Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

the last time he’d slept. “No matter what occurs.”

26
    W here am I now? Lothaire woke in the snow once more, this time during the day. The filtered sunlight on his bare chest was like a leather strop slowly rubbing it raw.
    Shading his eyes, he peered around, his heart beginning to thunder in his ears. Ah, gods, no . . .
    He knelt in the middle of a forest. All around him stood trees that wept blood. Morning sun streamed between the gnarled trunks, over the seeping bark.
    Again, he’d returned to a place from his past—the Bloodroot Forest flanking Castle Helvita.
    I grew up within those walls. Later I knew torture in these woods .
    The constant grinding pressure of dirt over him, as if the earth had fed on him, digesting him like a meal . . .
    He hadn’t returned here since King Demestriu had died. Now, with no king in residence, loyalist vampires held the seat, waiting for an heir with two qualifications: he had to hold the Thirst sacred, and he had to be a legitimate royal.
    Led by a soldier called Tymur the Allegiant, they’d rejected all contenders.
    Tymur would assassinate Lothaire on sight.
    Why did I return to this place of treachery? Why was his subconscious focusing on this memory of his torture—
    Cold metal kissed his neck. A real sword? An imagined threat?
    He eased his head around to find two daytime sentries, a behorned demon and a Cerunno. They would’ve been ordered to take him prisoner, to be questioned.
    The demon could teleport a retreat; the Cerunno’s speed was legendary. Yet they remained.
    Then they have no idea who I am.
    The demon said, “Who dares to trespass on these hallowed grounds?”
    Lothaire bared his fangs. I will trace with a speed even they can’t follow, appearing behind the demon, whispering my name in his ear. He’ll quake with fear before I wrench his head from his neck. The Cerunno will flee—until I fling the demon’s sword, catching the creature in the spine. . . .
    “The Enemy of Old,” Lothaire whispered in the demon’s ear before gripping his horns and twisting. The head came loose in a rush of frayed tendons and crackling vertebrae. “And there’s little daring to it.” He gazed impassively at the sentry’s collapsed body.
    I was mistaken. There’d been no quake of fear; instead, the male had pissed himself upon hearing Lothaire’s name.
    The second guard had already begun its slithering retreat, racing across the snow, around the trees. Lothaire snatched up the demon’s sword and flung it at the Cerunno, hitting it in the back, crippling it.
    Thoughts already on other things, Lothaire traced to the being, stepping over its twitching serpentine tail to retrieve the sword.
    As he cleaved off the Cerunno’s head with one swing, Lothaire realized his damaged mind was trying to tell him something by sending him here. Yet he’d likely be dead before he could interpret it.
    He’d traced directly to his enemies without a weapon, only to wake disoriented in the sun. If the demon had merely swung first, I’d be dead.
    At least Lothaire hadn’t relived the torture he’d experienced here. He would surely fall into the abyss then.
    I’d want to be insane.
    Memories forever haunting him. But not a single new one of the ring. After several hours of sleep, he’d garnered no new leads.
    With both opponents eliminated, Lothaire tried not to notice that the tree trunks seemed to yawn closer to the corpses.
    The trees in this forest needed neither sun nor rain to live—like most everything else in this vampiric realm, they fed on blood.
    He blocked out the groan of a ravening trunk, the whistled hiss of a limb. . . .
    With a shudder, Lothaire traced back to the apartment. Though he still needed to sleep, to dream, he was concerned about the risk. Would he have to procure bindings that prevented tracing? Chain himself to his bed each time he slept?
    Back in the dimly lit room, Elizabeth was sleeping peacefully. She was warm, soft-looking, so far removed from the violence he’d just meted.
    As he stared at her, the skirmish began to blend into his memories, congealing with nearly a million nights’ worth of them—each one filled with torture, war, or death. Blood up to my ankles, and endless screams in my ears.
    Yes, Elizabeth was far removed, must always be so. . . .
    He dragged his gaze away from her, frowning down at a dripping sword he hadn’t remembered holding.
    Losing my mind. With a practiced move, he flicked the blade and blood went