Lothaire iad-12

by Kresley Cole

  Still, they’d had much in common, and a grudging respect had grown. He remembered once confessing to her, “Phenïx, you are the only one—”

  “Lothaire!”

  He jerked his head up. “What?”

  Elizabeth was frowning at him. “You and Nïx?”

  He shook himself from his reverie. “We belong to different Lore armies, the Pravus and the Vertas. She is guiding the Vertas, and I side either with the Pravus or with no one—whichever suits my Endgame.”

  “Why didn’t you ever kill her? That’s what you do to your enemies, right?”

  A difficult question to answer. At length, he said, “Though a foe, Nïx is the only one I know who matches me in age and knowledge.” In madness and weariness. “We have a history.” And so his life would be altered without her in it. “I decided long ago that I could always kill her, but I could never bring her back.”

  “I see.” When Elizabeth took another drink, condensation from the bottle dripped to her chest, meandering down. As his gaze followed, his mind easily turned from the past to this very enticing present. “I believe I answered your question.” He raised his brows at her top.

  With a huff, she tugged the material aside more. “Do you think about me when you’re away?”

  “I think about how you’re soon to die. A fine sacrifice for Saroya.”

  As she pulled over her top, Elizabeth asked, “How much time do I have left?”

  “Possibly a week.”

  She gazed away, taking another swig of beer as she adjusted the material. The next shift would bare one impudent nipple. “At any time, were your thoughts tender toward me?”

  He’d mused on destroying Elizabeth’s soul, and he might have felt a whisper of something. “Do I look like the type of male who would have tender thoughts, girl? Now you’re being ridiculous.”

  When her eyes widened slightly, he snapped, “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If there’s to be no more tat, then let’s get to the tit.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” She ran that sweating beer bottle down her cleavage. Just where he’d thrust his shaft a week ago. “Don’t you wish you could see—and touch?”

  “I’ve spent the last seven days wishing I could touch. Now I plan to.” Before she could react, he’d traced to her in the light, grabbing her before he burned, then returned with her to the apartment.

  He could smell the sun in her hair, could see new freckles on her nose. Golden skin, wicked tan lines . . . her skin was hot.

  “Let me go!” She shoved against his chest. “What do you want from me now? Maybe there’s a quarter inch of my skin somewhere that you haven’t spunked yet. That it?”

  “These days away from me have made you bolder. Foolishly so. But I’ll bring you to heel.”

  She thrashed against him. “I hate you!”

  “Feeling’s mutual,” he grated with difficulty, the rána burning. Blyad’!

  Of course he hated her.

  She was a mortal, ignorant even of the danger he presented to her. His hand wrapped around her throat. “I could throttle you so easily. Squeeze the life right from you.”

  “Do it!” she screamed, her eyes fierce. “And stop talkin’ about it!”

  * * *

  “You won’t incite me to kill you,” the vampire said. “So cease trying. If I were going to do it by my own hand, I would have by now.”

  For the briefest second, Ellie thought she saw him frown, as if he’d just realized that was true.

  Can’t lie, huh? When he eased his grip on her throat, she stumbled back. “I’m not screamin’ at you because I want you to kill me, I’m screamin’ because you make me sick! You’re supposed to be some kind of Lore brain-iac? But you’re fixin’ to choose Saroya over me? Why are you too stupid to see what’s just in front of you?”

  “In front of me? You mean the mortal shrieking at me in a thick hillbilly accent? The ignorant human with no accomplishments? Perhaps I’m smart enough not to lower myself to a creature like you.”

  “I’m not ignorant. I have a degree!”

  He raised a blond brow. “Assuredly. It says H.S. after it. In any case, there’s more to knowledge than a degree. You’ve never been outside of your own state, never encountered any kinds of people but your own.”

  “Because I’m young! I’ve been in prison since I was a teenager. You have no idea what I would’ve done if that bitch of yours hadn’t hijacked my body. You can’t have it both ways—you can’t ridicule my ignorance when you had a hand in shaping it!”

