Page 139 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

T he moment Garin landed on his back on the center of the bed, she tossed the chains at his head—one by one. They each snapped to their respective bedposts, his wrists secured in place.

He blinked, glanced at both his extended arms, and began to laugh.

His deep, arousing chuckle tapered off when she leaned over him and fingered the drawstrings at the top of his trousers.

Lilac kissed him deeply; he seemed reluctant to let her into his mouth at first, as if worried she’d forget to be gentle around his fangs.

Garin was exactly right; she sliced her tongue on his razor-sharp front teeth, gasping at the sharp pain…

but it quickly dissipated. His tongue, sweeping over hers, healed the gashes instantly.

This seemed to rouse the monster in him; Garin’s voice rumbled, a heavy vibration at the back of her skull.

Bleed for me, he begged, voice tight. Just a little. I’ll make it worth your while. There’s no song sweeter than the way your heart races for me.

Lilac gasped against his mouth in breathy surprise and did it again, losing all sense of her own safety; she straddled him and ground herself over his trousers, cutting herself and kissing, rubbing her clit with one hand until she couldn’t stand it anymore .

Her fingers found his waistband and yanked it down, freeing his cock. Garin’s teeth and ears were not the only things that had transformed.

Mine, his voice echoed in her mind again, this time taunting.

“Let me rule,” she whispered, crawling back, taking his thickened head into her mouth. She choked, dribbling down it.

Garin cussed, his head lolling back. “Fuck, Eleanor,” he panted. “That feels so good.”

“Let me do this,” she repeated determinedly, working him from base to tip, coating it in her saliva.

She willed her lust to win out over the fragment of hope that seemed to carve its way into her throat.

“We can do it together, can’t we? Without Maximilian.

King Henry will send us his horses. I’ve sent him?—”

“I know you have,” he said tightly. His smile grew at the triumph that faded from her eyes. “I sent John on his way and instructed him to follow your orders. To deliver your request your way.”

Garin propped himself up on her pillows to watch her rise, then slide onto him slowly. Lilac’s breath hitched at his size probing at her cunt. Politely, he said nothing; his apprehensive grin grew teasing when she barely held back a shuddering moan.

Mine , came the voice again as he filled her. Louder. Somehow closer.

That delectable throat is mine. Your unbelievable body. Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine, for all of eternity.

Lilac winced and straddled him, eliciting a low hiss from deep within Garin’s chest. She reached up and placed her hand around the curve of Garin’s throat, tightening her fingers around the sides. His smile only widened as she stretched herself slowly around him. “Then, ask.”

Something like warning flashed across his features, his jaw clenching through his glorious grin of fangs.

“If I am to be yours,” she managed, moaning around the throbbing swell of his cock. “It is your name I shall bear. Not his.” She rose, then sank, stifling a whimper. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Something broke in him at the same time her will splintered. Lilac leaned back, her hand sweeping against the crumpled duvet for the key to undo his shackles, desperate to feel his claws against her flesh .

But Garin yanked his hands free—snapping them in a single movement—and molded them around her hips. He shifted his feet and plunged himself up and into her, causing Lilac to fall against him.

His fingers traveled up her back, shredding her nightgown completely down the middle.

Garin’s mouth found her breast without effort; his tongue flicked against her nipple, sucking and teasing. She writhed against him, alarmed at the brush of his fangs against her tender breast, but he only shifted her, biting into the curve of it and moaning against her burning flesh.

It stung badly, but she only leaned into him.

He gulped deeply, thrice—lashed the gash with his tongue—then lifted his head from her bosom.

“Don’t you understand, Eleanor?” he growled into her ear, each painstakingly slow thrust punctuated with restrained fury, his nails biting into the silk over her thighs.

“You could wear the crowns of dozens of empires, take kings to your bed and birth entire dynasties, and still— still —I would bleed for you. Nothing you do, no one you fuck, no child your bear nor no kingdom you lead could unravel what you’ve sewn into me. ”

Relieved, heartbroken tears began to spill at his words—and his enormous cock stretching her. Her breath hitched, her hair sticking to her face, nails digging into his shoulders to pull him closer. Deeper. She wanted him to fill her and fill her.

