Page 119 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

“By the time this farmhouse’s first set of owners died,” Artus continued gleefully, “the deed was never signed by their son. The magistrate never possessed the property, as it should have been. Many things were missed during the ongoing war, you see. So, all these years, whether or not it as it was occupied, it belonged to its inhabitants, but remained under the original family’s name because of these administrative matters so poorly tended to.

Until today, after falling vacant due to the most unfortunate circumstance.

With no apparent heir, this farmhouse now belongs to the owner of the fief.

” He turned the parchment toward Garin to show him a fresh stamp and scrawled signature at the bottom, just below Pascal’s.

“And that owner of the fief, boy, is me.”

There was once a time Garin wished to return to his property, before realization of what he’d become had fully struck him.

He’d returned one evening, years and years later, when curiosity got the best of him.

It was that summer evening he’d met Adelaide, then stayed far away after he’d murdered her family in the parlor.

Garin blinked. All that blood .

What would Lori and Adelaide think of him now?

“What’s wrong?” Artus’s insufferable voice broke his reverie. “All those years antagonizing us and nothing to say for once?”

“Armand is dead and Sinclair was denounced. So were you.”

“Poor Francis was so eager to get rid of me over our misunderstanding that he only removed me from his court that night.”

“It was no misunderstanding,” Garin snarled. “You know what you were trying to do.”

“And what would you have cared of it?” Even as Garin towered over him, Artus’s gaze was effectively condescending. “Have you ever asked yourself that?”

He remained silent.

“Francis demanded I leave the castle, but no one stripped me of my title on paper. He told me he could not stand to see me, but deep down, he must’ve known executing me or anyone in my lineage would become a very public affair, giving France another one of many reasons to engage in a war that would inevitably crush his puny kingdom.

So, he merely banished me. Quietly and swiftly.

” His smile grew knowing. “You remember that fateful night, now, don’t you? ”

Garin refused to allow the unbearable memory of the eve of the Ermengarde trial to resurface. He stepped to the door, placing his palms flat against the threshold. “You have no claim to my parents’ land, Artus.”

“Oh, but I do. It is your own law that prevents your entry. I am but a man.” Artus chuckled.

“A man you cannot get to. The magic speaks for itself.” He stepped back into the house, hardly hobbling as he’d pretended to at the Jaunty Hog.

“How funny, the very magic that keeps your unnatural heart beating. ”

The crowd parted for someone shuffling through, then. Bog appeared, eyes glassy, shoving Hamon aside. The tavern owner stumbled and grinned at the sight of him; a bravado, Garin could tell, from Bog’s hammering heart. His fangs began to throb. How he’d love to stoke that sweet-smelling fear.

Someone else bumped into Bog from behind, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

“Sorry,” the man muttered, emerging next to him.

He was nearly a foot taller than Bog. Broad shoulders and an irritatingly open if not aloof demeanor despite the familiar way his eyes shifted from the murmuring crowd, back to Bog for nervous approval.

Just like Bog’s did to Artus.

“You clumsy shit.” Bog reached up to slap him on the head, then kicked aside the pieces of the glass Rupert had been carrying.

Rupert was dressed in poorly fitting armor, a dull broadsword at his hip. His determined grimace turned cold at the sight of Garin. Then, seeping realization as his gaze trailed down Garin’s body, landing on his blood-soaked sleeve and pant as Bog and Artus watched in silent amusement.

Aloof as Rupert appeared, the recognition in his eyes shifted unexpectedly to alarm. He began to stutter under Garin’s heavy-lidded haze. “Erm, he’s bleeding. Perhaps we should let him?—”

Brient slapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t you dare.”

“Oh, that is the last thing you would want to do,” said Artus. “Fortunately for us, I’d have to be the one to invite him in.”

“But he is in evident distress,” Rupert suggested.

Garin’s lip twitched. What a righteous prick.

“Yes, and blood is the only thing that will soothe him,” snapped Bog.

Garin found himself only half paying attention to the bickering that spread throughout the crowd.

Rupert was strangely hard to convince of Garin’s vampirism for a Daemon hunter’s son.

He supposed his neutral eye color made it hard to believe, but if they only knew how difficult it was to kill with his rapier and hands while his parched mouth ached to be flooded with blood…

Someone was shifting around in the house, lighting the west hall hearth. Garin’s vision only sharpened in the deepening nightfall, each and every vein within eyesight painstakingly visible and audible to him. So many to choose from.

