A sick feeling of trepidation settled into her stomach. The weight of his body bore down onto her legs, and he had her arms pinned. She writhed the best she could but was still unable to free herself. Panting, she stopped to catch her breath as he bent over her, planting a kiss at the corner of her mouth. With a final snarl, she sucked his lip onto her mouth and bit down hard. He pulled away, cursing wildly.
Reeling, Sinclair got up on his elbows and swiped his shirt sleeve across his mouth. At the sight of his own blood staining the fabric, his face twisted with a lethal, feral rage that struck a deeper chord of fear in her. He closed his fist and raised it high above Lilac’s head. Before he could strike, the princess lurched forward as far as she could go and spat a mouthful of his blood back in his face.
Taken by surprise and partially blinded, Sinclair fell back, rubbing at his eyes with both hands. Lilac seized the opportunity and used the strength from the adrenaline pumping through her now-free limbs to buck him off of her. She scrambled back and away from him before raising to her knees. When Sinclair dropped his hands from his eyes with a growl, the princess balled her hand into a stiff fist and cracked it clean across his jaw.
An animalistic wrath had taken over her. She had to escape. Had to survive.
When Sinclair finally cleared his eyes, Lilac loomed above him with her dagger held at the ready. It vibrated so violently that she kept her free hand on her elbow to keep it from visibly trembling.
“Stupid bitch,” yelled Sinclair, slowly rising to his knees and then his feet. “Fais chier!”
“Don’t you move.” She bared her teeth, tears trailing down her ruddy cheeks. Panting, half sobbing, Lilac found him smirking at her yet again.
Lilac jousted her blade toward his throat. “Go to hell—”
A bone-chilling, ripping sound drowned the rest of her words, followed by a guttural scream. Momentarily forgetting their places, they both turned toward the direction of the sound. Lilac peered into the dark, out past the campfire.
The dread-filled silence that followed was shattered by a second cry, this one a mangled shout for help that pierced the night. The wail turned animalistic before abruptly cutting off with a horrid crunch.
Heart pounding, Lilac inched closer to the fire with Sinclair beside her. The commotion hadn’t sounded far at all. Palms slicked with cold sweat, she wiped them frantically on her dress and readjusted her grip on her dagger.
Then, Lilac remembered something. She spun to scour the campsite.
Her throat went dry.
“Sinclair,” she choked. “Where is he?!”
The area opposite the firepit was empty.
Garin was gone.
“No,” Sinclair muttered to himself, desperation cracking his voice. “No!”
“Sinclair,” Lilac whimpered, gripping her dagger more tightly. “What’s going to happen?”
He grabbed his hair in fistfuls, his eyes bulging as they darted around. Then, he dove for his sword lying in the dirt next to the makeshift bed and scrambled back to his feet. “This is madness! Outrageous!” he roared, spit flying from his crooked teeth. “Mathis! Enzo!”
A muffled stomping of hooves came from behind them, accompanied by a frantic whinny; they’d forgotten all about Sinclair’s poor steed, who was still secured to the distanced tree. Sinclair whipped around, probably trying to calculate how quickly he’d be able to get to his horse.
Lilac searched the trees for movement when the
subtle but unmistakable sound of something wet, something dripping made her freeze.
A violent shiver quaked her shoulders. “Shut up! Do you hear—”
“Mathis!” Sinclair thundered into the dark, ignoring her.
“Sinclair!” Lilac pleaded fervently. “You’ll lead him back to us.”
“Mathis! Enzo—”
“Sinclair—"
“Garin.”
Lilac gasped and spun toward the familiar voice that floated from the trees behind them. Sinclair jumped and brandished his sword blindly at the air.
Smirking wildly, the vampire emerged from the shadows. “But you knew that.” He winked at her, his mouth stained the color of cherries.
She nearly fainted at the sight of him. He was dressed differently now: the same black undershirt and quilted armor vest that Enzo and Mathis had donned, over a pair of their uniform black pants. One of their baldric belts now laced across his chest.
In one hand, he held one of the stone goblets that had sat on the floor next to the fire, and in the other, he clutched a limp arm—a severed arm, torn from its body at the shoulder by brute strength. Humming pleasantly to himself, he tilted the appendage. Each droplet clung to the mottled flesh before dripping clean into the cup.
“I apologize for keeping the both of you waiting.” Garin spoke methodically while observing the scarlet liquid. “Just trying to get every last bit. Darklings are on the brink of starvation, you know. It would be a terrible shame for me to be wasteful.”
Lilac and Sinclair watched, frozen in place. Each hollow plink shattered the otherwise deafening silence.
“You don’t drink blood!” Sinclair finally rose his voice and his sword at the ready.
“Ah. I suppose my reputation has preceded me.” Smiling down through his thick lashes, Garin licked his fingers clean and used the tattered sleeve hanging off the arm in an attempt to wipe the blood off his face, only proceeding to smear it further before carelessly tossing the limb aside.
Nausea quickly replaced her hunger. It was true. Whatever she’d pretended to believe—that it was all some horrible misunderstanding or circumstance of misidentification on Sinclair’s part—was instantly disproven. Thinking back to the tavern, she’d marveled at the barkeep’s odd way of speaking, almost as if he were a refined noble himself. Now she knew, he was just really fucking old.
Garin frowned at Sinclair’s word choice, almost as if offended. “I’d wager your great-great grandfather would have told you something much different. Not don’t, but can’t,” he corrected Sinclair matter-of-factly. “I can’t drink from the vein. I normally settle for the bottled stuff, so could I possibly resist a rare opportunity at the next best thing?” At Sinclair’s gaping, Garin raised his hands, and added, “To be fair, they attacked me first.”
“You,” Sinclair’s voice cracked. “But how…”
The vampire shrugged, his lips snapping into a firm smile and revealing the perfect teeth behind them. “You don’t believe I’d allow you to capture me, just to be slain? No. You see, I was distracted. I was tracking something.”
For a second, his eyes flickered over to Lilac. A jolt of terror tore through her.
“In my plotting, I admit I’d become carried away—just enough for you to find me. When you did, I intended to toy with you, then rip your head off. But you left.” He cocked an elbow toward Lilac. “Evidently you had other plans.”
“And the blessed Hawthorne?” Sinclair’s voice was barely audible then.
“It burns.” Garin raised the goblet to his mouth and tipped it back. “I won’t pretend it doesn’t.” After swallowing the rest, he tossed it aside and started towards them.
Lilac and Sinclair mirrored his movement backward, so Garin raised hands as if to prove he wouldn’t try anything. Then, he yanked up his sleeve. The skin around his wrist had broken out into a reddened cuff of blisters, some of them oozing pus.