Page 13 of Disillusioned
Despite standing still with his arms out, the second arrow would have flown past Garin’s body if he hadn’t caught it too. He sighed and shook his head as he made his way to the guard’s horse.
He hushed the nervous animal and, with what must have been an enormous amount of self-control, ignored the trembling arrow pointed in hisface. Before the guard could react, Garin’s hand was wrapped around the tip of the arrow he was struggling to nock.
He was trembling so hard that she barely heard him choke out a plea for his life.
She moved to approach them, but froze when the guard nodded at Garin. Blood was beginning to return to his face slowly but surely. Garin was speaking, slowly and quietly. With him, not at him. Her insides twisted, and she imagined the way a snake or cat toyed with their prey before devouring them, coaxing their victims to calm. It was what had happened with Piper. With Renald.
The guard then reached down to shake Garin’s outstretched hand as if they were friends striking a casual deal. As if the boy wasn’t so close to becoming someone’s dinner. All fear had dissipated from the guard’s expression.
Speaking of, Giles didn’t seem caught off guard by the vampires’ arrival at all. He was waving Garin over.
“Young lad, I brought your tool, as requested.” He shook a palm-sized tin in the air. Its contents rattled along with it. He looked around before continuing his inquiry, tapping his fingertips together. “And I was wondering, erm, where might this er… this soup be?”
Garin suppressed a laugh as he retrieved the tin. “Patience, my friend. We’re nearly there.”
Friend?He seemed in an exceptional mood tonight, and the furthest thing from the bloodthirsty sort of creature capable of murdering the duchess and arranging her dismembered body upon a dining table. Perhaps he hadn’t done it, and he would address it with her now. He would reassure her he was not involved, that his ravenous brother was instead to blame.
But when Garin turned slowly and their eyes locked as he made his way back to her, she knew she was wrong.
He wore a cream-colored shirt, this time with a tan vest tucked into a pair of canvas trousers and his usual black boots. The same baldric he’d stolen from Sinclair’s guards wrapped snugly around his shoulder, and the ivory and gold hilt of the longsword he’d once pressed against the marquis’s heart bounced behind him as he approached her, as did his mop of black hair. It was a bit less tousled than usual, some of it artfully swept to the side and maybe even brushed.
She couldn’t help but watch the curve of his lips as he grinned. The air seemed to crackle as he closed the space between them.
“I may or may not have told him about Lorietta’s mushroom pottage.” Garin swept his index finger under Lilac’s hanging jaw. “It is not very queen-like to stare with your mouth open.”
“Told him?” She swatted his hand away. “You mean you entranced my driver.”
The smile never left Garin’s face, and it widened now. “Negotiated with. He drives a hard bargain.”
With his hands behind his back, he bowed to her ever so slightly. The scent of summer hyacinths and woodsmoke wafted off of him, and she resisted the urge to throw her arms around him.
“Tell me,” he breathed. “Who assigned that sorry excuse for your guard, and who is in the business of training them?”
She jumped as Bastion left their side—she’d somehow forgotten he was there—and sauntered toward the carriage. He held the bloody arrow out to the guard and muttered, “You probably lose these a lot,” before swinging open her carriage door and hopping in, shutting it behind him.
Garin eyed Lilac expectantly with his arms crossed.
“My father assigned him,” she said, face heating, “but it was the man who paid me an unexpected visit today to tell me of his wife’s tragic death who was in charge of training them.”
He released her. “I don’t seem to recall.”
“Armand.”
“Ah, the duke.” He nudged a sizable stone with the toe of his boot; it should have bounced, but instead, it launched like a pebble into the brush. “Doesn’t that fellow have a bad leg?”
She ignored his inquiry. “He actively trained them before his carriage accident. Any incoming guards were supposed to be trained by Sinclair.”
Garin’s brows rose at her explanation. He hummed dryly. “My memory serves me differently. I thought his horse stepped into a clever korikaned trap as he and his riding troupe paraded a mutilated korrigan corpse down this very path. His noble steed landed on his leg.”
“I…” She trailed off, unsure of what to say under his expectant stare. “We were only told there was a tragedy.” She bowed her head, remembering the way the small creatures had so desperately fallen at her feet when she’d first stumbled upon them.
Of course Armand lied about the nature of his injury.
The winds of the forest picked up, ruffling Lilac’s hair, then Garin’s. His nostrils flared.
“No one should be hunted for sport,” she croaked.
“Indeed. So, I don’t know that I would call either of those accidentstragic. What I think,” he said, beginning to circle her, “is that the duke and duchess received their dues.”
