Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

flying.
    Unsettled, he tossed the weapon away, then sat in his desk chair, lowering his head into his hands.
    Madness crept ever closer, the abyss awaiting. What am I going to do? For the first time in ages, he didn’t know. To be so close to his Endgame and cede control now?
    Never!
    He raised his gaze, narrowing it on his most complicated puzzle. Mind over mind?

    A chill in the room.
    Ellie had awakened, wondering if a window had been left open.
    But the cold had come from Lothaire as he’d reappeared from some mysterious trip, with snow still caked around the legs of his pants and a bloody sword clutched in his fist.
    She’d kept her lids cracked, her breathing deep and even, watching him as he’d stared at her with an unreadable expression. Finally, he’d sunk down into his desk chair.
    Then he’d given one of those puzzles a challenging look, as if he would defeat it or die trying.
    Now she watched as he seemed to be making progress, placing a block here, turning the structure to insert a triangle.
    She was enthralled as his pale fingers worked. Though tipped with black claws, they were long and elegant. Like she imagined a surgeon’s would be.
    Yet Lothaire used his hands not to save, but to destroy.
    When those fingers abruptly ceased their work, tension radiated from him, escalating like a ticking bomb about to explode. His eyes fired red—
    With a bellow, he flung the puzzle across the room, so hard that pieces skidded along the floor and embedded into the far wall.
    God, he’s so strong. She held her breath. Apparently, one of the strongest.
    But this wasn’t enough destruction for the vampire. While she stared in astonishment, he crushed furniture, tossed lamps. He ran his forearm across his desk and swept all the puzzles to the floor.
    He stilled, his brows drawing together. Regret? He clearly couldn’t stand seeing his beloved puzzles in disarray. Heaving his breaths, his eyes glowing in the dark, he dropped to his knees.
    Maybe I should help him, to sway his affections. “What’s the matter, Lothaire?” she asked, gathering her courage to join him on the floor.
    “So simple before,” he said absently, studying a block from all angles. “Child’s play.”
    She knelt in front of him. “It’s okay. Shh, vampire,” she murmured asshe began gathering similar pieces in like piles, then placing them on the desk.
    He lifted his head to face her fully. His eyes were definitely out of focus. He seemed . . . vulnerable. Even with his fangs and black claws, his fiery irises. Even though he’d surely just ended a life minutes ago.
    “We will never live near the blood forest. The trees cry blood, drinking deep. Never near them again.” His words were the ramblings of a madman, his accent as marked as she’d ever heard it.
    Though she wanted to demand what that meant, she said, “Of course not. Why were you in the . . . forest?”
    “I trace when I sleep. Trace to enemies. How long will fate let me get away with that? How many times can I have a sword at my neck—before one cleaves true?”
    “Can’t you prevent the tracing?”
    “With chains. Hate being chained. Caught fast in anything.”
    “I do too.”
    “When I was a boy, I was caught in a net.” He gazed past her. “Couldn’t trace from it. The metal was cold and heavy on my skin. They dropped down to collect my head and fangs.”
    “Who?”
    “Look at the lordling leech in rags,” he sneered, imitating another’s accent. “He must be hungry.” A long exhalation. “I was spared. But to what end . . . ?”
    Without warning, he laid aside his puzzle and drew her into his arms, tracing them to the bed. He sat up against the wall, curling her in his lap, gazing down at her. “When I take the castle, I’ll chop them all down.”
    “Um, every last tree?”
    That seemed to mollify him some. “Yes, beauty, I knew you’d agree,” he answered, brushing a lock of hair from her forehead.
    The room darkened even more as rain began to fall outside, seeming to cocoon them from the world. Would he even remember thisconversation? Maybe she could delve for information. “Lothaire, tell me of your blood vendetta. How do your seven tasks fit in?”
    “I’ll avenge my mother’s death.” He raised his gaze, seeming to stare at something Ellie couldn’t see. “She died for me; didn’t have to. Serghei could have saved her.”
    “And Serghei is . . . ?”
    “Her father. The one who allowed her to be raped by dozens, then