Page 128 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

“Don’t listen to him,” Lilac said, grasping at her own sanity. “He’s trying to get into your head.”

“Me?” Garin pointed at himself, his claw pricking his chest. “No. No, not in the way I’ve buried myself into yours.”

Lilac slinked her fingers between Yanna’s, just in case she ran to fight him. Or worse. She thought of her castle—her throne. “My father never told me?—”

“You think your father would have half the mind to tell you if he’d fathered any more children?

He can barely handle one.” Garin chuckled, nostrils flaring in their direction.

Lilac and Yanna took a step back. He brought his hand to his mouth, running his tongue along a blood-crusted finger.

“You taste of each other.” He cocked a brow, licking his fingertip and lips as if cleaning himself after a jam tart.

“Your blood, at least. And you both smell of Marguerite. There’s often a resemblance there between siblings.

” A certain darkness shadowed his expression.

“From what I can tell, you smell and taste nothing of Henri,” Garin added, with a pointed look at Yanna. “Lucky you.”

Lilac stared at her in disbelief. How? How, and when?

Did Marguerite know? Had either of them known? Was that why they came to work for her—in her home? Piper had sensed it first, between Yanna and Isobel. How had she known without drinking from them?

Adelaide’s face abruptly interrupted her train of thought.

The witch’s ochre eyes were ablaze with terror—along with the pale, round visage of another young woman.

A girl no more than the age of ten with the same pin-straight black hair as the witch, her eyes rolling and half shut.

Red flecked across her cheeks and mangled throat.

Two bodies slumped over each other in the background.

Lilac rubbed aggressively at her face, desperate to rid herself of the unwelcome memory. His memory. “Stop it.”

“You sick fuck.” Yanna shook Lilac by the shoulders, and her vision vanished. “Leave her alone!”

“Believe what you will.” Garin shrugged.

“And, while your second request is far beyond my control… if you want, I’ll sample your dear Isabel, just to be sure.

And your mother. Delicious, beautiful Marguerite, perfuming herself, wearing her hair tall—not a stray lock upon her throat.

Baring herself for me without even realizing it. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

Truth or lie, he really was a monster. Cruelty and hunger came too naturally to Garin. Maybe it was him; maybe it was everything he’d been through, his vampirism—perhaps both—but it was always in him in the end. His thirst had brought it out, their thrall bond worsening it. She should’ve known.

That was why it had upset him so much.

“Touch them and I’ll stake you myself.”

Garin’s smirk faded at Lilac’s threat. He remained expressionless, running his hand over his face. Despite the hunger that filled them, his eyes were tired. “You have no idea what any man, mortal or creature, is capable of when he is hungry enough.”

“It is still no match for a woman’s wrath or determination.” Lilac squeezed Yanna’s hand. “We rode Lo?g here.”

Rapt fascination crossed his face. “You… rode him here?”

Lilac suppressed a more vulgar response, scorning the way his incredulity around this fact seemed to center him. “We all did. He’s rather agreeable.”

Behind Garin, Myrddin had turned back toward the house. The violet currents between his fingers were there again; they began to smoke once he resumed drawing shapes in the air.

In a matter of seconds, a violet teardrop-shaped ball of flame the size of a fist floated from the steaming remains, bobbing toward Myrddin and Rupert. It hovered between them for a moment, then sank silently into the earth just next to the corpse’s head.

Rupert’s body began to glow, an outline of arcana shrouding his form, just bright enough to see in contrast with the deepening night.

“He trotted right into the trees just there and vanished in a veil of black smoke, just as quickly as he’d arrived,” added Lilac, pointing back west toward the castle. “That is no typical horse.”

Yanna wiggled her hand from Lilac’s, eyes bulging at the sight behind Garin. “Is?—”

Lilac elbowed her in the side.

“That doesn’t make sense. There’s no way all of you rode here that quickly. It’s at least half a day’s ride from the chateau nonstop, even along the most direct route. Even slower with an encumbered steed.”

“Myrddin teleported us to the battlefield outside Montfort-sur-Meu.”

“To be fair, she would not take no as an answer,” Myrddin said, eyes widening frantically at Lilac.

Garin whirled back on him, just as Rupert’s body ceased glowing .

Fuck . “ I commanded him to.” Lilac stepped forward, shrugging off Yanna’s hand that went straight to her arm. “I cornered him.”

“She’s strong, Garin,” Myrddin stammered. “S-she’s yours, she takes after you. She’d gleefully keep slitting my throat if she had her way?—”

“You teleported them where ?” Garin roared, stalking toward the warlock.

