Lothaire (Immortals After Dark #12)(28)

His eyes got a faraway look and deepened in color, telling her his mind was drifting. Dissociation?

She’d seen the same look earlier today as he’d paced. It occurred to her then that this vampire was not just evil.

The Enemy of Old might be clinically insane.



“Another goddess cursed her to a mortal’s form,” Lothaire finally said, struggling to rein back the madness. Focus. “I do not know why you were chosen.”

“Which goddess?”

Saroya had a twin, Lamia. Each sister derived her strength from life—Lamia from creating it and safeguarding it, Saroya from harvesting it and consuming souls.

When Saroya had made a bid for more power, killing indiscriminately and upsetting the balance, Lamia had joined forces with other gods and cursed Saroya to experience death over and over as a human. “The curse of mortality,” he muttered. “Could there be anything worse?” He glanced down, surprised to find himself boring a knife tip into his own thumb.

“Lothaire, why was she cursed?” Elizabeth continued heedlessly.

He licked his dripping new wound. “Because she is just like me.” A being insatiable for power. “She saw a play for more, and she took it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do pizdy. Don’t f*cking care.” He was getting sick of others acting as if he’d just uttered nonsense. He killed most who cast him that sharp questioning look.

But he couldn’t harm the human before him, the female with her steady gray eyes taking his measure. He stared into them for long moments, surprised to find himself feeling more grounded.

“How could a girl from the backwoods ever get caught up in something so . . . unlikely?”

Without breaking eye contact, he leaned back in his chair. “I asked myself that continually from the time I first saw you. After all, in the beginning, I had no idea you were anything more than a mere human, had no idea how I could possibly be connected to you.”

Why was he conversing so readily with her? Perhaps because he knew she would take his secrets to the grave? And soon?

For whatever reason, the words seemed pulled from him.

“Imagine my abject disappointment in you, female. Lothaire the Enemy of Old—the most feared vampire alive, the son of one king and grandson of another—paired with a mortal? Much less a mortal of no distinction. I’m given to understand that your people are worse than peasants.”

Instead of indignation, curiosity lit her face. “Wait. I came first? You didn’t find me because of her? Hey, are you saying you’re a prince?”

“Yes, peasants,” he repeated slowly. “The lowliest of the low among humans.” Then he enunciated, “Exceedingly backward and vulgar hillbillies.”

“Been called worse, mister.” At his raised brows, she exhaled impatiently. “Bootlegger, moonshiner, Elly May Clampett, mountain mama, redneck, backwoods Bessie, hick, trailer trash, yokel, and, more recently, death-row con.”

“No references to mining? I’m disappointed.”

Sadness flashed in her expressive eyes. “My father died in a mine collapse. Ever since then, none of my kin will work underground.”

“Naturally the big bad coal company was at fault?”

“I’m sure there are nice, safe coal companies out there; Va-Co isn’t one of them. Mining’s over for us.”

“And so you remain appallingly poor.”

“S’pose so. The bottom line is that insults only hurt when they come from someone I respect.”

“Then no one’s taught you to respect your betters?”

“You think you’re better than me because you’re a prince?” Had she sounded disbelieving?

“I’m a displaced king of two vampire factions. Now I work to reclaim my thrones.” Why am I telling her this? He didn’t give a damn if she respected him. “As for the other, I think I’m better than you because you are demonstrably my inferior in every way. Intelligence, wealth, looks, bloodline, should I continue?”

She waved that away. “How’d you find me? You’re obviously rich—oh, and royalty—why would you be in one of the poorest areas in America?”

He parted his lips to tell her to shut hers, but she dutifully took another bite of salmon, actually swallowing it. “My Bride’s arrival had been foretold. An oracle predicted where and when she would be. But not what.” The same oracle who assisted him now, a fey he called Hag.

He glanced at Elizabeth’s plate. She took another bite.

“I found you when you were fourteen, but you didn’t trigger my blooding.” He’d assumed that she was too young. “I decided then that I’d never return, would walk as the dead before being forever tied to such a base creature as you.” No matter that she’d promised to be physically lovely.

“Then why did you return?”

“Pure curiosity.” It might have been pure, but it had plagued him, and he’d returned to her thrice more.

When she was fifteen, a budding woman, he’d found her swimming one night with a boy, eagerly exploring kissing with him. At seventeen, she’d been on the verge of stunning, with her sun-kissed skin, wide clear eyes, and striking features, yet still too lowly to tempt him.

Until a year later . . . “Just when I vowed to spurn you forever, I found you in the woods at a makeshift altar, surrounded by bodies.”