Lothaire (Immortals After Dark #12)(6)

What must have been hours later, her cries fell silent. Again, his eyes darted. He thought he caught a thread of smoke, then the scent of burning flesh.

Dawn. Her screams renewed.

As she burned, she yelled in Dacian, “Never forget, my prince! Avenge me!” Other words followed, but he couldn’t make them out. Then unintelligible sounds . . . agonized shrieks.

To the sound of her screams, he sobbed, repeating his vows over and over, adding a new one.

“Burn the k-king . . . of the Daci alive. . . .”





“My sanity will fail me long before my will does. Luckily, the only thing more interesting than a madman is a relentless one.”

—LOTHAIRE KONSTANTIN DACIANO, THE ENEMY OF OLD

“Me, a steel magnolia? Steel, my ass! [Laughing, then abruptly serious.] Try titanium.”

—ELIZABETH “ELLIE” PEIRCE, EXPERT IN BOYS, REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY, AND LAW-ENFORCEMENT EVASION

“The difference between you and me is that my actions have no consequences for me. That is what makes me a god.”

—SAROYA THE SOUL REAPER, DEITY OF BLOOD, SACRED PROTECTRESS OF VAMPIRES, GODDESS OF DIVINE DEATH





1


Slateville, Virginia

FIVE YEARS AGO

So you thought to exorcise me?” Saroya the Soul Reaper asked the wounded man she stalked by firelight. “I don’t know what is worse. The fact that you thought I was a demon . . .”

She twirled the blood-drenched cleaver in her hand, loving how the man’s widened eyes followed each rotation. “. . . or that you believed you could separate me from my human host.”

Nothing short of death could remove Saroya. Especially not a mortal deacon, one among a group of five who’d come all the way out to this vile trailer in Appalachia to perform an exorcism.

As he scrambled a retreat from her steady march forward, he stumbled over one of the broken lamps on the floor. He tripped onto his back, briefly releasing his hold on the spurting stump that used to be his right arm.

She sighed with delight. Centuries ago, when she’d been a death goddess, she would have swooped down and sunk her fangs into the human’s jugular, sucking until he was naught but a husk and devouring his soul; now she was cursed to possess one powerless mortal after another, experiencing her own death again and again.

Her latest possession? Elizabeth Peirce, a nineteen-year-old girl, as lovely as she was poor.

When the deacon met the dismembered corpse of one of his brethren, he gave a panicked cry, glancing away from her. In a flash, Saroya leapt upon him, swinging the cleaver, plunging the metal into his thick neck.

Blood sprayed as she yanked the blade free for another hit. Then another. Then a last.

She swiped the back of her arm over her spattered face as her demeanor turned contemplative. Mortals believed themselves so special and elevated, but decapitating one sounded exactly like a fishmonger beheading a fat catch.

Finished with the last of the five deacons, Saroya turned to the only survivor left in the trailer: Ruth, Elizabeth’s mother. She huddled in a corner, mumbling prayers as she brandished a fire poker.

“I have vanquished your daughter’s spirit, woman. She will never return,” Saroya lied, knowing that Elizabeth would soon find a way to rise from unconsciousness to the fore, regaining control of her body.

Of all the mortals Saroya had possessed, Elizabeth was the prettiest, the youngest—and the strongest. Saroya had difficulty rising to take control unless the girl was asleep or weakened in some way.

A first. Saroya gave a sigh. Elizabeth should consider it an honor to be the form to Saroya’s essence, the flesh and blood temple housing her godly vampiric spirit.

Saroya peered down at her stolen body. Instead, she’d had to fight Elizabeth for possession, was still fighting her.

No matter. After centuries of being shuffled into stooped, elderly men or horse-faced women, she’d found her ideal fit in Elizabeth. In the end, Saroya would defeat her. She had wisdom from times past and present, hallowed gifts—and an ally.

Lothaire the Enemy of Old.

He was a notoriously evil vampire, millennia in age, and the son of a king. A year ago, his oracle had directed him to her. Though Saroya and Lothaire had spent only one night together in the nearby woods, he’d pledged himself to save her from her wretched existence.

He might not have the ability to return Saroya to her goddess state. But somehow he would extinguish Elizabeth’s soul from her body, then transform Saroya into an immortal vampire—circumventing the curse.

Saroya knew Lothaire would be hunting ceaselessly for answers.

Because I’m his Bride.

She gazed past Elizabeth’s mother out a small window, finding the wintry landscape empty. Had she hoped that a massacre like this might have brought Lothaire to her?

How much longer am I to wait for him in this godsforsaken wasteland? With no word?

He’d talked of the legion of adversaries out to destroy him, of

ancient vendettas: “If a vampire can be measured by the caliber of his foes, goddess, then consider me fearsome. If by the number? Then I’ve no equal.”

Perhaps his enemies had prevailed?

No longer would she remain here. The Peirce family had begun chaining Elizabeth to the bed at night, preventing Saroya from killing, the only thing she lived for.

Reminded of her treatment, she turned to the mother. “Yes, your