Page 119 of Disillusioned
“Wait,” Lilac said, her insides curdling, hoping and praying she was misunderstanding. “What happened to the carriage? Or the—the horse? No one found them abandoned, suspicious?”
Piper met her widening eyes with a quiet smugness.
“The coachman? The guard?” Sickening heat swept over Lilac. “My parents sent you home alone on foot?”
Piper laughed, a forlorn sound. “They imprisoned you over your Daemon tongue. You, their own daughter. Do you really think anyone cared about what happened to me? Furthermore, would it have mattered?”
Lilac remained silent, her face and chest burning with the heavy heat of self-disgust.
“My parents were alarmed when I showed up at their door, anyway. I’d tried to wash off in the river before, but it was woefully hard to remove your blood from my dress and apron. Yours, and that of the man I’d taken in the vestibule. Mymamaneventually woke up, and once she was herself, offered me one of her gowns. They tried to feed me. I denied the food they gave me, not knowing what would happen if I ate it. We chatted a little, not much was said. They didn’t really ask questions. Father was quiet as all else. I stayed for some time, a couple weeks. Eventually I grew hungry, but I feared leaving in case they decided against allowing me in a second time. A few days passed before I gave up.”
“How did you eat?”
“I had some of the bread and stew they’d offered me, especially since I didn’t want to stoke their suspicions. Mymamanis an impressive cook. Always has been.” Piper picked at her nail beds, which had turned red.Without thinking, Lilac slapped Piper’s hands off her lap; the vampire yanked them away.
Piper growled. “God. You’ve become Marguerite.”
“I have not,” Lilac said, appalled at the comparison and rather shocked at the sound that had just escaped her friend’s throat. Her mother had prodded her many times for doing the same in her nervousness. It had been out of habit. “Sorry. I was wondering about your…bloodlust.”
“Oh.” Piper shifted a leg up, forcing her hands—fingers already healed and no longer inflamed—to her side. “My craving for blood returned at the end of the first week. I considered venturing out at night, feeding on anyone nearby enough to fill myself without killing them. But I didn’t know if that was possible, or what my limits were since last feeding from you and from the other man.” She made a face. “He didn’t survive, I don’t think.”
A week seemed like a long time based on Lilac’s existing knowledge of the vampires’ physiology. Garin had been able to go several days without blood when they’d first met, but she supposed his options were limited at the time. And he’d been weaned off of vein blood for years. From when he’d drained Mathis and Enzo outside Sinclair’s camp to the farmhouse, it hadn’t even been three days since he’d followed her from the inn.
Even then, he’d admitted he’d been fighting his hunger throughout their journey. She recalled the way Garin had fallen upon Renald at her request, as if he’d been parched.
I am a pawn to my desires tonight. His words at Fool’s Folly raked a chill across her skin. She could hear it—hear him. Lilac fought down a violent shudder, only noticing Piper watching her warily when the vampire addressed her.
“Are you all right?”
Lilac tucked a lock of damp hair behind her burning ears. “Did it not bother you? The hunger?”
Piper studied her a second longer before replying. “It did, eventually. It grew enough for Father to suggest I take an evening stroll. I think they assumed I was restless, or had developed some sort of sickness, or intolerance to heat. So, I began to do so every evening. A walk for my health.” Piper sighed. “I ventured further each time, telling myself I’d try to take a drink of someone without slaughtering them if I came across a ripe opportunity. I think I purposefully avoided the commonly walked paths, andinstead started carefully mapping my way around. We had traveled by carriage the day they’d brought me to the castle to live with you, and so I’d tried to recall the way we’d taken. I discovered our home was quite far from the main roads—strange for a sheep farm, now that I think of it.” She wrinkled her nose and rubbed at it as if the pollen had gotten to her. But the hitch in her voice and the way it warbled gave her away. “It took me a few days of searching. Two nights ago, I finally found the path to the main road and went back, terrified of the choice that lay before me. This morning I made the decision and informed them I’d be leaving again.”
“What did they say?” asked Lilac. “Did you tell them you were headed here?”
“I told them I was off to serve the queen once more. No other specifics were given. They didn’t have much to say and at least didn’t stop me. In the end, I asked them not to tell anyone I was there or what had happened. Told them I might not return for a very, very long time. They were rather agreeable to that, too. My fatherdid comment that I was not allowed to take either of their horses with me.”
Piper exhaled, turning slowly to Lilac, surveying the rage that must’ve been etched upon the queen’s features. Her friend’s lip quivered, her nose and cheeks pink, and for a moment it was uncertain if she would laugh or cry. She then brought the corner of the duvet to her face, and her shoulders sank into a heart-wrenching sob.
Nothing could have held back the tears that came. Lilac’s nostrils flared, chest quaking painfully as the ceiling dissolved into a blurry, tear-filled vision of a childhood that had fleetingly been ripped from between them. What could have been their best years together as friends had turned into a nightmare. Lilac felt horrible for ever complaining about anything, weeping as Piper cried into the blanket beside her.
Because the Henri’s letter hadn’t made it to them, had the Krenns not known their daughter was relieved of her duty and no longer residing at the castle? Had her parentseverbeen expecting her? Is that why there wasn’t a larger uproar when Piper had gone missing?
Lilac hadn’t even known Piper never made it back to her parents’ farm, not until it was much too late. No one had known. And so no one had saved her, either.
She wanted to throw her arms around Piper. She wasn’t sure if that or apat on the head was appropriate or would get her her head bitten off, considering Piper’s fangs were still elongated. So, she offered, “You should have entranced them to let you take a horse.”
Piper leered at her.
“You did it to Yanna and Isabel.”
“I wouldn’t know how to do it now, on command.” Piper looked down at her hands, which had begun to shake. She tucked them under the blankets. “I don’t want to try and I don’t intend to learn. I am the furthest thing from those monsters.”
“You’re right. You are not them.” Lilac nodded, settling down against the soft pillows behind her. “Well, tell me how you got here, then. Did you follow the road west?”
Piper wiped her nose on her arm, seemingly grateful for the topic change. “I left their farm and soon came across a caravan of magic folk headed in the opposite direction. Two women and an odd, hulking animal. I would’ve ran, but they approached as if they recognized me. I didn’t intend on telling them who I was, but they somehow knew where I was headed. They fed me and—andwhyare you looking at me like that?”
“They fed you?” Lilac propped herself up on her elbow. “Youfedfrom one of them?”
