Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

ducked under a limb,
startling a pack of crocodilae shifters and the nymphs who slummed with them.
    The beings beheld him, screamed with fear, then scattered in all directions.
    He didn’t spare them even a hiss. That scent . . . why couldn’t he run it to ground . . . ?
    No, there’d be no negotiating with the Blademan; tapping into Chase’s memories was Lothaire’s only hope of reclaiming his ring. Yet instead of dreaming them, he’d continued to experience his own.
    His last? Lothaire had relived the night he’d finally captured Stefanovich for Fyodor, ages after Lothaire’s torture had ended.
    In a mindless rage, Lothaire tortured Stefanovich for hours—days—reveling in his father’s pleas for mercy. Once Fyodor gave the order, Lothaire raised his sword for the deathblow, steadying enough to comprehend that the king’s heart was beating. “Blyad’! He’s been blooded, Uncle.”
    Fyodor looked aghast. “Then he might have sired a secret heir.” He pressed his own sword edge against Stefanovich’s throat, beginning to slice it back and forth. “Where is your Bride?”
    “Dying,” Stefanovich grated with difficulty; he was scarcely alive himself. “Like the others.”
    Female vampires had been afflicted in number by some kind of plague. King Stefanovich considered this such an embarrassing sign of weakness—immortals succumbing to sickness!—that he’d kept the tragedy secret, disseminating wild rumors. . . .
    “And where is your heir?” Lothaire asked, preparing for another round of torture.
    “Where you’ll never find him, bastard.”
    But Lothaire had.
    Moving like a shadow, silent as death, he loomed over a cradle. A fair-haired infant gazed up at him, grasping his finger with a tiny hand. . . .
    Why see this scene again? What was his consciousness telling him?
    When dawn neared, he eased his unrelenting pace, lurching to a stop. Sweat poured down his back and face to mingle with the rain.
    He cast an accusing look at the lightening sky. Lothaire had uncovered no signs of Dorada. That heavy presence had faded to nothing.
    Yet another wasted night. Will this be the one when my mind fails me for good? He squeezed his head in his hands.
    Though he’d given only passing thought to his crowns, his apprehension for Elizabeth was ceaseless, grinding him down, as the earth had once done centuries before.
    Want her so much! What the hell am I going to do?
    Eventually, he would find the ring. Then three scenarios would open up before him.
    He could wish to go back in time, erasing his vows completely. While there, he’d cast out Saroya, then take time to court Elizabeth, treating her like a queen.
    Or he could wish to go back, yet be denied—the vows themselves might prevent him from using the ring in that fashion. He’d made an oath to do everything in his power to transform Saroya into an immortal and to extinguish Elizabeth.
    Which meant that any attempt to do otherwise would be met with opposition.
    If all else failed, he could leave Elizabeth in Hag’s care, then burn himself to ash in the sun.
    To seek my own death, after surviving so long . . . ?
    But attempting suicide would also break his oaths to Saroya. Would it even be possible to withstand the compulsion—and pain—long enough to die for Elizabeth?
    All three scenarios would mean he had indeed retrieved the talisman that could destroy his Bride.
    The risk . . .
    He could tell no one about his predicament, could ask for no help, without breaking his pact with the goddess.
    He couldn’t even warn Elizabeth to leave him. Not that it would matter. The ring would work no matter how near or far she was.
    In a deadly maze of his own making, he could determine no escape.
    Undone by my own arrogance, by my insatiable need for vengeance. Will my flaws literally be fatal ones?
    All those blood vows he’d collected could do nothing to help him shirk his own. His hope—or his Bride’s doom—lay with the ring.
    Just as he tensed to trace back to Elizabeth for the day, to lose himself in her body and scent, he heard a Valkyrie shriek carry over the dwindling patter of rain.
    Could it be Nïx’s? As treacherous as she was, she did always seem to understand him. Perhaps she would grant him one boon; he deserved no less from her.
    His embattled mind on the verge of breaking, he decided to swallow his pride and call on the one person who might discern his bind.
    He traced to Val Hall, standing in the fog, awaiting.
    Moments later, Nïx