“And we certainly wouldn’t be here to entertain you, had a vampire been through here,” snapped Sable.
“That is true. Would you say you’ve seen anything strange? Out of the ordinary?”
“No. Not at all.”
The creaking of cabinet doors was followed by a faint clink.
Garin placed a precautionary hand on Lilac’s shoulder. “I’ll rip his head off. He won’t feel a thing—”
“Absolutely not,” she whispered back, frantically positioning herself between him and the doorknob. “What is your obsession with severing limbs?”
“I suppose I find it more satisfying than snapping necks,” he bristled back. “We don’t know how long he’ll be. And if he coerces them into talking, they’ll admit that they have visitors—visitors whom they haven’t suspected anything of, and therefore give them no reason to lie about.”
She shivered involuntarily against him. Even when he didn’t mean to be, he was absolutely and utterly magnetizing.
Behind her, Garin stiffened abruptly. Then, a crash rattled the wood beneath their feet, followed by Sable’s scream.
Before Lilac could gasp, Garin clamped a firm hand over her mouth.
“Funny,” came the guard’s voice, louder now. It was gruff, almost hoarse, as if he’d been straining it. “You say you haven’t seen anything strange. I’ll ask you one more time!”
“N-no,” Jeanare insisted. “We haven’t!”
“There’s a reason you can’t seem to find the kettle—” Something metal clashed to the floor. “It was already over the fire!”
“We—” Jeanare began, but the sudden sharpness of his wife’s tone cut him off abruptly.
“I don’t appreciate that tone under my roof. Put your filthy hands on my husband again and I won’t hesitate to report you to the king,” she warned, a slight tremor in her voice. “As Jeanare said, it’s been an uneventful day—just as it has been for the past forty-odd years here. We both couldn’t sleep last night so I put on a kettle and we had tea. I simply forgot to put it away. I’m not sure what perturbs you so greatly.”
Lilac frowned, throwing a puzzled glance in Garin’s direction. Sable was already lying for them.
“And just how long did sleep evade you?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said,” growled the guard, “How long did sleep evade you? How long were you awake before returning to slumber? Or is it typical for you to spend the entire day in your nightgown?”
“Perhaps twenty, thirty minutes” Sable answered curtly. “Oh, I don’t know. We made tea and went back to bed, for God’s sake.”
“So, you won’t mind if I search the house?”
After a few seconds of silence, the guard’s croaking laugh floated up the stairwell. “I don’t understand why you insist on feeding me alibi after rotten alibi. Your neighbors down the lane informed us that your fireplace was on for a few hours last night after they thought they’d heard a man screaming for help. The sheep were fussing. Someone was here.”
Garin let out a soft guttural snarl behind her.
“If I find anything, it’s straight to gallows for you both. Dishonesty during interrogation is a crime!”
A single, grating footstep at the base of the stairwell was the last thing Lilac heard before Garin spun her away from the door. As he swept her behind him, the couple’s outcry downstairs faded into susurration.
“Garin,” she groaned, digging her nails into her elbows. Her stomach twisted. She knew what he would do, regardless of what she thought.
“Stay behind me and be quiet, please.”
“But—”
“Now.”
With no choice but to obey, she scurried behind the wooden table and squinted her eyes, dreading the bloodbath she wouldn’t be able to stop.
The door creaked open. Eyes widening, even the guard looked shocked to see Garin standing there.
Lilac recognized the man immediately—the receding hairline and cinnabar beard gave it away even before she could focus in on him.
Even at his middle age and with his ale belly, Renald towered over both of them. He frowned down the length of his nose at Garin, who flashed him a contemplative smile.
Lilac shrunk behind his square shoulders while details of the guard’s life flashed before her own eyes: his young blonde wife, barely a few years her senior. Their two strawberry blond twins, both boys. With a sickening twist of her stomach, she regretted remembering at all.
“Good evening, sir,” Garin drawled almost hungrily.
