“—my father will hear about this—"
"—I had stopped drinking from humans. I took up refuge working at the tavern inn. A couple days ago, one of my kind was found staked in the middle of the woods. As you can imagine, my first thought was to return to find out what I could. You, princess, are—stop that moving or I will make you stop—my ticket back home. If I can make them believe I’ve been hunting mortals again, they just might see fit to let me back in.”
Lilac stilled against his shoulder, allowing his words to sink in. “Wait, that’s all you need me for? A pretend captive?”
She felt his head turn against her side, his hair tickling her elbow.
“Easy, there,” he snapped. “I already told you. There’s absolutely no reason for me to lie to you. If I wanted you dead, I’d be hiding your corpse by now. I’m unable to bite you, despite the deepest parts of me that might want to, so you needn’t worry about that. We can’t let them know you’re the princess, because then they wouldn’t let you go. But I highly doubt any of them have attended a castle soirée in your lifetime, so it isn’t likely anyone will recognize you. I certainly didn’t, back at the inn.”
He gave her rump a condescending pat. “If it makes you feel any better, this has nothing to do with politics or your position in the kingdom. I planned to use you to redeem myself in the eyes of my coven, far before I knew you were a Trécesson.”
Lilac stopped squirming while she tried to fit the pieces together. There were still a few parts that didn’t quite add up. “No offense, but what was the importance of finding a vampire staked in the middle of the woods? It was probably just… I don’t know, the Le Tallecs doing what they usually do.”
“It matters because the staked vampire was our leader. The leader of the Brocéliande coven.”
Lilac jolted in shock, and Garin had to use both hands to steady her on his shoulder. He he wasn’t part of some rogue, offset faction, after all. He’d belonged to the Brocéliande coven—the largest known to central Brittany. And their head was…
“Dead?” She spoke softly.
“Indeed.”
Though frowned upon, an occasional Darkling casualty at the hand of a human was nothing new. Human-on-creature crimes were easily overlooked, but killing someone as important as the coven head was as unheard of as a Darkling attempting an assassination of the human monarch.
“It seems… intentional,” she managed.
“That’s the thing. To kill Laurent, it had to be.”
“It’s no secret that my parents dislike your kind, but they would never… Not without reason—” Lilac gulped. On the other hand, someone who didn’t care about keeping the peace—someone like Sinclair—would’ve hunted and killed Darklings freely for the mere reason of what they were. But surely, the creatures would be furious enough to attempt retaliation if they discovered one of their leaders had been purposefully targeted. It wasn’t just murder that had occurred. It could easily be interpreted as a provocation of war.
So could kidnapping the princess, Lilac thought bitterly.
“I know,” Garin said, interrupting her thoughts. “And it is unlikely any common creature or human could take him down. Laurent was always on his toes, always so vigilant. He was tricked. Manipulated to let his guard down.” As if sensing her concern, his grip slightly tightened.
“Who will replace him?” she asked quietly from over his shoulder.
“That’s unimportant.” He sighed, shifting her from one arm to the other as if she weighed nothing at all. “I need to find out what I can about his death. He was—is—important to me. He was my sire.”
8
“We’re here.”
Garin hadn’t said much more after revealing that Laurent had created him. Almost as if he regretted telling her, he responded to her offer of sympathy with a laconic grunt. He’d placed Lilac down once he figured she wouldn’t run, and side by side they made their way northeast for an hour more, not caring when another storm moved in, bringing with it a light drizzle. His mood reflecting the clouds, Garin’s penchant for provocative banter seemed to dissipate altogether. Lilac eventually grew sick of the silence and even attempted small talk; her efforts, however, were futile.
“Are you sure?” Lilac grumbled, her toes throbbing violently. Her heels would be covered in blisters when she finally had a chance to remove her damp flats. She was sure of it.
They’d come to a halt before an unremarkable hill, covered in heaps of dry leaves and brambles. Two massive, moss-covered boulders sat side by side, half burrowed into the side of the hill where the ground began to incline, but those looked no different from the rest of the mysterious stone structures scattered across the moors of Brittany.
“Is your Mine warded?”
Garin gave a sharp laugh. “No, the witches would never—” He frowned and squinted at her sideways. “How do you know about that?”
“The group of korrigans I came across before Sinclair found me had a ward around their campsite.”
“If their wards were up, how’d you end up finding them?”
She shrugged. “I heard them. I ended up making contact with them, and then the ward vanished.”
Garin leered impatiently at her, as if he couldn’t be bothered with her insanity. “Stand back,” he warned, advancing toward the boulders.
Lilac did as he asked. Garin nestled himself between the boulders, settling his back against the one to the left and planting his feet onto the one on the right. The ground beneath her rumbled as he pushed, and the boulder at his feet suddenly jolted out of place. It slowly moved until Garin stopped pushing. Something large glinted dully through the dirt.
Her mouth fell open as he dusted thick chunks of damp earth off of the metal plate protruding from the cavernous indent the boulders had left. It looked like an ogre-sized shield, except it wasn’t a shield at all—but a door. He sidled up next to it and yanked hard; the door opened at the second pull. The orange flicker of torchlight and surprisingly warm air enveloped them as the plate creaked outward, making Lilac feel oddly welcome.
Just beyond the crude doorway, she could make out a dim passage that curved off into the unknown. Garin waved a hand into the dark from beside her.
“After you.”
Lilac took one step forward, then stopped herself. What was she doing? Had she continued any further, she’d waltz right into her own doom. But hadn’t she done that already? The vampire before her had been pretty accommodating toward her since they’d met, minus the entrancement; but that was just Garin. There were more like him—possibly unlike him, not as tactful, not as forgiving. Wringing her hands, she glanced up at him.
“It would be in your best interest to ensure that I am back on my way to Paimpont by tomorrow,” she said, needlessly adjusting her dress sleeve. “If not, my family will have your head.”
“I know,” he whispered urgently. “You’ve mentioned it countless times. You have my word, and that has to be enough for you right now. Trust me?”
The hair on the back of her neck rose when he lightly placed his hand upon her arm. Trust him? Under normal circumstances, never. For now, it was the only choice she had.