Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

to murder her. She’d been drained by Stefanovich long before Lothaire could get to her.
    He remembered the mortals brutalizing his mother. “Avenge me!” she’d screamed.
    Only now was Lothaire on the cusp of retribution. To find Serghei at last . . .
    “Don’t care if you need it, Mr. Lothaire. I’m hankering for vengeance too. Besides, we are friends. And friends watch each other’s backs. Just like you and me did on the island.”
    In the heat of the escape, Lothaire might have saved the boy a few times, without receiving anything in return from Thaddeus, but only because it served Lothaire’s own ends.
    He’d also endangered Thaddeus’s life repeatedly.
    Lothaire cut off further arguments with a curt: “We’ll discuss this later.” To make the statement true, Lothaire envisioned the extent of their “discussion.”
    Thaddeus would ask, “Can I go with you?”
    Lothaire would reply, “No. Now, fuck off.”
    “I’m gonna hold you to that, Mr. Lothaire. Now what exactly are you looking for with your mind-meld thing?”
    Below the window of Chase’s room and out of the way of the wraiths, Lothaire answered, “He must have visited Webb’s hideout. If I can access that memory, I can trace directly to it, as if I’d been there myself.”
    “Then access it, and let’s go kick ass!”
    “Step one is you shutting up.”
    Thaddeus nodded eagerly. “Right on.”
    Lothaire steadied his breathing, calming his heart as he listened for Chase’s own heartbeat. Once it began to grow loud in his ears, like a repetitive quake, Lothaire briefly closed his eyes—but he still could see. Straight into Chase’s afflicted mind.
    Lothaire found . . . blackness there. Blankness.
    No thoughts, no dreams. Is he in the grip of death?
    Gods, to have his own mind at rest like this? Might be worth dying. He delved deeper, but all was quiet.
    There’d be no thoughts of Webb anytime soon, and Lothaire couldn’t scratch at all the scars in Chase’s mind to search for a specific memory. He might as well try to navigate his own. At least he knew where the black holes were, the quicksand traps and points of no return.
    He released his hold on Chase, exhaling with frustration. Nothing to show for his trespass, no new information.
    His claws bit into his palms. Chto za huy! Must have that ring! Kept from him though it was his .
    Thaddeus asked, “Did you find Webb? Anything to help our mission?”
    “ Our mission? I didn’t see anything to help my aims! You say nothing of this—of anything concerning me—to anyone.”
    “Why should I keep secrets from my other friends? Do you mean any of them harm?”
    Lothaire didn’t have time to do any of them ill. “I don’t. Not yet ,” he added to prevent the rána .
    After a hesitation, Thaddeus said, “Okay, I’ll keep it close to the vest. But I need to know how I can get in touch with you. What’s your number?”
    Lothaire stared at him. “Number? Why do you want this?”
    Thaddeus rolled his eyes. “One more time. Because—we’re— friends . I plan to help you with Webb, and give you some backup against Dorada. They said she’ll be coming for you.”
    She is. When last Lothaire had seen her—mummified, hideous to gaze upon—she’d been shrieking, “RIIIIINNNNNGGGGG,” as she hunted him through the Order’s prison, her Wendigo lackeys prowling beside her.
    He’d had quite a surprise waiting for them all. . . .
    “Lothaire? Hellooo.”
    “What?”
    “I said, I want to meet the missus.”
    Lothaire tensed, slowly craning his head around at the boy. “Missus?”
    “They say you’ve got your Bride now.”
    “ They meaning Nïx .” Lothaire bared his fangs, felt them drip on his tongue. Yes, he’d toyed with his enemies, threatening their families, mocking their frenzied reactions while he was ever cold and calculating.
    No longer.
    Unaware of Lothaire’s rising impulse to do murder, Thaddeus continued, “There are a lot of folks around here talking about the bounty on your lady—”
    Before Thaddeus could blink, Lothaire had his hand around the boy’s throat, squeezing. . . . “What’s the bounty? Who posted it?”
    Foolish, Lothaire! Why hadn’t he acted uncaring? Why reveal his crazed possessiveness of Saroya?
    How smug I was in the past, confident I’d never care about anything enough to reveal a weakness.
    Thaddeus bit out, “I don’t know what it is . . . but they said it’s priceless. Don’t know who . . . posted