Lothaire

“Me? I bet you don’t even know what happiness is!”

Lothaire wanted to snap, “Of course I do!” But he . . . didn’t.

He believed he’d known it as a child with his mother, but he couldn’t remember those early years vividly, not after eons had come and passed, not after his life had become devoted to revenge.

And he couldn’t resurrect whatever he’d felt then, because he hadn’t felt anything approaching it since.

He often spied on others, studying their ways. He’d watched two Sorceri sisters snickering over wry jokes. He’d observed Lykae roughhousing, then laughing so hard they’d had to hold their sides. They experienced happiness; Lothaire did not.

He knew he was different from others. And yet, he couldn’t ascertain if he was unhappy—since that would mean he could recognize the opposite.

“Well, do you know what it is?” Elizabeth demanded.

Can’t lie. Contentment, happiness, satisfaction—all these things were unfathomable to him.

One of the reasons he fought so hard for his Endgame was that he’d surely be content once all his vows had been fulfilled. Once his toiling had finally ended.

She gasped. “You don’t know. How ignorant am I? I’ve sat in my ‘squalid trailer,’ experiencing something your mind can’t even comprehend!”

“I might not kill you, but I could hurt you, break your fragile bones!”

“You would. You’d hurt the one person who could teach you to be happy!” She grasped her forehead. “Oh, God . . . now?”

Saroya rises? “Elizabeth, you do not recede. You finish this with me!”

She narrowed her eyes up at him. “Just keeping the terms of our deal. If Saroya wants her turn, then I’m supposed to get out of the way, right?”

“You little bitch, don’t you run from this!” His voice boomed in the cavern.

“Uh-oh, here I go. . . . Whoa, whoa, receding right before your eyes. Red Rover, send Saroya right over. See how happy the Soul Reaper can make you!” And then she collapsed.

Lothaire yanked her to him, catching her just as Saroya said, “Where am I? I sensed blood and violence.”

He gave a furious yell. Elizabeth had mocked him, gotten the last word, then receded purposely! Fucking throttle her!

“Lothaire, what is wrong with you?” Then Saroya scowled, fighting to stand on her own. But he left his hand on her arm, keeping her cloaked. “Why am I dressed thus? Oh, my skin!”

Get control. Before he crushed Saroya in fury. Inhale. Exhale. “The mortal proves . . . vexatious.” And confounding. She continued to astonish him at every turn.

“You can’t handle a human girl?” Saroya peered around at all the carnage. “But look at this splendid slaughter! Yours?”

Elizabeth had been disgusted. Saroya not only accepted what he was, she exulted over it.

“Are there no more lives to take? All of these are completely spent. Selfish Lothaire.” She toed a severed leg. “Why have you brought Elizabeth here? Does this have something to do with the ring?”

“I make progress on that score.”

“So you have no ring to give me and no lives for me to take—though I haven’t killed in years!” She kicked a decomposing head, then winced in pain at the contact. “Are you always so selfish?”

“Yes,” he answered absently. They couldn’t remain here any longer. He could only half-trace two people for so long. In an instant, he returned them to his room in New York, releasing her.

“Take me to live bodies, Lothaire! In fact, trace me to Elizabeth’s old home. I promised her mother that I’d kill her. I demand to have her in my grasp.”

“Demand all you like, it won’t happen.” After all, he felt gratitude to the peasant woman for bearing Elizabeth. Without that mortal, Lothaire would have no body for his Bride.

“I won’t remain at the fore if I’m to be treated thus.” Saroya began to sway on her feet.

Now she was going to recede? The hell she would! “If you purposely recede, I’ll brand this body. Scald your face. Gouge an eye out.”

* * *

Saroya immediately righted herself. “What do you want?” Lothaire was clearly in a dangerous mood.

“You’re going to answer some questions for me.”

In an aggrieved tone, she said, “Really, Lothaire. What’s brought this on? I’m the one who should be infuriated. Allowing Elizabeth to tan my skin like this?”

He traced from one wall to the other. “I need information.”

“Such as?”

“We talked years ago of ruling together,” he said. “Do you still want this?”

“Of course. I fear you are the one with doubts.”

“We spoke of thrones and power and vengeance. But what of us?”

“What do you mean?”

“When my retribution has been meted out and our crowns rest easy upon our heads, what then?”

“Then we conquer more,” she said. “We could rule the world together, while searching for a way to return my godhood. I have enemies who beg for retribution as well. Or have you forgotten that?”

“Your sister, Lamia.”

“Among others.” La Dorada, for one. “You’ve got the Queen of Evil vowing reprisal against you—which means against me.” Saroya debated whether to tell Lothaire of her many crimes against the sorceress, but decided against it. He didn’t need to know why she’d dispatched assassins after Dorada for centuries.

He doesn’t need to know about the prophecy, that foretelling by a long dead vampire oracle. “If you do not vanquish her, she will kill me, Lothaire. I feel this.”

“Dorada cannot find you. No one in the Lore knows of this apartment. You are hidden if you remain here or at Hag’s, and I cloaked the body otherwise. Do you think I would ever allow Dorada to steal my mate—and with her my entire future?”

Saroya calmed somewhat. Though she trusted no one, she did know that Lothaire was one of the most cutthroat warriors in the Lore, and one of the strongest vampires ever to live.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And after Dorada’s been defeated, how do you envision our lives?”

“We will annihilate any remaining enemies, becoming the most powerful partnership the world has ever known.”

Growing increasingly frustrated, he said, “And when our work is done for the night, when dawn comes . . . what then?”

She smoothed her hair back. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you know what happiness is?”

“It’s watching the light dim in a good man’s eyes. It’s having subjects grovel. It’s wielding the power over life and death.”

“No, Saroya. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but . . . each of those things is a process. Not an outcome.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You have no more idea of what happiness is than I do.”

“You are growing besotted with your little mortal concubine. Look at you—it’s almost as if you’re pining for her. Almost as if she were your Bride.”

Which Elizabeth likely was. Though Saroya had once believed she herself had triggered Lothaire’s blooding, she no longer did.

For him to have feelings for such a loathsome creature? Something larger was at work here.

Still, he’d never believe Elizabeth was his; the very idea would be galling to a male of his rank and