Lothaire (Immortals After Dark #12)(75)

Her ego had taken a hit.

But then there’d been those glimpses of a different side of him. The seductive, charming Lothaire whose kisses set her blood afire. The vampire who made her toes curl with his accented, old-fashioned phrasings. “Be my dear . . .”

“Are you wondering if I could fall for him?” Ellie asked, trying to imagine what it might be like to be loved by Lothaire. But she knew better than to dream of things that would never be. “Even if by some miracle he felt more for me, I’d never love him. Only a fool would fall in love with her captor.” She met Hag’s gaze. “I’m no fool. My interest in him is purely life-or-death.” She took a long pull from her beer. “On that note, is there any chance that I’m his Bride?”

Seeming to choose her words very carefully, Hag said, “Mortal mates are extremely rare for Loreans. I’m thinking now of all the couples brought together this Accession and can’t cite a single one with a human in the mix. In any case, Lothaire despises mortals more than anyone I know.”

“Why?”

“I won’t say, and I don’t suggest asking him.”

“But it is possible that I’m his. Why don’t you oracle-up and find out for certain?”

“You know I only have so many rolls a day.”

Ellie had asked Hag how bone-rolling worked. She’d answered that it was like scanning text in a book, but if done too often, the words would grow blurry.

“What if I am his?” Ellie insisted. “If you serve Lothaire’s interests, then how do you think it’ll affect him once he realizes he killed his one and only Bride? You think he’d be pissed?”

Hag’s gaze flitted away. “I trust Lothaire’s judgment.”

“Tell me why you owe him so much.”

“Very well.” Hag retrieved another beer, easily popping the top with her thumbnail. “Centuries ago, I began working for a powerful sorcerer and his sisters. He didn’t like one of my foretellings, so he cursed me to appear as a repulsive crone, captive to his will for as long as he lived—a particularly dire predicament, considering how difficult it was to kill him. He was known as the Deathless One.” Her fingers tightened around her bottle. Just when Ellie thought it’d shatter, Hag loosened her hold. “If not for Lothaire, I’d still be trapped in a dank castle basement. He betrayed all his alliances, breaking a covenant to free the sorcerer’s

assassin.”

“Lothaire did all that for you?”

Hag gave a humorless laugh. “No, he had other mysterious reasons. My freedom was merely a happy coincidence, but all the same, he made me vow a debt in advance, which put me in his notorious book—” Her timer went off. “I’ll be back after a while. Don’t get too burned.”

Alone, Ellie picked up her travel magazine once more. She turned the page, perusing an article on Bora-Bora, but not really reading. Instead, she reflected on all the things she’d never get to do.

See her family again. Travel around the world. Make a home of her own. Have kids. Ellie’s idea of a white picket fence? Her own cabin on Peirce Mountain.

She’d never get to find that man who would dote on her. She’d always imagined the kind of guy she’d end up with, fantasizing in loving detail what he’d be like.

Basically the opposite of Lothaire in every way.

Reflecting like this could make a girl wish she weren’t teetering on the verge of death.

Teetering. Ellie was sick of it. At least on death row she’d been able to count down the days till she was freed at last. The magazine edges crinkled in her grip.

Now she lingered in this wait-and-see hell.

She wanted to scream, wanted to strangle Lothaire, could actually see the appeal of ending a being’s life.

How she wished for another chance to “cross swords” with him, especially now that she’d learned to decode the way he talked. She had analyzed his statements over and over, and she felt confident that she’d be able to tell when he was deflecting or misdirecting.

If she asked him, “Do you like blue?” and he did but didn’t want to admit it, he’d sneer, “Do I look like the type of man who would like blue?”

He started statements with “Perhaps” or “I’d wager” to avoid lies. Or he’d say something distractingly outrageous.

She called it Lothaire-speak.

Ellie did agree with him about one thing: for even the remotest chance of survival, she still had only that one move open to her.

Seducing him.

Part of her wanted to try it once more. Maybe if she got him to claim her totally, she could drive a wedge between him and Saroya.

Or maybe Ellie should just give him the blowjob he’d wanted. She remembered the wise words of her cousin Sadie, the mountainside’s resident slut: “If you want to communicate an idea to a man’s brain, you talk to him through his pecker. It’s like an ear horn, y’all.”

Musing on Lothaire’s seduction had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Ellie still craved him like crack.

Sure enough, he had awakened something in her.

All week, she’d been horny as hell, aching for his hands on her, replaying what they’d done together. When she slept, she dreamed of suckling him, then taking his thick shaft inside her.

She’d touched herself a couple of times in the shower, but could never relax enough to get off, always afraid Lothaire would suddenly appear to catch her—then mock her so viciously. . . .