Page 250 of Disillusioned
Morwenn stepped lightly over the rubble, following him. “Are you truly going to let her hide from you like that? Strong Strigoi like you, what a shame. Your beautiful little thrall, all tangled up in borrowed strength and fear?” She turned up at Lilac and smiled with snide amusement. “You can run, girl, but you won’t get far from what’s already been inside you.”
Garin’s breath caught. Lilac saw it in his face, his smoldering decision. She swung her leg again, catching it on the rafter, finally hoisting herself up.
And then—he leapt.
With a growl, Garin kicked off from a toppled pew, his claws sinking into the stone pillars. He climbed expertly up the height of the chapel wall. Each movement was smooth and utterly silent, save the groaning wood under his weight once he reached the rafters in front of Lilac in a matter of seconds.
Henri was shouting. Marguerite’s cries echoed through the broken chapel.
Lilac skittered backward along the rafter beam, heart thundering.
Garin perched like a gargoyle, red eyes burning.
She hissed like an animal in warning. “Don’t come closer.”
“I cannot stop myself,” he said softly. “Stop running.”
Her fingers were so sweaty and slicked in blood, they would’ve slipped from the wood behind her if not for her thrall strength. “You have to fight it, Garin.”
“Listen to me,” he said, and she wondered which part of him was speaking. “I want you. Ineedto chase you. If you stop—if you let me reach you—there will be nothing left of me to hold back until you are finished.”
“Then why would I stop running?” she snarled.
“Because,” he said, rising to his feet with perfect balance. “You canfight.”
Lilac was on her feet in a flash, wobbling violently, using her arms to steady herself. In one swift motion, she unsheathed the Dawnshard and slashed at him from a distance, almost willing the blade to open.
“That won’t do anything,” he rasped. “It won’t kill me.”
“I’m nottryingto kill you.” Lilac stepped forward, slashing again; Garin’s hungry gaze only grew more amused, more terrible.
“You have to.”
Rage boiled within. She would not—not in a world of magic and medicine and things she never would’ve fathomed possible. Therewasanother way. She’d find it.
“A puny dagger,” Morwenn chided below, and Lilac deliciously envisioned severing her head with it.
Alas, the Dawnshard remained dormant, silent as it had been all these years. Lilac’s balance was getting better, her body quickly adjusting; she lunged again, the blade gleaming in the dark. Just when she thought it would hit him, Garin jumped over her, landing behind her with regal grace.
His weight still rocked the beam; Lilac shrieked and turned just in time to see him snatch the hilt from her grasp. He wielded it expertly, lancing and twirling it in the air.
“You used your Dawnshard because you knew I’d come back. I’d only wake with renewed resolve to find you, track you down.” Lilac’s mouth went dry at his warning as Garin’s ravenous eyes dropped to her hip. His head tilted, a predatory demon savoring the memories of the cursed body it inhabited. “If there is a next time, I’m going to fuck you myself and make youscreammy name on the hilt of that thing.”
And I’m going to shut you up, she thought furiously, snatching the stake from its sheath and adjusting her grip,hatingthe way Garin watched her.
“Thumb between your forefinger and middle finger,” he sang out, still somehow filled with the insufferable need to teach. His lips quirked when Morwenn’s giddy laughter rang out in the pit again.
Lilac readied the stake.
“You can do it,” Garin coaxed through the challenging gleam in his eyes. “One stab, and you’ll finally be free.”
She bared her teeth and struck him, slashing, carving through the air instead of stabbing. It made contact with his shoulder, searing the skin under his ripped shirt. Smoke lifted from it.
He winced. The muscle beneath Garin’s eye twitched. “That isnothow you use it.”
Lilac slashed again, too easily catching his forearm. She watched thewound at his shoulder close up. The one at his arm, deeper, followed slowly. “You’re holding back!”
“I intend to lose,” he admitted easily, loosely fingering the blade, tossing it between his nimble fingers and keeping it out of reach.