Renald gaped for a moment before composing himself; he probably never expected to find someone in the first room he searched. Just as Lilac had at the inn, Renald likely sensed something was off about the man standing before him, unable to place a finger on what, exactly.
Lilac tried to move unnoticed behind Garin and less in view of the guard, but the gesture only drew his attention.
“Your Royal Highness.”
“I can explain everything, Ren,” she said hurriedly, trying to keep her tone even. “Just stay calm—"
But Renald wasn’t listening. Swinging his club for an arm, he swept Garin aside, but the vampire blocked his way again in a flash of movement.
Renald blinked at his speed. “Out of my way, boy,” he grumbled. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Before Lilac could blink, Garin had him by the front of his robe and was dragging him out of the room. She stood frozen, openmouthed at their thumping descent down the stairs, followed by an enormous thud that shook the house. Quickly hoisting her sack of belongings over her shoulder, Lilac bolted out to see Garin holding Renald against the front door by the front of his robes, blocking the only entrance—or escape. From somewhere in the hallway, Sable shrieked.
“Boy?” Garin’s baritone was deadly, and he stood a little straighter; never did he sound less a boy. “I could be your great grandfather’s great grandfather, so I’d show some respect if I were you. And if you touch her, I’ll kill you where you stand.”
The guard began to thrash, his red face turning blue. Still, he managed to mouth, “What—are—you?”
“Why, Monsieur Guard, you don’t know?” At the guard’s gaping stutter, Garin sighed with irritation. “I’m—"
With Garin blocking her sight, Lilac wasn’t sure what happened next. All she knew was that he abruptly stopped speaking and released Renald. Then Garin staggered back clutching his stomach, revealing a blood-tipped halberd in guard’s trembling hand.
Lilac watched what followed as if in slow motion, unflinching, somehow expecting him to respond with the swift accuracy he had when she’d plunged her own dagger into him. But he didn’t. His features snarled in confusion, and he steadied himself against the vase table perched beneath the front window—the window, through which the fiery glow of sunset poured.
Immediately, the left side of his face began to sizzle, the same way it had under the heat of Sinclair’s sword. He roared, pushing off the table to spring back at Renald before he could raise the blade again. Garin knocked the halberd to the floor before resuming his grip even tighter on the man’s airway.
“You…” the guard choked out helplessly. “But you—”
“Don’t be thrown by my eyes, mortal.” Garin shifted his grip to Renald’s jaw. “I am still every bit the Darkling you were warned about.” The gravel in his voice hinted at a creeping madness. “Garin Austol Trevelyan. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
His name. His birth name, which he'd previously refused to reveal, gave him strength when he perhaps had none. Lilac leaned against the stairwell, trying to remember the last time he’d had something to drink. The turnover of redness in a vampire’s eyes was three days post-meal, so they probably couldn’t go more than that long without eating without growing weak. Garin’s turnover could’ve been even shorter, for all she knew, since he thrived on cold blood.
Renald’s face broke out in beads of sweat, a glistening layer over his bulging veins. His eyes grew glassy, dart
ing—but they stilled when they met hers. “Your High—ness,” he gargled over Garin’s shoulder.
Bile rose in her throat. She had witnessed other creatures at the mercy of Garin’s terrible wrath before, but none of them that she’d known personally—with the deserving exception of Sinclair.
Without releasing the crushing pressure upon Renald’s throat, Garin reached over his shoulder and unsheathed his sword.
The guard moaned miserably.
She knew she shouldn’t. She knew it was the only logical thing left, the only thing Garin could do to avoid them getting caught. But she couldn’t help it.
“Garin?”
But before she could tap him on the shoulder, the vampire whirled on her—and she gasped. The left side of his face hadn’t healed much at all. As if struggling to pull the fibers of his skin back together by some ancient magic, the wound had formed a rough circle, with the center still charred raw. A small pool of blood, black against his tunic, had spread to the left of his navel.
“No. We’re not doing this again.”
“You can’t kill him. Your face—” She reached toward it, but he jerked away.
