VICTORIA WALKED BACK to the condo, relieved. Her phone had had no service and had been completely unusable. She couldn't believe how good she felt after hearing Christian's voice. Being so shut off from him for the last few days had been torture. She had tried to communicate with him mentally and all she'd sensed was a strange wall between them, a sort of impenetrable but flexible barrier, which meant magic. It worried her, and for good reason now that she'd spoken to Christian.

She went into her room and closed the door, where she sat on the bed and tried for the tenth time to summon her pendant. She couldn't believe that she had left it in Canville, and she cursed herself again for doing such a stupid thing. Leto would be furious if he knew. She'd put it in the music box at Christian's, and somehow it had been forgotten in the rush for the mountain despite Leto's and Holly's repeated warnings about always keeping it with her.

Victoria tried every place where it could be, but each time she performed the spell, all she got was a stinging headache and no amulet. She had learned from experience that to make the summoning charm work, she had to pinpoint the exact location of what needed to be summoned.

Foreboding rested like a weight in her belly but she refused to consider that somehow someone might have discovered and taken it. She felt naked without it, especially given what Christian had told her about that woman probably showing up again. And now, against his strict orders, here she was, alone, in the condo.

She heard the front door to the apartment open and close. She strained to hear anything, footsteps or voices, and almost jumped out of her skin when she saw the handle on her bedroom door beginning to turn.

"Who's there?" she said. The door swung open.

"Sorry Tori, it's just me. I didn't mean to scare you," Gabriel said, noticing her pale face. "Just checking to see if we are still on for this afternoon for snowboarding?" Although she was capable skier, Gabriel had volunteered to teach her to snowboard. She nodded and tried to be enthusiastic. At least she wouldn't be alone.

The afternoon was as briskly cold as the morning had been. She made it down several runs without falling a single time, even at some points outpacing Gabriel who said she was a natural before he zoomed past her showing off.

She felt exhilarated, the thrill of carving up the mountain was different from skiing, and it was addictive. Her thighs were burning as she got in line for the Sugarloaf superquad lift at the end of the Tote Road green trail that she'd just finished. Gabriel was nowhere to be seen, so she decided that she would try to find a trail a little further up that would bring her around closer to their condo on the east side of the mountain, located near the Lower Buckboard green trail.

As the superquad whizzed up the side of the mountain, Victoria wished she had read the lift sign more closely—it seemed like they were going all the way to the top of the mountain! She got off the lift at the top and pulled her jacket closer to her, it was freezing. Reading the trail map board, she realized with a pang that the only choices were black or double black diamond trails. She tried to pick the ones that would take her closer to the east side and plotted out a path memorizing the trail names: Gin Pole to the Mid-Station Connect to Ramdown to Upper Buckboard, which would take her on a straight path to the condo.

The two girls who rode the lift up with her strapped on their boards and took off with a wave just as the lift behind her swung to a stop. She glanced at her watch. It was four o'clock. The sun left golden streaks along the deepening blue of the sky as it descended to the horizon. It was a beautiful view but Victoria couldn't appreciate it as nervous as she was. She took a deep breath after checking her helmet and goggles, and eased herself down the menacing black trail that would turn into a blue some distance below.

Arriving at the Mid-Station Connect, she tentatively maneuvered her way through the ungroomed areas that became even more treacherous where they connected with other double black diamond trails. The trees were thick and the path narrow. Her nervousness resurfaced, its icy fingers sliding into her bones. She had to fight the urge to point her snowboard downhill and throw caution to the wind just to get out of there as fast as she could.

It had started to snow, which seemed odd given the fact that the twilight sky was still clear. She brushed the flakes off her goggles. There was no wind, the trees were barely moving and the silence was deafening. Victoria realized that she was completely alone, just as she had promised Christian she would not be and just when her warning bells were all ringing like crazy. She expanded her mind to see if she could isolate the danger.

To her surprise, she felt the same pliable barrier she had felt around Christian while he had been in Paris, only this time it was around her! Slowly, she unclipped her right boot and stepped out of her binding.

Staying alert and crouched low, she unclipped her left boot. She pushed against the barrier surrounding her like a bubble. It was the same, she was sure of it, and that could only mean one thing—they were here.

