Lothaire

guiding the Vertas, and I side either with the Pravus or with no one—whichever suits my Endgame.”

“Why didn’t you ever kill her? That’s what you do to your enemies, right?”

A difficult question to answer. At length, he said, “Though a foe, Nïx is the only one I know who matches me in age and knowledge.” In madness and weariness. “We have a history.” And so his life would be altered without her in it. “I decided long ago that I could always kill her, but I could never bring her back.”

“I see.” When Elizabeth took another drink, condensation from the bottle dripped to her chest, meandering down. As his gaze followed, his mind easily turned from the past to this very enticing present. “I believe I answered your question.” He raised his brows at her top.

With a huff, she tugged the material aside more. “Do you think about me when you’re away?”

“I think about how you’re soon to die. A fine sacrifice for Saroya.”

As she pulled over her top, Elizabeth asked, “How much time do I have left?”

“Possibly a week.”

She gazed away, taking another swig of beer as she adjusted the material. The next shift would bare one impudent nipple. “At any time, were your thoughts tender toward me?”

He’d mused on destroying Elizabeth’s soul, and he might have felt a whisper of something. “Do I look like the type of male who would have tender thoughts, girl? Now you’re being ridiculous.”

When her eyes widened slightly, he snapped, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“If there’s to be no more tat, then let’s get to the tit.”

“Hmm. Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” She ran that sweating beer bottle down her cleavage. Just where he’d thrust his shaft a week ago. “Don’t you wish you could see—and touch?”

“I’ve spent the last seven days wishing I could touch. Now I plan to.” Before she could react, he’d traced to her in the light, grabbing her before he burned, then returned with her to the apartment.

He could smell the sun in her hair, could see new freckles on her nose. Golden skin, wicked tan lines . . . her skin was hot.

“Let me go!” She shoved against his chest. “What do you want from me now? Maybe there’s a quarter inch of my skin somewhere that you haven’t spunked yet. That it?”

“These days away from me have made you bolder. Foolishly so. But I’ll bring you to heel.”

She thrashed against him. “I hate you!”

“Feeling’s mutual,” he grated with difficulty, the rána burning. Blyad’!

Of course he hated her.

She was a mortal, ignorant even of the danger he presented to her. His hand wrapped around her throat. “I could throttle you so easily. Squeeze the life right from you.”

“Do it!” she screamed, her eyes fierce. “And stop talkin’ about it!”

* * *

“You won’t incite me to kill you,” the vampire said. “So cease trying. If I were going to do it by my own hand, I would have by now.”

For the briefest second, Ellie thought she saw him frown, as if he’d just realized that was true.

Can’t lie, huh? When he eased his grip on her throat, she stumbled back. “I’m not screamin’ at you because I want you to kill me, I’m screamin’ because you make me sick! You’re supposed to be some kind of Lore brain-iac? But you’re fixin’ to choose Saroya over me? Why are you too stupid to see what’s just in front of you?”

“In front of me? You mean the mortal shrieking at me in a thick hillbilly accent? The ignorant human with no accomplishments? Perhaps I’m smart enough not to lower myself to a creature like you.”

“I’m not ignorant. I have a degree!”

He raised a blond brow. “Assuredly. It says H.S. after it. In any case, there’s more to knowledge than a degree. You’ve never been outside of your own state, never encountered any kinds of people but your own.”

“Because I’m young! I’ve been in prison since I was a teenager. You have no idea what I would’ve done if that bitch of yours hadn’t hijacked my body. You can’t have it both ways—you can’t ridicule my ignorance when you had a hand in shaping it!”

“No idea what you would have done? I’d wager you would have lived in a squalid trailer with wailing brats clinging to your apron while you watched TV all day.”

He’d just done Lothaire-speak. “You don’t think that’s what I would’ve done. You don’t believe that at all.”

Double take from the vampire. But he recovered, saying in a bland tone, “This grows tedious, Elizabeth. Shut up and undress.”

“Get Saroya to do it! Or maybe she finds you as hateful as I do!” A muscle ticked in his jaw, warning her that she’d pushed too far. Don’t care. Already dead.

“You court my wrath because you’ve never truly witnessed it. I’ll remedy that right now.”

He yanked her against his chest. “Let’s take a trip.”

“You said your enemies would find me!” To be a demon’s whore . . . ?

“I’ll cloak us. Again, the one you need fear most is me.” In the space of a breath, he’d traced her into a cave. But he hadn’t fully teleported them; they stayed in some kind of hazy twilight.

Still she could scent musty earth and rot, could hear flies buzzing. Once her eyes grew used to the dim light, she saw corpses.

The savagely beheaded bodies of young men. Dozens and dozens of them.

Gore, severed limbs, crushed skulls. Splatter on the dank cave walls.

She would’ve vomited the contents of her stomach, if she’d been of weaker constitution. Or if she hadn’t beheld a similar scene in her own home five years ago.

When she could trust her voice, she asked, “You did this?”

“Ah, Elizabeth, now do you see what I’m capable of? Slaughtering an entire pack in their own den bored me. My heart never even sped up, my bloodlust never quickened. I yawned loudly when I worked one’s head free. The last thing he ever heard was me tsking over my impoliteness. You’d do well to fear my fury, to understand that my very name strikes fear in the hearts of those who know me—for a reason.”

“I understand that you’re scary, sick, and perverse! I understand that the Enemy of Old and Saroya the Soul Reaper are absolutely perfect for each other. Two broken puzzle pieces jammed together.”

Again, her words struck a nerve. His hand tightened on her arm, his expression promising pain.

“Is this what your life is like?”

He sneered, “Most nights for millennia.”

“Then I feel sorry for you. That’s right—Elizabeth, your pet, the peasant you scorn, ‘the body’—pities you.” She gazed at his face. “Uh-oh, we’ve got that muscle tickin’ in your jaw. Spells trouble for me! What’s the matter? You can’t take it when someone tells you like it is? I’m probably the first person to do so in centuries.”

Was there a flicker in those red eyes?

“Like it is,” he grated. “And how is it that you could possibly pity me?”

“I’m twenty-four years old. I’ve spent more than twenty percent of my life on death row. And I’ve still known more happiness in my short life than you have in your unending one.”

31

That Elizabeth would fucking dare! “As usual, you speak about things your mind can’t even comprehend!”