by Kresley Cole
Execution. Memories from the morning surfaced, but she ruthlessly tamped them down. She imagined a rubber band snapping her wrist every time she recalled that injection bench, the clock ticking, the screams. . . . Snap!
Think forward, never dwell.
Somehow, before Lothaire got that ring, Ellie would figure out a way to communicate with her family. Once she was assured that they were good and vanished, she’d finally get to do what needed to be done. Take care of your business, Ellie.
She and Saroya would be no more. I can still die—just might be a few days off schedule.
Whipped with exhaustion, Ellie turned back toward her room. Had any day ever been so grueling—
“What in the hell are you doing in here?”
14
The girl’s eyes went wide as she pivoted to face Lothaire, her hair a dark wave swinging over one shoulder.
“You picked the lock to my room? Invading my privacy?” he thundered, furious at the intrusion, furious at his reactions to her.
When the mortal had breathed in his scent, going heavy-lidded . . . he’d barely choked back a groan as he shot hard as stone.
Now he traced in front of her, cupping her throat. She recoiled with fear, her heart beating a staccato rhythm he could feel. “I’ve told you I won’t harm this body! Yet you flinch from me?”
In a strangled voice, she cried, “Are you kidding?”
“Calm your goddamned heart!” he bellowed, his instinct to protect her—to comfort her—nearly overriding his need to punish her. Which infuriated him even more!
He knew he should just return her to her room, then sleep—and not only to dream memories. He was strung out, his madness creeping closer at every moment.
But his ire demanded appeasement. “You flinch like a coward. Are you one? Am I to add cowardly to all the adjectives I use to describe you?”
“Fuck you, vampire!” She knocked his arm away—he let her. “I’m no coward. I’ve got flint in my veins. Don’t mistake my reflexes for fear.” Her fists balled, her fear ebbing. “And you don’t get to play the privacy card! Not while your homeless tramp has set up her cardboard house inside me.”
He reacted better to her anger, his vision clearing. Gods, the rumors were true. He was connected to his Bride’s moods, responding to them. And Elizabeth was a fragment of Saroya, like a placeholder for his female.
Between gritted teeth, he commanded, “Calm yourself, Elizabeth.” He knew one thing that would calm them both. Release. With one bite, she’d be begging for him to ease her.
He wondered if the other rumors about Brides were true. Will she pleasure me more deeply than I’d ever imagined?
Wait for your true one! Saroya will be worth it.
Elizabeth stared at his eyes. “Look at me, Lothaire. I’m calming down, okay?”
“Then answer the question. Why are you in my room?”
“I was curious about you.”
“Curious to find a way to thwart my plans? And what did you discover about me that you didn’t know?”
“A few things.”
What? What? Anticipation teased him—because he had no clue what she’d say. He sat at his desk, impatiently waving a hand at her. “Thrall me.”
She took a deep breath, then said, “You’re an insomniac. You speak and write at least two languages, but you have difficulty centering your thoughts enough to write anything at length. You’re obsessive-compulsive with your possessions, which leads me to think that very little of your life outside of these walls is how you want it to be. You had no friends growing up and that hasn’t changed since. You’re narcissistic—but I knew that upon first looking at you.”
He tilted his head, grudgingly impressed, though his tone was anything but. “First of all, I’m not narcissistic.” When she opened her lips to argue, he said, “I know Narkissos of Thespiae—while we might share traits, I came first, so he’s Lothairistic, not the other way around. Furthermore, I speak and write eight languages. As for my obsession with order, that’s obvious from my closet. Insomniac is easy enough to guess. The sheets are twisted.”
“And the metronome. You use it to relax you.”
Observant human. “My supposed friendless state?” She had him dead to rights there, other than his young halfling admirer.
Then Lothaire frowned. No, he’d once had a boon companion. Until I was betrayed.
“I knew by the puzzles,” Elizabeth said. “They’re a solitary recreation. A couple look very old, so I’d guess you’ve been interested in them for some time, probably since you were a boy.”
Again, how unexpected. She was actually entertaining him.
“Look, Lothaire, this won’t happen again. I’ll just go back to my room—”
“Sit.” He pointed to a settee beside his desk. After a hesitation, she perched on the very edge of the cushion, with her back ramrod straight.
“Relax, mortal.”
“How can I when I have no idea what you’re going to do?” Her gaze flitted over the side of his face.
He reached up, daubing at the slashes he’d forgotten. Fucking wraith. “I’m going to attempt to wind down from this day and night.”
Still Elizabeth held herself stiffly, though she was exhausted. Smudges colored the skin under her eyes.
“How did you learn to pick locks?”
“On the weekends, my father worked as a handyman who did lock-smithing on the side.”
“Before he died in the mine? All that work and you were still mired in poverty?”
She lifted her chin, her eyes flashing.
So proud. So little reason to be. “Did you enjoy searching my home?”
“How long were you watching me?” she demanded.
“How long do you think?”
“Do you ever answer a question straightforward-like?”
He made a habit of oblique replies. His inability to lie had made him skilled at misdirection. He didn’t often get called on it, though. “And you? You’re nearly as bad as I am.”
