Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

this.”
    A proud princess of the Daci begging one like me? His lips parted in shock. Words tumbled from them. “I vow it to the Lore.”
    “Very good.” She pressed a cool kiss to his brow. “I want you never, never to be brought this low again.” Over his frantic protests, she began to bury him in the snow. “Become the king you were born to be.”
    “Mother, please! H-how can you do this?”
    “Because you are my son. My heart. I will do whatever it takes to protect you.” They met gazes. “Lothaire, anything that was worthy in me began with you.”
    He refused to believe this would be the last time he saw her, refused to tell his mother how much he loved her—
    She whispered, “I know,” then cocooned him in snow.
    Warmed by her blood, he lay huddled, quaking with fear for her. His eyes darted, seeing nothing.
    Had she swept to her feet, sprinting back in the mortals’ direction? In time, he heard her struggles from a distance, could feel the vibrations of a number of footfalls. What must be dozens of humans surrounded her. He clenched his fists, battling his frenzied yearning to save her.
    Yet Lothaire was powerless—bound by his vow and undermined by his weakness.
    His stifled yells of frustration turned to scalding tears when he heard the clanking of chains, her muffled screams.
    The guttural sounds of men.
    He’d been raised in Helvita under the wicked reign of Stefanovich; Lothaire knew what those mortals were doing to her.
    As he fought not to vomit the precious blood she’d gifted him, heresolved that he would become one of the Fallen, preying on other creatures for strength.
    He might grow mad with bloodlust; never would he be helpless again. . . .
    What must have been hours later, her cries fell silent. Again, his eyes darted. He thought he caught a thread of smoke, then the scent of burning flesh.
    Dawn. Her screams renewed.
    As she burned, she yelled in Dacian, “Never forget, my prince! Avenge me!” Other words followed, but he couldn’t make them out. Then unintelligible sounds . . . agonized shrieks.
    To the sound of her screams, he sobbed, repeating his vows over and over, adding a new one.
    “Burn the k-king . . . of the Daci alive. . . .”

“My sanity will fail me long before my will does. Luckily, the only thing more interesting than a madman is a relentless one.”
    — LOTHAIRE KONSTANTIN DACIANO, THE ENEMY OF OLD
    “Me, a steel magnolia? Steel, my ass! [Laughing, then abruptly serious.] Try titanium.”
    —ELIZABETH “ELLIE” PEIRCE, EXPERT IN BOYS, REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY, AND LAW-ENFORCEMENT EVASION
    “The difference between you and me is that my actions have no consequences for me. That is what makes me a god.”
    — SAROYA THE SOUL REAPER, DEITY OF BLOOD, SACRED PROTECTRESS OF VAMPIRES, GODDESS OF DIVINE DEATH

1
    Slateville, Virginia
    FIVE YEARS AGO
    S o you thought to exorcise me?” Saroya the Soul Reaper asked the wounded man she stalked by firelight. “I don’t know what is worse. The fact that you thought I was a demon . . .”
    She twirled the blood-drenched cleaver in her hand, loving how the man’s widened eyes followed each rotation. “. . . or that you believed you could separate me from my human host.”
    Nothing short of death could remove Saroya. Especially not a mortal deacon, one among a group of five who’d come all the way out to this vile trailer in Appalachia to perform an exorcism.
    As he scrambled a retreat from her steady march forward, he stumbled over one of the broken lamps on the floor. He tripped onto his back, briefly releasing his hold on the spurting stump that used to be his right arm.
    She sighed with delight. Centuries ago, when she’d been a death goddess, she would have swooped down and sunk her fangs into the human’s jugular, sucking until he was naught but a husk and devouring his soul; now she was cursed to possess one powerless mortal after another, experiencing her own death again and again.
    Her latest possession? Elizabeth Peirce, a nineteen-year-old girl, as lovely as she was poor.
    When the deacon met the dismembered corpse of one of his brethren, he gave a panicked cry, glancing away from her. In a flash, Saroya leapt upon him, swinging the cleaver, plunging the metal into his thick neck.
    Blood sprayed as she yanked the blade free for another hit. Then another. Then a last.
    She swiped the back of her arm over her spattered face as her demeanor turned contemplative. Mortals believed themselves so special and