Lothaire

7

His penthouse had been turned into a female’s sartorial dream.

Blue velvet draped the dining room table, dotted with gemstones the size of his Bride’s fist. Racks of costly garments lined the walls in the living area. Designer shoes littered the floor. Cosmetics were laid out in the dressing room.

And in the kitchen, a chef prepared a meal fit for a queen.

After Lothaire had cleaned himself, he’d made a few select calls. Within the hour, his home had been filled with the city’s most exclusive stylists, beauticians, and shopkeepers, all peddling their wares and services.

At least, the most exclusive mortal proprietors.

Normally he would have purchased through Lore vendors, but gossip about the Enemy of Old’s new woman would be impossible to suppress unless he killed all the witnesses.

Which he was hesitant to do; he enjoyed their luxurious wares himself. Even if he wasn’t yet a king, he would dress as one. . . .

So humans it would be. He adjusted the sunglasses he was forced to wear in front of them.

For the last several hours, Saroya had been closeted in her suite of rooms with aestheticians and a “wax specialist”—whatever that was—spending the afternoon doing gods-only-knew-what in the bathroom.

To pass the time, he was tempted to tackle a new mechanical puzzle he’d acquired—a polyhedral assembly, solvable in sixty-five moves—but his concentration suffered on most days as it was.

And now the sound of his Bride’s voice teased him. Her scent kept his body strung tight. As ever, madness threatened.

Lothaire knew one thing that would relax him. He traced into the closet of his suite, opening a safe within. There lay his most treasured possession: a weighty account ledger.

He didn’t use it to track monetary expenditures and incomes. Instead, he recorded blood debts, chronicling all the immortals who had sworn to do whatever he demanded of them.

Like a miser palming his gold, Lothaire would review his debtors, reverently brushing his fingers over the ledger pages—

He froze, sensing something that couldn’t be right. A presence from long, long ago. He shoved the book back into the safe, slamming it shut, then traced to the shadow’s edge of the balcony.

The setting sun was veiled by misty clouds, but he still had to shade his sensitive eyes as he gazed out over the city.

Was he being stalked?

How to anticipate a threat when he could scarcely untangle reality from reverie? Waiting . . . watching . . .

Once night fell, the presence disappeared. Or had he imagined it?

Unsettled, he returned to the living room. Saroya emerged shortly after. At the sight of her, he shrugged off his disquiet.

The wait had been worth it.

A floor-length gown of black silk molded over her every curve. The front was a deep V cutting down all the way to her waist. Thin leather ties crisscrossed over her chest, holding the material in place over her full breasts.

Want to see them. For the first time. Lothaire had never gazed upon her naked form.

His eyes were riveted to her movements in that ingenious garment—one created to make males fantasize about slowly unlacing those ties to free her bound flesh.

She sauntered across the room, her stilettos giving her the illusion of height. Her damp hair smelled of scented shampoo and hung heavily down her back.

Her makeup had been applied liberally. Bold blush strokes over her cheeks and heavy foundation nearly blunted the nuances of her finely boned features. Her eyes were made up with sweeping shades of brown, black, and silver. Her lipstick was scarlet.

She had lips like a sexpot, a pouting bow.

And her wicked nails looked as if blood dripped from each fingertip. Very nice touch, Saroya.

Overall, the effect was flagrantly sexual.

By all the gods, she was a lovely piece, and soon he’d claim her. At the thought, his shaft swelled. He shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the long jacket that disguised his reaction to her. The growing pressure . . .

Lothaire had been thirty-three when he’d last had a woman beneath him, the night before his heart had stopped its beating and he’d frozen into his immortal form. Until that age, he’d enjoyed females from all factions in the Lore, had taken a new one every night.

Now he was to suffer the urges and drives of his youth all over again?

Between his dwindling sanity and this inconvenient erection, he found it impossible to concentrate on his Endgame.

He began to pace, having to remind himself not to teleport in front of the mortals.

I can’t lose focus. At long last, he was on the cusp of seizing the Horde throne. He’d completed the most challenging task—slaying Stefanovich—ages ago.

Though not before the old king had lashed out against his bastard with incomprehensible malice. The earth grinding over me . . .

No, focus on the Endgame! On the ring. It would enable Lothaire to destroy Elizabeth and transform Saroya into a vampire—a vital measure of protection for his Bride, and the key to securing the Horde throne for him.

And the ring would give him the power to find and annihilate the Daci. To locate Serghei at last.

One ring equaled Lothaire’s eternal mate, two kingdoms, and the vengeance he’d hungered for since his mother’s murder. . . .

Saroya began to finalize her purchases, her demeanor bored. She pointed out every rack of clothing, ordering, “Put them in my wardrobe.” Her bedroom, the one adjoining his own, had an oversize closet; he doubted everything would fit into even that cavernous space.

With an aggrieved air, she perused the jeweler’s offerings. “I will take all the baubles.”

Eight figures’ worth of baubles. Lothaire sighed. Welcome to matrimony.

All eyes fell on him. With a negligent wave of his hand, he approved the expenditures. If possible, the humans groveled even more, which increased his irritation.

When Saroya returned to her suite and settled into a chair to have her hair trimmed, he followed her.

“Am I to have no privacy?” she asked.

“No,” he said simply. No longer. He owned the body as much as she did. He’d be there for any alterations. “And after this, I want to see you in the garments I’ve bought for you.” He leaned down to say at her ear, “See you in the lingerie.” His gaze dipped, greedily taking in the swells of her breasts.

One tug of a leather tie . . . golden flesh spilling out.

“Of course, lover,” she said, too smoothly.

He pinched her chin, turning her to face him. “Saroya, I don’t buy you these things for your benefit.” Never would he give a gift with no thought of a return on his investment. “I buy them for both of us to enjoy. Just as we will this new body.”

She subtly arched her back. “A body like this is made for sex, is it not?”

He ground his teeth before saying, “I can only guess, as I’ve never seen it.”

“Soon, Enemy of Old. I promise.”

Lothaire debated whether to believe her. Saroya’s mythology was sparse at best, and contradictory. Some said she’d been as frigid with—and deadly to—males as her twin Lamia was sexual with them. Others said Saroya had participated in depraved orgies in her temples.

Seeing her like this—in fuck-me makeup and clothing—had him betting on the latter.

But no matter what her proclivities were, he knew the great Saroya wouldn’t happily bed a mate like him, a male who would demand obedience in all ways.

And he would never rape a female. So it would take all his considerable experience to bring her to heel—

“Shear it. To my chin,” she commanded the stylist.

“Ah-ah,” Lothaire grated. “Keep it long.” He’d never seen hair so lovely, curling locks the color of mink.

Now she wanted to cut it all off? After he’d imagined threading his fingers through it infinite times?

After he’d fantasized about gripping it in his fists—as he eased his shaft into and out of her mouth . . . ?

Saroya bristled. “I want it short.”

He snapped his fingers, and the stylist scurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. “I prefer it long.”

“It’s my hair.”

He gave her a snide look of amusement. “That body is as much mine as it is yours.”

Her eyes flashed. “I inhabit it.”

“And I stole it from prison. I’ll be the one feeding it, safeguarding it. The body would be dead if not for me. Therefore, I own it.”

“You forget I’m a goddess,” she hissed. “Your goddess.”

And a bitch as well. But then, weren’t all goddesses afflicted with bitchery?

Though he knew he couldn’t expect anything different from Saroya, he could begin putting her in line. “You forget that you have no power. So for now, I am your god. Stop pushing me, Saroya.” He held her gaze. “You won’t like it when I push back.”