“The battle was already over, you all were gone. You saved my father’s life.” Lilac spoke hurriedly, realizing her grave mistake. “Garin, wait, Myrddin has been a tremendous help!”

Garin ignored her shouts. There was a explosion of spark and flame at his feet.

“Center yourself,” Myrddin shouted. “Remember who you are!”

“I know who I am,” Garin snarled back, his voice drenched with desperation.

“I’ve spent the last two weeks in shock over the discovery of that very fact.

I have never been more painfully aware of who I am, and what this curse had made me.

” His claws grasped at his bare chest. “A slave to time. And my violent, dastardly heart. I have no choice but to obey.”

“You're going to be all right!” Myrddin held his hands out, backing away from him and Rupert’s still body. “You’re gravely injured, and I don’t want to hurt you. Doing so will only endanger the queen.” He lurched back and dodged a swipe of Garin’s outstretched hands.

“I’ll kill you!”

Lilac’s muscles seized against her will; she strained to move, to help, but her legs had grown impossibly heavy. “He’s been a guide to us both! He’s your patron, you’ve served him all these years at the inn. He’s your friend.”

Garin snarled and launched himself onto the warlock.

“He is my council,” Lilac thundered. “Myrddin…what is your family name?”

“ Wyllt ! Myrddin Ambrosius Wyllt!”

“Myrddin Abrosious Wyllt, I hereby assign you to my royal council, to aid me in…in Diplomacy and Magic.” Lilac jumped; a floating scroll materialized in a puff of smoke before her very eyes, a huge peacock’s quill suddenly in her right hand.

“Only if you mean it,” Myrddin gargled, Garin’s hands around his neck.

Lilac shakily put the nib to the parchment, with no time to read the neatly scrawled text. “He is at my behest and protection, Garin! As are you.” She finished her signature, and the quill and scroll vanished into thin air with a puff of smoke. “I order you to unhand him!”

Garin was way past reason; his fangs gnashed at Myrddin, who stumbled back, toppling them both. They rolled. The warlock had a clumsy sort of strength of his own, punching and clawing at Garin’s face until Myrddin gasped out in pain.

Garin’s mouth was latched onto his neck.

She had to act quickly; Rupert as a vampire sounded like a nightmare, their brief tryst aside.

He was aloof and privileged, he’d willingly worked for Bog and poisoned her.

But Myrddin did say in her library that there was a method to his madness.

She had to believe there was reason beyond him fucking Rupert for wanting to save him so badly.

Such, that he was willing to brawl Garin for it. There was no time to question it.

With all her might, she lunged for the corpse and stuck her foot onto his shoulder, yanking the arrow out of his belly. She tossed the arrow aside and pulled the remaining one from his chest, the head catching onto meat and bone before it came free from his chest cavity.

There was a yelp of pain—Garin’s entire body flashed violet before he was thrown into the air, off of the warlock, rolling several yards down the knoll.

Lilac made to run after him—she couldn’t help herself—but Yanna’s arm linked with hers, yanking her back.

“Good thinking.” Myrddin sat up, wiping his own blood from his face, staining it into his beard. The gaping wound at his throat closed before their eyes. “Keep her from him.”

“What did that scroll do?” Lilac pressed, desperate to distract herself.

“Formalities.” Myrddin waved an unconcerned hand, pulling himself to his feet. “Just some fine print binding me to you. My duty, that is. I thought I was going to have to beg.”

“Magically binding?”

“Now, I did not say that.” Myrddin wagged a finger. “Mostly, being amongst your ranks protects me from him.” He jabbed that wagging finger at Garin, stirring in the dirt.

She considered Kestrel and his deals. Surely striking one with a warlock wasn’t any better. “But what do I owe you? ”

“Me? Nothing. I want nothing more than to see you to greatness. The both of you.”

She had no reason to trust him explicitly, but for now, he was the most powerful person in their vicinity. Despite all the grief he’d given the vampire, he’d never once crossed Lilac.

At least she wouldn’t be the first ruler he’d served. “Fine.”

“It is more than fine, Your Majesty. It is done as dusk.”

Garin sat halfway up, arms darting out toward his thigh, moaning. “My—” he started to cry, but he leaned over to retch. Thick, black ichor poured from his mouth.

“Don’t, Your Majesty,” Myrddin said sternly, as if reading her mind.

“But he needs me.” Lilac’s entire body turned rigid at the sound of his wails, despite the urge to drop to her knees and feed him from her throat. It was as if even the muscle and bone Garin had previously commanded strained against her every attempt to ensure his well being. “He’s hurt.”