A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark 2)

So...no one can trace in or out, and now no one can walk out either?

When Demestriu returned to his seat, any surprise he might have shown was gone. He studied her with dispassion. "Your face is exactly like your mother's."

"Thank you. My aunts have often said so."

"I knew Ivo was up to something. Knew he searched and that he'd lost dozens of our soldiers - three in Scotland alone. So I thought to take from him whatever he'd gotten close to. I didn't expect him to be after my daughter."

"What's this guy want with me?" she asked, though she had a pretty good idea - now that she'd realized her freaking pedigree.

"Ivo's spent centuries plotting, eyeing my crown. But he knows that the one thing the Horde holds sacred is its bloodlines. He knows he can't rule without a royal tie, and he just happened to find one. In my daughter."

"So he thought he would just kill you off and force me to marry him?"

"Precisely." A considering pause, then he asked, "Why have you never sought me out before this?"

"I just learned you were my father about eight hours ago."

Some emotion flickered in his eyes, but was so fleeting she thought she'd imagined it. "Your mother...didn't tell you?"

"I never knew her. She died right after I was born."

"So soon?" he asked in a low voice, as if to himself.

"I was searching for information about my father - you - in Paris," she said, irrationally trying to make him feel better.

"I lived there with your mother. Above the catacombs."

Any impulse to kindness vanished at the mention of the catacombs from which Lachlain had clawed his way free.

"Look at your eyes fire silver, just like hers." His red gaze flickered over her appraisingly for the first time.

Uncomfortable silence. She glanced around, struggling to remember the training Annika and Regin had forced on her. Beating up Cassandra was one thing, but this was a monster before her.

She frowned. If he's a monster, then I'm a monster, too.

Hey, I don't have to live. She'd known only one of them was leaving this room. Now she knew that was at the most.

Weapons on the walls. Crossed swords hanging upside down. The ones in the sheaths were actually more susceptible to rust. Rust meant weakness. Gotta get the one without the sheath.

"Sit." When she reluctantly did so, he held up a pitcher of blood. "Drink?"

She shook her head. "Trying to watch my points."

He gave her a disgusted look. "You speak like a human."

"If I had a dollar..." she sighed.

"Perhaps you just drank from the Lykae you'd been with?"

Even if she could, she saw no reason to deny it, and put her shoulders back. "I did."

He raised his eyebrows and regarded her with new interest. "Even I refused to take from an immortal like him."

"Why?" she asked, leaning forward, curiosity ruling her now. "That was the one instruction my mother gave my aunts when she sent me to them - that I never drink straight from a source."

He stared into his goblet of blood. "When you drink someone to death, you take everything from them - down to the bottom of their soul. Do it enough, and soon the pit of a soul can be quite literal. You can taste it. Your heart turns black and your eyes redden with rage. It's a poison, and we crave it."

"But drinking from a source and killing are two different things. Why wouldn't I be warned instead not to kill?" This was so surreal. They were sharing a conversation, asking and answering questions even with the grueling tension between them, like Dr. Lecter and Clarice in that jail scene. Courteous and responding to courtesy..."And why do I get these memories?"

"You have that dark talent?" He gave a short laugh that had no humor. "I've suspected it's passed down through the bloodline. I think that's what made our line kings in the first chaos of the Lore. I have it. Kristoff has it. And has given it to every human he's turned," he added with a sneer. "But you inherited it from me?" He raised his eyebrows, as if still not quite believing her. "Your mother must have feared you would. Drinking beings to death makes you mad. Drinking and seizing their memories makes you mad - and powerful."

She shrugged, not feeling mad. Yes, she'd almost crumbled a castle in her sleep, but..."I don't feel that way. Will something more happen to me?"

He looked aghast. "The memories aren't enough?" he said, then composed himself. "To take their blood, their life, and all that they have experienced - that is what makes a true vampire. I used to seek out immortals for their knowledge and power, but I also suffered the shadows of their minds. For you to drink one with so many memories...you play with fire."

"You have no idea how right you are about that."

He frowned, thought for a moment, then said, "Did I put the Lykae in the catacombs?"

"He escaped," she said smugly.

Chapter 22

"Ah, but now you remember his torment?"

She nodded slowly. One of them was about to die. Was she prolonging the conversation to learn answers to questions that had plagued her? Or to live a little longer? Why was he complying?

"Imagine ten thousand memories like that clotting your mind. Imagine experiencing your victim's death. The moments leading up to it when you stalk him, when he explains away a sound, saying the breeze was stirring. When he calls himself a fool because the hair on the back of his neck stands up." He gazed past her. "Some fight against believing to the end. Others look on my face and know what has them."

She shivered. "You suffer from that?"