Lothaire (Immortals After Dark 12)

"It is." In theory, the boundary could never be breached, protecting her against the legions of immortals who would give anything to kill or capture her-just to punish or coerce Lothaire.

If they could even find this place.

But Lothaire wouldn't take any chances. In his long life, he'd found that whenever one described something in the Lore as always or never happening, fate usually proved him wrong. "I can open it at will, of course."

When she chose the seat to the right of the end, he snapped, "Ah-ah. Not that one. You do not sit there." He'd had no control over Stefanovich's mortal whore all those years ago, but now, in his own home, he would make the rules for this human.

"Okay, okay." She moved the place setting one spot, then sat.

"Proceed."

With a glare, she unfolded her napkin and placed it on her lap, then spooned portions onto her plate. As she began her meal, taking dainty bites of various dishes, he noted that her table manners weren't as crude as he'd expected.

She chose that moment to lift a forkful of foie gras, letting it plop back to its plate. "What is this?"

"It's not the provincial fare you're accustomed to, but you'll make do."

"I'm full."

Her meal was barely touched. "Eat. More."

When she began nibbling the garnish, he said, "That's parsley."

"Only thing I recognize."

"Eat more of everything else."

After a pause that would have gotten others gutted, she cut into a succulent lobster tail, took a hesitant bite, then furtively spat it into her napkin.

Two things struck him. She'd never had lobster; the foolish chit didn't like lobster. Even he remembered the taste of it.

The salmon fared no better. Soon there'd be more food in her napkin than in her stomach.

"The meal smells delicious, or at least it would to a human," he said. "Especially one who could eat a horse. Do you challenge me yet again?"

"I was born and raised on a mountain. Then I went to prison. I've never eaten food like this. Fancy seafood like this. If you wanted me to eat fish, it should've come out of a Long John Silver's bag."

Ah, just so. "Then eat the bread."

She began buttering a flaky roll. "Saroya really wants me to put on weight?" When he nodded, she said, "And you're on board?"

He thought her lovely now, nearly irresistible, but he had no marked preference. More flesh meant more of what he already liked. And Saroya would be the one inhabiting the body for eternity. "If my Bride wants it, then I'm in accord."

"Alrighty, but don't say I didn't warn you, 'cause too much bread and my ass'll get huge." She took a bite.

"Noted."

"You talk funny. Is your accent European?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's Russian-"

"Wait! You said bride?" Elizabeth sputtered. "You married her?"

The vampire exhaled impatiently, sitting at the head of the table. "Marriage is unnecessary to my kind. Our bond is much stronger."

"Than what?"

"A Bride is a vampire's mate, the female meant only for him. Saroya is mine."

Ellie processed this information-keep an open mind-then asked, "How do you know she is?"

He tilted his head in that appraising way, as if considering the pros and cons of answering her. "She blooded me." At her questioning look, he said, "Each adult male vampire walks as the living dead until he finds his mate and she bloods him, brings him back to life. Saroya made my heart beat again, made my lungs take breath." In a husky tone, he added, "Among other things."

"How do you know it's not me who's . . . blooded you?"

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Because fate would not slight me so unspeakably. I'd seek a noon-day sun if I were paired with one such as you."

"Such as me," she repeated blandly. She'd been mocked too often over her lifetime to take offense. Her skin was as thick as armor.

"Yes, you. An ignorant, mortal Kmart checkout girl." He took the sharpest knife from his place setting, absently turning it between his left thumb and forefinger.

"Kmart? I should've been so lucky. Those jobs were hard to come by. I worked at my uncle's outfitter shop."

"Then you're even worse. You're an outfitter checkout girl with aspirations for Kmart."

"Still better than a demon."

"Saroya's not a demon," he grated. "I wouldn't have one of them either."

"Oh, that's right, she's a goddess. And you're a vampire. I suppose pookas are real, too. And shapeshifters?" Then her eyes widened. "Is Mothman real?"

In the Virginias, everyone had heard of that demonic winged being, with its red orbs for eyes. There continued to be sketchy sightings of it flying in the gloom and coal dust.

The sheriff who'd taken Ellie down had joked to others that there might have been a Mothman sighting the night of her arrest, an amusing encounter atop isolated Peirce Mountain.

"Everything you've ever dreamed is real," Lothaire said. "Every creature thought to be myth. We call our world the Lore. And for the record, Mothman's a f**kwit."

Her lips parted at that. "How come your kind don't come out to humans?"

"We are punished when we needlessly reveal ourselves as immortals."

"So all these 'myths' are out secretly combing the streets?"

"And running governments, starring in films, infiltrating human monarchies. Your species is notoriously dim and unobservant compared to Loreans, so we roam freely over the earth, gods walking among your

kind."

A horrific thought struck her. "If you drank my blood, will that make me a vampire too?" Say no, say no, say no.

He exhaled. "If only it were so simple."

"Oh, thank God!"

The vampire didn't like that at all. Tension thrummed off him. He pressed the tip of the knife he held against the pad of his right thumb, twirling until blood began to drip.

Silence reigned. "Lothaire?"

He didn't answer. Drip, drip . . .

She fidgeted with her napkin. The unfamiliar quiet ratcheted up her nervousness.

Prison had been a continual assault on the ears. During the day, inmates banged on the bars, guards stomping up and down steel steps. It sounded like a messy utensil drawer opened and slammed shut repeatedly.

At night, eerie moans of both pleasure and pain echoed down the ward. Screams rang out. The serial killer across the corridor from her had loved to hiss at her in the dark. . . .

Finally Lothaire grated, "I've had mortals beg me to change them. Most humans would give anything to become immortal. It's considered a priceless gift."

