Lothaire (41 page)

Shaking off the remnants of the dream, Lothaire clawed at his bare chest, sinking to his knees within the Bloodroot Forest once more. As he bellowed to the night sky, moisture tracked from his eyes.

I can’t keep living like this.
The abyss stared back.
Finally, I topple over the edge.

He knelt before the towering tree he’d grown, gazing up in horror at the bark, the weeping blood.

My blood.
He fucking
wanted
to plunge into the abyss!

Sanity wrought only pain. He gave a crazed laugh,
relieved
as he felt himself falling . . . falling—

“L-Lothaire,” he heard Elizabeth weakly call for him. Was he dreaming her memories?

He scented her fear, shot to his feet.

No, no, she cannot be here.
This wasn’t real.

“P-please . . .” she cried.

He whirled around but didn’t believe his eyes. She was on her hands and knees in a snowdrift, crawling toward him.

Elizabeth
was
here. Her lips were pale, her expression stricken. “T-too cold.”

Madness must wait.
“Lizvetta!” he yelled, tensing to trace—

Enemies appeared beside her. A sword at her throat stopped him cold. Tymur the Allegiant’s sword.

Tymur’s gang of demons, Cerunnos, and vampires surrounded them.

To take her from me. All bent on taking her from me.

“Ah, Lothaire, I believe I have something of yours,” Tymur said, his scraggly beard dangling all the way to his chest. “If you trace away or resist us, you’ll never see her again.”

More of Tymur’s henchmen closed in on Lothaire. Demons whaled blows to his head and his back, stabbing him with short swords. He could do nothing to protect himself—could do nothing to reach her.

His vision clouded.
Blood all around my feet? Mine?
Black blood, from his black heart. Consciousness wavering, Lothaire fought to keep his gaze trained on Elizabeth.

Tymur shoved her to her knees, twisting a length of her hair around his meaty fist.

Her soft cries. Can’t get to her.
Her terrified gaze met Lothaire’s.

Clarity struck; recognition sang within him, coursed through his every vein.

It was her. His Bride.

Dear gods, it was . . . Elizabeth.
You’re going to realize what you had too late.

Was
it too late? His woman, captured by the deadliest beings in the Lore.
I allied with them. Am worse than they are.

“This is rich.” Tymur’s eyes reddened with satisfaction. “The scourge of the Lore paired with a mortal? You could have no greater liability. So difficult to keep this species alive.”

Around a mouthful of blood, Lothaire choked out, “Harm her and I will visit an unspeakable wrath . . . on your house . . . your descendants.
I will live for nothing else!”

How many times had he been in this situation, but reversed? How many times had he placed his sword at the throat of a female, smirking at her male’s frenzy to reach her, his animal need to protect her.

But I
bargained
with them.

Elizabeth raised her hands over her ears, muttering,
“Not real, not real.”

“What do you want, Tymur? The bounty?”

“Though it’s tempting, I plan on keeping the lovely human. And every night that my men and I drink from her thighs, we’ll toast the Enemy of Old, the unwanted bastard who thought to rule us.”

“You won’t fucking touch her!”

A Cerunno bent down to Elizabeth, its forked tongue flicking along her cheek as its tail coiled around her knees. At that, her gray eyes went chillingly blank. Her lips parted, her arms collapsing limply. She stared at nothing.

“No, Lizvetta!” Panic filled him.

“Oh, dear, her mind’s breaking.” Tymur clucked his tongue. “It happens with them. A shame. She won’t know what she’s missing. As for you, I’m going to plant you back in the ground, let your tree feed from your blood some more. I believe it missed you.”

Lothaire shuddered, even as sweat broke out over his body.

“How long were you buried last time?” Tymur asked in a contemplative tone. “Or perhaps you can give me your legendary accounting book. The girl in exchange for the book, Lothaire.”

My thousands of debts to save her? After all those years of toil?

Part of him burned to yell, “The book is yours, just let me have her back!”

Part of him was still . . . Lothaire. He told himself that he could trace from here, then find Elizabeth in the future, could retrieve her from his enemies.

But by all the gods, I want her
now
!

“Give me your decision. . . .” Tymur trailed off as a sudden mist blew in. The gang grew uneasy. He ordered, “Check the perimeter—”

Four males appeared—massive, pale-skinned swordsmen, each with his weapon raised.

Lothaire disbelieved his eyes. They’d come from the mist.
Dacians.

When the demons and Cerunnos launched an attack, the Daci began cutting through them coldly, methodically. Fighting without emotion, only lethal accuracy.

And they were battling their way to Elizabeth.

“Seize the mortal,” the largest Dacian ordered. “Return her to the castle.”

Neither Lothaire nor those swordsmen would be able to reach her before Tymur traced her away from this place.
Away from me.

As Lothaire thrashed against his captors, the vampire snatched Elizabeth by the hair once more, hauling her to her feet. She evinced no reaction.

Yet when Tymur tried to trace, nothing happened. Lothaire chanced a glance around. None of the demons or Horde vampires could trace in the mist.

That leader of the Daci neared Tymur, neared
Elizabeth
.

If the Dacian swordsman took her back to his hidden realm, Lothaire might never find her.