“I’m trying to help, princess.” He sounded exasperated more than angry, but his piercing glare had begun to lack sanity.
At his sudden, almost submissive tone toward her, Lilac felt three other pairs of human eyes suddenly pin onto her. Renald, Jeanare, and Sable stared, as if they’d somehow forgotten her presence in the commotion. The revelation of Garin’s identity was probably near irreconcilable with her meek request for mercy upon Renald, and the familiarity of his response.
Still there was no time to explain.
“The only way we’re going to get out of here is if I take care of him,” Garin hissed.
But he loosened his death grip on Renald, grabbing instead the material of the guard’s hood before kicking the halberd far out of his reach. The vampire shifted so that his own body barricaded the door.
“Why must you kill him?” Lilac said hurriedly, glancing back at the trembling couple. Sable and Jeanare clutched each other against the hallway wall.
“Are you insane? Even if we release him, he’ll report our whereabouts to your parents—shut up,” he growled at Jeanare, who had let out a loud sob as his wife helplessly held him. “Move from that spot, and I’ll start with you two instead.”
“So, you’re afraid of witnesses?” Lilac pressed, trying to buy them all time. This was the side of him she feared, but she was even more afraid of what his answer would be. Garin, who was very by-the-book in an unconventional way, would not spare the life of any witness, including the gracious couple who had hosted them overnight. She might buy them time, but ultimately the decision would be his.
“Can you entrance them to forget?” she offered.
Garin groaned. “You know it doesn’t work that way, it’s why I never entranced them in the first place, remember? I’m weak without blood. I can’t even heal right, especially not from sunlight.” He jabbed a finger toward his face and grimaced.
“But—”
“Say I do as you ask me. Are you really willing to risk the enchantment failing, and their memories resurfacing within the next few hours? They’ll report us, and it’ll still leave a trail. If we’re caught, whether by your father’s men or Sinclair’s, we won’t make it to Ophelia or the castle in time.”
She swallowed hard through the palpitations. He was right. She needed vampire speed, and it’s not like Renald’s sentries would allow Garin to deliver her just because he was faster. She couldn’t spare the lives of Renald, Sable, and Jeanare and ensure an unrushed, discreet visit to Ophelia. It was impossible without Garin’s stamina, power—whatever it was he got from blood.
Unless...
She wasn’t absolutely sure, but couldn’t hers replenish him enough to properly entrance three humans? Even if the blood did not come directly from the vein… Did it work that way? Draining Sinclair’s guards had certainly energized him.
“Use mine.” The words escaped from her mouth before she had fully processed the notion, but once spoken, there was no turning back. She stood tall and proffered her wrist. “You can have mine.”
Garin’s sardonic grin morphed into a frown. Then, his frigid eyes narrowed in on her.
“Your Highness.” Renald’s timid interruption brought Lilac out of Garin’s eyes. The guard’s voice shook with bewilderment. “What is the meaning of this? H-how can you reason with him?” His gaze drifted to his captor beside him, then back to the princess. “He cannot be trusted.”
“I know he can’t, but—"
“You know, do you?” The vampire raised an eyebrow, while Renald frowned at the exchange between the two.
Lilac shot a look at Garin, then returned her pleading eyes toward the guard. He’d known her parents since she was a child. If she could convince him everything was fine, then maybe he would cover for her—especially since he was her father’s friend.
She drew in a deep breath, hoping the vampire had it in him to keep his mouth shut for once; Garin’s silenced glare would only last as long as it would take him to find something cutting to say.
“I’m fine, Ren. It’s fine. He won’t harm you.” She continued, encouraged by the redness in Renald’s face fading to a slight pink. “I’ve requested his aide, and he’s protected me through Brocéliande. Isn’t that right?”
She knew she shouldn’t have given him the space to reply as soon as he opened his mouth.
Garin wasn’t interested in sharp remarks, or in playing nice. Instead, he dragged Renald by the neck toward her. “Absolutely, Your Highness. You’re clearly the authority here. You choose. I kill the witnesses, problem solved. Or, I try to entrance them, and you risk giving up everything for their trivial lives. Your call. Taking your blood isn’t an option.”
