Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

leave Dacia, and he alone taught his people how to use the mist to go out undetected.
    He’d seemed surprised—and disgruntled—that Lothaire had learned to control it so easily.
    But Stelian was quick to add that only he knew all the esoteric powers of the mist.
    Give me time.
    Nevertheless, the Gatekeeper must have been doing a damned fine job if even the Book of Lore hadn’t tagged Dacia. From his spying, Lothaire knew that Stelian was easygoing—until someone tried to leave without authorization.
    Then? Even Lothaire had raised a brow at his chilling response.
    “I do travel much,” Lothaire agreed. To shore up his sanity even more, he often returned to his apartment and took Elizabeth’s scent into him, burying his face in her silk nightgowns, her pillow.
    Though it wasn’t the same as touching her, her scent—coupled with their blood tie—was enough to get him through most nights.
    He wondered what the Daci would think of their new king if they found out he carried his Bride’s lingerie in his pocket at all times.
    But then, what maddened vampire king didn’t carry his queen’s lingerie in his pocket?
    “The capital is boring,” he told Stelian. It was—even though other species were welcomed here. Provided they never left.
    Which meant there were nymphs to take care of randy young vampires like Mirceo.
    “You do remain within the mist when you go abroad?” Stelian asked. “Unseen by all?”
    “How else would I be able to return?” Lothaire-speak. He’d ordered Hag to devise a beacon for him alone—because sometimes Lothaire liked to be seen.
    Part of him wanted to outlaw the mist completely, to make his subjects announce themselves to the world. Otherwise, Lothaire was just the king of a realm that no one knew existed.
    In other words, he was the tree in the forest that silently fell—when no one was around to be crushed.
    But the cocooning mist did protect the Daci from invasion and plague. Plus, with every excursion, they were basically all out spying, which he wholeheartedly endorsed. . . .
    His impetuous cousin Viktor said, “I understand that you observed our soldiers sparring. What did you think of them?” He was a general, and justifiably proud of his battalions.
    The army was honed, disciplined, and masterful with swords. In fact, the Daci were obsessed with all medieval arms—maces, throwing daggers, whips, battle-axes.
    As soon as a Dacian wielded a weapon, a coldblooded single-
mindedness suffused him. Already ruled by logic, he became even more focused, able to predict his opponent’s moves.
    Much as I do.
    “The soldiers were a shade too worried about martial honor,” Lothaire answered. All that skill and might—and yet they waged no wars but among themselves? “Not to worry, Viktor. I’ll see to that. In any case,they will serve me well enough in my war against the Horde. Unless you’re concerned about the defense of my hidden kingdom.”
    Viktor tensed, clenching his fists beneath the table. Blooded or no, he had a brash, querulous nature that ensured he was a loner among the reserved and logical Daci.
    And Lothaire’s fair “niece”?
    Though Kosmina was twenty, she’d been sheltered by the overprotective male royals to a damaging degree.
    Apparently, Lothaire’s naked male body had been the first she’d ever seen.
    Pity, Mina, that you’ll forever find all others lacking in comparison to Uncle Lothaire.
    Yet though she was so ignorant of sex and sin as to be childlike, Kosmina was a killing machine, a mistress at arms with blazing reflexes.
    Half simpering schoolgirl, half lethal assassin.
    Lothaire had noticed that her ears were pointed, compliments of some fey ancestor—who’d also gifted her with that uncanny speed. He asked her now, “And what is your function? Or do you exist only to be coddled?”
    Face hot, she stuttered, “I-I . . .”
    Lothaire talked over her, saying, “I understand you have never ventured outside of Dacia, wouldn’t know an automobile if it hit you in the face, which it might—if you’re not, say, familiar with fucking cars .”
    Her eyes went wide.
    He should send her forth from Dacia, dispatching her to investigate a particularly rambunctious covey of nymphs in Louisiana. “Kosmina, you are distantly related to a female called Ivana the Bold . Act like it.”
    Covering her mouth with her hand, she traced away.
    Lastly, he turned to his cousin Trehan, an assassin in charge of an elite band of killers. He was the