Page 152 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

W hen Garin felt the warmth of sun on his face and his beloved’s perfumed hair against his chest—her full weight against him—he knew he’d either gone to heaven, or had been dragged into the deepest pits of hell.

And when he felt the liquid ecstasy trickling onto his arms, he wished he’d never left that sanctum with her. For a pocket full of time, thousands of books, and the odd creature that now lay snoring in a crumpled heap just feet away, he didn’t know what he’d give.

They’d rolled and tumbled. That was all he’d remembered from their quick, unpleasant descent. Lilac grappling for her dagger in his grasp; red clouding his vision, his stomach lurching.

The way her sweet flesh gave way between his new, sharper teeth.

Garin slid Lilac’s body off of him, and reached for the dagger handle, ready to yank it out of her back and watch her chest inflate.

But he winced, his hand knocking wood. Garin sat up, watching his raw knuckle heal over, smoking in the ray of sunlight piercing the high window.

Lilac’s eyes were glassy, an expression of brief shock contorting her face as she stared back at him, unseeing, her head twisted in his direction.

Red leaked lightly at the front of her damp gown, and at the crescent of fang marks he’d left on her forearm, but it was pouring from her back, pooling rapidly beneath her.

He crawled and yanked it from her, then flipped her face-up.

Why? his logic and hunger snarled within, anger and confusion merging into an ungodly wrath, slamming into him all at once. Why had this happened, why had Kestrel’s curse gripped him the moment she’d been crowned?

Garin tore his wrist with his teeth and let his blood flood her mouth.

Breathe , he thought desperately. It was all he could think, even with the nearing measured footfall of that blasted nuisance sea witch. Breathe. Choke on it. Sputter.

“Come on,” he muttered through his teeth, slapping her face. Gods, it was still warm. Still pink and warm. She would live, walk among his kind. He would rather her fall out of love with him, walk by his side as his fledgling than lose her—that much was clear as dawn.

But his blood only pooled at the back of her open mouth, spilling out.

“Come. On .”

There was another set of footsteps, then. Henri knelt behind him, sniffling.

“She’s gone, son.”

Son . Garin spun, clutching the hulking git by the front of his white silken robes. He was hardly moved—the drunkard should have been on his arms and knees, begging the Old Gods for his daughter back.

“This is your doing,” Garin hissed. “And if she were to marry—” The words caught in his throat.

“If she were ever to marry me, she’d take my name.

Join my forsaken bloodline. I would have taken her far from this cursed place.

Far from you , if not for her reluctant duty to the very honor you squandered.

” His voice dropped to a growl. “I am no son of yours, and never will be if you could not stand to love her in the first place.”

Garin stood, passing Morwenn and dragging Henri by the nape of his neck.

He strode straight toward the group huddled at the chapel’s far end, his gaze hardening on the priest, who’d broken down in the corner and was sobbing quietly.

“P-please, Sir Trevelyan,” he cowered. “Spare them. They know not what they do.”

“They know exactly what they have done, Father.” He roughly dropped the old king and tilted his head up.

He glowered at Marguerite, still perched on the organ like some cowardly bird.

Her friends and former court cowered beside her.

His eyes lingered for a moment on Edith Menard’s daughter.

He tipped his head and turned away. “Ostracized, for language ? I should tear your throats out where you stand. You have no idea what else she’s capable of.

She is much, much worse than she leads on. ”

He turned back to the open chapel. They didn’t deserve his broken, cruel eulogy for the woman who was the world to him.

Lorietta and Adelaide stood against the far wall. Adelaide clutched one of her glass bottles, frenzied liquid gold inside. Lori locked eyes with him, offering a gentle smile filled with sorrow yet reassurance.

He forced himself to look away, shame boring into him. His friend had seen enough of the cruelty and carnage he was capable of.

Beyond, the wounded watched from the chapel’s broken edges—guards and servants peeking through crumbled stone, limbs poorly bound, expressions wary. A few sat bleeding in the dust of the bailey, too weak to stand. Others simply stared, as if waiting for orders that would never come.

It was quiet beyond. There was no more movement at the gate.

He stalked down to Lilac’s body like a lion refusing to waste its spoils—and caught the glimpses of Lilac’s sisters off to his right, gathered in the dim light just beyond the ruined choir rail.

Isabel, her soft eyes alert and unreadable.