Taking a deep breath, Victoria moved closer to the intersection of the next double black diamond trail and only then noticed a single skier, tiny in the distance, heading down at breakneck speed—impossible speed—and generating a massive stream of powder, which was what she had felt earlier landing on her goggles. Victoria tensed, she could feel the sheer malevolence from the skier even as far away as he was.

In a cloud of snow, the skier skidded to a halt about forty feet away from her. Victoria felt the air shift. She feinted to the side just as a blast rocketed past her head. Magic! She gasped as she hit the ground and rolled left. Another blast melted the snow right where her head had been seconds before. She vaulted to her feet and crouched, unleashing a powerful blast of magic of her own, which the skier easily dodged. Victoria felt the air shift around her again and realized that the barrier was back. That meant that the skier couldn't use magic against her while the bubble was in place! Then again, neither could she.

Victoria could feel the blood boiling under her skin, begging her to release it, and she brutally forced it back. She needed to use her head and find out who the attacker was and what his purpose was. If she let the blood have its way, who knew what would happen?

The skier moved down about five feet and appeared to be watching Victoria intently. Then in an unexpected move, the skier pointed his skis downhill and started to come directly toward her as if for a physical attack.

Victoria realized that there was no way she could reattach her board and try to out-race the skier. She just wasn't that good, and since she couldn't outrun the skier in her boots, that left only one choice, magic, and if worse came to worse, blood magic. She pushed against the barrier and felt the same unyielding flexibility—it was incredibly strong magic, she thought, unwillingly impressed, but now also completely desperate.

In the seconds before the skier impacted, Victoria braced herself, digging her nails into her palms, and felt the blood fill her eyes as she let it loose, the magic bursting into the barrier in a blast so potent that it melted the snow at her feet instantly. The barrier exploded into emptiness as if it had been made of nothing but air, the atomic force of the blast knocking the skier head over heels almost a hundred feet up the mountain.

Victoria felt the ground beneath her feet rumble and alarm underscored the brief relief of having bested her attacker. The rumbling grew louder! She looked up the mountain at the ominous cloud of white that was rushing her way.

Avalanche!

Her breath caught frozen in her chest as the giant tidal wave of snow, triggered by the resulting shockwaves of her magic, bore down upon them. Victoria watched in horror as the snow covered the motionless body of the skier in a matter of seconds and headed toward her in a monstrous white cloud. Her mouth hung open in a soundless gasp, the fear decimating.

Think! Victoria told herself urgently.

The blood was still racing in her veins, but she felt curiously weakened, which she had never felt after magic use before. As her hands drifted toward her neck for the amulet that wasn't there, she realized that she was weak because without it, her complex spell had absorbed her own energy. She gritted her teeth and pulled herself together. Without the amulet, Victoria didn't know if she had the strength or the clarity to teleport off the mountain completely. But it was the only option she could think of.

She pulled her remaining energy into herself, surprised by the sudden rush. Strange. It was more powerful than she'd expected but she didn't have time to dwell on it. Victoria focused, clearly envisioning her bedroom in the condo. She completed the preparation process and started to cast the spell.

"Tran—"

The blood in her veins whistled and Victoria froze. She knew that feeling—it was blood magic! And her blood's magic thrived on sacrifice!

Victoria's eyes snapped open in horror, and although the break in concentration didn't alter the spell, what she saw around her certainly did. Rows and rows of dead, blackened trees on either side of the trail in perfect symmetry around her, like the victims of a precise flash forest fire. She gasped. The teleportation spell slipped away from her even as a flood of white covered them.

Before the force of the snow hit her and sent her tumbling forward, Victoria did the only thing she could do—she grabbed her snowboard and braced herself, crouched and facing down the mountain with the board against her back. With the last remaining energy she had inside of her, she held strong to the earth building an invisible magical wall behind her. She felt the snow rush over and past her like a white river. Then the world darkened and disappeared completely.

Victoria knew she was still alive if only from the excruciating pain in her leg. She couldn't see a thing in the darkness but could hear the harshness of her breath in the small cave she lay in. She forced herself to breathe slowly knowing she didn't have much time before the oxygen in the tiny cavern disappeared. She needed to think. Fast.

The mountain personnel would have seen that there had been an avalanche, so once the snow settled, they would most likely send rescue vehicles for the few remaining people on the mountain. Victoria didn't know much about avalanches but she was hopeful that the trees would have dissipated much of the force before it reached the lower mountain.