“Garin, please—" She broke off at Renald’s snarl.
The guard’s mouth had pulled into a hard line, face twisted with disgust. He’d known her since birth. He could see right through her, through her and Garin’s familiarity.
“You…” Renald’s disbelief turned to anger. “It’s true then,” he spat. “It’s been true all along. You dare make a mockery of the king and queen by galivanting with this abomination. With this demon!”
She shook her head. It was all she could do.
“Yes,” the guard roared, scowling at the tears now flowing down her face. “Meanwhile you have the entire kingdom fooled, thinking you’ve been taken hostage because your father is fool enough to think you’d never run away. You’re a traitor! You don’t know half the resources wasted—even some lives lost—in search for you. You dare.” He struggled against Garin’s hold as his plump cheeks shook with fury. “You don’t deserve the title of Queen.”
22
Renald’s towering anger was a devastating personification of the village riots. Of all that Lilac feared would come from her ascension with her ability still in possession.
Disgust, disappointment, scorn. All that she should’ve been used to by now, but never would be.
She blinked in disbelief as the guard shook uncontrollably. Maybe he’d have a heart attack, she thought almost hopefully. Then he wouldn’t have to endure Garin’s fury.
On the other hand, the vampire seemed unaffected. “Oh, Lilac will become Queen, my good friend. There is nothing you can do about that,” he said mildly, keeping his iron grip on Renald. “I’ll make sure of it, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Renald stopped straining to get to Lilac, but the rage never left his expression. “’Tis a shame, then.” He locked cold eyes with the mortified princess. “Then, may your reign be forever cursed. The kingdom and clergy will see you for what you are. A wicked woman. A traitor. And a vampire’s blood whore.”
Garin opened his mouth to add his two cents, but Lilac silenced him with a blazing scowl. How easily, how quickly someone she’d considered family could turn on her. It made her insides burn with rage. She wanted to hear what
else the bastard had to say—what he’d probably wanted to say, all this time.
Renald spat at her, and a foaming globule landed near her feet. “Was being forced to watch that stupid wolf die, not lesson enough?”
Hands guided by humiliation and rage, Lilac reached for her dagger and stepped forward to slash at the guard in one swift motion. She didn’t think twice.
Unexpecting her retaliation, Renald shrieked and recoiled against the wall. After a moment, he cautiously sat up, shielding his one arm defensively over his face while checking the rest of his body for injury. Only when he gasped and held a hand to his left cheek did Lilac realize where her blow had struck. A spreading splotch of blood painted a river line of red down his jaw and neck.
The mild injury seemed to be causing Garin more trouble. Jaw clenched, the vampire tore his gaze from the blood, now dripping down Renald’s arm as he tried to stop the flow. Garin grimaced at Lilac, torn between confusion and desperation. His hands shook.
Perhaps some of the tempest within Garin now stirred within her; perhaps it was the spellbinding forest that had ensnared her sense of right and wrong.
“Finish him,” Lilac demanded, not recognizing the madness in her own voice. “Then, entrance Sable and Jeanare.”
In a flash of black, Garin fell upon Renald. Sable and Jeanare stumbled backward at the sight, reminding Lilac that not all the humans had witnessed the inglorious sight of a vampire feeding. Before she could order them to, the pair retreated down the length of the hall and into the kitchen. Lilac trudged along, though there was no way to get away from the animalistic scream that followed. By the time she collapsed on the kitchen floor next to the hearth, eyes clenched shut and palms pressed against her ears, the gut-wrenching screams had ceased.
She jumped when a finger prodded her shoulder. It was Sable. To her surprise, sympathy instead of fear was etched in the deep lines of her face as she crouched before the princess. Her eyes were full of a strange compassion. From behind his wife, Jeanare eyed the princess, gripping the countertop for support. He looked as if he were about to faint.
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