Kresley Cole: Lothaire

FIVE YEARS AGO

So you thought to exorcise me?” Saroya the Soul Reaper asked the wounded man she stalked by firelight. “I don’t know what is worse. The fact that you thought I was a demon . . .”

She twirled the blood-drenched cleaver in her hand, loving how the man’s widened eyes followed each rotation. “. . . or that you believed you could separate me from my human host.”

Nothing short of death could remove Saroya. Especially not a mortal deacon, one among a group of five who’d come all the way out to this vile trailer in Appalachia to perform an exorcism.

As he scrambled a retreat from her steady march forward, he stumbled over one of the broken lamps on the floor. He tripped onto his back, briefly releasing his hold on the spurting stump that used to be his right arm.

She sighed with delight. Centuries ago, when she’d been a death goddess, she would have swooped down and sunk her fangs into the human’s jugular, sucking until he was naught but a husk and devouring his soul; now she was cursed to possess one powerless mortal after another, experiencing her own death again and again.

Her latest possession? Elizabeth Peirce, a nineteen-year-old girl, as lovely as she was poor.

When the deacon met the dismembered corpse of one of his brethren, he gave a panicked cry, glancing away from her. In a flash, Saroya leapt upon him, swinging the cleaver, plunging the metal into his thick neck.

Blood sprayed as she yanked the blade free for another hit. Then another. Then a last.

She swiped the back of her arm over her spattered face as her demeanor turned contemplative. Mortals believed themselves so special and elevated, but decapitating one sounded exactly like a fishmonger beheading a fat catch.

Finished with the last of the five deacons, Saroya turned to the only survivor left in the trailer: Ruth, Elizabeth’s mother. She huddled in a corner, mumbling prayers as she brandished a fire poker.

“I have vanquished your daughter’s spirit, woman. She will never return,” Saroya lied, knowing that Elizabeth would soon find a way to rise from unconsciousness to the fore, regaining control of her body.

Of all the mortals Saroya had possessed, Elizabeth was the prettiest, the youngest—and the strongest. Saroya had difficulty rising to take control unless the girl was asleep or weakened in some way.

A first. Saroya gave a sigh. Elizabeth should consider it an honor to be the form to Saroya’s essence, the flesh and blood temple housing her godly vampiric spirit.

Saroya peered down at her stolen body. Instead, she’d had to fight Elizabeth for possession, was still fighting her.

No matter. After centuries of being shuffled into stooped, elderly men or horse-faced women, she’d found her ideal fit in Elizabeth. In the end, Saroya would defeat her. She had wisdom from times past and present, hallowed gifts—and an ally.

Lothaire the Enemy of Old.

He was a notoriously evil vampire, millennia in age, and the son of a king. A year ago, his oracle had directed him to her. Though Saroya and Lothaire had spent only one night together in the nearby woods, he’d pledged himself to save her from her wretched existence.

He might not have the ability to return Saroya to her goddess state. But somehow he would extinguish Elizabeth’s soul from her body, then transform Saroya into an immortal vampire—circumventing the curse.

Saroya knew Lothaire would be hunting ceaselessly for answers.

Because I’m his Bride.

She gazed past Elizabeth’s mother out a small window, finding the wintry landscape empty. Had she hoped that a massacre like this might have brought Lothaire to her?

How much longer am I to wait for him in this godsforsaken wasteland? With no word?

He’d talked of the legion of adversaries out to destroy him, of ancient vendettas: “If a vampire can be measured by the caliber of his foes, goddess, then consider me fearsome. If by the number? Then I’ve no equal.”

Perhaps his enemies had prevailed?

No longer would she remain here. The Peirce family had begun chaining Elizabeth to the bed at night, preventing Saroya from killing, the only thing she lived for.

Reminded of her treatment, she turned to the mother. “Yes, your daughter is mine forever. And after I’ve slain you, I’ll eviscerate your young son, then sweep through your family like a disease.” She raised the cleaver above her, took a step forward—

Suddenly, black spots dotted her vision. Dizziness?

No, no! Elizabeth was rising to consciousness with all the finesse of a freight train. Every single time, she surfaced like a drowning woman held underwater, overwhelming Saroya.

The little bitch might reclaim control of her body, but, as usual, she’d wake to a fresh nightmare. “Enjoy, Elizabeth. . . .”

Her legs buckled, her back meeting the carpet. Blackness.

Heartbeat heartbeat heartbeat heartbeat—

Ellie Peirce woke to a mad drumming in her ears. She lay on the floor of her family’s trailer, eyes squeezed shut, her body coated with something warm and sticky.

No words were spoken around her. The only sounds were the living room’s crackling fire, her shallow breaths, and the howling dogs outside. She had no memory of how she’d come to be like this, no idea of how long she’d blacked out.

“Mama, did it work?” she whispered as she peeked open her eyes. Maybe the deacons had been successful?

Please, God, let the exorcism have worked . . . my last hope.

Her eyes adjusting to the dim, firelit room, she raised her head to peer down at her body. Her worn jeans, T-shirt, and secondhand boots were sopping wet.

With blood. She swallowed. Not my own.

Oh, God. Her fingers were curled around the hilt of a dripping cleaver. I told them not to unchain me until my uncle and cousins got here!

But Reverend Slocumb and his fellow members of their church’s “emergency ministry” had smugly thought they could handle her—

Movement drew her gaze up. A fire poker?

Clenched in her mother’s hands.

“Wait!” Ellie flung herself to her side just as the poker came slamming down on the floor where her head had been. Blood splashed from the carpet like a stepped-in puddle.

“You foul thing, begone!” Mama shrieked, raising the iron again. “You got my girl, but you won’t have my boy!”

“Just wait!” Ellie scrambled to her feet, dropping the cleaver. “It’s me!” She raised her hands, palms outward.

Mama didn’t lower the poker. Her long auburn hair was loose, tangled all around her unlined face. She used one shoulder to shove tendrils from her eyes. “That’s what you said afore you started snarlin’ that demon language and slashin’ about!” Her mascara ran down her cheeks, her peach lipstick smeared across her chin. “Afore you killed all them deacons!”

“Killed?” Ellie whirled around, dumbfounded by the grisly sight.

Five hacked-up bodies lay strewn across the living room.

These men had been lured all the way out here by her mother’s imploring letters and by evidence of Ellie’s possession: recordings of her speaking dead languages she had no way of knowing and photographs of messages in blood that she had no memory of writing.