Her leg was sticking out at an odd angle, obviously broken unless she had some other bendable ability she didn't know about. She didn't want to move too suddenly as she had no idea just how much snow she was sitting under, so she gingerly tried to shift her weight and winced at the sharp pain shooting up her leg. Victoria had no idea how long it would take to replenish her natural store of magic without killing anything around her, and she felt the panic surge in her belly. Then again, if it was a choice between her and a few trees, she could probably live with the sacrifice.

Victoria concentrated on healing her leg. The effort drained her, as she had to consciously prevent herself from taking any energy from the living things all around her. She could kill whole colonies of ants for a smidgen of energy, hundreds of birds, trees, anything that had life in it. The price of the blood magic was all the power in the world just at the cost of a conscience and a soul. Hers.

She took shallow even breaths as she felt her bones mending and her eyelids drooping. She just needed to close her eyes for a few minutes and everything would be okay, she thought wearily. Just a few minutes ...

Victoria! Wake up! WAKE UP!

Stop it, Christian. I'm sleeping.

Wake up! You're not sleeping, you're dying! GET UP!

Reality came back swiftly and coldly after that. She had to get out of this mess before she did something really stupid, like going to sleep while buried under several feet of snow!

Christian? You there?

There was no answer and the sudden silence scared her. She concentrated on formulating a low energy heat spell that would melt some of the snow in front of her and just as she was feeling it starting to work, the ground beneath her started to tremble. Rescue snowmobiles, she thought gratefully, as an unseen force grabbed hold of her body and yanked her out of the snow, dumping her to the side.

She watched her cave implode in the dim glare of the trail lights, and taking deep gulping breaths of the sweet cold air, Victoria glanced around for her rescuers. She found herself face to face with the same skier who had attacked her earlier—a woman—only she was sans skis and no longer had a hat obscuring her face. She was very plain with brown hair and dark skin and wore a triumphant smile.

Victoria tried to free her arms but an invisible force bound them so tightly that she could barely move. The woman walked closer and stooped down near the side of Victoria's face.

"Don't struggle, the bindings will only use your own kinetic energy to tighten and strengthen," she said, her voice musical and unhurried. "One of my own inventions, very useful, no?" She laughed and the sound was chilling.

Victoria realized that even in her incapacitated state that this was her chance to find out who this woman was and what she wanted, and also to give her body a chance to recuperate. The woman glanced at her wristwatch, looking around impatiently; she was obviously waiting for someone. And from the looks of things, there were no rescue vehicles anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

"How did you find me?" Victoria said.

The woman laughed again and gave her a derisive look that plainly said she thought Victoria was an idiot. "Heat radiation."

"Who are you? What do you want with me?" Victoria asked. The woman ignored her pointedly, and spoke into her phone.

"Oui, quinze minutes," she said in French, and snapped the phone closed. Fifteen minutes for what? Victoria tried again.

"How could you have survived the blast?" she asked, injecting an arrogant tone into her voice to attempt to provoke the woman. It worked. The woman directed her black stare toward Victoria as if trying to gauge the question. She smiled cruelly and walked forward to reassume her position squatting beside Victoria.

"You are so young, and so stupid," she said. She looked at Victoria disparagingly. "I can't imagine why he could possibly think you are the one. Yes, you had one good trick, but not good enough to even save yourself, no? And now look at you. You are so weak, you can't even lift a finger against me."

As she moved to get up, Victoria saw the flash of a crystal and understanding surged through her like a warm flood. That's how she had been able to survive! Leto had told her that witches used crystals to store magical energy for protection, although unlike her own amulet, their stored magic could not replenish itself. Victoria gathered her strength knowing she had less than a few minutes before the unknown accomplice showed up, and guessed that she had enough inside her for a simple spell. She engaged her own sluggish magic and released a crude summoning spell toward the crystal she'd seen.

"Effero crystallus!"

She heard the snap as the woman whirled around panicked, at the exact same moment that the crystal spear-shaped pendant appeared in her fingers. Without thinking, Victoria took it into herself. Her body jerked as her hungry blood absorbed the magic like a sponge, the crystal turning immediately to dust in her palm. It wasn't her magic, but she consumed it like a starving beast, letting the raw power fill her, and still, she wasn't satiated even though it was more than she needed to escape. Her blood wanted more. It wanted it all—every last drop of the witch in front of her.

