Bullshit.Lilac padded over to the edge of the steaming tub and peeled the remains of her dress up without warning.
She bent over slowly, taking her time snaking her undergarments and blade garter down her leg. Lilac smiled at him over her shoulder—he didn’t notice, his eyes were glued to her ass—and placed her still dagger on the table, pleased her bleed had lightened considerably since having Garin’s tea.
She pulled her dress over her head and let it drop, stepping in and savoring the scalding heat on her skin. She hadn’t bathed in a couple of days. Washing her sin away, only to do it all over again—do it worse—was a welcome, dark ecstasy.
“You’re much more depraved in your head than you lead on, you know.” She ran a cloth down her neck, slipping it between her breasts. Rose petals swirled and stuck to her skin, one to her nipple. Lilac flicked it off. “Is it always like that for you?”
Garin’s sigh morphed into a growl; he turned back to the mirror.
She dipped her head, massaging the soot and oils from her scalp—imagining him regaining his strength. Breaking out of that chair and joining her. Taking her forcefully in the water—cracking the wall of her tub furtheras effortlessly as it had crumbled in her hands. “Or is it a show you put on?”
When no answer came, Lilac pressed her back to the tub wall nearest him as she had at his farmhouse, suddenly feeling very naked and vulnerable in his chosen silence. It was only in the middle of lathering her face, eyes shut against the suds, when his voice echoed again.
Every day requires a mask. A show, you see.It’s born from necessity, not folly, and I fault no one who does the same. I suppose it is less so when I am in your company. I am wholly myself here.You pry it out of me.
Fight the urge to face him she did, Lilac didn’t need to. Shefelthim. The whisper of a touch—fingertips waltzing up the column of her spine, cupping the curve of her throat. Whatever this feeling was, she wanted to drown in it.
“You are thirst incarnate,” she whispered. “Night on the fringe of dawn, never quite breaking the horizon.”
I come as the thing you made me. An appetite persevering.
“Are you always so hungry? I couldn’t imagine living with it.” The question was meant to be taunting, but it came out all wrong—tender, and laced with her own selfish agony. “I learned to make myself small after witnessing my father’s cruelty at work, haunted by Freya’s murder and my own complicit existence. While I was never good at going unnoticed, I was great at running and acting in my own favor.” Her throat bobbed; she was unable to stop herself from vomiting the words. “I am no victim. I am an instrument.”
Garin said nothing—thought nothing—while Lilac looked down at her reflection.
“By the time I escaped, I was so disgusted with myself, I wanted to claw my way out of my skin. I’d willingly tear my flesh from my own bones just to free myself of what I’d become and the life I’d inherited. The things I’d allowed.” Tonight, she saw herself clearly. The haunting glint in her wide eyes, the fevered flush in her cheeks, waves of her hair clinging to her shoulders like a damp shroud told the tale of a woman who no longer feared the cost of her desires. For better or worse, she knew what she sought—and what she’d surrender for it. “I’d never before known hunger that made me want to crawl into someone else’s.”
You are a cataclysm forged in fire.The tug that came behind her navel wasgentler, this time. A weary welcome, and not a command.Come to me if it pleases you. Save me if you wish. Or ruin me whole.
Lilac stood and stepped out hearthside, letting the fire dry her back as she toweled off her hair. Garin’s eyes returned to the mirror to watch her, softening against the reflected flame.
The nightgown Yanna had left for her was a pretty set; cream and sheer when she picked it up—transparent when Lilac slinked it over her head. The second piece was a comfortable undergarment that hugged her belly and hardly covered her ass. She donned her garter and dagger.
Garin’s palpable gaze trailed her all the way to her vanity, where she plucked the bundle of tools and stake from her dressing table, brought them over to her bed, and laid them out—along with the key. She surveyed her weapons of choosing: Gauze, a pair of forceps, a scalpel, and a long piece of hammered metal with a small, hooked end.
She unfurled the stake, and her breath caught. It was embellished, whittled down to smoothness and etched in intricate knotted patterns. The handle came to a head, the ermine symbol of her kingdom etched at the very top, along with an L.T. just below it. That end was so shiny, it had to be covered in some sort of resin. Lilac turned to him questioningly.
His eyes were bright over his muzzle.What do you think?
“You think this impresses me?”
My carving, at least. Impressed with my hands, you might be, but it’s been years since I’ve honed this skill.
“I’ll never use it on you,” Lilac said simply, but tucked it under her arm anyway, point facing away from him. She slipped the pair of forceps off the cloth.
Garin might’ve been stable, but he was still bleeding all over her chair. Was it even possible for vampires to bleed out? He’d been trickling blood for hours now. He diverted his gaze as she bent over him.
Lilac inspected his leg first. There was a deep wound in the middle of his left thigh, inches above his knee. The edges around it were already dark, but she couldn’t see much else with the material in the way and the fire on the wall. She needed more light.
“Hold still.”
Garin’s eyes bulged; he shook his head and grunted in protest when she tucked the forceps under her arm, gripped the sides of the chair, andtugged, jerking him and the chair across the room and towards the hearth. With every scraped vibration, he winced, cussing into the leather.
“Sorry,” Lilac said, wincing herself. “I’m so sorry.”
He was panting again, eyes no longer amused but narrowed. He fell silent.
She positioned herself over him, extending her arm with the readied forceps, widening the prongs slightly as she lifted them over his thigh.