Garin didn’t stop.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he rasped, the request both an oath and a curse. He looked up at her, his own eyes filled with a weighted grief and self-disgust. “Even if it shouldn’t be true—should never be uttered outside this room. Even if it damns us both. Please, tell me.”

“Yours,” Lilac managed, savoring his long strokes, his arms around her. She was exactly where she wanted to be. “I’m?—”

There was no warning—Garin snarled under her and sheathed himself deep, cussing into and kissing her collarbone; at the same time, Lilac came over him, her body convulsing, clenching, pressing in sweat and heat and remnants of soot against his bare, chiseled form.

She collapsed over him, and he pulled her in close, his claws threading her hair.

“I may belong to the kingdom,” she breathed into his chest. “To an emperor, even. But the parts of myself I squander and hold close. I want more than anything to share them with you, Garin.”

He kissed the top of her head twice before speaking again.

“Urging you toward Maximilian, the idea of you marrying a great and powerful leader, those were not betrayals,” he whispered gently.

“Not in my mind. Because in the marrow of my bones, every godforsaken night I’ve walked to your tower and climbed those stones to watch you sleep, I’ve known that I’d guard you— love you through peace or bloodshed.

Through every victory gained and every soldier lost.” His throat bobbed.

“And there will be losses, Eleanor. Many.”

She turned her face toward him, eyes brimmed with moisture and heat as she rested her chin on his chest. “You didn’t just urge me, Garin. You manipulated . You orchestrated my marriage to Maximilian like a commander planning an insidious siege.”

“It was my mistake.” The words were rough. “Even before our thrall bond was sealed, I feared what it might become—what I might become—if you ever mirrored what I felt.”

“Why are you afraid of this? Of us?”

Garin shifted himself against the pillows and pulled away enough to look at her. Truly look at her. As she rose on her forearms over him, his eyes reflected the firelight in the vanity reflection, combing over her hungrily—desperate to soak her in.

As if summoned by her hammering pulse, the flames surged in the hearth next to them.

“What I feel isn’t love, Eleanor.”

She pushed off of him, sitting up. Her face was filled with blood. Her cheeks, her ears—even her pounding throat, were stained in the shade of berry that made his eyes darken.

“Not the way mortals understand it. Know it. This is obsession . And you should be afraid of what I’d do to keep you, if what I’ve already done isn’t proof enough.

” He grasped her hands before she had a chance to pull them away.

“Maximilian is not for you, despite how hard I’ve tried to convince myself.

Your kingdom, Brocéliande—they need the defenses more than ever, anything beyond the meager army your father and those Le Tallecs left you.

Your safety comes before everything else to me.

Everything. Even before truth.” This was a truth that evidently ate him alive.

Burned him to admit. “There’s a part of me, Eleanor—a part I keep buried, deep down—that would do terrible things to ensure it. ”

Her pulse would shatter her ribcage, want and horror existing there together.

There is no cost too great. For me. What, then, are you to pay?

It was what he’d meant at the inn. He’d known it even before she’d enthralled herself to him. There was no tempting a fate already sealed in blood.

“You speak of my safety as if it were yours to guard in the first place.” She took a breath—measured, but bitter. “As if I haven’t lived for this crown, tarnished it, bled for it more than anyone alive or dead.”

Garin merely shook his head. Slowly, as if he couldn’t believe the horrid things he’d done.

“If you ever find yourself pondering,” he murmured, taking her hand in his and pressing it to his lips, “whether in this kingdom or the next, this life or the after—know this: I am yours till my last breath, and whatever lies beyond. A ring is too mortal a signet to bear in the name of the breadth of what I feel for you.” His eyes were distant—wistful—and she knew his thoughts were in a different time and place.

“If ever the day comes I do own the privilege of placing one onto thine hand, it will be wrenched from my blood and yours, on arcane soil. Tragedy making us whole.” A sad, bitter smile touched his mouth.

“No king shall bar your name from my lips. No crown shall hold you from me.”

“Do you really think I don’t see you for what you are, Garin?

You think I don’t understand what it means to say yes to you?

” Lilac’s throat tightened. “It would ruin my reputation with Brittany. It would end my relations with several allies, including the one offering us a way out. And still, I’d—” She reddened, giddy with the hope lacing her impossible words.

Garin leveled his gaze with hers. “You want to be my wife, Eleanor?”