Lothaire Read Free

too late. . . .”
    Now she absently muttered, “By the time we reach Dacia, I’ll have made your soul as bitter as the chill trying to kill us.”
    “How much longer will it be?” His feet were numb, his belly empty.
    “I do not know. I can only follow my longing for such a home as Dacia.”
    As she’d told Lothaire, her father, King Serghei, ruled over that realm, a land of plenty and peace. ’Twas enclosed in stone, hidden within the very heart of a mountain range.
    Inside a soaring cavern a thousand times larger than Helvita stood a majestic black castle, circled by dazzling fountains of blood. The king’s subjects filled their pails each morning.
    Lothaire could scarcely imagine such a place.
    “After all our wanderings, I feel we are close, Son.”
    That first night, as they’d wended through the terrifying Bloodroot Forest that surrounded Helvita, she’d feared Lothaire wouldn’t make it through the freezing night. Again and again, she’d tried to teleport them to Dacia, only to be returned to the same spot.
    He’d survived; she’d exhausted herself.
    Now she was too weak to trace, so they plodded toward another village, one that might provide a barn to shelter them from the coming day’s sunlight.
    Unfortunately, each village teemed with filthy mortals. They always gazed at Ivana’s beauty and the foreign cut of her clothing with awe—then suspicion. Lothaire received his share of attention for his piercing ice-blue eyes and the white-blond hair forever spilling out from under his cap.
    In turn, Ivana ridiculed their unwashed, louse-ridden bodies and simplistic language. Her loathing for mortals continued to grow, fueling his own.
    Each night before dawn, she would leave Lothaire hidden while she hunted. Sometimes she’d return with her cheeks flushed from blood, and triumph in her eyes. A slice of her wrist would fill a cup for him as well.
    Other times, she would be wan and sullen, cursing Stefanovich’s betrayal, lamenting their plight. One sunrise, as he’d drifted off to sleep, he’d heard her mumble, “Now we sleep with livestock, and I must drink from the flesh. . . .”
    Ivana slowed, jerking her head around.
    “Are they following us, Mother?” Humans from the last town had been more hostile than in any other, trailing after them, even into the wilderness.
    “I don’t believe so. The snow covers our tracks so quickly.” She trudged on, saying, “It’s time for your lessons.”
    During each night’s journey, she instructed him on everything from how to survive among humans—“drink from them only if starving, and never to the death”—to Dacian etiquette: “outbursts of emotion are considered the height of rudeness, so naturally I offended my share.”
    And always she extracted vows for the future, as if she thought she’d soon die ?
    “What must you do when you are grown, my prince?”
    “Avenge this treachery against us. I will destroy Stefanovich and take his throne.”
    “When?”
    “Before he finds his Bride.”
    “Why?”
    Lothaire dutifully answered, “Once his fated female bloods him, he’ll become more powerful, even more difficult to kill. And he will father a legitimate heir on her. The Vampire Horde will never follow Stefanovich’s bastard while his true successor lives.”
    “You must be utterly certain that the Horde will swear fealty to you. If your effort to claim the crown is unsuccessful, they will annihilate
you. Wait until you are at your most powerful.”
    “Will I have to go red-eyed to fight him?”
    She stopped, tilting her head. “What do you know of such matters?”
    “When a vampire kills his prey as he drinks, he becomes more powerful, but blood stains his eyes.”
    “Yes, because he drinks to the quick, to the pit of the soul. It brings strength—but also bloodlust. Stefanovich has become one of the Fallen .” She added vaguely, “And it will be all the more torturous. For him, in particular.”
    “Why?”
    She gave Lothaire an