A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2)(68)
Author: Kresley Cole

Think! Replay anything he’d learned about her. Seventy years old. College…

He frowned. He’d met Lydian women before. They had pale skin like Emma’s, but dark, dark hair and eyes. Emma was fair-haired, her eyes blue.

Then her father would be as well –

Lachlain froze. No.

Not possible.

"What if he’s my father?" Emma had asked.

And Lachlain had answered…he’d answered that Demestriu’s issue would be malevolent, filthy parasites.

No.

Even if his mind could assimilate that she was the daughter of Demestriu, Lachlain couldn’t accept that she was in his power right now, could have been pushed there by his careless words.

Pushed to go to Helvita, to Demestriu, who would tear his own daughter limb from limb while she begged for death, and never blink his red eyes.

If Lachlain didn’t reach her quickly…Now he had to not merely find Helvita, but find it fast. He’d hunted and tracked through that region of Russia with no success. He might have gotten close to it last time, just before he’d been discovered and beaten bloody by a dozen tracing vampires.

He would fly to Russia and get that close again –

The memory arose of her beneath him just yesterday when her head had thrashed on her pillow, sending him awash in the exquisite scent of her hair. He would never forget her scent, had taken it into him forever from the first night he recognized her. The memory came as a reminder for him to use it.

He could find her. He had before. Put him anywhere in her vicinity, and he could track her straight to Helvita.

She was meant to be found by him.

A deep voice in the shadows said, "So let’s see what my general’s been after."

Her eyes followed the direction of the sound. She knew she’d been alone as of a second ago, yet now she spied him sitting behind his large desk even before he lit a lamp. The light glinted off red eyes.

Tension seemed to radiate from him, and he stared at her as if seeing a ghost.

She’d been forced to wait alone here in this eerie castle, with the screams from below erupting every so often, until hours after sunup. In that time, she’d gone through a type of catharsis, her thoughts calming, her resolve sharpening till crystalline. She felt the way she imagined her aunts did before a great battle. Now she waited patiently to end this one way or another, and knew only one of them would leave this room alive.

Demestriu summoned a guard. "Do not let Ivo in when he returns," he commanded the vampire. "Not for any reason. Do not speak of finding her. If you do, I’ll keep you years without viscera."

Well. She’d grown up hearing the threats so popular among the Lore – the ones that began with if this action does or doesn’t occur, and ended with then you’ll suffer this consequence – but this guy was good.

Demestriu traced to the door to bolt it behind the guard.

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."