Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

doors, Ivana smoothed her hands over her elaborate white-blond braids and lifted her chin. Not for the first time, Lothaire thought she looked like an angel of yore.
    Inside, lining the back wall, was a soaring window of jet glass inlaid with symbols of the dark arts. The stained glass kept out the faint sunlight visible through the storm and made a fearsome backdrop for the king’s chair.
    Not that the towering vampire needed anything more to make him fearsome. His build was more like a demon’s, his shoulders broader than a carrying plank, his fists like anvils.
    “Ah, Ivana Daciano deigns to obey a summons,” Stefanovich called from the head of his long dining table. Every night his eyes seemed to grow redder, their crimson glow standing out against the sand-colored hair that fell over his forehead.
    The dozen or so courtiers seated with him stared at Ivana with undisguised malice. In turn, she drew her lips back to flash her fangs. She found these courtiers beneath her and made no secret of it.
    Seated to the king’s left was Lothaire’s uncle Fyodor, who appeared embarrassed.
    Lothaire followed Ivana’s gaze to the seat at Stefanovich’s right hand—a place of honor usually reserved for her. Dining plates littered with the remains of a meal were spread before it.
    Occasionally, young vampires ate food of the earth, consuming it in addition to blood. Perhaps another of Stefanovich’s bastards had come to Helvita to live amongst them?
    Lothaire’s heart leapt. I could befriend him, could have a companion. As the king’s bastard, he’d had no friends; his mother was everything to him.
    “ ’Tis late,” Ivana said. “All should be abed at this hateful hour.”
    Fyodor seemed to be silently warning Ivana, but she paid him no heed, demanding, “What do you want, Stefanovich?”
    After drinking deep from a tankard of mead-laced blood, Stefanovich wiped his sleeve over his lips. “To see my haughty mistress and her feeble bastard.” The king stared down at Lothaire. “Come.”
    “Do not, Son,” Ivana bit out in Dacian.
    Lothaire answered in the same, “I will, to spare you.” As ever, he would do whatever he could to protect her, no matter how weak he knew himself to be.
    In her expression, anxiety for him warred with pride. “I should have known Lothaire Daciano would never cower behind his mother’s skirts, even in the face of such a red-eyed tyrant.”
    When Lothaire crossed to stand before the king’s seat, Stefanovich shook his head with disgust. “You still cannot trace, then?”
    Lothaire’s face was impassive as he answered, “Not yet, my king.” No matter how hard he tried to teleport, he could never succeed. Ivana had told him that tracing was a talent that came late to the Daci—they had limited need for it in their closed kingdom. She considered Lothaire’s inability yet another sign that he took after her more than after a mere Horde vampire.
    Stefanovich seized Lothaire’s thin arm, squeezing. “Too frail, I see.”
    Lothaire was desperate to grow bigger, to be as formidable as his warrior father, if for no reason other than to protect his mother. Not that Princess Ivana needed another’s protection.
    “By all the gods, you shame me, boy. I should have wrung your runtling neck at birth.”
    Lothaire heard these criticisms routinely, was used to them.
    His mother, however, was not.
    With a shriek, Ivana snatched up a carafe of blood, hurling it at Stefanovich. It shattered a pane of black glass just behind him, unleashing a ray of muted light.
    The courtiers hissed, scattering throughout the chamber. The beam seared inches from Stefanovich’s unmoving elbow before a day servant scurried to stuff the hole with a wadded cloth.
    “My son is perfect .” Ivana bared her fangs, her blue irises gone black with emotion. “Other than the fact that he bears your stamp upon his face. Luckily, he inherited his keen mind from my royal lineage. He’s full of cunning, a mark of the Daci!”
    Stefanovich too bared his razor-sharp fangs, his eyes blazing even redder. “You tempt my wrath, woman!”
    “As you tempt mine.” Ivana never backed down before him. Whenever Stefanovich struck her, she struck him back twice.
    Ivana had told Lothaire that the Daci were coldly logical, ruled by reason. Apparently, Ivana the Bold was the exception.
    Fierce as the blizzard raging outside, she even goaded Stefanovich to get his attention, lashing him with her barbed tongue whenever he stared