“Yer shiverin’, my lady. Can ye be cold? Y’ can’t be chilled. It’s July, and from the size o’ my poofy hair, y’can tell how warm ’tis out. I do hope ye aren’ gettin’ a chill. Nothin’ like a chill in the summer, t’make ye miserable, y’know.”

Victoria steered her thoughts away from that exceedingly active night that had been the culmination-she realized belatedly-of two years of tension between her and Max.

Max, whom she had mistaken for a vampire the first time they met.

Max, who had believed she couldn’t be a successful Venator because, when he’d first met her, she was more concerned about gowns and balls and dance cards-and the gentlemen of the ton.

Max, who had been there when she slayed her husband, Phillip, after he was turned to a vampire by Lilith the Dark.

Max, who was too damned honorable and unselfish to accept what she knew he wanted.

But she’d at last wrung the confession from him.

I didn’t want to love you, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to be without you, but I bloody well will, Victoria. I’ll not go through this again. I’ll not risk your damned neck again. It’s the way it has to be.

Victoria looked at herself in the mirror, tall and slender, now garbed in a striking gown the color of blood. A circlet of diamonds and garnets adorned her throat, and heavy matching earbobs hung against her white neck.

These trappings weren’t the solution to her problem. For a man like Max, she would have to be more subtle. More cunning.

She’d have to appeal to his sense of honor-without appearing to do so.

But… She smiled at herself in the mirror. Looking like this certainly couldn’t hurt.

After all, even Illa Gardella had other weapons besides stakes.