“Fine. Yes, I enjoyed snooping around your apartment. I got to see things I never had before. I’ll probably dream of that chandelier tonight.” She bit her bottom lip. “Right after I get done dreaming of those jewels.”
He’d surprised himself by showing them to Elizabeth, by wanting to see her reaction. Or perhaps he’d merely wanted any reaction whatsoever, any response to his gift.
Saroya’s had been . . . lacking.
“You truly think that’s what you’ll dream of?” he asked. “It’s more likely that you’ll relive the events of the past twenty-four hours.” He didn’t think she’d fully comprehended all that had happened to her. Her mind had been too busy futilely planning an escape—or suicide.
But once she truly accepted that she was doomed . . . ? Everything she’d endured would catch up with her.
All miseries catch up eventually.
Would he experience Elizabeth’s near death in dreams? He’d taken enough of her blood earlier.
“I’m not allowing myself to reflect about today,” she said.
“Simple as that—your mind does as your will commands? Mind over mind?”
She shrugged. “Something like that, yes.”
He leaned forward in his seat. “So tonight, I have learned that you are unjustifiably proud. You believe yourself strong of will and keen of mind—”
“I’m not unkeen or weak-willed.”
“—and you like to analyze things. I wonder what you would make of this?” He traced to his safe, retrieving his weighty ledger book.
Never had he shown another person his accountings. But Elizabeth would soon be dead, and now he was curious to see what she’d say.
He sat at his desk once more, opening the tome. “Come. View my ledger.”
She hesitantly rose, then stood beside him. “I’ve never seen an account book like this.”
It contained only two columns: Indebted and Targeted. “And you’ve reviewed so many from your trailer in Appalachi
a?”
“Funny thing about Appalachia jokes—unlike all other jokes, they just never get old.”
He raised a brow. “It’s an accounting of blood debts from Loreans.”
“There are so many entries.”
He inclined his head. Everything to serve his Endgame. “This represents thousands of years of . . . accounting.” Again and again, he’d used his ability to predict others’ moves, ensuring he was always in the right place at the right time to exact blood vows.
If Nïx was the queen of foresight, then Lothaire was the king of insight.
White queen versus black king. He recalled his last encounter with the soothsayer, on that prison island. He’d told her, “Until our next match.” But she’d answered, “There won’t be a next match, vampire.”
What did she mean?
“Explain to me how it works,” Elizabeth said, drawing him from his thoughts.
“If an immortal is in dire straits, I’ll agree to help him, but only for a price. Then I’ll make him vow to do anything I want. The saying make a deal with the devil comes from me.” If he sounded proud, well . . .
I am.
“So that’s why you seemed interested when I offered a bargain.”
“Just so.” Again he was finding it easy to speak with her, as if the words were pulled from him, as if he’d waited all his life to reveal these things.
I must have needed a confidante, one who could never tell my secrets. Most legendary men do.
“But you do help others?”
“So perhaps I’m not completely evil?” He gave a humorless laugh. “Most of the time I’m the one who manipulates creatures into desperate positions. For instance, I’ll fatally wound a loved one, then offer to save her.”
“Those targeted names are in for one hell of a surprise, huh?”
Elizabeth was cleverer than he’d initially deemed her. “Precisely.”
He dragged his gaze from the pages to her face, inspecting it as he might a painting he’d found superficially appealing only to discover layers, nuances.
He shook his head hard. No, if Saroya were at the fore, he’d be feeling this desire, this fascination even, for her alone.
“What do you usually demand of them?”
“I don’t often collect on these.” His debtors always assumed he’d demand their firstborn. Like I’m fucking Rumpelstiltskin? What would Lothaire do with countless squalling babes? Raise them in a kennel? “But when I make my move to take my thrones, their accounts will come due.”
And the world will quake.
His lips curled as he reviewed some of the newest entries: two royal members of the Lykae Clan MacRieve; the sea god Nereus; Loa the voodoo priestess; Gamboa the demonic drug lord; Rydstrom Woede, king of the rage demons.
“All that work to get those thrones?”
“Yes. Anything for them.” He’d fought side by side with a Valkyrie he hated when all he’d wanted to do was exact revenge on her. He’d aligned with various demonarchies, convincing some that he was the devil incarnate, dedicated to leading them back to hell.
He’d sworn fealty to a vampire king—one who’d sat upon Lothaire’s own throne.
“If your kingdoms are so important, then why’d you lose them in the first place?”
“I couldn’t expect you to understand the political machinations of vampires.”
She tilted her head at him. “None of your debtors ever welsh?”
“Vows to the Lore are unbreakable.”
“Then I’m surprised they don’t just try to kill you.”
“Oh, they do, constantly,” he said. “And now they’ll be coming after you, thinking to trade you for their debt or to cash in on a bounty. Then, of course, there are the retribution seekers, bent on avenging whatever murders I’ve committed.” He leveled his gaze on her. “I’ve committed many.”
She didn’t look away. In fact, he got the uncanny impression that she was studying him.
The insect wants to understand the magnifying glass.
“Is that why you’re called the Enemy of Old?”
