Page 117 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Garin had recognized the name—it was one of Lilac’s handmaidens. Her friend, if he could call her that. Without thinking, he’d picked the guard up and slung him over his shoulder before retreating from Henri and his guards.

Garin managed to rouse the man for questioning, but he didn’t stay conscious for long.

He was just coherent enough to tell him he’d been one of the troops Lilac and her father had sent east. Exhaustion began to take the man as he’d finished his answer, and he’d slumped, unconscious once again, onto Garin’s shoulder.

Since news of the skirmishes had broken, Garin had considered travelling to the bordering towns to witness the fights himself. He likely would have gone, had he not been commanded to do Kestrel’s bidding and nearly lost Lilac in the process.

Even in his second life, Garin had never killed so many at once.

His skin tingled, the muscles of his jaw clenched and twitched, poised to snap.

The urge to tear and maim and bite warred with his fraying self-control, setting his teeth to grinding.

He’d been careful to avoid the latter until his business at the castle was finished, but he yearned to revel in blood he spilled.

Feel it running through his powerful fingers and taste it on his tongue, pumping from hot flesh.

He wanted to do it again.

His legs shook as he found a copse of trees to rest under. He placed the man down, being exceptionally gentle with his head and propping his feet up on a fallen log. Then, he wiped his fingers off on a clean patch of his blood-soaked shirt, so as not to stain the letter past legibility.

He slipped it from his pants pocket and read aloud the words that prompted him to leave Lilac’s castle in the first place.

“ Dearest Eleanor ,” Garin whispered, eyes flying across the parchment so quickly he had to double back at the near-illegible scrawl.

“ As it stands, my informants believe Francois’s generals are moving to encroach upon the settlements along your eastern border.

Your safety is of great concern to me. Given the difficulty France’s location between our kingdoms poses to the task of traveling to you, the chances of me retrieving you myself are decidedly remote.

” Garin scoffed, shaking his head in simmering disbelief.

“ I have impressed upon Albrecht that the acceptance or denial of my offer must remain your choice, and it is my hope he is conducting himself accordingly.

When and if our union is made with my dear friend in my stead, please send a pigeon right away.

As you can understand, my men are prepared to defend your kingdom once our crowns are joined, but not a moment before.

Once I receive word, I shall dispatch a fleet of carriages and an army to aid in your defense, and provide any additional accommodations required for your court of up to ten. We stand at the ready.

It is my hope to see you very soon.

Warmly Yours,

Maximilian. ”

What little blood flowed through Garin’s veins rushed to his head. This wasn’t the plan. It hadn’t been in his offer. Maximilian, send a carriage for her? A fleet of them? What a fool. He’d draw attention. He’d put her at risk.

Part of him knew there was no need to panic.

Wherever his forces gathered to start their journey—Vienna, most likely, but it hardly mattered now—there was no way they’d make it, through France.

Not unless the emperor sent several hundred soldiers to escort them.

At that point, the effort would prove fruitless.

The terrain was treacherous enough for a small contingent of troops moving discreetly.

For an army of that size? One that would be so easily detected?

Impossible.

For now, Francois’s men weren’t focused on monitoring France’s western borders.

They were stealthily positioning themselves along the easternmost forests of Lilac’s kingdom, readying for more attacks.

Right where Maximilian’s people would have to move through.

But even if they did make it through France and Brocéliande, they’d have to go through Garin to take her away.

Surely not… Surely there was another way.

His breathing grew labored, his head suddenly light at the thought of Lilac boarding a carriage to be driven through France’s enemy territory to Vienna.

Garin’s gums throbbed, every nerve in his body fired at the thought of his thrall—the woman who, in another life, would be his bride—becoming a prisoner of war because a cowardly emperor, her betrothed , couldn’t be bothered to risk retrieving her himself.

Just months ago, Lilac was merely the woman whom Laurent had held on a pedestal, whom his well-meaning sire had warned everyone to watch.

Besides considering every now and then how lovely it would be to stroll into the castle and hold her at the end of a blade until Henri agreed to end his cruelty to Daemons, Garin hadn’t paid Lilac a single passing thought.

To him, she was the hidden girl who could speak to Daemons, nothing more.

Before she’d entered his tavern, he hadn’t wanted to think about the Trécessons or their castle.

When he’d learned her identity at Sinclair’s camp, he’d craved her fear.

He’d wanted to make her submit, pay for her parents’ crimes ten times over.

Then, she’d jumped into the Morgen-infested Argent River.

Wildly unexpected. And thoroughly intriguing.

It had stirred in him the instinct to covet his prey.

It was then, he first realized, that the Trécesson princess was not some spoiled heiress who deserved to suffer.

She was his reckoning in the flesh.

It had all been bloody downhill from there. Her parents and their ilk had made not the slightest effort to understand those such as Garin, let alone the world they lived in. Yet, there Lilac had been, badgering him with questions about that very thing. About the creatures in it. About him.

His hunger for Lilac’s blood, his craving for her company, became all the more difficult to ignore after Kestrel had set them on a path of fate together at Cinderfell.

Garin well understood his duty and the nature of what he’d become.

His early yearnings for her were natural, but he hadn’t expected the overwhelming urge to ensure her wellbeing.

To befriend her and make her laugh. He hadn’t expected the need to protect her with his life.

He hadn’t expected any of this .

Whatever the reason, nothing mattered now, save the unbreakable, diamond-hard certainty in his heart that no one could love her, treat her, protect her like he could.

By the time she’d foolishly enthralled herself to him, their bond had only made ignoring what he’d begun to feel for Lilac an utterly futile task.

She was bound to him now, in ways she did not understand. He even struggled to comprehend it.

In Garin’s days as a fledgling, Laurent had briefed him on the throes of romance and vampirism—told him, as it had proven to be true, how cumbersome and even deadly it could turn in the hands of a creature who wielded such an unnatural lust for the living.

For ownership and grasping, gnawing possession.

He’d known for decades the vampiric matrimony was something he’d refuse to entertain, much less ever pursue.

He’d known without the shadow of a doubt he’d never do it to Lilac after skimming the pages of that blasted vampire manuscript at the castle—and what little he’d bothered to read of The Histories of the Lasting Night before chucking it into the Argent after the accident, when Lilac laid bleeding from the inside out. It had shook him to his core.

He then knew he’d made a mistake. He had a name for the Sanguine matrimonial rite: the Blood Vow. Something he could research, pour over. Allow to consume him like flame to straw.

He would never subject anyone he cared for to it, much less the woman he loved. Much less the last and only woman he’d love.

But he also knew, deep down, the heart-rending truth.

Lilac is the only woman I’d ever offer that to.

Garin crumpled the note until it was pulverized in his fists, opened his hand, and let the pieces scatter to the wind. He hoisted the man back onto his shoulder and pivoted south.