Lothaire (63 page)

Can always kill her, but can never bring her back. . . .

In a contemplative tone, she added, “You saw Dora when she was jubilant from a long-awaited victory. Most of the time, she’s
so
apocalyptic. And now she has evil
and
good pawns to wage her war. I’ll have to fix that in the future.” Nïx frowned, and suddenly she looked very, very tired. After seeming to count on her fingers, she murmured, “
How
will I remember to fix that in the future?”

At length, she glared at Lothaire. “I’m risking an apocalypse for you, and you don’t even want to be with Elizabeth!”

“She nearly
beheaded
me! I’ve never been closer to death in all my years!”

“So now you’re pouting in your castle. After the miseries you’ve inflicted on legions? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“It’s different.”

“How?”

He stabbed his fingers into his hair. “It simply is.”

“How?”
she insisted.

“Because I think . . . because I was falling in love with her!”

“Then why isn’t she here with you now?”

“It was unrequited!” He’d shocked himself by saying that aloud.

Lothaire Daciano, a king, admitting to falling for a female who disdained him?

“Do you believe that because of her dream memories? Or because of her actions?”

“I can’t
see
her memories, Nïx. But I know why—it’s because vampires don’t see what they can’t handle!”
I can’t handle knowing she played me.
She’d bested
him
. “Just tell me what I . . . tell me what should I have done differently, to make her love me.”

Nïx rolled her eyes. “Where to begin?”

“Fuck off!”

“Why should I help you with Elizabeth, anyway? You’ve betrayed me worse than I ever did you. Why did you strike out at Furie instead of exacting your revenge directly on me?”

“Where would be the sport in that? You’re more crazed than I am! Why can’t you find Furie, soothsayer? Is she another blank spot in your visions? I never doubted you would locate her.”

“Would that have changed your decision to imprison her?”

“No. I followed my king’s orders. You of all people should know why I was bound to obey him in all things.”

“In any case, will you help the Valkyries find Furie now?”

“As I told Regin, I don’t know where she is.”

“But you did once, Lothaire. You are the one who chained her to the bottom of the ocean.”

“For your interventions in the past, I should be honor-bound to help you,” Lothaire said. “Alas, I have no honor.”

Her face fell. “I can’t help you like this. You’re more eaten up with hate than I’d ever thought, and more ignorant about females than I’d ever imagined. I’m wasting time I need for other things.” She turned to leave.

Behind her, he called, “I drank Commander Webb, Valkyrie. I have his memories. I know you were working for him.”

Lothaire also now knew that Webb had probably been . . . reborn. As an immortal.

Before Lothaire had bitten him, the wily bastard had popped a sample of blood, like a cyanide capsule. As Webb died, he’d had the blood of an immortal running through him, one so powerful that even Lothaire had been overcome after drinking it.

Webb would rise, as gods only knew what.

Perhaps I ought to tell Chase all the dark secrets I’ve learned about his surrogate father, to relieve some of his guilt.

And to prepare him.

But Lothaire was still Lothaire, and blood tie or not, Chase was still a dick.
I don’t give without receiving.

Yet hadn’t he with Elizabeth?

Nïx turned back to him, her face marred with fatigue. “I wasn’t working with Webb, I was
using
him.”

“How would your allies feel to learn of your connection to him? Through Webb, you sent a witch to the island. Hell, you sent your own sister. I wonder why you gave him
my
name to add to the capture list. Yet another betrayal.”

She tilted her head at him, her eyes gone silvery. “Had to catch you before you used the ring, Lothaire. One more second and you would seriously have rewritten the wrong female. You do not even want to contemplate what would have happened to your Bride if Saroya had been made a vampire, with the ability to trace. . . . And more, I needed you on the island for six purposes: Wendigo extermination, saving Thaddeus’s life, giving Chase blood to stabilize him until his berserkertude took over. I forgot the others,” she said with growing agitation. “No matter. Your takeaway: sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.”

“So after this night, am I supposed to feel beholden to you? Do you expect me to just turn off my animosity toward you?”

He couldn’t even if he wanted to. She was right; he
was
eaten up with hatred.

“I
see
Furie drowning, but can never find her. She is my sister! And you wouldn’t spare me that?”

Perhaps I ought to tell Nïx where I left her. . . .

But there was more on the line. “You and I both know to whom she’s bound. Sinking her was also strategic.”

Nïx looked dejected. Lips moving silently, she hugged her arms around her chest.

Understanding hit him.
In order to help me tonight, she has hurt herself in whatever way.
“Nïx?” She was weary, bewildered, hardly the malicious being he’d thought her for so long.

In Old Norse, she asked him, “How will I remember the apocalypse?” Her voice was haunted, her slim frame shaking. “There’s so much to see, to remember, so many faces . . .”

For all that the memories had been shadowing his thoughts, visions of the future had been obscuring hers. He’d played his one Endgame; apparently, she’d been playing
thousands
.

“How?”
she cried. Lightning flashed, bolts
inside
the great caverns of Dacia for the first time in history.

In the streets below, screams rang out. Thunder rocked the entire kingdom, echoing until rubble quaked.
The unknown threat Hag spoke of.

“Calm yourself, Valkyrie!” He grabbed her shoulders, giving her a jostle.

She thrashed against him harder, and two more bolts speared down in rapid succession. Like detonations. She could topple the castle!

“Phenïx, calm yourself!” He lifted her into his arms to trace her away—

At once, the lightning ebbed. Seconds passed. A muted scream here and there. Disaster averted.

“Phenïx?”
she whispered up at him. “No one calls me that but you. Everyone who used to is dead. They’re all dead.”

He exhaled a gust of breath. “They always die before us, don’t they?”

