Page 127 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

W ith a sickening squelch, Garin yanked the blade from the battered guard and tossed it aside. “It’ll take up to three days for your Gwenny to awaken.”

Lilac crawled over to Yanna, who actually allowed the queen to embrace her.

She was trembling like a frightened hare. “He will wake, won’t he?”

“I nearly asphyxiated him with enough of my blood. I’d say he’s got a good chance.”

“And what of him?” Myrddin nudged a finger at the twisted body laying just beyond the charred remains of the farmhouse. “How long will it take him ?”

Not Artus. He was nearly flattened into the earth.

“Rupert?” Lilac wiped at her eyes. She’d been too distracted to scrutinize him before, or even remember he laid there, off to the right of the porch. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to, especially since learning he’d been working for Artus. “He’s gone.”

“And he’s no vampire,” said Garin curtly.

“But he’s on the verge of it, isn’t he?” Myrddin pressed, striding over to Rupert.

Garin would never—ever— turn Rupert, especially knowing he’d touched her. Well, it was Lilac who’d done most of the teasing and touching. She expected Garin to deny it just as quickly as he had Myrddin’s first inquiry.

Instead, Garin didn’t answer.

Lilac froze mid-pat, Yanna still sniffling into her shoulder.

Myrddin bent to stroke the matted hair from Rupert’s forehead.

He gazed quietly into the corpse’s frightened, open eyes, then looked up at the endless night they stared into.

“You pitied him, even if for a moment, didn’t you?

You saw something in him, so you tried. You wouldn’t have, otherwise.

” Myrddin straightened. “Isn’t that why there’s a hawthorn arrow in the middle of his chest? Because you changed your mind?”

“I used him as a human shield. That’s why that arrow is there.

” Garin winced, rocking onto his haunches before rising to his feet.

“There’s also one through his stomach, marking him definitively dead.

” His fingers flexed at his side, for a second it looked as though he meant to stride toward her and Yanna.

Lilac’s muscles involuntarily tensed, her arms curling protectively around her friend.

Myrddin squinted, scrutinizing Garin’s tender movements. “Are you unwell?”

Garin stopped to fix the warlock with a withering glare. “I’ve been shot in the arm and leg , Myrddin. Of course I am unwell.”

“But are you not healing? Perhaps some of Lorietta’s magical pottage would help. Or, more readily, some of your beloved’s blood from the vein,” Myrddin added from the corner of his mouth.

“You and I both know why that is a bad idea right now.” Garin began to stalk toward Myrddin with a lethal grace in his step that Lilac had never seen before.

Like a ghoul, his boots made no sound as he slinked up the hill.

“Forgive me, if it takes me a tad longer to recover from the ammunition lodged deep inside my body, by weapons no pea-brained mortal should ever have in their possession in the first place. I doubt the ancient, unholy arcana that made me what I am ever considered cannons and gunpowder artillery. Especially in violent, colonizing hands.” He came to a halt, glaring down at Rupert.

“He is a useless bastard’s son. Whatever I tried was done in a moment of weakness. I have no need for him.”

“You might not.” Myrddin stood his ground over Rupert’s body, his probing eyes darting over Garin’s shoulder to Lilac.

“She will need allies within her courts. Your coven serves you well. Now that she’s enthralled to you, they will serve her well.

Still, they are foot soldiers, scouts, swordsmen and archers of a bygone era.

With everything to come, her Majesty will need those able to pass as human and Daemon, maintain their ranks and exist between worlds as creatures once did long, long ago.

She’ll need those able to defend, sleuth, and assess—she could stand to hire shifters onto her court, too.

Our glamors don’t work on you in the same way they do others whose physiologies bind to illusory magic. ”

“What do you mean, ‘ with everything to come? ’” Lilac asked. It had sounded both warning and plea.

Myrddin shrugged in a helpless gesture, his face scrunched, as if the mere thought of telling her caused him great pain.

“What my queen needs is a court she can trust,” Garin bit back, his anger growing more volatile with every word. “Furthermore, she needs none amongst her rank so willing to bed the traitor.” His laugh was chilling when Myrddin’s face fell. “That’s why you want him back so badly, isn’t it?”

“Garin, stop it,” Lilac objected. “That’s cruel, even for you.”

Garin spun on her, his lips curled warningly over his fangs. “You cannot possibly defend him.”

“There’s no way Myrddin could’ve known.”

