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Chills raced across his skin, and his shaft swelled yet again.

“I like that.” She ran the softs pads of her fingers over his tattoos. “I want you to know that no matter what happens with me, I’m glad we’ve spent this time together.”

So she didn’t regret him. But then, she didn’t know his history or his lies. Still . . . “You’re in my bed from now on, Kosmina. Mine alone.”

“From now on, he says.” She gave a gallows laugh, and a flashback hit him—of lightning reflected in her sightless eyes.

Roiling from that memory, he bit out, “Listen, you bleak wench, if my blood doesn’t work, then we will find another cure somewhere.” What the hell was he saying? Yet he keptgodsdamn talking. “You’re going to enjoy a long, immortal life.”

“We?” She’d pounced on that one word like quarry.

Now what?The more he’d considered his options, the more he’d accepted that staying here was the only path that made sense.

A billions-to-one chance at escape—versus a curtailed idyll with this female, his favorite one so far. They didn’t even know a way out existed!Unknowndid not equalwindfall.

Clever Kosmina had to have determined their two options.

One enters the hive to die. Or two enter and die.

And yet he knew what her next question would be. . . .

“Adham, when the weapon is ready, will you leave with me?” She held herself still, as if his next words would be monumental. As if they’d betrue.

Staring into her eyes, he lied, “Yes.”

Thirty-Six

The Bog of Revenants

“Use your mist!” Kristoff yelled over the pouring rain as a foot slammed down on his back, brutally shoving him deeper into the mud. Lothaire had used his mist to take them across a field of lava but not in this fight for their lives.Why?

Nearby, massive revenants dragged Lothaire to the ground with inconceivable strength as he tried to defend himself, but he was too weak. Kicks and punches battered his prone body.

Exhausted from fending off undead hellhounds, he and Kristoff had then battled revenants for what must be days.

“Damn you, Lothaire, fight!” Blood dribbled from his nose and ears in the rain. A kick to the temple made his head recoil and his mouth go slack.

A kick to Kristoff’s own head followed, and consciousness wavered. As he dimly watched, half a dozen revenants shoved Lothaire’s face into the mud to starve him of air. Hands atop hands. So much strength.

His half brother thrashed, grappling . . . grappling . . . a last flurry of movement . . . His suffocated body stilled.

A pair of the brutes seized Lothaire’s shoulders. Another gripped his head to twist it free.

After three thousand years of life, the Enemy of Old was about to meet his end.

Furie’s location would die with him. “No, no!”Kristoff was next, and then his Bride would truly be lost. “Damn it, wake. Wake!” Mustering his last reserves, he bellowed,“FOR LIZVETTA!”

Tremors rippled through Lothaire’s frame, then muscles flexed. Suddenly he threw off the number holding him and shot to his feet with a horrifying roar. Red eyes crazed in his muddy face, he snatched at the closest revenant and pulled apart its hulking body like gossamer. Bloodlust of a different kind had overtaken Lothaire.

Kristoff used the creatures’ shock to fight for his own freedom. Making it to his feet, he threw punches, watching out of the corner of his eye Lothaire’s flood of madness. Being facedown in the muck—breathing it—must have sent him back to his burial in the Bloodroot Forest. He’d relived that torture.

Now Lothaire laughed in the rain as crimson sprayed, clearly didn’t feel his many injuries. Using his bare hands and fangs, he tore revenant flesh from their bones.

This is the Enemy of Old.Madness wed to savagery.This is why so many fear him.Lothaire hadn’t used his mist, because he’d wanted this fight—because he wasinsane.

As he annihilated his way through the throng, the revenants’ howls changed tenor. Their maniacal eyes held fear. One turned and fled. Then another. Soon a stampede of them barreled over each other to escape the frenzied vampire.

He’s their monster.Would they have a primal memory of him passed down throughout time? They crawled back into their underground hovels and mounds until silence reigned. Theswamp was still. Only puddles of gore gave evidence of what had happened here.