“Partly. Also because I show up like a plague every couple of centuries, killing masses of beings before disappearing.” Sometimes disappearing involuntarily.
“There’s an actual bounty on my head?”
When Lothaire found out who’d posted it, blood would run. “My Bride would already be target number one in the Lore. Now thousands will fight for the reward—and they’ll believe that you are mine. They’ll be using oracles to track your movements. So if somehow you were able to escape this boundary, you’d be abducted in seconds. They would do terrible things to you.”
She raised her brows. “I can only imagine how bad something would have to be for you to call it terrible. But if they’re offering death, don’t forget that I want to die.”
“Some foes would take your life. Most would keep you. An anatomically incorrect sea god would love nothing more than to plumb your depths and steal your virginity. My vampire enemies would keep you alive for food, piercing you nightly for decades. Demons would consign you to their notorious harems, where you’d be whored out for all the many creatures who’d pay handsomely for a chance to humiliate Lothaire’s Bride. You’d learn to polish demon horns in the most degrading ways.”
She swallowed. “Harems and whoring and horns, then?”
“Suddenly the fate I have planned for you doesn’t seem so egregious?”
She returned to the settee, sitting less stiffly than before. “Just to be clear. My fate, as you intend it, goes like this: In one to thirty days, you’ll send my soul packing—to wherever souls go—and my family will never be harmed by you.”
“Approximately,” he replied, using one of his favorite go-to words. The girl would assume he addressed the number of days. Actually, he spoke of the “soul packing” portion. Her soul would be extinguished—
“By approximately, do you mean the one to thirty, or the rest of it?”
Little witch. “The question you should’ve asked is why the days are so variable.”
“Lothaire. Why are the days so variable?”
“I’ve told you I need a special ring to make Saroya a vampire. The same ring will free your soul from your body.” Not a lie. “It might take me weeks to locate it.”
“I see. Not that I’m complaining, but if you’re supposed to be searching for something, then why were you trying to sleep tonight? Isn’t this pretty much your nine-to-five? Shouldn’t you be out tracing the pavement even now?”
She made him sound lazy.
No one worked harder than he did on his seven little tasks: find the ring, dispose of the human’s soul, turn Saroya into a vampire, kill La Dorada, claim the Horde crown, find Serghei to burn him alive, conquer the Daci.
He took no pleasure from life, enjoyed no amusements. Everything served his Endgame.
Wearied just to think of all that work, he leaned back in his chair. And again, he got the feeling that she was studying him. “Sleep and work are one and the same now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I drink blood straight from the vein, I can harvest my victim’s memories. I see his recollections in my dreams, reliving them when I sleep. I feel the bite of cold on his skin, the pain of his injuries, even his death at my hands. Recently, I drank from a man who knows where the ring is. Now I have only to get at that memory, but it’s easier said than done. I have to wade through a lot of them.”
She ran her fingertips over the graze on her neck. “Will you dream mine?”
“Likely. Cannot wait for fond remembrances of squirrel stew around the trailer hearth.”
She parted her lips, no doubt to deliver a cutting retort, then stifled it. “How do you know what’s a regular dream and what’s from someone else’s life?”
“I don’t dream anything but memories, and only theirs.”
“No wonder you’re crazy. But I affect your sanity, don’t I?”
“Saroya affects my sanity
. You’re merely a placeholder.”
“So if the ring equals my death, then every time you sleep means I’m closer to dying?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes.”
Finally she gazed away, saying quietly, “Would you give me advance notice?”
“No. No more than you would those deer you hunted.”
“They were animals!”
“Are you much more?” he asked in a thoughtful tone. “And what would you do with your advance notice?”
“I’d want to write to my family.”
“Ah, Ellie Ann’s last letters. How touching. But there’s no room in the Lore for sentimentality.” When he folded his arms over his chest, she seemed to be making a mental note of it.
He’d actually felt a jot sentimental earlier when he’d realized that Chase might die—and with him, Lothaire’s sole hope of a vampire line. Am I to leave nothing of myself behind?
Long ago, Lothaire had created vampires on occasion, but they always predeceased him. He’d lost his taste for it.
Everyone died before him. And now am I to be maudlin, feeling my age?
Elizabeth asked, “Have you ever done anything for another without expecting something in return?”
“I’ll cast my mind back. Further . . . further . . . Ah, yes. During the Iron Age, I came upon a dying mortal warrior on a battlefield. He wanted me to get a message to his wife and children. I was in a whimsical mood. ‘Give her the message yourself,’ I told him, and turned him into a vampire. When he reunited with her, she ran to him, tears of joy streaming down her face, their children trailing her. As their offspring rejoiced, he swung her up in his arms, squeezing her to his chest. Such a poignant moment, such emotion—until she popped like a grape.”
Elizabeth was aghast.
“Vampires and humans do not mix. You’re too frail. If I lost control and laid hands on your body . . . pop.”
She fell silent.
Why would I kill to know what she’s thinking right now?
Probably because I enjoy killing.
In a clear bid to change the subject, she asked, “Do your targets always fall into your clutches?”
“Ninety-six-point-four percent of the time, yes.”