Lothaire

An enemy he now prayed would defeat him.

46

“It’s happening,” Ellie admitted to Balery as she sipped a Coke. “I’m falling in love with him.”

She and the fey were on the deck watching the sunset as Ellie anxiously awaited Lothaire. He’d been missing all day.

As he’d set off, Ellie had again told him she wouldn’t worry. So much for that.

Earlier Thad had visited. For hours, he and Balery had tried to distract her, but her sense of dread had grown steadily throughout the day.

At four in the afternoon, she’d demanded that Balery roll her bones. Whatever the fey had seen had leached her face of color, had wrested one gasped word: “ . . . burning.”

Yet once she’d collected herself, Balery had pasted on a fake smile and deemed that roll a “dud.” No matter how much Ellie wheedled, she’d refused to offer more on the subject.

Now Balery said, “I could tell, just by the way you look at him. Have you told him?”

Ellie muttered, “Not yet.” Holding on to a thread of her formerly stubborn self, she’d backed herself out of her vows. Never falling in love with Lothaire had turned into not telling him I love him first. . . .

“Elizabeth,” Balery began in a pained tone, “there’s something you need to know about Saroya and—”

Lothaire appeared; Ellie’s jaw dropped.

He was burned in deep patches, his muscles bulging, sweat and blood seeping from his charred skin.

Before either Hag or Ellie could manage a word, he’d snatched Ellie’s arm, tracing her to their bedroom at the apartment.

“Lothaire, my God! What has happened to you?” What did Balery witness?

His irises were a deeper red than Ellie had ever seen them, the color bleeding across the whites of his eyes. “Look what I’ve retrieved, Lizvetta.” He pinched a simple gold band with two white-knuckled fingers, his expression a mix of insanity and agony.

“That’s good, right?”

He laughed bitterly. “Good? It’s your doom.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t save you. . . . No matter what I try, my vows control me.”

Chills skittered up her spine. “I don’t understand. Please calm down, Lothaire. Did you drink from someone?”

“Lizvetta, I can’t even kill your body first to spare your soul—”

“Kill me? What about my soul? You’re talking crazy again!” she cried. “Just use that ring to cast Saroya out of me.”

He began to pace the room, never a good sign. “I can’t betray her. You don’t understand!”

“Then make me understand!”

As if with great difficulty, he grated, “I vowed to the Lore to make Saroya immortal—and to destroy you. You don’t merely die. Your soul is extinguished. Tried everything to get out of the vow . . . fighting it even now.”

He’d known all along that he’d have to do this? Even she understood that vows to the Lore were unbreakable. “Let me run, Lothaire.”

More pacing. “You could be on the other side of the earth. Won’t make a difference when I’m forced . . . forced to . . . end you.”

She couldn’t quite get enough air. “Will my soul be extinguished from this body—or from everything?”

“Gone! As if you never were!”

Breathe, Ellie, breathe. “This is what you were hinting about! Why didn’t you tell me? To prepare me?”

“Couldn’t . . . physically couldn’t set you on a path that might interfere with my vow. Thought I could save you anyway.”

Desperation deepened. And still I’m going to die. Right back to where she’d started.

No, now it was so much worse. At least before, she hadn’t been falling for the vampire. At least before, she would have gone from death row to heaven, or so she’d believed.

Now she was to go from a paradise of pleasure to . . . nothingness.

I’m to be no more? Destroyed by the man I’d started to love?

He shoved his fingers through his sooty hair. “Couldn’t even remain in the sun. . . .”

Her lips parted. That was why his skin had burned? Balery had told her that pain was excruciating for a vampire. “You tried to die for me?”

“Of course!” he bellowed, yanking her into his arms. “I would rather die than hurt you!”

She couldn’t quite believe that, but knew he couldn’t lie.

Today, Lothaire had sought to end his life for her, had defied a survival instinct that had kept him alive for thousands of years. “How are you able to tell me all this now? Because it’s as good as done?”

He clutched her shoulders, gazing down at her face. His expression answered her.

“Oh.” Tears gathered and fell. Why not cry? She’d never felt more hopeless.

At last she knew what he’d been struggling with. “Will it h-hurt?”

At her words, he roared with anguish, blood tracking from the corner of one eye. “Lizvetta, don’t. . . .”

“Can you use the ring to bring me back?”

“Can’t reverse a wish! But I will find a way to bring you back!”

“Lothaire, I’m”—she gave a sob—“I’m afraid.”

Another agonized bellow followed, then he enfolded her against his chest. He was shuddering all around her, fighting that inner battle. “If I can’t save you, I will follow you.” Clasping her tighter, he rocked her, murmuring unknown words in Russian.

His charred skin and clothes smelled of ash. He tried to burn for me.

Would that be the last scent she ever perceived? “Don’t follow me, Lothaire. I don’t want you to—”

“RIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!”

Ellie’s head whipped up. “What is that?”

“Remove my riiiinnnnngggg!” sounded a woman’s shriek from just off the balcony —twenty-five floors up.

At once, Lothaire pushed Ellie aside to take off the band. “Dorada. How the fuck did she find us?”

Some female outside was controlling him? Just as they’d feared!

“Enemy of Old!” Dorada’s words sounded staticky, as though they’d been passed through a filter. “Allow me entry. Do not resist me.”

“I can’t fight her,” Lothaire snapped under his breath as he crossed to the wall beside the balcony door. Symbols were etched into the plaster. “Get to the front door, Elizabeth! You’ll be able to open it soon.”

Once Lothaire had unlocked the boundary, Dorada dropped down over the balcony railing, as if she’d just stepped through an invisible entrance. With a wave of her hand, the French doors flew open.

While Ellie gaped, the sorceress floated inside, half a foot off the floor.

Lothaire had revealed some things about Dorada—how she’d been half-mad, grotesquely mummified, shrieking for her ring.

Now the sorceress was regenerating. She still had only one eye, but it was striking—olive green with sweeping lashes. Some strands of her hair were a thick, luxurious black, others lank strings. Half of her face had