  “No idea what you would have done? I’d wager you would have lived in a squalid trailer with wailing brats clinging to your apron while you watched TV all day.”

  He’d just done Lothaire-speak. “You don’t think that’s what I would’ve done. You don’t believe that at all.”

  Double take from the vampire. But he recovered, saying in a bland tone, “This grows tedious, Elizabeth. Shut up and undress.”

  “Get Saroya to do it! Or maybe she finds you as hateful as I do!” A muscle ticked in his jaw, warning her that she’d pushed too far. Don’t care. Already dead.

  “You court my wrath because you’ve never truly witnessed it. I’ll remedy that right now.”

  He yanked her against his chest. “Let’s take a trip.”

  “You said your enemies would find me!” To be a demon’s whore . . . ?

  “I’ll cloak us. Again, the one you need fear most is me.” In the space of a breath, he’d traced her into a cave. But he hadn’t fully teleported them; they stayed in some kind of hazy twilight.

  Still she could scent musty earth and rot, could hear flies buzzing. Once her eyes grew used to the dim light, she saw corpses.

  The savagely beheaded bodies of young men. Dozens and dozens of them.

  Gore, severed limbs, crushed skulls. Splatter on the dank cave walls.

  She would’ve vomited the contents of her stomach, if she’d been of weaker constitution. Or if she hadn’t beheld a similar scene in her own home five years ago.

  When she could trust her voice, she asked, “You did this?”

  “Ah, Elizabeth, now do you see what I’m capable of? Slaughtering an entire pack in their own den bored me. My heart never even sped up, my bloodlust never quickened. I yawned loudly when I worked one’s head free. The last thing he ever heard was me tsking over my impoliteness. You’d do well to fear my fury, to understand that my very name strikes fear in the hearts of those who know me—for a reason.”

  “I understand that you’re scary, sick, and perverse! I understand that the Enemy of Old and Saroya the Soul Reaper are absolutely perfect for each other. Two broken puzzle pieces jammed together.”

  Again, her words struck a nerve. His hand tightened on her arm, his expression promising pain.

  “Is this what your life is like?”

  He sneered, “Most nights for millennia.”

  “Then I feel sorry for you. That’s right—Elizabeth, your pet, the peasant you scorn, ‘the body’—pities you.” She gazed at his face. “Uh-oh, we’ve got that muscle tickin’ in your jaw. Spells trouble for me! What’s the matter? You can’t take it when someone tells you like it is? I’m probably the first person to do so in centuries.”

  Was there a flicker in those red eyes?

  “Like it is,” he grated. “And how is it that you could possibly pity me?”

  “I’m twenty-four years old. I’ve spent more than twenty percent of my life on death row. And I’ve still known more happiness in my short life than you have in your unending one.”

  31

  That Elizabeth would fucking dare! “As usual, you speak about things your mind can’t even comprehend!”

  “Me? I bet you don’t even know what happiness is!”

  Lothaire wanted to snap, “Of course I do!” But he . . . didn’t.

  He believed he’d known it as a child with his mother, but he couldn’t remember those early years vividly, not after eons had
come and passed, not after his life had become devoted to revenge.

  And he couldn’t resurrect whatever he’d felt then, because he hadn’t felt anything approaching it since.

  He often spied on others, studying their ways. He’d watched two Sorceri sisters snickering over wry jokes. He’d observed Lykae roughhousing, then laughing so hard they’d had to hold their sides. They experienced happiness; Lothaire did not.

  He knew he was different from others. And yet, he couldn’t ascertain if he was unhappy—since that would mean he could recognize the opposite.

  “Well, do you know what it is?” Elizabeth demanded.

  Can’t lie. Contentment, happiness, satisfaction—all these things were unfathomable to him.

  One of the reasons he fought so hard for his Endgame was that he’d surely be content once all his vows had been fulfilled. Once his toiling had finally ended.

  She gasped. “You don’t know. How ignorant am I? I’ve sat in my ‘squalid trailer,’ experiencing something your mind can’t even comprehend!”

