Lothaire

“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, “Phenïx, you are the only one who understands the truth: Eternal life alone is naught but an eternal punishment.”

“Lothaire, I’ve met dirt younger than we are.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I didn’t feel old when I was with Elizabeth. I felt like a young vampire, just starting out with her. The world was ours for the taking.”

“I envy you that feeling.”

After several heartbeats, he admitted in a low voice, “I’d go back to the grave if it would force Elizabeth to love me.”

“Oh, Lothaire,” she sighed, patting his shoulder. “I tried to help you with her. I watched out for her at Val Hall. I showed her that she could walk in the sun.”

“Was she excited?” He twisted around to face Nïx. “What did she say? Did she mention me?” Though Lothaire had long sworn never to bestow a gift with no thought of a return on his investment, he finally had. I gave Elizabeth the sun. He’d wanted her to know that happiness, even if he, himself, could not—

“Ellie was . . . sad.”

“Sad?” he bit out. He’d never understand females! “Did she never speak of me?”

“In the weeks that you ignored her, humiliating her with every day that you didn’t retrieve her? Honestly, Lothaire, if she’d brought you up to anyone . . . awkward.”

He glowered at the ceiling. Silence reigned.

Damn it, Nïx was going to fall asleep and leave him alone and unsettled, wondering how he’d made Elizabeth sad—and whether he should give his Bride another one of his black hearts in penance.

With a scowl, he gruffly said, “I’m not a pussy, you know.”

“Then dream her memories,” Nïx whispered, before drifting off.

58

After several days back in her childhood home, Ellie still hadn’t acclimated.

As she mended socks, she gazed around the trailer, trying to see it through Lothaire’s eyes.

Mama was at the stove, frying up chicken for when Ephraim and the others got home from the mine. A singing Big Mouth Billy Bass was proudly mounted on the wall. Porcelain dolls that screamed “QVC Christmas Sale” lined a shelf. Two lazy hunting dogs, Bo and Bo Junior, dozed at her feet.

Lothaire probably hated animals. He’d find it all tacky and shuddersome.

She shrugged. Even compared to the luxury of the apartment and the grandeur of Val Hall, she liked it best here. Though it no longer felt like home.

Because Lothaire isn’t with me.

Mama glanced over at her. “If you’re hankerin’ for that vampire, you just cut it right out, Ellie Ann Peirce.”

“I believe my last name is Daciano, actually.”

“The hell you say! I could kill that monster for what he did to you.”

“He’s not a monster, Mama. I think he’s just misunderstood—”

Josh came bounding inside, running straight for Ellie. “My fort is the best, Ellie!” he told her, clambering over her onto the couch.

He’d been playing in the tree house she’d built him—the one constructed in less than forty-five minutes without a hammer. She’d used her thumbs to press nails into unwittingly donated lumber.

Initially, Josh had been wary of his long-lost sister, as if he’d sensed she wasn’t right in some way. Though Ellie didn’t suppose she appeared all that different—as long as she wasn’t hungry or upset—the boy had been standoffish.

Now she couldn’t pry him away. Not that she would ever try to. Since he’d taken to latching on to her at all times, she’d had to seriously accelerate her crash course in vampire strength control.

“Josh, I still can’t get over how big you are!”

When he made a muscle with his right arm, she curbed a grin and looked dutifully impressed.

“Uncle Ephraim said I’m gonna be over ten feet tall.”

“Well, maybe if you eat your greens.”

“And Mama said you came back to the mountain ’cause you got a dee-vorce, and if any man comes ’round askin’ for you, I’m s’posed to tell him you’re dead, then spit on his boots.”

With an arch look at her mother, Ellie said, “A divorce? Did she, then?”

Mama shrugged.

Ellie turned to Josh. “Why don’t you get cleaned up, and I’ll make you a PBJ.”

“No crust?”

“Depends on how the finances are doing, honey.” At his raised brows, she said, “Ellie’s kidding. No crust, promise.”

Once he was gone, she told Mama, “I’m going out tonight.” For the last week, she’d continually thought about ways she could break into Lothaire’s apartment and steal those jewels.

She’d come up empty.

In lieu of that, she intended to go cat-burgling later, anything to get her family out of the mine—

The trailer rocked, grease sloshing out of the fryer. Just as Josh came running wide-eyed from the bathroom, a loud boom followed.

Ellie and her mother locked gazes, knowing only one thing that could set off an unplanned explosion like that.

There’d been another mine collapse.

* * *

Lothaire drifted off shortly after Nïx, his head slumping forward, his eyes darting behind his lids.

At long last, he began to witness a stream of Elizabeth’s memories.

He feared what he would find, but heedlessly opened himself to her past. . . .

When her father had died, Elizabeth had been grief-stricken, but she’d allowed herself little time to mourn him. Instead, she’d worked tirelessly to scrabble together a better life for her mother and brother.

Lothaire observed example after example of her using her wits to make strides, with work, with school. And she’d known successes, gaining momentum.

Until Lothaire and Saroya had devastated her existence with a year of hell, culminating in a night of carnage.

Prison followed. Lothaire’s eyes stung as he experienced the pall of mace lingering in the ward. He felt her pulse racing when she shot upright in bed, awakened by the other prisoners hissing in the dark, moaning, wailing.

Her bottom lip would tremble when she dreamed about her college pennants and her little brother’s ruddy cheeks. How much she yearned to watch him grow up!