don’t want to transport me kicking and screaming the entire way.”
He considered her for a moment. Then, he was at her side before she could blink, scooping her up over his shoulder and cradling her around the bottom like a large child.
“The truth is, princess,” he began as they walked, raising his voice over her protests. “I left the coven years ago. I was—”
“You—"
"—shunned, if you will, because—”
“—my father will hear about this—"
"—I had stopped drinking from humans. I took up refuge working at the tavern inn. A couple days ago, one of my kind was found staked in the middle of the woods. As you can imagine, my first thought was to return to find out what I could. You, princess, are—stop that moving or I will make you stop—my ticket back home. If I can make them believe I’ve been hunting mortals again, they just might see fit to let me back in.”
Lilac stilled against his shoulder, allowing his words to sink in. “Wait, that’s all you need me for? A pretend captive?”
She felt his head turn against her side, his hair tickling her elbow.
“Easy, there,” he snapped. “I already told you. There’s absolutely no reason for me to lie to you. If I wanted you dead, I’d be hiding your corpse by now. I’m unable to bite you, despite the deepest parts of me that might want to, so you needn’t worry about that. We can’t let them know you’re the princess, because then they wouldn’t let you go. But I highly doubt any of them have attended a castle soirée in your lifetime, so it isn’t likely anyone will recognize you. I certainly didn’t, back at the inn.”
He gave her rump a condescending pat. “If it makes you feel any better, this has nothing to do with politics or your position in the kingdom. I planned to use you to redeem myself in the eyes of my coven, far before I knew you were a Trécesson.”
Lilac stopped squirming while she tried to fit the pieces together. There were still a few parts that didn’t quite add up. “No offense, but what was the importance of finding a vampire staked in the middle of the woods? It was probably just… I don’t know, the Le Tallecs doing what they usually do.”
“It matters because the staked vampire was our leader. The leader of the Brocéliande coven.”
Lilac jolted in shock, and Garin had to use both hands to steady her on his shoulder. He he wasn’t part of some rogue, offset faction, after all. He’d belonged to the Brocéliande coven—the largest known to central Brittany. And their head was…
“Dead?” She spoke softly.
“Indeed.”
Though frowned upon, an occasional Darkling casualty at the hand of a human was nothing new. Human-on-creature crimes were easily overlooked, but killing someone as important as the coven head was as unheard of as a Darkling attempting an assassination of the human monarch.
“It seems… intentional,” she managed.
“That’s the thing. To kill Laurent, it had to be.”
“It’s no secret that my parents dislike your kind, but they would never… Not without reason—” Lilac gulped. On the other hand, someone who didn’t care about keeping the peace—someone like Sinclair—would’ve hunted and killed Darklings freely for the mere reason of what they were. But surely, the creatures would be furious enough to attempt retaliation if they discovered one of their leaders had been purposefully targeted. It wasn’t just murder that had occurred. It could easily be interpreted as a provocation of war.
So could kidnapping the princess, Lilac thought bitterly.
“I know,” Garin said, interrupting her thoughts. “And it is unlikely any common creature or human could take him down. Laurent was always on his toes, always so vigilant. He was tricked. Manipulated to let his guard down.” As if sensing her concern, his grip slightly tightened.
“Who will replace him?” she asked quietly from over his shoulder.
“That’s unimportant.” He sighed, shifting her from one arm to the other as if she weighed nothing at all. “I need to find out what I can about his death. He was—is—important to me. He was my sire.”
8
“We’re here.”
Garin hadn’t said much more after revealing that Laurent had created him. Almost as if he regretted telling her, he responded to her offer of sympathy with a laconic grunt. He’d placed Lilac down once he figured she wouldn’t run, and side by side they made their way northeast for an hour more, not caring when another storm moved in, bringing with it a light drizzle. His mood