“Help me?” Piper’s forehead creased as she surveyed the damage and Lilac’s trembling hands, which she sank beneath the water in shame. “Is that what he did to you too?” Piper strode to the tub as Lilac shook her head—and gripped her face. The pressure of her fingers forced Lilac’s mouth open.
“Ow, unhand me,” Lilac snapped, but she stilled as Piper examined her blunt canines.
Piper’s nostrils flared as she searched her face. She smeared a hand over Lilac’s cheek, then stuck a finger into her mouth and scrubbed at her teeth vigorously before Lilac swatted her hand and jerked away, tearing herself from the vampire’s grip.
“I am not a vampire,” Lilac snarled.
Reeling, Piper cradled her hand to her chest and said nothing, retreating to the middle of the room again. “Then why do you look as if you’ve spent the week laying in the sand? Like you’ve been eating cherries—”Piper looked down at the crumbs of wood before the tub. “Whatareyou?”
“Peeved,” Lilac answered. “Tired. Just as confused and unsure about everything as you are.” She gave a despondent laugh. “What I do know, at the very least, is that you are undeserving of everything that has befallen you. That I have wronged you.”
Piper’s lower lip quivered. Her head swiveled to the keep door, then to the balcony as she wrung her hands. Looking for another way out.
Lilac would not lose her again. The several children born to the staff had remained under the strict instruction of Hedwig, starting with mild tasks in the scullery or bailey. Piper had been introduced as her handmaiden, almost as if Henri and Marguerite had brought her in as a preemptive Lady-in-Waiting. Almost as if they’d anticipated the concern the kingdom would hold regarding her gender alone, and thought she could benefit from the company.
Where foreign princesses often had a fleet of handmaidens in rotation, there had only ever been Piper, and she’d only ever served Lilac. “My family took you in. They raised you as a child servant and failed at protecting you from the system that is a result of the very prejudice we upheld. They failed you.Ifailed you. I will make it up to you, and you will live here again as my Lady-in-Waiting.”
The vampire stopped fidgeting, no longer looking like she was at risk of hurling herself off the balcony. “It cannot be, Your Majesty. I am no noble. No daughter of a Viscount or Lady. I am the mere daughter of farmers.”
“It does not matter. As you’ve seen in accordance with my kingdom, titles mean very little here. I want you in my court.” The thought of a second chance, for her and for Piper, filled Lilac with hope despite the night’s chaos. “As long as you want to be.”
Piper scowled, doubtful. “That is too gracious an offer, Your Majesty.”
“Lilac. Outside court, please call me Lilac.”
Piper chewed on her lip, and Lilac’s heart swelled. “I’d rather burn in the sun than go back, but I am still at a loss. If anything, my presence will only complicate things for me. And for you.”
“It will not change anything, Piper. It will not erase the horrors you have endured. It will not give you your old life back and it won’t cure you of thehunger and power you wield now. It won’t make up for the time lost in our friendship. But I want you here. Need you. We might both be connected to Garin in ways that are too difficult to fathom, but I cannot bear the thought of losing you again. Although I do not deserve you.” Piper sneered and wiped her face, turning to the wall as Lilac slid up to the edge of the tub, sloshing water through the cracks her angry hands had left. She meant every word. In fact, Lilac had never been more sincere. “It is your choice. But if you stay, you are to accompany me on trips. To soirées and balls. You will have your own wardrobe, and access to books and any lessons you so choose. To an education. You’ll be my Lady-in-Waiting. Handpicked by myself. I will have it no other way.”
When Piper whipped her head back around, her eyes had narrowed into slits. “You think you can demand my loyalty, my service to you, just because I would want for it, had you not?”
“Then where will you go?” Lilac countered selfishly. “The woods? To Rennes? Your parents’ farm?”
In answer, Piper only slid the vanity chair out and curled up on it as Lilac moved on to massaging the soot from her hair, working the soap through to her scalp and down the smooth sides of her neck.
What else was she to expect? Of course Piper was upset and afraid. Lilac swallowed her grief and frustration. “There are several properties throughout Brittany where the noble families reside. Some in towns, others outlying cities. Some in the countryside—luxurious cottages and manors. I could send a letter to one of the families of lower nobility informing them of a new, direct heiress that had fallen in her favor. You could be a distant cousin, or niece. I could have you inherit one of them. There would be plenty of room to keep you safe.”
It would cause a small uproar, but everyone already despised Lilac enough for other reasons. Her heart fluttered at the striking realization that one more would not do her harm.
Rinsing the now discolored soap from her hair, Lilac thought of the Brocéliande vampire coven, of Garin and the others.A manor…
A manor would do them well, wouldn’t it? One with many rooms and thick curtains. If she truly needed to, she could search for one with no assumed heir. Surely there existed one that was already vacant or was soon to be.
“And what would I do there, exactly?” the vampire mumbled into her arm. “Frighten everyone away? Become the town terror?”
“That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?” Lilac said, poorly withholding her smile. “Lurking in the windows once the sun’s gone down. Emerging on foggy mornings, remaining naught but a shadow in the haze and pouncing on unsuspecting men.”
Piper burst into a fit of giggles before she shook her head, her scowl tightening. She removed the ribbons that held her braids and snaked her fingers through several loose knots, finally pulling her hair around her. “I would help you dress, Your Majesty, but I cannot. Your bath has only made the odor stronger. It smells like he’s in this very room.”
Lilac lifted herself from the tub and toweled herself off, went to the drawers of her armoire, and pulled out two of her most comfortable nightgowns. She balled one in her hands and tossed it at Piper.
Piper only looked at the fine garment and frowned. “I said I’m not dressing you.”
“You are entitled to my closet before you are provided your own wardrobe. I’ll ask Herlinde to fit you,” Lilac replied, perching on the side of her bed to slip hers on. “You are not to dress me. For the things I prefer to wear, I can dress myself. Plus, Yanna and Isabel—” She paused, looking around the room. “Where are they?”
“The two women waiting outside your door like dogs? They wouldn’t leave me alone once they discovered me, so I asked them to leave and not say anything. At that point they were on the verge of hysterics so I had no choice?—”
“No choice to what?”
