They gasped and spun toward the voice that floated from the trees. Sinclair jumped and brandished his sword blindly in the air.
Smirking, the vampire emerged from the shadows.
“But you knew that.” He winked at her, his mouth stained the color of cherries.
Lilac’s soul nearly left her body.
He was dressed in the same black undershirt and quilted vest that both Enzo and Mathis had worn, over a pair of their uniform black trousers. One of their dark leather baldrics was laced across his chest.
In one hand, he held the stone goblet that had been on the floor next to the utensils, and in the other, he clutched a limp arm—a severed arm, torn from its body at the shoulder by brute force. Humming pleasantly to himself, he tilted the appendage and squeezed it like a summer orange, causing the blood to drain. Each red droplet clung to the mottled flesh before dripping clean into the cup.
“I apologize for keeping the both of you waiting.” Garin spoke methodically, observing the scarlet liquid. He frowned when the blood seemed to stop flowing altogether, but instead of stopping there, he held a finger up for them to wait and placed the goblet down as he knelt next to it. The vampire then grabbed the bluish hand and flexed the forearm and bicep, pumping the last of it into the chalice.
“Just trying to get every last bit. Some Daemons are on the brink of starvation, you know. It would be a shame for me to be wasteful.”
Lilac and Sinclair watched, petrified. Each hollow plink shattered the otherwise deafening silence.
When they didn’t answer, Garin clicked his tongue without looking back up at them. “Don’t pretend to be friendly now, you two. Come on.” He spoke coldly, yet his voice was warm. It felt intimate, made Lilac shudder, as if he’d dragged a blade along her naked form. “No more pretending, now that our truths are out in the open.”
She said nothing.
“You don’t drink blood!” Sinclair finally raised his voice, his sword at the ready.
Smiling down through his lashes, Garin licked each of his fingers clean and used the tattered sleeve hanging off the arm in an attempt to wipe the blood off his face, only smearing it further, before carelessly tossing the limb into the fire. “It appears my reputation has preceded me.”
Nausea had replaced her hunger. It was true. All true. The final vestiges of her denial of what he was, that it was all some idiotic misunderstanding on Sinclair’s part, crumbled. The way Garin didn’t eat anything at the inn, the weight of his gaze upon her, as if he were sizing up a pie.
The way he’d tried to trap her.
Thanks for hosting, Jasmine!
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