Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

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