She gazed anywhere but at his new injury. "I would never want that."

"Never to sicken, never to grow old?"

Ellie had an innate talent for empathy, for putting herself in others' shoes. Now she imagined what it'd be like to live for thousands of years, as Lothaire apparently had.

How could he savor each day of his life when the supply of them was unlimited? How could he ever experience wonder or excitement? "All I can think is that it'd be wearying."

Had a shadow passed over his expression?

"So if I'm not already changed into a vampire," Ellie said, "and it's not so simple to do, how will you and Saroya get together?"

"I seek a ring. It has the power to transform her into a vampire."

"Made a vampire? In my body? If she's a goddess, why's she been digging into me like a tick?"

He merely stared at her with those creepy eyes, twirling that knife as his blood began to pool on the surface of the table.

Though he terrified her, Ellie pressed on. "Why would she be inside of me, the checkout girl? Why should I believe she's . . . divine?"

"Understand me, girl. I don't lie. Ever. She was cursed to a human form."

"Who cursed her? Why put her in me?"

Seeing he had no intention of answering her, she said, "Look, you guys are getting my body out of this deal. I'm getting nothing. You said you liked a good bargain? You should recognize that this isn't exactly a fair exchange. Would it kill you to tell me why she needs my body?"

His eyes got a faraway look and deepened in color, telling her his mind was drifting. Dissociation?

She'd seen the same look earlier today as he'd paced. It occurred to her then that this vampire was not just evil.

The Enemy of Old might be clinically insane.

"Another goddess cursed her to a mortal's form," Lothaire finally said, struggling to rein back the madness. Focus. "I do not know why you were chosen."

"Which goddess?"

Saroya had a twin, Lamia. Each sister derived her strength from life-Lamia from creating it and safeguarding it, Saroya from harvesting it and consuming souls.

When Saroya had made a bid for more power, killing indiscriminately and upsetting the balance, Lamia had joined forces with other gods and cursed Saroya to experience death over and over as a human. "The curse of mortality," he muttered. "Could there be anything worse?" He glanced down, surprised to find himself boring a knife tip into his own thumb.

"Lothaire, why was she cursed?" Elizabeth continued heedlessly.

He licked his dripping new wound. "Because she is just like me." A being insatiable for power. "She saw a play for more, and she took it."

"I don't understand."

"Do pizdy. Don't f**king care." He was getting sick of others acting as if he'd just uttered nonsense. He killed most who cast him that sharp questioning look.

But he couldn't harm the human before him, the female with her steady gray eyes taking his measure. He stared into them for long moments, surprised to find himself feeling more grounded.

"How could a girl from the backwoods ever get caught up in something so . . . unlikely?"

Without breaking eye contact, he leaned back in his chair. "I asked myself that continually from the time I first saw you. After all, in the beginning, I had no idea you were anything more than a mere human, had no idea how I could possibly be connected to you."

Why was he conversing so readily with her? Perhaps because he knew she would take his secrets to the grave? And soon?

For whatever reason, the words seemed pulled from him.

"Imagine my abject disappointment in you, female. Lothaire the Enemy of Old-the most feared vampire alive, the son of one king and grandson of another-paired with a mortal? Much less a mortal of no distinction. I'm given to understand that your people are worse than peasants."

Instead of indignation, curiosity lit her face. "Wait. I came first? You didn't find me because of her? Hey, are you saying you're a prince?"

"Yes, peasants," he repeated slowly. "The lowliest of the low among humans." Then he enunciated, "Exceedingly backward and vulgar hillbillies."

"Been called worse, mister." At his raised brows, she exhaled impatiently. "Bootlegger, moonshiner, Elly May Clampett, mountain mama, redneck, backwoods Bessie, hick, trailer trash, yokel, and, more recently, death-row con."

"No references to mining? I'm disappointed."

Sadness flashed in her expressive eyes. "My father died in a mine collapse. Ever since then, none of my kin will work underground."

"Naturally the big bad coal company was at fault?"

"I'm sure there are nice, safe coal companies out there; Va-Co isn't one of them. Mining's over for us."

"And so you remain appallingly poor."

"S'pose so. The bottom line is that insults only hurt when they come from someone I respect."

"Then no one's taught you to respect your betters?"

"You think you're better than me because you're a prince?" Had she sounded disbelieving?

"I'm a displaced king of two vampire factions. Now I work to reclaim my thrones." Why am I telling her this? He didn't give a damn if she respected him. "As for the other, I think I'm better than you because you are demonstrably my inferior in every way. Intelligence, wealth, looks, bloodline, should I continue?"

She waved that away. "How'd you find me? You're obviously rich-oh, and royalty-why would you be in one of the poorest areas in America?"

He parted his lips to tell her to shut hers, but she dutifully took another bite of salmon, actually swallowing it. "My Bride's arrival had been foretold. An oracle predicted where and when she would be. But not what." The same oracle who assisted him now, a fey he called Hag.

He glanced at Elizabeth's plate. She took another bite.

"I found you when you were fourteen, but you didn't trigger my blooding." He'd assumed that she was too young. "I decided then that I'd never return, would walk as the dead before being forever tied to such a base creature as you." No matter that she'd promised to be physically lovely.

"Then why did you return?"

"Pure curiosity." It might have been pure, but it had plagued him, and he'd returned to her thrice more.

When she was fifteen, a budding woman, he'd found her swimming one night with a boy, eagerly exploring kissing with him. At seventeen, she'd been on the verge of stunning, with her sun-kissed skin, wide clear eyes, and striking features, yet still too lowly to tempt him.