She shook her head once and her bindings fell off like paper. She stood up, her eyes burning like black coals and faced the woman who no longer looked triumphant. She looked very, very afraid. Victoria cocked her head to one side, like a cat studying a mouse, and watched as the woman calculated the odds of getting away. She was so easy to read, this little exiled witch, Victoria's blood thought patronizingly. But her magic had been so delicious, so much of the forbidden in there that it had been intoxicating.

The witch moved and tried to hurl a magic blast. Victoria deflected it lazily without even moving, and she watched the witch's eyes widen as a sudden cold understanding filled them, and she dropped prostrate to the cold ground.

"Please—"

Victoria's demon blood trilled, ravenous and inhuman. And while her smallest self screamed defiantly within her head, her blood rushed forward and claimed its prey. As the witch died, the taste of her death was heady like brandy burning through Victoria's body. Her blood sang victoriously. Despicably.

Victoria wanted to rip her skin apart and drain the poisoned magic out of her, its tainted evil fueling the darkest nature of the blood magic. She sank to her knees, delirious with sinful pleasure and sick with disgust at her own weakness, and clawed at her face and her stomach. Even as her blood healed the wounds of its own volition with the magic it had mercilessly stolen, she continued to tear at herself as if it assuaged the terrible guilt and self-hatred boiling inside of her.

She remained there until she felt familiar arms enclosing her in their tender warmth, Christian's voice against her hair, his lips on her temple, even as she struggled viciously against him.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed. "Don't touch me ... don't touch me ..."

CHRISTIAN REMAINED UNYIELDING, whispering against her hair until finally, inexorably she calmed, her body shuddering as she clung to him. He could feel the tightening of his jaw in violent response to the blood that had soaked through her clothing but he ignored it, stifling the urge viciously. The sound of her scream and the scent of her blood had all but done him in as he had raced to the top of the mountain.

When he had felt her slipping away earlier, Christian had almost lost it, especially as he hadn't been able to contact her right after their brief mental exchange. Holding her in his arms, her wild unhinged strength had been nearly impossible to contain, but he had held on.

Christian stood, taking her with him as if she weighed no more than a feather. With his free foot, he kicked fresh snow over the blood-spattered earth, knowing from the sounds lower down the mountains that the rescue crews he had seen would be heading their way. As he turned, Christian registered movement in the trees off to the left and his eyes locked with a pair of familiar icy blue eyes. Lena. She didn't move, just stood watching him and the gentle way he sheltered Victoria in his arms.

"Tell your master that if he comes after her again, he'll face me," he hissed in her direction.

Christian wondered how long she had been standing there, and whether the pile of ash-covered dark clothing lying on the ground was the remains of her witch friend. He glared at her ruthlessly, his lips drawn in a hard tight line, and turned away. He was gone in a second.

Christian held Victoria close against him as the limousine sped down I-95 to his house. While she slept, he telephoned Enhard.

"Enhard, it's Christian. The witch is dead."

"Did you do it?"

"No." He didn't elaborate.

"Good, that will help with your brother." Enhard paused. "Before you go, I spoke to one of the high priestess delegates after you left about Le Sang Noir. They call it the Cruentus Curse. What I learned may surprise you. She told me that its power can only be freely given, which means it can't be taken by force, nor can the witch who controls it be killed for it as the power will die with her. It's passed on to direct descendants and even then, it's sporadic. This thing goes back centuries, Christian, it goes much, much farther than we ever thought."

Enhard's revelations floored Christian. There was no way Lucian could ever possess its power, Victoria would never ever give it to him freely ... unless he had something planned to force her to do so. The thought scared the hell out of him because he was familiar with Lucian's ruthless tactics. He would have to protect her at all costs. He stroked her cheek and felt her stir beneath his fingers.

Victoria's eyes opened and Christian's worried face swam into focus. Her body ached and she felt like throwing up. She could feel the memory of the witch's magic infecting her system like a virus. She didn't deserve to be touched. She was a monster, a hideous soul-sucking monster! Christian's arms tightened around her.

"Kiss me," she whispered, shamelessly taking the small comfort he offered. "Make me forget ... please."

She pressed her open mouth urgently against his, tasting his hot breath, desperate for anything to offset the dark chill inside of her. Christian's entire body froze, his teeth the only part of him moving, and he ground his lips into a hard line. Victoria dragged hers from his suddenly unyielding ones and trailed them up his jawline to his ear. A muscle in his cheek ticked as she exposed the long delicate column of her neck to him.