There was a crash; Brient had pushed Bog’s shoulder, so Bog shoved Brient into the vase table in front of the very window Garin burned his arm through just weeks ago. The scuffle knocked some of the broken pieces of glassware onto the porch.

“You idiots,” a sharp-voiced woman shouted from the back of the parlor. “But how will we leave for the hunt if he’s standing there?”

“He’s trapped us,” stammered Hamon.

“He has not,” shouted Artus. “So long as we’re in here, no vampire can enter.”

“He is a wolf outside a rabbits’ den. We’re done for.”

The hunt . He could’ve guessed as much. Garin stared at the familiar wide base and long stem that had rolled to his feet.

The pair of his parents’ engraved wedding flutes were the most prized things they’d owned.

Adelaide’s family and Sable and Jeanare had been gracious enough to leave them in the aged aumbry in the kitchen, still visible at the back of the northern hall.

His composure shocked even himself. The result of the pain eating away at his sanity, no doubt. The last fragment of his resolve.

Rupert was staring at him while Bog and Artus continued to argue with the crowd.

“I know you,” Garin crooned. He allowed the hunger to seep through his voice, though he wasn’t sure it was a choice at this point. His tone was familiar, warm—the very one he’d used to lure a victim away from the crowds when he and Bastion would prowl the towns. “We met the other night, didn’t we?”

As Rupert nodded, all Garin could think of was him, trying—and failing—to control Lilac’s unruly rhythm.

From the table, Garin had eventually combatted his jealousy by eyeing his favorite sweet spot at the base of Lilac’s throat, her dizzying scent made all the more intoxicating by her anger and humiliation as they’d traversed the floor.

Right side. Plump blue-green veins.

“Don’t listen to him.” Finally , a delicious drop of fear in Artus’s voice.

“Handsome. Strong jawline. Poised stance.” Garin shrugged, swallowing the saliva that had accumulated. “The bold walk of a Lord in his own right. A potential knight, one worthy of the favor of the queen.”

The bastard had his grandmother’s high cheekbones; they reddened as he dipped into a shallow bow. The contusion on his temple was still visible. “We did, My Lord.”

“Get him out of here, Bog.” A sheen of sweat frosted Artus’s forehead. Perhaps he’d realized they could keep a vampire out of its own home all they wanted, but they’d eventually run out of sustenance.

If Garin hadn’t had an alliance to secure, he would’ve reveled in waiting them out.

He’d circle the house several times, allowing them to watch from the windows.

Maybe he’d climb his mother’s trellis, perch quietly onto the roof, and pounce on the first mortal foolish enough to believe he’d left.

He’d drink his fill, drag their remains to the porch.

Rinse and repeat. He knew, too well, the horrors of waiting for death to come—for the ghosts of his past to catch up to him.

He waited for the gods to smite him, but instead, they’d sent a destroying woman who brought him to his knees. He supposed it was one in the same.

“Let’s go, son.” Bog tried to insert himself, slipping his arm through Rupert’s. “It’s not safe.”

But Rupert remained in place.

“Right, because taking him on one of your Daemon hunts is? Under your wing?” He remembered Rupert’s gaze dropping when he’d mentioned his father to Lilac. Garin crossed his arms and glanced between them. “Is this… your first time meeting? Have I interrupted your dear family reunion?”

“I reached out, finally,” muttered Bog, seemingly to no one in particular.

Rupert frowned down at him. “I happened across your bar.”

“I reached out from across the bar,” he replied, far too drunk for a chance at a coherent thought. “Decided my boy was old enough to join in. He came all this way for me.”

Garin scoffed, actually affronted. He shouldn’t have been surprised. “So he lied to the queen about his duty.”

“I was told I’d become Junior Armorer if I brought her the wine and pried about property inheritance law,” Rupert blurted, blanching when Artus shot him a deadly glare .

Garin didn’t know which was more ridiculous, believing the unspoken rules of vampirism care about a kingdom’s shifting legalities, or the thought of Rupert working anywhere near the armory.

Bog spun, relinquishing the battle of tugging Rupert back down the hall. “ I gave him armor and a weapon. I have prepared him. He is to lead us.”

Artus balled a fist and sent it into Bog’s ribs. “Shut. The fuck. Up .”

“Against me?” Garin scoffed, despite the alarming notion of a group this size on a Daemon hunt. “He wouldn’t stand a chance. None of you would, but especially him.”

Rupert stiffened near the hallway entrance.