“What are you doing, Artus?” cried Brient.
Mathias began to shake. “He’ll come in, now, won’t he?”
“Silence!Look.” Artus motioned to the door—at Garin, still tensed against the threshold, peering hungrily into the cage they’d put themselves into. “Now that there’s nothing for him to sign, he will not enter this house as long as my bloodline lives. That is a feral animal, and this is the foolproof cage we’ve put ourselves in to prepare for our hunt, just in case something like this happened.” Artus strode to the aumbry at the back of the hall, opened it, and placed Aimee’s journal upon the top shelf.
“But what happens now?” asked the old woman archer.
“We wait him out.”
“But the sun doesn’t affect him,” Hamon pointed out.
“No matter,” Artus growled. “Someone will come and put a stake in his chest come daylight. We will hunt another day, and his little coven will fall apart without their leader.”
They’d have sent Rupert into Brocéliande first. He was inexperienced, and the only one seeming to wield a blade, which would do nothing against the coven. Even the most clumsy fledgling driven by hunger would have overpowered Rupert in an instant.
Everyone else who was armed held bows and hawthorn arrows stolen from the Trécesson armory. They’d have him walk ahead and planned to attack from a distance. Rupert was meant to draw Garin’s coven out. Then, the troupe before him would’ve ambushed his vampires.
Successfully.
A loudbangpulled Garin’s attention; Artus dusted his hands off after slamming the aumbry shut with a violent kick. “If you want your whore mother’s journal so badly,” he said, returning to the front of the house, “then you can come and get it yourself.”
All the speech in the room melted into a dizzying cadence—shouts of protest, incredulous shouts of hysteria. A cacophonous, rapturous high washed over him, wave upon wave, mounting upon the unrelenting pulse of pain and hunger. Garin’s home echoed with the staggered rhythm of dozens of heartbeats, bags of blood ready—begging—to be spilled.
“Garin,” Lilac said into his ear, her voice determinedly calm as shepressed her body against his, squeezing his hand. He blinked. “Listen to me. They’re done, all of them. They will be apprehended and hung in the street by tomorrow, I’ll be sure of it.”
Artus cackled behind her. “By you and what army?”
“That one,” said Myrddin quietly, followed by Lilac’s sharp inhale.
A deep, distant rumble of hooves pummeling the ground cut through the crops. Garin froze—-then turned to see a small army of Trécesson guards galloping up the hill, weaving and bobbing between the patches of farmland and from behind the parked carriages. Torches danced, littered among at least twenty others wielding bows and blades aimed at his house.
Yanna yelped and scuttled nearer to the porch.
Howthis was possible, Garin did not know—nor did he have the energy to find out.
Artus began to laugh, a choking, broken sound as those in the parlor behind him fell silent. “Corruption! Blasphemy!”
The sound of the queen’s slamming pulse drowned the sound of Artus’s shouting. He hadn’t noticed it growing louder—and the night certainly hadn’t quieted—but it was all Garin could hear. Lilac craned her head before him. Her cheeks were stained with the salt of tears, eyes bright with concern. She reached up to stroke Garin’s face reassuringly, but Garin shook his head as his hand rose to envelop hers. He squeezed her hand in warning and swiftly removed her palm from his face; it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know he was fighting the urge to heal himself by plunging his fangs so deeply into her that it would frighten her.
“Guillotines,” she whispered urgently, almost crooning as she tugged him away from the house. “A torturer.” He could tell by her scent that her body was beginning to react to whatever it was he felt. “Whatever you see fit to punish them, I’ll rearrange it.”
“They won’t get that far,” Garin replied through his teeth, his body unfamiliarly rigid against hers. “I won’t allow it.”
“But we have to leave,” she argued, glancing down at his body. “You’re hurt, I need to get you to the infirmary.”
“Kemble would never treat a vampire. Not one looking like this.”
“Shehas. Just unknowingly. Kemble will treat whomever I ask her to. I’ll notarize your paperwork for this property myself.” When he didn’t answer, she said, “It’s the journal, isn’t it?”
Garin’s hardened gaze remained on the aumbry.
Lilac spun for the door—toward Artus—but Garin shot his arm out and snagged her waist, tugging her against him.
“Don’t think about it,” he said softly into her ear. Her pulse went haywire in his arms, and Garin forced his mouth away from her delicate neck. “Stand down.”
Outrage sparked in her eyes.
“Down the steps. Stand down andstaythere.” Garin turned toward the house, unable to watch as her body raged against her instincts and dragged her down the steps; her fingernails had raked across his shoulder, sending a dangerous surge through his muscles and loin. She joined Myrddin at the base of the stairs.