Unable to help himself, he pressed his lips to her neck, drinking in the smell of her as his razor-sharp incisors shredded the inside of his mouth. His lips parted of their own volition and for one agonizing second, the taste of her sweetly forbidden skin invaded his mouth in a hot rush. He'd never wanted to give in to what he was so badly in that moment ... but all it took was one instant of weakness. Christian tore his lips away from the banquet of her warm flesh, tasting his own blood on his tongue and terrifyingly wanting more, a brutal reminder of what he was.

He held himself perfectly still as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Are you all right?" he said hoarsely.

"No," she said. "My blood takes care of itself."

"Tell me," he said, stroking the backs of his fingers down her smooth cheek, his touch agonizingly tender.

"Christian," she said. "I'm ... I'm a monster."

"You are no monster." He laughed hollowly.

"But I am. Christian, I killed her. I killed the witch. And I enjoyed it, or the blood did, but it's still me." She spoke in a rush as if she wanted to get it out and looked away.

"Tori, she attacked you. You defended yourself and she lost. That was it," he said.

"You don't understand. I took her magic into myself, and even though it was filthy and cloying, I liked it. I liked the feeling of power, and when I killed her, I liked it even more! I loved it. It was so easy ... I reveled in taking ... the taking ..." Victoria gasped, unable to finish. "The blood takes and feeds ... and I am helpless against it."

Christian was quiet. He knew that she had only defended herself, and she was lucky that her blood had fought back. Lena would have been merciless if she had captured Victoria, and Lucian would have been far, far worse.

He understood her suffering more than she knew given the finite rules of his own hunger and the way it dominated every instinct. But he also understood her fear—the curse of Le Sang Noir was infinite power at unsustainable cost. Eventually, it would grow to control her if she gave in to it, as it had her ancestor, the duchess.

"You won't become her, Tori. You're nothing like her, and you're not powerless against the blood," he said after a long spell. "You know that. It doesn't own you. You control it, not the other way around. It's like my thirst—do you think it's easy for me when we're together when I can smell your blood calling to me every time we touch? Of course it's not, I have to fight to suppress it but I would never give in to it, I won't let myself," he said.

"I know. It's just ... exhausting."

He watched her, the emotions playing across her face as she considered telling him something else that was obviously bothering her.

"The witch on the mountain seemed to know who I was, and she mentioned that someone else was interested in me, specifically a 'he.' It's Lucian, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What are we going to do?"

"Nothing, for now. He will already know that his attack failed. Leave him to me. I will deal with Lucian." His voice shook with suppressed fury.

"Christian, there's something else." She paused. "I need my amulet. I forgot it in Canville. I tried to summon it but couldn't. It's ... the key to controlling the blood. I can't find it anywhere." Her face was panicked. "If it has been taken, I don't know what—"

"I have it." Victoria's elated gaze snapped to his. "I put both in my safe at the house before I went to Paris, I know how much it means to you and I didn't want to leave it lying around. I'll get it for you."

"I'm so glad! Things got so rushed that I stupidly left it behind. You don't understand how close I came ..." Her voice choked as she recalled what had happened on the mountain when the blood magic had taken over without the amulet's protective power restraining it.

There was so much that she didn't yet understand about the blood, the magic, and the amulet. The journal only had so many answers. She'd need to look harder to find some of her own before the blood destroyed her.

Victoria stared out the window at the brightly colored lights flashing by from houses decorated in the spirit of the season. It was Christmas Eve. Wasn't this a time when things were supposed to be happy and joyous? Instead, everything felt like it was closing in, a giant net she couldn't escape. The knot tightened in her stomach. She closed her eyes.

"I'm scared."

Christian stared at her drawn face as leaned her head against the window. They both had every reason to be afraid. Lucian was more than close ... too close. Christian had barely made it in time to save her from the witch, with Lena lurking nearby in the woods. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if he'd been a few minutes late.

In Victoria's vulnerable state, Lena would have been merciless. The next time, neither of them would be so lucky. Now that Victoria had killed the witch, the key to Lucian's grand plan, no doubt he would be furious. And fury drove people to do irrational, unpredictable things. Christian knew more than anyone how ruthless Lucian could be.

One thing was certain. Lucian would stop at nothing now.