Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

saw three tall, dark-haired males, all similar in looks, and a short, fair-haired female. Each dressed in old-fashioned clothing.
    Another massive vampire sat at the desk, boots propped up on it. He was drinking from a flagon—what smelled like alcohol-infused blood. His appearance was more modern than the others’, his eyes a glacial blue. As mine used to be.
    The Dacian from the Bloodroot Forest! “Where am I?” Lothaire grated, his throat burning as if he’d swallowed a poker.
    “Castle Dacia,” the seated one said. “I’m Prince Stelian. Standing are the Princes Trehan, Viktor, and Mirceo, as well as Mirceo’s sister, the lovely Princess Kosmina.”
    She nervously gave a formal curtsy.
    “A female vampire?” Lothaire hadn’t seen a full-blooded one in centuries.
    “Ours have been safe from the plague here.”
    Lothaire narrowed his gaze at Stelian. “You were at Helvita that morning.”
    “That is correct. We were endeavoring to save our queen from Tymur’s men. Since you had—what’s the modern term?— dropped the ball. ”
    “Queen?” Dizziness rushed over Lothaire.
    “Welcome to your kingdom, my liege. You are our ruler now. Newly restored.” He raised the flagon in a mock toast.
    “How? I’ve conquered nothing, have waged no war on you.”
    “The royal family has chosen you to be our ruler. Almost unanimously, only one holdout.”
    “Why would you do this?” Lothaire demanded, coughing blood. “Why not take the throne yourself?”
    “Here, Uncle Lothaire,” the female said, rushing forward with a jewel-encrusted chalice. “Drink this. It has healing herbs—”
    Lothaire backhanded the cup against the wall, splattering scented blood. “Uncle?”
    Stelian exhaled. “Technically, you are our cousin. But the younger Mirceo and Kosmina call us elder cousins ‘Uncle’ in quaint tradition.”
    “Answer my question!”
    Trehan said, “As Ivana the Bold died, she cursed her family to war
and backstab until you were made king, until we all vowed allegiance to you.”
    “My mother was no witch.”
    Stelian waved that away. “Perhaps she played on the intrigues already at work. This was before our time. In any case, six generations were wiped out by assassinations and civil wars. Finally we decided to investigate you, to see if you would make a good ruler.” He swigged, saying under his breath, “Before we all killed each other.”
    The three standing males shot looks at Stelian. He merely shrugged. “Lothaire will find out all eventually.”
    Viktor said, “We studied you, but decided you were too crazed to rule anything.”
    At Lothaire’s scowl, Mirceo hastily explained, “You insisted on appearing at the outskirts of our kingdom, half-dressed, bellowing for someone to ‘fucking fight you.’ ”
    Kosmina gasped. “Language!”
    Patting her hand, Mirceo continued, “And you also challenged Serghei , who’s been dead—”
    “Dead!” My vengeance is no more?
    Mirceo nodded. “For more than a millennium.”
    All these years Lothaire had wasted, hell-bent on delivering retribution. To a male who no longer existed.
    Trehan said in a measured tone, “Not to mention the fact that you looked as though you intended to consume that Horde leader in the forest. Yet then you settled in with your Bride, and you grew more lucid. We decided to vow allegiance to you and your queen.”
    Lothaire tensed even more. So Elizabeth had been the key to his throne. Hag’s prediction had proved correct. Too bad Elizabeth had tried to lop off his head. “Where is”— that bitch —“she?”
    He’d throw her in the dungeon of this castle, condemning her to yet another jail.
    Blyad’! Why didn’t the thought give him pleasure?
    Solely because she was his Bride?
    He despised that fated tie to her! And now they were blood-bound as well.
    But even with that union, Elizabeth had felt nothing for him—had been violently intent on getting away from him—while he’d lowered his guard. . . .
    “After the attempt on your life,” Stelian said, “she was captured by a Valkyrie named Cara the Fair.”
    So Carafina took my Bride. Elizabeth was within the walls of Val Hall. Those lightning fiends would terrorize her worse than he ever could. His female had wronged him, and now she would pay.
    Lothaire wanted to laugh.
    Yet his bitterness staggered under the weight of another feeling.
    Loss. All I feel is . . . loss.
    “And La Dorada?” he asked. “Did you have a run-in with