Panic redoubled. With all the strength left in his body, he surged against the demon guards’ clutches, finally freeing himself.

He slew three foes, four . . . Only the Daci, Tymur, and two other guards remained.

Tymur pivoted to defend against Lothaire, releasing Elizabeth; she sank into the snow, her gaze still vacant.

What if she never recovered? Fury lashed him like a whip. “You’ve erred for ill, Tymur.” Bloodlust boiled forth.
“Now you get to die.”
Lunging into a trace, Lothaire plowed into the vampire, heaving him away from Elizabeth.

Bone-crushing impact. Tymur wailed in agony. Lothaire wrested his weapon free.

The vampire stared up at Lothaire, knew death had him; when Lothaire eased his lips back from his fangs and tossed the sword away, Tymur cowered.

“You’d make
my
Bride a blood slave?” Lothaire’s voice . . . crazed, unrecognizable. “My female?”

My Elizabeth?
Mindless with rage, he slashed his claws over Tymur, punched his fists through the male’s mauled torso, collected handfuls of viscera. He bellowed with pleasure when arcs of blood sprayed across the snow.

When at last he wrenched free Tymur’s bludgeoned head, Lothaire peered up through the haze.

All enemies had been felled but the cold Daci. They circled Lothaire and Elizabeth, their gazes watchful but inscrutable.

Bloodlust tolled within him, the ravening need for carnage. He locked his gaze on the blood still spurting from Tymur’s savaged neck. Licked his lips for that steaming font.

The body flailed in death throes, exciting him. Lothaire groaned, claws sinking into the head he carried.

Would the Daci watch him fall upon his prey in a frenzy? Bloodlust, a fever undeniable—

Elizabeth’s heartbeat?

Soothing . . . like waves. Like a beacon. Vision clearing, he saw her delicate form—amid the butchery he’d wrought.

He dropped Tymur’s head, crouching in front of her to face off against the Daci.

The leader had eyes the color of glacial ice, and just as merciless.
The color my eyes used to be.

In Dacian, he said, “So close to losing her forever,
Cousin
.” He narrowed his gaze on Elizabeth’s blank stare, on her blue-tinged lips. “You might still.”

Cousin?
With a brutal roar, Lothaire traced Elizabeth away.

 36

S
he heard Hag and Lothaire arguing, their voices indistinct.

But Ellie couldn’t respond.

When she’d disappeared with Lothaire, she’d suddenly found herself transported to a freezing land, then abandoned amidst black, leafless trees that seeped blood.
The “blood forest” he’d rambled about?
Off in the distance, she’d spied the most haunting castle she’d ever imagined.

Then horned demons and Cerunnos had surrounded her. It was one thing to read about walking serpents, quite another to be captured by them.

The things she’d seen . . . things that couldn’t be right.

And the things she’d heard, the hints about Lothaire’s torture.

He’d told her he’d been buried alive for six hundred years. When in the grip of a grueling nightmare, had he unconsciously returned to his . . .
grave?

She’d only meant to recede a bit, to let Saroya suffer that horrible scene. But when the goddess didn’t rise, Ellie had fallen into this stupor. She remembered little after that, had only remotely perceived yells, swords clanging, Lothaire’s unholy roars.

And now Ellie couldn’t snap out of it, couldn’t speak. He’d sat her upright in a chair, but she couldn’t move from it.

“Vampire, I warned you of this!” Hag cried as she tucked blankets around Ellie’s shoulders. “Mortals can
break
.”

“Then
mend
her!”

“How could I possibly know how to treat a mortal for shock? She’s catatonic!”

“I don’t give a fuck, you heal her!”

“Why would you take her to Helvita? What did you expect? You’re lucky she didn’t die from the elements.”

“I sleep-traced. Must have grabbed her.”

No, I grabbed you. Like an idiot.

“It doesn’t matter, Hag!” Every word booming louder, Lothaire snapped, “Now, stop being a silly bitch and
fix her
!”

“I didn’t think you cared about her mind, only her body. Correct? Saroya will be unharmed by this, vampire. So you can relax.”

Good point.
Why did Lothaire care at all?

“Silence! Let me think!” In a vague tone, Lothaire muttered, “I remember someone who went through this. Must recall who. Goddamn it, who was it?”

Both of them began pacing, talking at the same time:

—“He wants me to fix a human being! Should I reach for the whiskey? Or perhaps a Band-Aid?”

—“It was a male. He suffered this very thing! Who the hell was it?”

Then Lothaire said, “I remember!” and disappeared.

Hag sounded like she’d begun rifling through some spell book. “Elizabeth, the vampire will be killing mad over this. As he is unlikely to punish
himself
, you must wake!”

Must I?
Ellie didn’t think she wanted to live in a world like the Lore. Where a father would bury his son alive for centuries. Where monsters dwelled.
The forked tongue that slithered across my cheek . . .

At the memory, her thoughts grew quiet once more. For how long she didn’t know.

Suddenly Hag snapped, “Who is
he
, Lothaire? Is this some kind of a joke?”

Another male was here?

A deep voice said, “Name’s Thaddeus Brayden, ma’am. But you can call me Thad.”