Lothaire

As she swigged, he thought, Not classy. But oddly . . . arousing. “You don’t even aspire to grace, do you?”

“Nope.” She noisily sucked on a wedge of lime.

“You really do not want to do this today, Elizabeth.”

“But I have to! You see, I’m running out of days too quickly to put anything off.”

Refusing to rise to the bait, he agreed, “Yes. You are. Now, about your top. Shut up and take it off.”

She laughed, and drank more beer. “Take a long trace off a short bridge, vampire.”

“Don’t you want to further seduce me from my Bride?”

“No, I’ve decided that nothing is worth whoring for you.”

“And what about your alternative reason? Merely wanting to be with a man? To know one’s touch?”

“It was good, Lothaire, but it wasn’t that good.”

“You came quickly enough.” He rather enjoyed this sparring, because it so rarely happened to him.

“Do you really want to go there? Because, oh great king, you came in your pants.”

His eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that what happened with every other one of your conquests? Just because I’m not poor, imbecilic, and vulgar like them doesn’t mean I’m immune to your charms. Now. Take off your top.” When she didn’t, he snapped, “You disobey me because you assume you’ll get no punishment.”

“How about we play a game of tit for tat. You answer my questions, and I’ll tug this”—she indicated one of the top triangles of her suit—“a little to the right.”

30

Elizabeth and her games. Which he might enjoy more than he cared to admit. “Continue.”

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Stalking my enemies, Declan Chase and Regin the Radiant. Chase is the key to finding my ring.”

She adjusted the material to the right, just enough to reveal . . . her tan line. Fuck, that was sexy to him. He’d bet her skin would be searing to the touch.

“I thought you only needed to dream his memories.”

“The memories prove elusive,” he said absently. “But we shared blood between us, so I can read his mind if I can get close enough to him.”

Another adjustment. “Who’s Nïx? You cursed her the other day.”

The bane of my existence. “She’s a Valkyrie soothsayer whom I’ve known for almost all my life. She likes to stick her nose where it doesn’t belong.” The white queen, with her godlike precognition.

“Did you have a relationship with her?”

How to answer that? “We were . . . many things to each other,” he said, recalling the first time he’d met her, just one month after his mother’s death.

He’d been starving, injured, limping down a secluded mountain pass with no idea where to go. A metal net had descended on him, preventing him from tracing.

“Look at the lordling leech in his rags,” a dark-haired Valkyrie had said as she and others of her ilk descended from a rock face. “He looks hungry.”

He’d snapped his fangs at them, hissing blood and spittle. While they debated who got to decapitate their prey, another Valkyrie had strolled into their midst.

With her jet-black hair and brilliant golden eyes, she’d been incomprehensibly lovely to him. “Spare this one, sister,” she said. “He’s special.”

“How so, Phenïx?”

“I cannot see,” this Phenïx said. “In fact, the only way I can tell that he plays a role in our affairs is by reading your future, Helen. You two are connected in some way.”

“You speak in riddles as usual.” Helen had stabbed her sword into its sheath with an exasperated thrust. “He’s a pathetic parasite. I would die of sorrow if I was ever connected to one such as him.”

But they had spared him, and the golden-eyed Valkyrie had furtively dropped coins for him as they’d ridden off on their white steeds.

An age had passed before he’d met Nïx again. Both of them had sought to capture a sorcerer whose castle was under siege by an invading army of stone demons, one of the more brutal demonarchies.

Nïx had planned to save the sorcerer’s life in order for him to fulfill some undisclosed role in the future; Lothaire wanted to drink his blood and steal his legendary knowledge.

The two of them had decided to work together. They would let the demons defeat the sorcerer’s army and break into his mystically protected hold. Then Lothaire and Nïx would swoop in to snare the sorcerer for themselves.

As he and the Valkyrie had lain in wait on an outcropping overlooking the clash, Lothaire had worked on a ring puzzle, listening to the Valkyrie’s chatter, surprised that he agreed with everything she said.

She’d praised the sorcerer for taking no wife, spawning no offspring, and developing no friendships. “He has no weaknesses. The stone demon king will have no leverage to force magics from him.”

Lothaire preyed on those very vulnerabilities. Which was why he himself garnered no friends. A choice, not a lack . . .

With a claw-tipped finger, Nïx had pointed out soldiers in action, giving commentary. “Idiot. Larger idiot. One-horned idiot.” He’d grunted in agreement. “Oh, watch this! Watch this one,” she’d said from time to time, predicting a particularly gruesome slaying on the battlefield.

Soon they’d begun conversing, mainly about how foolish immortals could be, until their talk had turned personal.

“Have you no mate, female?” he’d asked, intrigued with her, though she was his natural enemy.

“I was betrothed to Loki for a time. Which did not proceed smoothly for obvious reasons. So for now I am an unrepentant manizer.” At Lothaire’s blank look, she’d said, “That will be amusing in the twenty-first century.”

“If you’re a soothsayer, tell me my future.”

“I cannot. I still see nothing on you. Very few render my foresight completely blank.”

In the hour before dawn, Lothaire had said, “I grow weary of waiting, Phenïx. Stay if you like, but I will tarry no more.”

Her eyes had gone hazy. “Patience, Lothaire. You must learn patience.”

He’d drawn himself to his full height, furious that she’d dared to scold him. “The day I take orders from a madwoman who begets lightning will be my last.” With a mean laugh, he’d tensed to trace away.

Just as he began to disappear, he’d spied a demon vaulting the overhang, sword at the ready. Leave the Valkyrie to her fate, Lothaire had told himself. She means nothing. She’s an enemy!

Yet he’d hesitated. Perhaps he’d been less jaded then; perhaps he’d had nothing better to do. For whatever reason, he’d returned to her side to slay the male—just as the castle boundaries fell. . . .

In the coming years, they’d stalked common foes, growing to trust each other, at least enough to watch each other’s backs when on extended hunts. But Lothaire had never learned patience, and his obstinacy put them at odds on occasion. Her lucidity continued to dwindle.

Still, they’d had much in common, and a grudging respect had grown. He remembered once confessing to her, “Phenïx, you are the only one—”

“Lothaire!”

He jerked his head up. “What?”

Elizabeth was frowning at him. “You and Nïx?”

He shook himself from his reverie. “We belong to different Lore armies, the Pravus and the Vertas. She is