Page 100 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Something—amusement? Disappointment?—flashed behind those probing eyes. “Maximilian wouldn’t be pleased with any of this, would he?” His look turned patronizing, but it seemed forced. “My sincerest apologies, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. A hot towel and a croissant would be just as satisfying, if not more.”

Even as he rasped a chuckle, the teasing faded from Garin’s expression. He leaned in and planted a kiss on Lilac’s forehead, murmuring against her skin. “For now.”

Lilac jumped; two slicked fingers slid below the peeled lip of her dress and undergarment. She couldn’t help the soft moan that escaped when he swept them from her navel to just above her pubic bone.

“It will help ease your pain, as promised,” he said, scooping another dab of Isabel’s concoction and taking her by the hand, prompting her to lean into him.

She pressed her face into his shoulder, savoring her cheek rubbing against his barely-there stubble. Garin’s forest cologne made her head spin, his hair tickling her forehead as he kneaded intentional, firm circles along the base of her spine.

Held the mug between them when he pulled away. “And this will help you recover from last night. The past week, really.” He watched her bewildered expression turn suspicious as she inspected it. “Nothing to put you to sleep. Nothing to rid you of memories.” He took a sip himself. “See?”

Lilac accepted it. The temperature was perfect; rose was the most overpowering note. She made a face but drank, anyway. “It could use some honey,” she commented when she was over halfway done.

“Honey kept in apothecaries is usually infused with something else, and I didn’t want to mix it with anything—certainly not more Amanita muscaria —on the off chance.

” Garin cleared his throat and reached into his pocket, removing a drawstring bag.

“I’d left the inn in a hurry, but I’ve been meaning to give this to you. ”

Lilac swallowed the rest of the tea and placed the mug down. The bag rustled when she took it into her palm. She put it to her nose and was immediately brought back to The Fenfoss Inn. “Hawthorn berries.”

“Yes,” he said with an impressed smile. “They’re dried, so they’ll keep a long time. I was going to give them to you along with the stake this morning, but thought better of it after sensing your seething disdain for me. ”

“Lorietta served me hawthorn berry tea the first night I sat at your bar.”

He smirked. “Ah. I thought I’d smelled that on you. I wasn’t sure with the amount of gin she’d added.”

“I should’ve finished it before sitting down with you,” she replied teasingly. “Could’ve used the extra drink.”

“Apparently Lori thought so. She saw me rush out of my station after Meriam led you upstairs to your room. I went into the kitchen and snatched a bottle of blood to take with me into my chamber, and chugged it there. I don’t think she’d ever seen me do that just to interact with a mortal patron, so she was right to be concerned for you.

Hawthorn berries aren’t harmful to us like its cursed wood is, but they’re said to temporarily lessen the effects of a vampire’s entrancement in mortals. ”

Oh . She had no idea Lorietta was trying to protect her. Lilac looked down at the bag, skepticism marring her foolish spark of hope. “You’re…allowing me to opt out of Marrying Maximilian, and handle France on my own?”

“I did not say that.”

She knew better than to get her hopes up. “Does it even work for thralls?”

“Against the will of other vampires, yes, it should. Against me, I’m not sure. But I’d like you to have it, regardless.”

Lilac wasn’t sure why this unexpected, seemingly generous offer of his unsettled her. She shook her head slowly. “Why?”

Garin laughed, then frowned when she didn’t join in.

“What do you mean, why? The same reason I wanted you to have the hawthorn stake. With the berries, you might be able to control any vampire’s affect on you.

Bastion. Piper… Casmir . With the stake and your newfound strength and speed, our playing field becomes a tad more even.

” Garin stared at the bag in her hand. Then, back up at her, incredulous. “They’re for you. For your protection.”

“But you are still faster and stronger than me,” she said dubiously.

“Of course, any defense against me is advisable. You must understand, the tether you invoked is immense.”

