Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

So if somehow you were able to escape this boundary, you’d be abducted in seconds. They would do terrible things to you.”
    She raised her brows. “I can only imagine how bad something would have to be for you to call it terrible. But if they’re offering death, don’t forget that I want to die.”
    “Some foes would take your life. Most would keep you. An anatomically incorrect sea god would love nothing more than to plumb your depths and steal your virginity. My vampire enemies would keep you alive for food, piercing you nightly for decades. Demons would consign you to their notorious harems, where you’d be whored out for all the many creatures who’d pay handsomely for a chance to humiliate Lothaire’s Bride. You’d learn to polish demon horns in the most degrading ways.”
    She swallowed. “Harems and whoring and horns, then?”
    “Suddenly the fate I have planned for you doesn’t seem so egregious?”
    She returned to the settee, sitting less stiffly than before. “Just to be clear. My fate, as you intend it, goes like this: In one to thirty days, you’llsend my soul packing—to wherever souls go—and my family will never be harmed by you.”
    “Approximately,” he replied, using one of his favorite go-to words. The girl would assume he addressed the number of days. Actually, he spoke of the “soul packing” portion. Her soul would be extinguished—
    “By approximately, do you mean the one to thirty, or the rest of it?”
    Little witch. “The question you should’ve asked is why the days are so variable.”
    “Lothaire. Why are the days so variable?”
    “I’ve told you I need a special ring to make Saroya a vampire. The same ring will free your soul from your body.” Not a lie . “It might take me weeks to locate it.”
    “I see. Not that I’m complaining, but if you’re supposed to be searching for something, then why were you trying to sleep tonight? Isn’t this pretty much your nine-to-five? Shouldn’t you be out tracing the pavement even now?”
    She made him sound lazy .
    No one worked harder than he did on his seven little tasks: find the ring, dispose of the human’s soul, turn Saroya into a vampire, kill La Dorada, claim the Horde crown, find Serghei to burn him alive, conquer the Daci.
    He took no pleasure from life, enjoyed no amusements. Everything served his Endgame.
    Wearied just to think of all that work, he leaned back in his chair. And again, he got the feeling that she was studying him. “Sleep and work are one and the same now.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “When I drink blood straight from the vein, I can harvest my victim’s memories. I see his recollections in my dreams, reliving them when I sleep. I feel the bite of cold on his skin, the pain of his injuries, even his death at my hands. Recently, I drank from a man who knows where the ring is. Now I have only to get at that memory, but it’s easier said than done. I have to wade through a lot of them.”
    She ran her fingertips over the graze on her neck. “Will you dream mine ?”
    “Likely. Cannot wait for fond remembrances of squirrel stew around the trailer hearth.”
    She parted her lips, no doubt to deliver a cutting retort, then stifled it. “How do you know what’s a regular dream and what’s from someone else’s life?”
    “I don’t dream anything but memories, and only theirs.”
    “No wonder you’re crazy. But I affect your sanity, don’t I?”
    “Saroya affects my sanity. You’re merely a placeholder.”
    “So if the ring equals my death, then every time you sleep means I’m closer to dying?”
    “Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes.”
    Finally she gazed away, saying quietly, “Would you give me advance notice?”
    “No. No more than you would those deer you hunted.”
    “They were animals!”
    “Are you much more?” he asked in a thoughtful tone. “And what would you do with your advance notice?”
    “I’d want to write to my family.”
    “Ah, Ellie Ann’s last letters. How touching. But there’s no room in the Lore for sentimentality.” When he folded his arms over his chest, she seemed to be making a mental note of it.
    He’d actually felt a jot sentimental earlier when he’d realized that Chase might die—and with him, Lothaire’s sole hope of a vampire line. Am I to leave nothing of myself behind?
    Long ago, Lothaire had created vampires on occasion, but they always predeceased him. He’d lost his taste for it.
    Everyone died before him.