Unable to stand it any longer, Lilac started forward. Garin hastily shot an arm out and yanked her back by the elbow. She threw him a threatening glare, and he quickly matched it.
“Oh? Something the matter?”
Lilac looked back to see Bastion grinning through a burgundy mask, Piper limp in his hands.
“No—” Garin started.
“You’ll kill her!” Lilac burst out in a sob, ignoring Garin’s groan. “You—”
She heard the impact before she felt it. The back of Bastion’s palm cracked against her jaw, jolting her so hard that she toppled to the floor. She lay there panting and fought to catch the breath that’d been knocked out of her.
Instinctively, she licked the blood off her lips and inner cheek, where her teeth had sliced into the side of her mouth. Lilac gagged it down, though she then felt a warm wetness dripping from her nostrils and hastily pressed her palm against it.
Garin was quick to put himself between them. Though she stared numbly at the floor, blurred through the hot tears rolling down her cheeks, Lilac could hear the clear restraint in his voice. She pressed her palm harder against her nose.
“I’ll deal with her later.” he managed. “My turn, brother.”
Lilac looked up.
Bastion was dumping the girl’s limp form into Garin’s arms. Cradling her quivering body, he stroked her cheek and mouth with his thumb as she choked her tears back.
Lilac knew she should have felt relieved that her friend was in Garin’s possession, but it mixed with an underlying sense of unease. The way he looked at Piper was magnetizing.
“I want my maman.”
“Shh,” he murmured into her ear, rubbing the girl’s arm as if to quell her incessant trembling.
“I want to go home,” Piper managed to gag between convulsive gasps. The girl was dying.
“This will pass,” he whispered, pulling her closer. “What is your name, mademoiselle?”
“Piper,” she choked.
“I’ll take care of you, Piper. You’re safe with me.”
The redhead nodded, closing her eyes.
But, as Garin stroked Piper’s hair, he glared unflinchingly down at Lilac. “And you,” he directed at her.
“You dare speak out of line.”
Her relief hardened into sick dread. Something was wrong.
“I’m sorry. Sir.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He gripped Piper’s shoulder with one arm, grasping her hair with his opposite free hand. When he pulled back slightly to expose the smooth side of her throat, the girl shut her eyes with the same deluded calm the other cattle had adopted.
Lilac exhaled slowly. It was all an act. He was good at this, almost too good. He couldn’t bite her.
Then, Garin twisted his torso to the right. Hard.
Piper’s neck snapped against his chest with a muffled crunch, and with that, he let her lifeless body crumple to the floor.
“Now you’re sorry.”
9
Lilac stared into Piper’s unseeing eyes.
Even Bastion was shocked. “That’s unfortunate,” he said simply, but he glanced unbelievingly at the corpse, as if Piper would leap to her feet and declare it a joke.
A cruel, cruel joke.
Garin dusted off his hands. “As I told you, I wasn’t hungry. Now you’re one less. And as for you, girl, my patience is wearing thin. Let’s go.”
He motioned with a single finger for Lilac to come, but her limbs were leaden with grief. She sat, hand still on her stinging cheek, unable to tear her gaze from the lifeless body at his feet. Though her eyes had remained open, Piper’s gaunt face was still hauntingly peaceful. She hadn’t even had time to realize what was coming.
None of them did.
Ignoring Bastion’s look of astonishment, Garin bent to snatch Lilac by the arm and hoisted her up. “I said, let’s go.”
Lilac barely managed a nod, shudders passing through her like the storm battering on outside.
Bastion began to drag Piper’s body like a rag doll.
“Leave her,” Garin commanded. “We’ll get someone else to dispose of the corpse. Aren’t you going to show us in?”
The other vampire threw him a steeled look before moving past them and beneath the archway. “This way, my Prince of Night.” He ushered them in with a wave.
Numbly, Lilac allowed Garin to tow her into a circular room lined symmetrically with a dozen shadowed doorways, a torch between each. They must’ve been directly under the hill; the roof arched upwards into a shallow dome with a metal grate at its center. A single beam of moonlight shone down through the iron bars, illuminating dust particles that danced like celestial embers in the putrid air. The silver light hit the ground, illuminating a round plate engraved with the outlines of two swords crossing at midpoint.
Something shifted behind them, and Lilac was startled to notice two vampires—a man and a woman—who flanked the arched entryway. They wore dark leather armor, but Lilac could see no weapon like the sword Garin carried. With a shudder, she realized that there would be no no need.
Garin relaxed noticeably beside her as he took the room in.
“Are you glad to be back?” Bastion asked.
He only cleared his throat. “As you can imagine, circumstances are less than ideal.” He turned sharply on the guard vampires. “One of you, take care of the girl’s body in the vestibule. Put her in the entry hall just before the boulder. The other, bring a meal to my room. A meal for my thrall,” he clarified.
“We burn the bodies at the pyre,” the woman replied lazily, as if she couldn’t be bothered.
Garin froze. He exhaled next to her.
The other scoffed and raised a brow at Bastion. “Who is this?”
In a flash, Garin was at the vampire’s throat. “I’m who you answer to from now on, you insipid cretin.” He snapped his neck, just as quick as he had Piper’s. The woman scuttled back in alarm as Garin’s second victim fell to the floor.
“He’ll wake in a couple hours, for fuck’s sake.” The woman, who cowered against the wall, nodded vigorously. “You get to do both chores now. Get to it.”
“Fledglings,” said Bastion, rolling his eyes as she scurried out of the room.
“Are they new?”
“They joined us a few years after you departed.”
“Fantastic,” he groaned. “The more idiots, the merrier.” Garin was already gripping the back of Lilac’s dress once more, though this time, his hand rested at the small of her back.
Bastion waved a hand dismissively at the first door on the left. “No one’s been in Laurent’s room or office since his death.”
Lilac tried to remain expressionless, but the moisture in her eyes made it difficult. She blinked them back, glad for the distraction of the vampires’ exchange. She wiped them before anyone could notice.
“Let’s keep it that way until we have a better idea of what happened. I think I’ll sleep in my old quarters tonight.”
“Are you sure?” Bastion studied his brother curiously. “His quarters are much bigger than ours. More room for two.”
“We’ll make due.” He tugged Lilac toward one of the dark passages to the left of Laurent’s quarters.