Page 15 of Shadow's Heart

Dacia

When Lothaire moved a piece on one of the four-dimensional chessboards before him, Kristoff sensed his impending loss.

Again.

“We’ve been playing nightly for months,” he said. “How much longer will we do this?” Lothaire had information he needed but wouldn’t give it until Kristoff beat him in three successive games.

“Until I bore of defeating you.” Lothaire’s red gaze gleamed in the lamplight of the villa balcony.

Kristoff had always longed for family; his half brother left much to be desired. He stared at the pieces, hating the sight of them. Every night the two played, Lothaire delighted in saying “Checkmate” over and over.

If Kristoff ever managed to sleep during the day, he dreamed of his losses, that word exploding in his head.

Still. Something told him tonight would be different. For the first time in months, he felt the call of fate. Could destiny find him in a hidden kingdom?

Or will I win at last?

Maybe he would reach his limit and attack the much stronger Lothaire. Then Kristoff would be dead—the ultimate call of fate.

Lothaire sipped his bloodmead from a crystal goblet. “But then, I don’t bore easily.” Playing with others’ lives amused him.

Kristoff bit out, “You truly are a son of a bitch.”

“Careful, brother. No one calls my mother, the great Princess Ivana, a bitch. You get one warning.”

The heir to the Dacian throne, Ivana had left this realm behind after losing her heart to Stefanovich, Lothaire and Kristoff’s father, the king of the Vampire Horde. Lothaire’s early childhood had been spent in the shadow of Stefanovich, whom he would eventually murder, and their uncle Demestriu, who would steal the throne after that assassination.With family like this . . .“And if I’m not careful, then what? You’ll finally execute me?” He didn’t only lose at chess; he was losing patience with these games. At first, Kristoff had attempted to manipulate him, as Lothaire did with the complex puzzles he enjoyed solving, but his half brother was uncannily brilliant.

“Do recall that you are free to leave your castle-view villa at any time.” Though he’d initially abducted Kristoff, Lothaire had since offered freedom.

But should Kristoff leave, Dacia’s mystical boundary would prevent an otherlander like him from returning. “You know I’ll never forfeit my access to you.”

An oracle had revealed that Furie—the half-Fury, half-Valkyrie queen of the Valkyries—was Kristoff’s Bride. But Lothaire, on Demestriu’s royal order, had chained her to the bottom of the ocean more than half a century ago.

Only Demestriu and Lothaire had known that location; Demestriu had since perished. “Tell me where Furie is, and then you can set off to rescue your missing niece.” Kosmina, the painfully shy swordswoman, had always been kind to Kristoff.

Lothaire waved that away. “She’s more of a distant cousin. She only calls me uncle because she adores me.” He sighed. “More and more Loreans foolishly do.”

“A member of your family is in jeopardy.” Rumors of a red-eyed female vampire in New Orleans had reached even this realm, along with suspicions that the Gaolers had taken her. “You behave as if you’re all-powerful, yet you won’t undertake a search?”

Lothaire grandly said, “I did post a reward for her. And more, I will actually pay it. Does that count for nothing? In any case, all her other uncles are out searching. And Mirspion makes strides to find her.” Mirceo and Caspion? “Their forays against the Gaolers aren’tuninspired, their ideasunsound. They might rescue her.”

Kristoff had heard of the new pair’s exploits. Not for the first time, he wished for such a family bond. He hesitated, then positioned his rook.

Lothaire chuckled. “You won’t save your Bride with moves like that.”

Kristoff’s claws bit into his palms until blood dripped. His destined Bride, the one who would awaken his dormant vampire heart, currently drowned somewhere. For six decades, she’d died, only for her immortality to resurrect her.

The urge to attack Lothaire burned inside him, but immortals grew more powerful with each passing year. Kristoff wasn’t even a third of his half brother’s age. If he snapped, then both he and Furie would be lost forever.

“I scent your blood.” Lothaire’s amusement deepened. “You’re not deficient intellectually. You simply can’t concentrate. Playing you isn’t even sporting. Luckily, I’m not sporting.” He moved a piece, his strategy unfathomable.

“Why are you doing this to me? I would have welcomed a brother.”

“We are each an obstacle to the other. I will never give up the fight for our father’s crown, and neither will you. Even though the Horde wants neither of us.”

Lothaire was illegitimate, and Kristoff had forbidden his clear-eyed Forbearer army to take blood straight from the flesh. He didn’t hold the vampiric Thirst sacred, so the Horde refused to accept him.

Lothaire considered the boards, absently saying, “Their wants won’t matter when I use the Dacian army to subjugate them.”

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