Page 35 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

“Or what? Or else you’ll snap my neck?” she snarled. His hardened cock strained against her ass, only fueling her anger. “Or else you’ll entrance me? Control me?” Her voice wavered with emotion, looking down at herself, at her powerful limbs. “Is this why you’re so angry you had to save me?”

He tossed a dark curl out of his eyes. “I am not angry about saving you.”

“Then what? What was the cost?”

He said nothing under her, absorbing her fury in silence.

She looked down at herself, pressed against him, bare beneath her thin nightgown, willing herself to stay focused. “There was a cost, was there not? Something is bothering you. Is it why I am able to do this?” She brought her hands before them. “Fight you? Are we bound, Garin?”

She did not know whether to laugh or cry at the thought of being his thrall. Every emotion she felt was most unpleasantly rampant.

“I told you, it’s all the magic in your system.

The witches both agree that the Guài remedy and my blood are still a volatile combination, even if it did not kill you.

And you ,” he said, slowly propping himself up on his elbows, then his palms, chuckling.

“Fight me ?” He didn’t take his eyes off her lips, and before she knew it, their mouths were barely brushing.

His aroma enveloped her senses again, and her anger dissolved; she leaned in to kiss him, utterly unable to help herself, but Garin’s hand rose to caress her cheek, then lowered and wrapped around her throat. “Look at me.”

Want and fear warred inside. When she tried once more to shove off him, there was the cool of a blade—her blade—against her neck.

“I said, look at me, Eleanor.” This time it wasn’t tender, and there was no question .

The urge was too strong. She was drowning in him, in his scent and with her body against his. It wasn’t even because of the long, lethal fingers wrapped around her throat or the blade that made her instantly stop struggling against him.

It was his voice—both the tide and the raft—coaxing her further out to sea.

Lilac’s eyes rose to meet his. The room once more began to shimmer around them.

“You’re going to follow my instructions.” He spoke softly, and somehow this was much more terrifying than any command he’d barked before. He raised his brows, gauging if she was listening. “Nod if you understand.”

She gritted her teeth, and there was a flame of anger that burst somewhere in the distance, but that was all too far away now. She nodded.

“You’re going to get off of me and put your cloak on.” He cocked his head pointedly over his shoulder at the coat rack in the corner of the room, to the right of the hearth, where her wool cloak hung. “It’s rather cold outside this morning.”

She hated how he spoke to her, like she was an insubordinate child.

However, he was right; the mornings were often chilled at the castle, and she couldn’t imagine how much colder it would be in Brocéliande.

She moved to shift onto her feet, but he released her jaw and caught her by the forearms again.

His thumbs moved soothingly against her flushed skin, trailing down to her hands.

“I wasn’t done.” Garin spoke around his fangs, his eyes like muted starlight filling her with hope and a distant dread that floated further by the second. “You will do it on your hands and knees, please.”

There was a stab of rage as she strained against his will. But he showed no anger back; his features were softer, gentler. He’d said please .

“Now, get off.”

She slipped under his spell and did as she was told.

Before she adjusted herself, Garin was already striding across the room, and he came to stop beside the coat rack. He tossed her dagger onto the bed next to her bag and folded his arms. “Go on then. Crawl to me.”

Lilac felt her body act, but by now there was little protest in her mind to something so ridiculous.

On all fours, mildly aware of her thighs rubbing together beneath the thin layer of her nightgown, the queen crawled through the dust to the tapping boot awaiting her.

In the time it took her to get there, his control began to wane; her ears grew hot, and humiliation began to find its way into her buzzing subconscious.

Garin bent to meet her eyes. She tensed her muscles to get to her feet, but Garin only hummed in disapproval. “ Mmm . I did not say to get up.”

“You ass?—”

“Stand.”

She immediately obeyed, and when he offered a wolfish smile and praised her, a rush of relief flooded her body, momentarily quelling her fury.

Then, all that was left was betrayal.

She stood still, the room spinning as it returned to normal with every breath, every blink, the shimmering quality of the air dissipating.

