Lothaire (Immortals After Dark #12)(141)

Before Lothaire had bitten him, the wily bastard had popped a sample of blood, like a cyanide capsule. As Webb died, he’d had the blood of an immortal running through him, one so powerful that even Lothaire had been overcome after drinking it.

Webb would rise, as gods only knew what.

Perhaps I ought to tell Chase all the dark secrets I’ve learned about his surrogate father, to relieve some of his guilt.

And to prepare him.

But Lothaire was still Lothaire, and blood tie or not, Chase was still a dick. I don’t give without receiving.

Yet hadn’t he with Elizabeth?

N?x turned back to him, her face marred with fatigue. “I wasn’t working with Webb, I was using him.”

“How would your allies feel to learn of your connection to him? Through Webb, you sent a witch to the island. Hell, you sent your own sister. I wonder why you gave him my name to add to the capture list. Yet another betrayal.”

She tilted her head at him, her eyes gone silvery. “Had to catch you before you used the ring, Lothaire. One more second and you would seriously have rewritten the wrong female. You do not even want to contemplate what would have happened to your Bride if Saroya had been made a vampire, with the ability to trace. . . . And more, I needed you on the island for six purposes: Wendigo extermination, saving Thaddeus’s life, giving Chase blood to stabilize him until his berserkertude took over. I forgot the others,” she said with growing agitation. “No matter. Your takeaway: sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.”

“So after this night, am I supposed to feel beholden to you? Do you expect me to just turn off my animosity toward you?”

He couldn’t even if he wanted to. She was right; he was eaten up with hatred.

“I see Furie drowning, but can never find her. She is my sister! And you wouldn’t spare me that?”

Perhaps I ought to tell N?x where I left her. . . .

But there was more on the line. “You and I both know to whom she’s bound. Sinking her was also strategic.”

N?x looked dejected. Lips moving silently, she hugged her arms around her chest.

Understanding hit him. In order to help me tonight, she has hurt herself in whatever way. “N?x?” She was weary, bewildered, hardly the malicious being he’d thought her for so long.

In Old Norse, she asked him, “How will I remember the apocalypse?” Her voice was haunted, her slim frame shaking. “There’s so much to see, to remember, so many faces . . .”

For all that the memories had been shadowing his thoughts, visions of the future had been obscuring hers. He’d played his one Endgame; apparently, she’d been playing thousands.

“How?” she cried. Lightning flashed, bolts inside the great caverns of Dacia for the first time in history.

In the streets below, screams rang out. Thunder rocked the entire kingdom, echoing until rubble quaked. The unknown threat Hag spoke of.

“Calm yourself, Valkyrie!” He grabbed her shoulders, giving her a jostle.

She thrashed against him harder, and two more bolts speared down in rapid succession. Like detonations. She could topple the castle!

“Phen?x, calm yourself!” He lifted her into his arms to trace her away—

At once, the lightning ebbed. Seconds passed. A muted scream here and there. Disaster averted.

“Phen?x?” she whispered up at him. “No one calls me that but you. Everyone who used to is dead. They’re all dead.”

He exhaled a gust of breath. “They always die before us, don’t they?”

“Without fail.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Not since I saw you on the island.”

That had been several weeks ago. “Why? The shrieks at Val Hall keep you up?”

“I like to drift off to the sound of shrieks. No, it’s because someone always needs my help. Loreans are incessant, skulking around the manor, with their languishing hearts and unfulfilled desires. I can feel them ache, like a bad tooth I can never yank free.”

“You need a male to keep those beings at bay.”

“You have no idea.”

He muttered a curse, then said, “You may rest here this eve.” Tracing to the sitting room couch, he gently laid her down. “I’ll keep the Loreans away for one night.”

“It is blessedly peaceful here, high in this castle. White queen and black king can call a draw for a time. . . .”

My enemy, my onetime friend. Why had she continued to help him? With a brusque “Good night,” he tossed a blanket over her.

But she said, “Stay. Just till I fall asleep.”

After debating a few moments, he sank down, resting his back against the couch, his arms stretched over his bent knees. “Why do you want me here?”

She yawned widely, as the young did. “We can watch each other’s backs in shifts, as we used to do.”

Though it did feel like times past, he said, “You still can’t trust me. I’m considering cutting your hair when you sleep, just for keys past the Scourge.”

“Naturally. Talk to me about other things.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Another exhalation, then he spoke his mind. “I feel . . . old.” He knew she could sympathize. When they’d been friends, he’d once confessed to her, “Phen?x, you are the only one who understands the truth: Eternal life alone is naught but an eternal punishment.”