Lothaire

to Ellie, more like a baited trap.

But with the immediate threat averted, she dragged her gaze from him to evaluate her surroundings.

The room was multiple times bigger than the entire trailer she’d grown up in. The furniture looked rich but modern, like from one of those design magazines. The curtains were drawn so tight, she couldn’t tell if it was day or night. “Where am I?”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “New York.”

“New York,” she repeated dumbly. She’d never been outside of Appalachia but had always wanted to travel. Now everything was too surreal. “Why have you brought me here?”

“Because this place is mystically protected—inescapable and impenetrable.”

Mystically? At that moment, she decided she’d better keep her mind open, lest it break from strain.

“You will be kept here for a time, until I cast your soul from your body.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“Your body will become Saroya’s alone.”

He had the power to steal Ellie’s body from her? Forever? “I’ll kill myself before that happens!” She leapt to her feet, starting for a bronze statue on a pedestal. “You hear me?”

“If you harm yourself in any way, I’ll murder your mother and brother.”

She stilled, fear shivering through her.

“Perhaps I should end one of them today to demonstrate good faith on my threat,” he said, as though remarking on the weather. “Any message you’d like me to deliver?”

Her mind cried, Oh, God, no! Yet she forced herself to sneer, “Do it. Don’t give a damn. None of those assholes came to my execution today.” She’d forbidden it.

Had her family obeyed her other orders?

Lothaire disappeared right before her eyes. From just behind her, he murmured, “You are quite the accomplished bluffer, little human . . .”

She felt his breath on her neck before she whirled around.

“. . . but your racing heart gives you away,” he finished.

He could disappear and reappear directly into Mama’s trailer, murdering them in seconds.

If her family was there.

Expecting Lothaire to want payback for the execution, Ellie had made her mother swear she’d get herself— and the entire family—scarce in the days surrounding it.

Surely there’d be news coverage of Ellie’s mysterious disappearance; her mother would be in defense mode, unlikely to return to her home until she’d heard from her escapee daughter.

Ellie was almost certain they were out of Lothaire’s reach, but could she bet her family’s lives on it?

No.

Then he’s won. All her brazen anger petered out, and she sank back down onto the couch. She’d always believed she’d win the battle against Saroya because she’d thought it would boil down to a test of wills.

But this man . . . this animal . . .

As her gaze flitted over the bullet holes in his chest that he seemed not to notice, then up to meet his chilling red eyes, she comprehended, I can’t beat him.

5

Lothaire could see the defeat in her bearing.

At last the mortal had accepted her situation, accepted that he had all the leverage he needed to force her cooperation. Now he merely had to await Saroya. “Allow her to rise, Elizabeth.”

“She’s not trying to anymore. I can’t prod her to it.”

“But she was trying before? To escape the execution.” When she didn’t deny it, Lothaire imagined Saroya trapped, clawing to rise, to defend herself. . . .

Gods, he hated this girl—and he couldn’t kill her! He paced once more, grappling to control his rage while ignoring his weariness and the twinges from his rapidly healing wounds.

When was the last time he’d really slept? Days ago? Weeks since he’d rested for more than an hour at a time?

Need to sleep, to dream. The memories come in dreams. He needed to begin his work, his seven little tasks—

“If you can cast out my soul,” Elizabeth said, “then why do you need her to rise? And why’d you put me on ice for five years?”

He slowed, gazing past her. “I didn’t possess the means then.”

“But you do now?”

Not yet. After years of deceiving, slaying, and manipulating, Lothaire had seized the Ring of Sums, a talisman of great power—a wish giver. Only to have it stolen from him during his recent capture.

Mortals from the Order had attacked with their charge throwers, draining his strength, forcing him to kneel . . . the blood blinding his eyes and pooling around his knees.

He’d never forget the deafening scrape of the ring across the floor as their leader, a soldier named Declan Chase, had snared it.

“Do you have the means now?” the girl asked again.

Somewhere in the tangle of his mind Lothaire knew the ring’s location. He just had to access that information. “I’ve budgeted anywhere from one night to a month until your end.” Time enough to wade through the millions and millions of stolen memories.

Like his father before him, Lothaire was a cosaş, a memory harvester. A blessing for some vampires, a curse for one of the Fallen.

Damn his uncle for tempting him with the power all those centuries ago. . . .

“You must drink to the quick to be strong enough to destroy my brother,” Fyodor had told him when they’d been reunited once more.

“My eyes are red, are they not?” Lothaire had said. “I’ve been a scourge upon humans.”

“Or you can drink immortals to the quick and steal their strength, even their powers. Join with me, Lothaire.”

“Ivana warned against this.”

Fyodor had smiled thinly. “Your fair mother probably assumed you would have long since slain Stefanovich by now. . . .”

Impatient for power, Lothaire had begun targeting immortals. Yet their souls were much more decayed than humans’. And they had exponentially more memories. Ruinous to a cosaş.

His uncle had promised and delivered strength beyond measure, but had downplayed the side effect.

Insanity. Memories forever tolled. Lothaire balanced on the edge of a razor.

Though Fyodor, also a cosaş, had lost his mind long before his death last year, Lothaire had somehow pulled back, limiting his kills and memory harvests, scrabbling his way back to reason. All to serve my Endgame. . . .

He peered over at the mortal sitting on the couch. How long had he been pacing, his thoughts drifting? Her expression had turned from defeated to devious as she eyed the fireplace tools.

In another situation, he might have admired her tenacity. Now he snapped, “You must want them dead.”

She jerked her gaze straight ahead.

With a scowl, he continued pacing, pondering his reaction to her earlier. He couldn’t remember his body responding that wildly during his one night with Saroya.

For years, he’d remained apart from her easily, once he’d taken his initial release with her in the woods.