Immortals After Dark 12 - Lothaire

have no ring to give me and no lives for me to take—though I haven’t killed in years!” She kicked a decomposing head, then winced in pain at the contact. “Are you always so selfish?”
    “Yes,” he answered absently. They couldn’t remain here any longer. He could only half-trace two people for so long. In an instant, he returned them to his room in New York, releasing her.
    “Take me to live bodies, Lothaire! In fact, trace me to Elizabeth’s old home. I promised her mother that I’d kill her. I demand to have her in my grasp.”
    “Demand all you like, it won’t happen.” After all, he felt gratitude to the peasant woman for bearing Elizabeth. Without that mortal, Lothaire would have no body for his Bride.
    “I won’t remain at the fore if I’m to be treated thus.” Saroya began to sway on her feet.
    Now she was going to recede? The hell she would! “If you purposely recede, I’ll brand this body. Scald your face. Gouge an eye out.”

    Saroya immediately righted herself. “What do you want?” Lothaire was clearly in a dangerous mood.
    “You’re going to answer some questions for me.”
    In an aggrieved tone, she said, “Really, Lothaire. What’s brought this on? I’m the one who should be infuriated. Allowing Elizabeth to tan my skin like this?”
    He traced from one wall to the other. “I need information.”
    “Such as?”
    “We talked years ago of ruling together,” he said. “Do you still want this?”
    “Of course. I fear you are the one with doubts.”
    “We spoke of thrones and power and vengeance. But what of us?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “When my retribution has been meted out and our crowns rest easy upon our heads, what then?”
    “Then we conquer more ,” she said. “We could rule the world together, while searching for a way to return my godhood. I have enemies who beg for retribution as well. Or have you forgotten that?”
    “Your sister, Lamia.”
    “Among others.” La Dorada, for one. “You’ve got the Queen of Evil vowing reprisal against you—which means against me .” Saroya debated whether to tell Lothaire of her many crimes against the sorceress, but decided against it. He didn’t need to know why she’d dispatched assassins after Dorada for centuries.
    He doesn’t need to know about the prophecy, that foretelling by a long dead vampire oracle. “If you do not vanquish her, she will kill me, Lothaire. I feel this.”
    “Dorada cannot find you. No one in the Lore knows of this apartment. You are hidden if you remain here or at Hag’s, and I cloaked the body otherwise. Do you think I would ever allow Dorada to steal my mate—and with her my entire future?”
    Saroya calmed somewhat. Though she trusted no one, she did know that Lothaire was one of the most cutthroat warriors in the Lore, and one of the strongest vampires ever to live.
    He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And after Dorada’s been defeated, how do you envision our lives?”
    “We will annihilate any remaining enemies, becoming the most powerful partnership the world has ever known.”
    Growing increasingly frustrated, he said, “And when our work is done for the night, when dawn comes . . . what then ?”
    She smoothed her hair back. “I don’t understand.”
    “Do you know what happiness is?”
    “It’s watching the light dim in a good man’s eyes. It’s having subjects grovel. It’s wielding the power over life and death.”
    “No, Saroya. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but . . . each of thosethings is a process . Not an outcome.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You have no more idea of what happiness is than I do.”
    “You are growing besotted with your little mortal concubine. Look at you—it’s almost as if you’re pining for her. Almost as if she were your Bride.”
    Which Elizabeth likely was. Though Saroya had once believed she herself had triggered Lothaire’s blooding, she no longer did.
    For him to have feelings for such a loathsome creature? Something larger was at work here.
    Still, he’d never believe Elizabeth was his; the very idea would be galling to a male of his rank and standing.
    If Lothaire hadn’t seen the truth by now, then it was because he didn’t want to.

    Doubts ate at Lothaire’s confidence, eroding it.
    Even if he could bring himself to believe that Elizabeth was his Bride—and that was a very big if—there was nothing he could do about it.
    He’d already set his destiny into motion. He was inextricably