“He has done enough tonight. Bringing you both here, putting you in danger.” Garin’s chest rose and fell unevenly, his breath shallow. “I ordered him to watch over you, protect you against any harming hand. My own or otherwise.”

“His duty may be to you, but Myrddin’s will is his own. Just because he has not done it your way, doesn’t mean he has disobeyed you. At least he has the freedom to do so.” Garin flinched. “You will never hurt me.”

“You think—” Garin laughed, a ridiculing sound, just as a patch of clouds moved across the moon.

This had seemed to strike a deeper chord of fury in him.

“You think I am incapable of hurting you?” The clouds had shifted across the moon, casting them into the shadows, but she could feel it—his eyes combing her face.

A lover’s caress as he spoke slowly. Intently.

“You are mine. You made sure of that. Mine to protect. Mine to covet. Mine to break.”

She swallowed, Garin’s fixed gaze a noose around her neck. He was shifting, morphing into something and someone else entirely—yet not wholly unfamiliar. The brothel had been but a glimpse of his depraved hunger, hadn’t it?

“I thought you were an open book before. Simple to read, most amusing to digest. Spread too easily upon my fingers. Now that we’re bound, I’ve come to realize my hold on you is directly related to my appetite.”

Lilac didn’t dare budge, despising the way her body was already reacting—the heat creeping up her throat, stinging her cheeks, surging between her thighs.

“Look at you. You register the threat in my words, yet still struggle to hold yourself from me. I can sense it now, just what this does to you.” His head tilted, craning toward her.

“I hear your heart thudding away, I can feel your clit jumping at the sound of your name on my tongue. Doesn’t it, Eleanor?

Your Majesty. Lilac.” The last word he spoke nearly broke her will. “ Princess .”

She was her kingdom’s beloved ermine caught in a snake’s trance, coiled tightly between muscles trained to kill with nowhere to run—not that she even wanted to.

The minute movement of Myrddin caught her eye. Over Garin’s shoulder, the warlock was inching back towards Rupert.

Myrddin put a slow finger to his lips.

“I taste you on the wind,” Garin muttered.

“It is gut-wrenching how sinfully I crave you. Your laughter is the sound of cathedral bells—the scent of your hair, the sun warming me through the high windows. Your body, the pulpit. All I want to do is kneel, and repent, and drink of your wine, and sin, and sin again, until there is little left of the monster I’ve become. ”

Lilac dug her nails into her palm so hard, she started to bleed.

She raised her chin, simultaneously acknowledging Myrddin’s message.

“You miss it, don’t you? You miss your mouth on me, my arousal coating your lips.

Your fingers slicked in me.” She cocked her head—a very Garin-like gesture.

She hoped he recognized himself in her. “You go without the taste of this pussy for three days, and you’ve already lost your mind? Shame.”

His smile then grew vicious, and she could’ve sworn his eyes glinted in the dark. Garin’s head fell back, mouth opening in a plea of silent laughter as he gripped his chest.

At that moment, the clouds parted.

Yanna gasped.

Lilac would’ve run for the trees, then, if not for every bit of instinct telling her being chased— hunted —would certainly have made it worse.

With his face basked in the moonlight, Garin’s features were illuminated.

All of his teeth were fangs, some whose point came at a lethal slant—some, more jagged than others, his canines still especially long in comparison.

Sharp nails had sprouted upon his lengthened fingers, his already-huge hands enlarged.

Blinding need boiled her blood, stronger than the fear that chased it painfully through her veins. She imagined tackling him, pushing him back and riding his mouth, her fingers twined through his luscious black hair until he sank his teeth into her.

She wanted to nip at his throat and make him bleed. “Your bark is stronger than your bite.”

“ No ,” Yanna whimpered frantically, sidling up to her. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“I do miss it.” Garin wiped his chin across his forearm.

He was drooling , his voice a deep moan that may as well have been two of his thick claws up her skirts.

“Oh, gods, I do. More than you’ll ever know.

” His eyes darted onto Yanna, who hid behind the curtain of Lilac’s hair.

“Though, the taste of your sister was almost— nearly —close enough.”

Lilac’s hungry smile fell.

All the excitement left her body in the whoosh of air expelled from her lungs, her chest caving in until it ached. This time, the pang of raw jealousy at the fresh memory of his fangs in Yanna clanged with something far more primal.

Lilac turned to Yanna through her heated, already blurry vision; her handmaiden’s blonde hair was silver in the moonlight, framing her face. Yanna was too busy glaring daggers at Garin, tears already streaming down her plump cheeks.