She whispered,
Warmed by her blood, he lay huddled, quaking with fear for her. His eyes darted, seeing nothing.
Had she swept to her feet, sprinting back in the mortals’ direction? In time, he heard her struggles from a distance, could feel the vibrations of a number of footfalls. What must be dozens of humans surrounded her. He clenched his fists, battling his frenzied yearning to save her.
Yet Lothaire was powerless—bound by his vow and undermined by his weakness.
His stifled yells of frustration turned to scalding tears when he heard the clanking of chains, her muffled screams.
The guttural sounds of men.
He’d been raised in Helvita under the wicked reign of Stefanovich; Lothaire knew what those mortals were doing to her.
As he fought not to vomit the precious blood she’d gifted him, he resolved that he
He might grow mad with bloodlust;
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.
1
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
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.
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?
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 daughter is mine forever. And after I’ve slain you, I’ll eviscerate your young son, then sweep through your family like a disease.” She raised the cleaver