  “I might not kill you, but I could hurt you, break your fragile bones!”

  “You would. You’d hurt the one person who could teach you to be happy!” She grasped her forehead. “Oh, God . . . now?”

  Saroya rises? “Elizabeth, you do not recede. You finish this with me!”

  She narrowed her eyes up at him. “Just keeping the terms of our deal. If Saroya wants her turn, then I’m supposed to get out of the way, right?”

  “You little bitch, don’t you run from this!” His voice boomed in the cavern.

  “Uh-oh, here I go. . . . Whoa, whoa, receding right before your eyes. Red Rover, send Saroya right over. See how happy the Soul Reaper can make you!” And then she collapsed.

  Lothaire yanked her to him, catching her just as Saroya said, “Where am I? I sensed blood and violence.”

  He gave a furious yell. Elizabeth had mocked him, gotten the last word, then receded purposely! Fucking throttle her!

  “Lothaire, what is wrong with you?” Then Saroya scowled, fighting to stand on her own. But he left his hand on her arm, keeping her cloaked. “Why am I dressed thus? Oh, my skin!”

  Get control. Before he crushed Saroya in fury. Inhale. Exhale. “The mortal proves . . . vexatious.” And confounding. She continued to astonish him at every turn.

  “You can’t handle a human girl?” Saroya peered around at all the carnage. “But look at this splendid slaughter! Yours?”

  Elizabeth had been disgusted. Saroya not only accepted what he was, she exulted over it.

  “Are there no more lives to take? All of these are completely spent. Selfish Lothaire.” She toed a severed leg. “Why have you brought Elizabeth here? Does this have something to do with the ring?”

  “I make progress on that score.”

  “So you have no ring to give me and no lives for me to take—though I haven’t killed in years!” She kicked a decomposing head, then winced in pain at the contact. “Are you always so selfish?”

  “Yes,” he answered absently. They couldn’t remain here any longer. He could only half-trace two people for so long. In an instant, he returned them to his room in New York, releasing her.

  “Take me to live bodies, Lothaire! In fact, trace me to Elizabeth’s old home. I promised her mother that I’d kill her. I demand to have her in my grasp.”

  “Demand all you like, it won’t happen.” After all, he felt gratitude to the peasant woman for bearing Elizabeth. Without that mortal, Lothaire would have no body for his Bride.

  “I won’t remain at the fore if I’m to be treated thus.” Saroya began to sway on her feet.

  Now she was going to recede? The hell she would! “If you purposely recede, I’ll brand this body. Scald your face. Gouge an eye out.”

  * * *

  Saroya immediately righted herself. “What do you want?” Lothaire was clearly in a dangerous mood.

  “You’re going to answer some questions for me.”

  In an aggrieved tone, she said, “Really, Lothaire. What’s brought this on? I’m the one who should be infuriated. Allowing Elizabeth to tan my skin like this?”

  He traced from one wall to the other. “I need information.”

  “Such as?”

  “We talked years ago of ruling together,” he said. “Do you still want this?”

  “Of course. I fear you are the one with doubts.”

  “We spoke of thrones and power and vengeance. But what of us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When my retribution has been meted out and our crowns rest easy upon our heads, what then?”

  “Then we conquer more,” she said. “We could rule the world together, while searching for a way to return my godhood. I have enemies who beg for retribution as well. Or have you forgotten that?”

  “Your sister, Lamia.”

  “Among others.” La Dorada, for one. “You’ve got the Queen of Evil vowing reprisal against you—which means against me.” Saroya debated whether to tell Lothaire of her many crimes against the sorceress, but decided against it. He didn’t need to know why she’d dispatched assassins after Dorada for centuries.

  He doesn’t need to know about the prophecy, that foretelling by a long dead vampire oracle. “If you do not vanquish her, she will kill me, Lothaire. I feel this.”

  “Dorada cannot find you. No one in the Lore knows of this apartment. You are hidden if you remain here or at Hag’s, and I cloaked the body otherwise. Do you think I would ever allow Dorada to steal my mate—and with her my entire future?”