Yanna, shoulders squared, one hand on her twin’s shoulders as she returned his gaze in loathing—and Piper, her face withdrawn, fixed on him with something like mourning.

They huddled close together, silently watching.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at them long. It had been his hand that reached for something he should never have touched in the first place. His hands trembled—not with fear, but with the ache to tear something apart. To bleed the world back into balance. But there was no other enemy here.

Only the ghosts of what once was, and the monster who made them.

Garin sank to his knees, almost refusing to touch her. He couldn’t bring himself to feel Lilac’s skin cold—colder than his

“ Lilac ,” Morwenn mused, singing her name.

She circled them with slow, liquid grace, her strange shoes clicking, echoing off the walls with each step.

There was something eerily familiar in her stride, slow and elegant.

Intent. “Feisty little one, wasn’t she? Your queen, Eleanor.

Your own curse, in and of herself. Trepid, yet more consuming than your bloodlust.”

“ Speak her name again and I’ll cut your tongue from your mouth, witch. ”

“Sorceress,” she corrected. “Water mage, to be exact. Necromancer reigning.”

His lips spread into a threatening sneer. “I don’t care what or who you are.”

“For now.” She smiled. “There he is, the monster behind the mask. I imagine your lovers prefer you angry. Thirsty.”

Garin didn’t even hear half of whatever the fuck she was saying. He glanced around, combing the room for the blasted warlock. Where was he—where had he been?

Did death work the same for thralls? Was this truly the end? He was going to be sick.

Morwenn stepped closer. Water curled around her feet. “I’ve an offer. A request I think you’d find quite appealing.”

Garin’s head slowly lifted. “Bring her back to me, and I’ll do anything for you.”

A maelstrom of irritation flashed behind her eyes, the color of swirling cognac in the sun.

She looked down at Lilac, whose hair was backlit by the sun.

A dark, smoldering auburn, made richer after the Guài’s disillusionment arrow had struck her hand.

Embers stained in the crimson rapidly spreading beneath her.

Eyeing him, Morwenn tossed her own long hair, golden brown as if the sun itself were imbued in its hue. Her sunburned pale-green throat smelled of the western shores. “It is not an exchange I offer, but?—”

“She cannot do it,” Myrddin was stepping through the cliff-sized hole in the wall. “Do not deal the queen’s life with her.” Part of his blue robes and pants were singed off, still smoking. In his hand, by the scruff of its neck, was the plump gray cat.

Behind him, Lo?g neighed concernedly like a hulking shadow. They stepped into the hall, then, Myrddin, into the chapel.

Morwenn made a sound of relief. “Oh! Duchess, there you are.”

“I found her hanging by her tail from a rope about halfway down the flagpole,” Myrddin muttered. Bastion busied himself studying the carvings in the ceiling.

“And you are?” Morwenn asked, eyeing the newcomer with cautious fascination .

Most of the warlock’s ire had faded, leaving deep shadows under his eyes.

He ignored her question and strode straight over to Garin, regarding Lilac as he spoke.

“The vampires have extinguished much of the efforts at the south gate. They had armor on, for the most part,” he added, for Garin’s benefit.

“Gwendal the fledgling helped them obtain it from the recently abandoned forge.”

Yanna choked a delirious laugh from their corner, Isabel violently shushing her.

“They retreated at dawn—I told them about The Fenfoss Inn. They should be there now.”

“Meriam must be thrilled,” Garin said numbly, but gratefully. He reached out and gripped Myrddin’s hand in a firm squeeze, and shook. “And the rest?”

“Injured, shaken. No losses of the coven from what I’ve seen, but there are a mixture of Breton and enemy bodies scattered outside, more the latter than the former.

They can’t seem to find Kemble.” He blinked slowly, intentionally, at Garin.

The rush of the night, the crippling hunger and raging lust that shook him, all felt like a distant, blood-soaked nightmare.

Rupert was safe in the shadows, even as his mother remained. “So Hedwig is tending to them.”

There was movement at the back of the chapel. “We’ll help,” muttered Adelaide, also unable to take her eyes off the queen’s form.

“Go,” Garin said, his voice rougher than he’d intended.

They left for the opening, toward the courtyard. “There’s a ward over the castle,” Lori said when she passed. “It’s not ancestral, and only lasts as long as I’m here physically here, but outsiders would see no difference. I’ve covered the corpses, too.”