Page 209 of Disillusioned
“You think your father would have half the mind to tell you if he’d fathered any more children? He can barely handle one.” Garin chuckled, nostrils flaring in their direction. Lilac and Yanna took a step back. He brought his hand to his mouth, running his tongue along a blood-crusted finger. “You taste of each other.” He cocked a brow, licking his fingertip and lips as if cleaning himself after a jam tart. “Your blood, at least. And you both smell of Marguerite. There’s often a resemblance there between siblings.” A certain darkness shadowed his expression. “From what I can tell, you smell and taste nothing of Henri,” Garin added, with a pointed look at Yanna. “Lucky you.”
Lilac stared at her in disbelief.How? How, and when?
Did Marguerite know? Had either of them known? Was that why they came to work for her—in her home? Piper had sensed it first, between Yanna and Isobel. How had she known without drinking from them?
Adelaide’s face abruptly interrupted her train of thought. The witch’s ochre eyes were ablaze with terror—along with the pale, round visage of another young woman. A girl no more than the age of ten with the same pin-straight black hair as the witch, her eyes rolling and half shut. Red flecked across her cheeks and mangled throat. Two bodies slumped over each other in the background.
Lilac rubbed aggressively at her face, desperate to rid herself of the unwelcome memory.Hismemory. “Stop it.”
“You sick fuck.” Yanna shook Lilac by the shoulders, and her vision vanished. “Leave her alone!”
“Believe what you will.” Garin shrugged. “And, while your second request is far beyond my control… if you want, I’ll sample your dear Isabel, just to be sure. And your mother. Delicious, beautiful Marguerite, perfuming herself, wearing her hair tall—not a stray lock upon her throat. Baring herself for me without even realizing it. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
Truth or lie, he really was a monster. Cruelty and hunger came too naturally to Garin. Maybe it was him; maybe it was everything he’d been through, his vampirism—perhaps both—but it was always in him in theend. His thirst had brought it out, their thrall bond worsening it. She should’ve known.
That was why it had upset him so much.
“Touch them and I’ll stake you myself.”
Garin’s smirk faded at Lilac’s threat. He remained expressionless, running his hand over his face. Despite the hunger that filled them, his eyes were tired. “You have no idea what any man, mortal or creature, is capable of when he is hungry enough.”
“It is still no match for a woman’s wrath or determination.” Lilac squeezed Yanna’s hand. “We rode Loïg here.”
Rapt fascination crossed his face. “You… rode him here?”
Lilac suppressed a more vulgar response, scorning the way his incredulity around this fact seemed to center him. “We all did. He’s rather agreeable.”
Behind Garin, Myrddin had turned back toward the house. The violet currents between his fingers were there again; they began to smoke once he resumed drawing shapes in the air.
In a matter of seconds, a violet teardrop-shaped ball of flame the size of a fist floated from the steaming remains, bobbing toward Myrddin and Rupert. It hovered between them for a moment, then sank silently into the earth just next to the corpse’s head.
Rupert’s body began to glow, an outline of arcana shrouding his form, just bright enough to see in contrast with the deepening night.
“He trotted right into the trees just there and vanished in a veil of black smoke, just as quickly as he’d arrived,” added Lilac, pointing back west toward the castle. “That is no typical horse.”
Yanna wiggled her hand from Lilac’s, eyes bulging at the sight behind Garin. “Is?—”
Lilac elbowed her in the side.
“That doesn’t make sense. There’s no way all of you rode here that quickly. It’s at least half a day’s ride from the chateau nonstop, even along the most direct route. Even slower with an encumbered steed.”
“Myrddin teleported us to the battlefield outside Montfort-sur-Meu.”
“To be fair, she would not take no as an answer,” Myrddin said, eyes widening frantically at Lilac.
Garin whirled back on him, just as Rupert’s body ceased glowing.
Fuck. “Icommanded him to.” Lilac stepped forward, shrugging off Yanna’s hand that went straight to her arm. “I cornered him.”
“She’s strong, Garin,” Myrddin stammered. “S-she’s yours, she takes after you. She’d gleefully keep slitting my throat if she had her way?—”
“You teleported themwhere?” Garin roared, stalking toward the warlock.
“The battle was already over, you all were gone. You saved my father’s life.” Lilac spoke hurriedly, realizing her grave mistake. “Garin, wait, Myrddin has been a tremendous help!”
Garin ignored her shouts. There was a explosion of spark and flame at his feet.
“Center yourself,” Myrddin shouted. “Remember who you are!”