  Saroya calmed somewhat. Though she trusted no one, she did know that Lothaire was one of the most cutthroat warriors in the Lore, and one of the strongest vampires ever to live.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And after Dorada’s been defeated, how do you envision our lives?”

  “We will annihilate any remaining enemies, becoming the most powerful partnership the world has ever known.”

  Growing increasingly frustrated, he said, “And when our work is done for the night, when dawn comes . . . what then?”

  She smoothed her hair back. “I don’t understand.”

  “Do you know what happiness is?”

  “It’s watching the light dim in a good man’s eyes. It’s having subjects grovel. It’s wielding the power over life and death.”

  “No, Saroya. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but . . . each of those things is a process. Not an outcome.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You have no more idea of what happiness is than I do.”

  “You are growing besotted with your little mortal concubine. Look at you—it’s almost as if you’re pining for her. Almost as if she were your Bride.”

  Which Elizabeth likely was. Though Saroya had once believed she herself had triggered Lothaire’s blooding, she no longer did.

  For him to have feelings for such a loathsome creature? Something larger was at work here.

  Still, he’d never believe Elizabeth was his; the very idea would be galling to a male of his rank and standing.

  If Lothaire hadn’t seen the truth by now, then it was because he didn’t want to.

  * * *

  Doubts ate at Lothaire’s confidence, eroding it.

  Even if he could bring himself to believe that Elizabeth was his Bride—and that was a very big if—there was nothing he could do about it.

  He’d already set his destiny into motion. He was inextricably bound to his fate—compelled not merely to cast out Elizabeth’s soul as the girl thought. . . .

  It couldn’t be her.

  Surely.

  Because he’d been so averse to her humanity, Lothaire had never allowed himself even to consider that Elizabeth might be his Bride.

  Now, apparently, I’m going there.

  It was possible that Elizabeth hadn’t blooded him in their early encounters because she hadn’t been old enough. Females from other species usually didn’t trigger a blooding unless they were grown.

&nbs
p; At seventeen, Elizabeth hadn’t awakened him. When she was eighteen, one glance at Saroya had sparked his heart and body to life.

  Was this due to Saroya’s arrival? Or Elizabeth’s age?

  No, no, no. Goddess trumps mortal trailer trash.

  Lusty mortal trailer trash—with a predilection for licking his fangs and slowly sucking on his tongue.

  Of all the matches made this Accession, of all the tales of woe and bliss between mates, not one had included a human.

  Why would I draw the short straw? Even Regin the Radiant’s “mortal” male had ended up being a Lorean berserker.

  Saroya crossed to him now. “Imagine how your family would’ve reacted to Elizabeth Peirce. Would Ivana have approved of her?”

  Ivana would have gone into a frothing rage. Her only offspring shunning a goddess for a lowly “animal”? Where was the logic in that?

  Stefanovich would have laughed, sneering, “The Dacian son is no better than a Horde vampire.” He would have asked Lothaire if Elizabeth tasted of wine and honey.

  And I’d have to say yes.

  “You know Elizabeth can’t be your Bride,” Saroya said placidly. “Aside from the fact that I’m a goddess, and therefore an impeccable match for a king like you, consider this: no vampire could terrorize his female as you have her.”

  Saroya was right. Wouldn’t his instincts have prevented him from harming Elizabeth?

  Instead, he’d subjected this mortal to death row. He’d belittled her at every opportunity, holding her imminent death over her, taunting her with it.

  Mentally tormenting her. Behold the ocean you’ll never touch, the jewels you’ll

  never own. Desire the male who will never want you back and feel the pleasure

  you’ll never experience again. . . .

  Bile rose in Lothaire’s throat. It isn’t Elizabeth. It’s just not.

  Even his uncle Fyodor hadn’t tortured his Bride like this, and she’d been a reviled enemy.

  Ivana had told Lothaire, “You’ll be a good and true king to your Bride.” But he hadn’t been to Elizabeth. He’d made the girl’s life a living hell.