“Exactly. Which is why you’re doing this to make yourself feel better about using what I had to do to survive you, to your advantage. ”

Garin’s mouth fell open. Irritation smothered the shard of guilt she might’ve glimpsed.

She pulled her dress back up and donned her sleeves.

“We both know you’d never let me approach that alter with so much as a hint of hesitation, much less denial.

I am no less anyone’s pawn because you’ve given me these things. ”

“Might I remind you, retaining your agency does not negate your monarchy or personal duty.”

“Marriage isn’t the only way a monarch can fulfill it!”

Garin glared warningly, nostrils flaring.

“I never wanted my freedom from you. I wanted the freedom to choose .”

“What do you think the bloody berries are for, Eleanor?” he whispered angrily.

He moved quickly; one moment he was sitting next to her feet, and the next, her hands were in his.

“This thrall bond you’ve enacted has stripped me bare.

Each delicious laugh and scowl of yours, each time I taste of your body, your blood—” Garin’s fingers traced the bouquet of veins adorning her inner wrists, like a scrupulous chiromancer hoping to find himself in her future.

“Are scorched into my memory, drawing me further from doing the noble thing. Someone has to. The gods themselves know you are a selfish and desperate creature, too led by your heart to go against what it tells you.”

Realization sunk like an anchor in her chest. Perhaps she’d deserved it.

She’d spent the last few days ill, destroying a brothel, and drawing decrees of her own while her kingdom faced annexation.

She publicly refuted an offer most in her situation would leap at, and still had a chest to deliver to the mad faerie who’d sent a revenant for it.

Enthralling herself to Garin might’ve been one of the worst missteps of her life, but at least it had been her decision. She had chosen it, the act of selfish defiance—of survival—even if made in delirium. And so, too, was accepting the terms of her duty.

“It is Maximilian who has propositioned me, sent an emissary to find me—the very one you wanted so badly to be kept alive. Yet where is he, Garin? In your room, bound and gagged? On a ship, voyaging to the New World?”

He said nothing.

“ I deserve to be chosen, too. And the emperor has done just that.” Fuming, she adjusted her skirts, shoving her way to the edge of the cot. “Tomorrow will be another long day. I must?—”

“ Stay .” The gravel in his voice left her no choice. Her muscles would’ve seized with or without his spell over her. Her breathing hitched when his hand found hers, his thumb brushing her knuckles as if the motion soothed him. “It is my last request tonight.”

She eyed the pouch, feeling Garin scoot back to give her more room.

“Please,” he whispered.

“I shall,” she said, her rump remaining on the cot because really, she had no choice. “But at the cost of your comfort.”

“You underestimate your effect on me. Your presence is wholly torturous.”

She turned slowly to him. “Your stake and hawthorn berries are useless. They won’t protect me from a life never truly my own.” Garin was studying her, looking more wary than remorseful. Every bit lost as Lilac felt. “But that will not stop me from reveling in the fate that has befallen me.”

He gently released her hand and nodded minutely.

Permission. She should have left, should’ve retreated to her tower…but what was Garin’s permission but a wish granted?

Lilac angled her shoulders away from him and settled onto the pillow. Kemble might open the door at any moment and discover them together, but those worries felt distant when the only thing that mattered—to her dismay—was him.

He curled around her gently, hesitant in his movements, as if she were a thing that could be so easily broken.

He cleared his throat when she pressed her ass into him.

Garin didn’t touch her further, but brought his nose to her hair, inhaling.

“I am a moth to a flame, willingly consumed. You are my every waking thought. My relentless undoing.”

She couldn’t bring herself to leave. He should’ve known that. Maybe he did , and the offer to allow her to leave was, just as the hawthorn berries and stake, to make him feel better about everything.

The spell of deep sleep threatened to wash over her, then. Her eyes fluttered shut as she felt the blanket being pulled over her, tucked around her.

“Then become undone,” Lilac whispered into the veined forearm that curled beneath her head, tugging her body against him. “How selfish of you to crave something never fully yours.”