirt and the strips of cloth fell away in tatters, he never removed his mouth from tasting her lips, her cheek, her jaw… even the soft spot beneath her ear.

That lovely curl of desire flooded her from her center out to each limb and digit. Warmth and relief, mixed with urgent need and rising pleasure, set her to sighing against him. Pinioned by the kiss, she felt his hands slide up to cup both breasts, thumbs fanning briefly over their hard nipples, pausing to stroke the tips just firmly enough to send more sharp, lovely little tingles curling through her belly and lower. Then he grabbed up her wrists again, holding them crossed above her head with one hand so that her knuckles brushed the rough masonry.

His hand slipped down beneath the loose waist of her trousers, his fingers quick and sure. With a few deft movements, he slicked and slid, surprising her into the sudden tumble of orgasm, right there against the wall. She trembled against him, and felt the movement of his cheek against her face as he smiled into the curve of her neck-in satisfaction, no doubt.

She didn’t care. She didn’t care at all, especially as, with those long, elegant fingers, he flipped open the three buttons of her trousers’ fall. The waist thus loosened, the trousers slipped down, and he helped them… and she realized she’d begun to tear at his own waist, pulling the fabric from its button fastenings.

He lifted her into position, and she locked her legs around his waist, feeling the rough prickle of stone and masonry against her bare back as he settled into place. And then he thrust deep… and paused, holding her against the wall, pressing as intimately as one could press, delaying the lovely rise of pleasure for the moment as their breath mingled roughly in the silence.

Then he took her hand and pressed it to his chest, curling her fingers around the vis bulla there, warm from his skin. She felt the sharp surge of power and, along with it, a surprise increase in pleasure so that she gave a little gasp. His mouth, tight with control, eased into a quick smile; then, with a meaningful look in those dark eyes, he slipped his fingers between their bellies to press against her amulets.

An erotic shock sizzled through her, and her gaze flew up to meet his dark, knowing one. “Don’t let go,” he whispered.

With another smile, he closed his eyes and began to move again, at last. Long, deep, satisfying strokes matched the little sizzles of power from the tiny amulets. She cried out softly into his shoulder at the peak, and felt him catch his breath just as he moved one last time and then stilled, shuddering against her.

Quiet, tangled breaths, hot, damp bodies, little quakes of pleasure. She smiled inside herself, and against Max. Max. At last.

He gathered her close now with his arms, pulling her away from the wall, splaying his large hands over her bare skin, gritty with mortar. Max helped her settle back on her feet, and moved with her toward the bed. Not about to give him the chance to slip away again-who knew what went on in that mind of his? For all she knew, this had simply been a way to put Sebastian in his place for the trick he’d pulled.

No. She didn’t believe that. She’d seen the look in Max’s eyes, the look that had blazed there once before when he saw her rise free from Lilith’s pit of hell. Yet…

He tumbled her onto the bed, a narrow, lumpy affair, then stood over her for a moment. Max looked down with eyes that had become inscrutable again, and she thought, Here it is. Now he’ll make the excuse, call it duty, draw upon Lilith…

“Victoria,” he said, his voice rough. She gathered herself up at the tone, ready for it… Then, instead of speaking, he came forward, down to her, his hands settling on either side of her, pressing into the thin pallet. And he kissed her.

His lips moved over hers, soft and sensual this time, tracing the contours of her mouth as gently and thoroughly as one might sculpt soft clay. She could scarcely breathe… the kiss was so exquisite in its long, slow melding and tangling of lips and tongue, the scrape of teeth, the gentle suction. It seemed to go on and on, and her world spiraled around her into this imprint, this learning of gentle mouth to gentle mouth.

After a long while, he moved. Propping a knee on the bed next to her, Max smoothed his free hand up along the side of her throat to play in her hair, lifting her face closer to his. Then he released her mouth. “Perhaps I should have bathed first, but”-he kissed her again-“I was bloody damn tired of waiting for you.”

Victoria nearly laughed in relief, understanding now that earlier, just after he released her from that heated moment against the wall, what she’d seen in his eyes was… not uncertainty-no, Max would barely comprehend that emotion-but perhaps a bit of regret or discomfort for the rough-and-tumble way in which he’d taken her.

She lifted and met his mouth halfway, her kiss telling him that she didn’t care, that his sweaty male scent and damp, hot body were home to her. Home and Heaven.

And she wanted more.

Sebastian watched the door close to the chamber he and Victoria-and Antonнn-had shared, and turned away. Michalas and Brim seemed to be merely surprised and amused as Max dragged Victoria into the chamber, unaware of any undercurrents. But Wayren’s all-knowing colorless blue eyes snagged his.

He pulled away from her gaze, but not before he recognized the look therein: perceptive, and perhaps even satisfied. Perhaps.

What was missing was condemnation, judgment. At least from Wayren.

Victoria had given him enough of that in her steely, furious look, and she had avoided him since. Alas. Perhaps one day she’d understand what he’d given her, besides a long, hot kiss.

And Pesaro. In that brief, measured look before disappearing with Victoria, he’d sent both acknowledgment and warning. Acknowledgment of Sebastian’s purpose in the bold move-but of course not a hint of gratitude. And warning as well.

The warning had been unnecessary.

Even now Sebastian wanted to bristle at the man’s arrogance… but the desire ebbed and faded into something emptier. The trip to Muntii Fagaras to retrieve the last two rings, somehow, from Lilith would be a long one, now that Pesaro had returned to the Venator fold and staked his claim.

That thought gave him a needed distraction. Was Max’s reinstatement bound to be a blessing or a curse when dealing with Lilith?

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Victoria asked, soaping Max’s broad, square shoulders from where she knelt behind him.

The much-needed hot bath had been ordered some time ago, and though he’d settled with a great groan into the steaming water, she still felt the urge to touch him. There was nothing, she found, like the feel of warm male skin slick with lemon-rosemary soap and water.

He craned his head to look at her. “You haven’t figured it out for yourself?”

“Obviously you had something planned, because you missed at least five chances to stake him,” she replied archly. “And I understand now that you were intending to finish the Trial by getting the blood on the vis bulla that you were already wearing… but why? You could have killed that vampire in one or two strokes instead of nearly getting killed yourself.”

Max snorted. “Nearly killed? You’re mistaken. I was not in any danger of dying by the hand of that vampire, Victoria. I knew exactly what I was doing. I had to get blood on the vis and then twist the ring around into my skin, and wait for it to empower me again. It took a few bloody moments for that to happen.”