Page 151 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Rage boiled within. She would not—not in a world of magic and medicine and things she never would’ve fathomed possible. There was another way. She’d find it.

“A puny dagger,” Morwenn chided below, and Lilac deliciously envisioned severing her head with it.

Alas, the Dawnshard remained dormant, silent as it had been all these years. Lilac’s balance was getting better, her body quickly adjusting; she lunged again, the blade gleaming in the dark. Just when she thought it would hit him, Garin jumped over her, landing behind her with regal grace.

His weight still rocked the beam; Lilac shrieked and turned just in time to see him snatch the hilt from her grasp. He wielded it expertly, lancing and twirling it in the air.

“You used your Dawnshard because you knew I’d come back.

I’d only wake with renewed resolve to find you, track you down.

” Lilac’s mouth went dry at his warning as Garin’s ravenous eyes dropped to her hip.

His head tilted, a predatory demon savoring the memories of the cursed body it inhabited.

“If there is a next time, I’m going to fuck you myself and make you scream my name on the hilt of that thing. ”

And I’m going to shut you up , she thought furiously, snatching the stake from its sheath and adjusting her grip, hating the way Garin watched her.

“Thumb between your forefinger and middle finger,” he sang out, still somehow filled with the insufferable need to teach. His lips quirked when Morwenn’s giddy laughter rang out in the pit again.

Lilac readied the stake.

“You can do it,” Garin coaxed through the challenging gleam in his eyes. “One stab, and you’ll finally be free.”

She bared her teeth and struck him, slashing, carving through the air instead of stabbing. It made contact with his shoulder, searing the skin under his ripped shirt. Smoke lifted from it.

He winced. The muscle beneath Garin’s eye twitched. “That is not how you use it.”

Lilac slashed again, too easily catching his forearm. She watched the wound at his shoulder close up. The one at his arm, deeper, followed slowly. “You’re holding back!”

“I intend to lose,” he admitted easily, loosely fingering the blade, tossing it between his nimble fingers and keeping it out of reach.

“You took my dagger, so this was the only chance I had at survival.” Anger billowed through her. “You left me no choice.”

Lilac was close enough to land the blow. Instead, she held the stake over the edge of the beam. Early sunlight from the nearby stained-glass window caught on the iron-banded shaft, casting a long shadow across the rafters.

This was a game they both could play.

“I’ve a talent for that, haven’t I? Leaving the ones I love with nothing but terrible choices.

” Garin’s cruel grin disappeared. “But no, this is how I would do that.” His eyes flashed dangerously, ablaze against the dawn.

She glimpsed something like regret there.

“Eleanor, I command you to drive that stake through my heart.”

Lilac stood there, panting. Bracing herself, ready to drop her weapon and?—

And what? And die? She never expected it to happen here—in a church of all places. Not at the meager age of twenty, like this, atop a rafter, sparring the one she loved. How woefully poetic.

But as her fingers shook with the weight of her only option… nothing happened.

“Do it.”

There was no urge to fight against. Lilac’s eyes widened. The bag of berries.

As if reading her mind, a look of fury overcame Garin.

She immediately dropped her gaze, feeling his intense eyes probing hers, fingering her mind for a chance at entrancement.

“I won’t,” Lilac said to his boots. His long, nimble legs.

“I will not. You deserve to live , and love, and be loved, Garin.” He stalked toward her, walking her back toward the front of the church.

He opened his arms wide, bearing his chest. The lump in her throat nearly choked her.

“You deserve good things, we deserve more time?—”

Her heel slipped; Marguerite sobbed below.

But Lilac caught her balance. Barely.

“Fight me when I am unable to do it. I’d never be able to live with myself if I let anything terrible happen to you.

But I’d burn this entire world and the next down if your demise was by my own hand— please , Lilac,” he crooned, chest rising and falling as he neared.

Saliva dribbled from his chin, his pupils blown wide in hunger.

Tears were falling past the tips of his boots.

“If you love me… do it for me. For us. Put me out of the misery of fantasizing about your blood—all of it, running through my fingers, so much of it spilling into my mouth that it chokes me. This is not what you want, Eleanor. Look at me, what I am. This is not the future you deserve.”

“You said I deserve a burning, steadfast love,” she whispered fiercely.

Unflinching. Her gaze rose to him, boring into him.

“Try as I might, I cannot imagine one as deep or piercing, or as corrupting as yours.” Lilac leaned in, watching his eyes drop to her throat.

“Ache for me, Garin. I am yours everlasting. I am bound and I am willing .”

Her dagger shook in his hand.

As if fate itself drove her, Lilac grabbed for her blade—the blade itself.

“No!” He yanked it back, slashing her.

Hissing, she let go in time to preserve all of her fingers, but it was enough to slice her—soak her front and forearms in blood. Garin collapsed into her, his hunger taking over his need to kill her, just as she wanted.

Lilac made to sink the stake into his shoulder, his stomach—anywhere away from his heart—but he was too heavy, and his fangs had latched onto her arm.

She lost her balance, and they both tumbled off the beam.