“Without fail.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Not since I saw you on the island.”

That had been several weeks ago. “Why? The shrieks at Val Hall keep you up?”

“I like to drift off to the sound of shrieks. No, it’s because someone
always needs my help. Loreans are incessant, skulking around the manor, with their languishing hearts and unfulfilled desires. I can feel them ache, like a bad tooth I can never yank free.”

“You need a male to keep those beings at bay.”

“You have
no
idea.”

He muttered a curse, then said, “You may rest here this eve.” Tracing to the sitting room couch, he gently laid her down. “I’ll keep the Loreans away for one night.”

“It is blessedly peaceful here, high in this castle. White queen and black king can call a draw for a time. . . .”

My enemy, my onetime friend.
Why had she continued to help him? With a brusque “Good night,” he tossed a blanket over her.

But she said, “Stay. Just till I fall asleep.”

After debating a few moments, he sank down, resting his back against the couch, his arms stretched over his bent knees. “Why do you want
me
here?”

She yawned widely, as the young did. “We can watch each other’s backs in shifts, as we used to do.”

Though it did feel like times past, he said, “You still can’t trust me. I’m considering cutting your hair when you sleep, just for keys past the Scourge.”

“Naturally. Talk to me about other things.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Another exhalation, then he spoke his mind. “I feel . . . old.” He knew she could sympathize. When they’d been friends, he’d once confessed to her, “Phenïx, you are the only one who understands the truth: Eternal life alone is naught but an eternal punishment.”

“Lothaire, I’ve met dirt younger than we are.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I didn’t feel old when I was with Elizabeth. I felt like a young vampire, just starting out with her. The world was ours for the taking.”

“I envy you that feeling.”

After several heartbeats, he admitted in a low voice, “I’d go back to the grave if it would force Elizabeth to love me.”

“Oh, Lothaire,” she sighed, patting his shoulder. “I tried to help you with her. I watched out for her at Val Hall. I showed her that she could walk in the sun.”

“Was she excited?” He twisted around to face Nïx. “What did she say? Did she mention me?” Though Lothaire had long sworn never to bestow a gift with no thought of a return on his investment, he finally had.
I gave Elizabeth the sun.
He’d wanted her to know that happiness, even if he, himself, could not—

“Ellie was . . . sad.”

“Sad?” he bit out. He’d never understand females! “Did she
never
speak of me?”

“In the weeks that you ignored her, humiliating her with every day that you didn’t retrieve her? Honestly, Lothaire, if she’d brought you up to anyone . . .
awkward
.”

He glowered at the ceiling. Silence reigned.

Damn it, Nïx was going to fall asleep and leave him alone and unsettled, wondering how he’d made Elizabeth sad—and whether he should give his Bride another one of his black hearts in penance.

With a scowl, he gruffly said, “I’m not a pussy, you know.”

“Then dream her memories,” Nïx whispered, before drifting off.

 58

A
fter several days back in her childhood home, Ellie still hadn’t acclimated.

As she mended socks, she gazed around the trailer, trying to see it through Lothaire’s eyes.

Mama was at the stove, frying up chicken for when Ephraim and the others got home from the mine. A singing Big Mouth Billy Bass was proudly mounted on the wall. Porcelain dolls that screamed “QVC Christmas Sale” lined a shelf. Two lazy hunting dogs, Bo and Bo Junior, dozed at her feet.

Lothaire probably hated animals. He’d find it all tacky and shuddersome.

She shrugged. Even compared to the luxury of the apartment and the grandeur of Val Hall, she liked it best here. Though it no longer felt like home.

Because Lothaire isn’t with me.

Mama glanced over at her. “If you’re hankerin’ for that vampire, you just cut it right out, Ellie Ann Peirce.”

“I believe my last name is Daciano, actually.”

“The hell you say! I could kill that monster for what he did to you.”

“He’s not a monster, Mama. I think he’s just misunderstood—”

Josh came bounding inside, running straight for Ellie. “My fort is the best, Ellie!” he told her, clambering over her onto the couch.

He’d been playing in the tree house she’d built him—the one constructed in less than forty-five minutes without a hammer. She’d used her thumbs to press nails into unwittingly donated lumber.

Initially, Josh had been wary of his long-lost sister, as if he’d sensed she wasn’t
right
in some way. Though Ellie didn’t suppose she appeared all that different—as long as she wasn’t hungry or upset—the boy had been standoffish.

Now she couldn’t pry him away. Not that she would ever try to. Since he’d taken to latching on to her at all times, she’d had to seriously accelerate her crash course in vampire strength control.

“Josh, I still can’t get over how big you are!”

When he made a muscle with his right arm, she curbed a grin and looked dutifully impressed.

“Uncle Ephraim said I’m gonna be over ten feet tall.”

“Well, maybe if you eat your greens.”

“And Mama said you came back to the mountain ’cause you got a dee-vorce, and if any man comes ’round askin’ for you, I’m s’posed to tell him you’re dead, then spit on his boots.”

With an arch look at her mother, Ellie said, “A divorce? Did she, then?”

Mama shrugged.

Ellie turned to Josh. “Why don’t you get cleaned up, and I’ll make you a PBJ.”

“No crust?”

“Depends on how the finances are doing, honey.” At his raised brows, she said, “Ellie’s kidding. No crust, promise.”

Once he was gone, she told Mama, “I’m going out tonight.” For the last week, she’d continually thought about ways she could break into Lothaire’s apartment and steal those jewels.

She’d come up empty.

In lieu of that, she intended to go cat-burgling later, anything to get her family out of the mine—

The trailer rocked, grease sloshing out of the fryer. Just as Josh came running wide-eyed from the bathroom, a loud boom followed.