Garin unhooked her cloak and strode behind her, the heat of the fire easing its way into her aching, buzzing joints as he patiently helped her into it.

One arm, then the other. Then, he circled to her front, assessing her.

“It is temporary. Whatever this is, it is a meaningless side effect of our blood exchange that will wane with our separation.”

Meaningless . Her chest felt like it would crack in half. That was not the word she had in mind. Separation. She didn’t like that, either.

“I have never had a thrall myself or seen it done, Your Majesty, but if we were bound to each other— if you were my thrall—I wouldn’t have had to entrance you just then.

Imagine me being able to do that to you, control you, with a mere whisper.

I could command you to crawl to me from across a ballroom full of people, and you would obey.

Without question.” He took her right hand and examined it.

Turned it this way and that—and in that moment, his stern expression, that cold facade, broke.

Garin closed his eyes softly and cradled her palm in his hands before pressing his lips to her wrist. He inhaled, as if wanting to devote her scent to memory.

“There is no cost too great,” he said, and it took Lilac a breath to understand what he spoke of.

He lowered their hands and reopened them.

“I would save you in a heartbeat, one thousand times over, even if it meant risking making you my thrall and revoking what little, true freedom you have. Anything to keep you here, right here in front of me.” His gaze dipped to the pulse hammering in her throat.

“To keep you breathing, that harmonious heartbeat pulsing— just for me . Don’t you see why this is wrong?

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

She wanted to pull away from him but couldn’t bring herself to, and this time it had nothing to do with his sanguine magic. She didn’t care. She could rule from the inn, from this very room, with him.

He reached up and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I want you to go home and consult with your council, with your parents, on everything regarding protecting your kingdom from France. Consider your options and your best propositions.”

There it was . Lilac ripped herself from him, but he caught her in a second, grip iron hard.

“There’s been a skirmish on your eastern borders, Lilac. Bastion has caught wind of it while you recovered.”

She froze, torn between anger at him for actually pushing her to marry and the need to know about her kingdom’s safety. “When?”

“Yesterday. Your father and his men are dealing with it as silently as possible, not wanting to draw attention to the fact you are not at home.”

She wasn’t thinking clearly—these were clear concerns to have, and she should be speeding home with all haste possible. But all she could focus on was that she would be dealing with everything without him.

That he would be here, without her.

As if reading her mind, Garin took a step back. “We’ll see each other again. We still have to deliver Kestrel’s chest, though it might be safer for Bastion and I to do it.”

She was so angry, she couldn’t see straight. “How is it so important to you that I keep my free will, yet you are ordering me to marry?”

“I am not ordering you, but I am urging you with my deepest wishes.”

“Oh, fuck off. ”

“Why do you refuse to marry? Help me understand.” Garin studied her, holding her at length.

“You are the queen. You may have been able to avoid a Le Tallec betrothal, but do you really expect to remain unwed forever?” He shook his head uncomprehendingly.

“This happens all the time—borders shift, armies jostle. Leaders must protect themselves.”

“You are no better than Henri,” she said, her ears burning.

“Than Marguerite. If giving my life to someone I do not know is the fate that has befallen me,” she said, hoping every shaking word dug into Garin as hard as she threw them, “then I will throw myself upon that blade when and how I see fit. You, of all people, will not order it done. How dare you!”

“Your marriage was bound to be transactional, was it not?” He exhaled, forcing himself to release her and keeping his distance.

A tremor passed through his body before he continued.

“You knew from the day of your birth that you would not have an ounce of true freedom, did you not? You are the wombed crown of a country with a small army and an abundance of trading ports. Are you blissfully unaware that you are one of the most underestimated pawns in the world? Did you think we would fuck and fancy each other, and society would change its mind on your eventual marriage because of your station?”

Lilac grabbed the empty candelabra from the mantle and chucked it at his head. He caught it and tossed it aside, sending it clanging into the corner of the room and leaving a sizable dent in the wall.

He took a small step toward her, and she shrugged her cloak further onto her shoulders, closing her body off to him. “Do you not study your own histories?”