Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

this.
    With a hiss, the safe door opened. There. A black velvet pouch.
    He slipped the ring from it. As he donned the plain gold band, he felt an unfathomable power radiating from it.
    Wasting not one second, Lothaire twisted the ring, making his wish. Go back in time to undo my vows to Saroya the Soul Reaper.
    Nothing. Lothaire felt no surge of power as he had in the past with other lesser talismans.
    Maybe the ring forbade time-travel. He amended his wish: Erase my vows to Saroya.
    Again, nothing. Dear gods, the ring had denied him; the vows remained sacrosanct. The pull to destroy his Bride grew overwhelming.
    Death was the only move left on the chessboard. Elizabeth’s or his own?
    He gazed out the study window. The sun was rising, rays of light erupting over distant mountains.
    Like clutching fingers. His instinct was to go to ground, to evade their grasp.
    Could he sacrifice himself for Elizabeth? Part of him could scarcely believe that Lothaire—the black-hearted Enemy of Old—was even contemplating this! To spare her, would he render himself to ash?
    As Ivana had all those years ago to protect him . . .
    He told himself he was considering this only because Elizabeth’s death would alter him. How could any vampire go on living without his Bride? He tried to convince himself that his heart held no sway in this decision.
    But it did. Little mortal, you’ve changed everything. . . .
    Before Ivana had gone to meet her death, Lothaire had asked her, “How can you do this?” At last he understood her answer.
    Because anything that is worthy in me began with Elizabeth.
    He rubbed his hand over his chest, startled by the ache he felt there. I wish I could have seen her one last time. . . .
    Shoulders back, he traced outside to meet dawn, challenging an enemy he’d eluded all his life.
    An enemy he now prayed would defeat him.

46
    I t’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