Page 45 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)
U nlike Kestrel’s method of portaling, Lilac’s feet never truly left the ground.
This was worse. She swallowed part of the dinner burped in her mouth and couldn’t help but close her eyes tight, her fists balled.
As the spinning slowed, she became aware of other sensations—Myrddin’s hand clamped firmly around her forearm, her palm wrapped around his.
The smell of musk, sweat, and long worn perfume.
A steady thumping and strumming that grew louder every second.
Suddenly, the spinning stopped altogether as the sound of drums and strings and flutes filled the dank air, and she lurched when they stopped; her vision began to adjust to dim light, and she couldn’t help but shout in panic for the warlock, who yelped in anguish somewhere near her head.
Disoriented, Lilac shifted onto her elbows and realized she was laying on something soft; she blinked in the dappled dark, and found herself partially wrapped in Myrddin’s royal blue robes.
He shouted again, muffled this time—beneath her.
She abruptly righted herself, turned and opened her mouth to apologize, but gasped as a set of hands and back of a head appeared before him, roving up Myrddin’s thighs as he, too, sat up.
They’d landed on an alcove with a large chaise, which was filled with limbs and mouths, some faces adorned in glittering masks.
Someone’s wet mouth grazed her earlobe, and she shrieked; there were bodies, both fully dressed and naked, everywhere around them—very much alive, grinding and brushing into them.
Myrddin sat between two women spilling out of their corsets and the glistening, shirtless gentleman kneeling in front of him.
One of the women and the man wore masks beset with glistening beads and feathers.
“N-no thank you,” the warlock said, his cheeks pink. He held his arm out in alarm to Lilac. She sidestepped the man on the ground and yanked the warlock to his feet. He took a moment to gather himself, giving Lilac a moment to process the whimpering and groaning going on around them.
“A brothel ?” she shouted over the tantalizing beat, not caring who heard. The music at the front of the room drowned her out anyway. “Where are we? Where is he?”
“Rennes. The Fool's Folly.” Myrddin gave her a regretful smile, then pointed behind her at the nearby staircase. A pair of giggling women, both unmasked, nearly fell over themselves as they descended it.
Lilac stood on her toes, immediately scanning the room for an exit. All she saw was an upper floor. The glimpses of a long bar at the back of the room, several shirtless barkeeps behind it. Beautiful masked women carrying trays of food and drink. A stage.
Her vision was then blurred by the tears stinging her eyes. “Why did you bring me here? I thought he wanted to see me.”
“It is rather complicated,” explained Myrddin, dipping his head in apology. “At the moment, he does not want to see you, Your Majesty. But he does need you.”
She didn’t know what to say. Previously, the thought of him alone with a donor made her feel uneasy, but the thought of him drinking from— in bed with —another woman filled her every pore with the searing heat of jealousy.
“He can have his whore,” she spat, envy flooding her.
The warlock made a little sound and poked a finger in the air. “Er, whores , which was the point of this excursion.”
Blinded with anger, Lilac grabbed him by the front of his robes with one hand, and the next moment, her dagger was in the other. She held it in his face.
Myrddin looked only mildly alarmed, but not at her.
She followed his gaze up to the three chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, dimly lighting the open portion of the floor, and the small torches lining the walls and the staircase.
The flames flickered, danced violently, as if an undetectable gale had blown through the building.
A gentle hand pressed against the small of Lilac’s back.
She dropped the warlock when a stunning woman with a towering pink wig came up from behind her.
“Keep the knife play upstairs, you hear me?” she shouted over the band at the front corner of the tavern.
“You can wait for a room. Where is your mask? You know the rules,” she barked.
“My mask?” Lilac said, realizing belatedly what the mask must indicate. Many women and men scattered throughout the dance floor wore them. “Oh, I’m not?—”
Myrddin’s foot stomped onto her toes, and she stifled a yelp. “She lost it in our evening spent together,” he said gruffly.
The woman rolled her eyes, her own face decorated in heavy powder, rogue, and jewels, and pressed one into Lilac’s arms. She disappeared into the crowd, muttering under her breath.
It gleamed gold, crafted in what felt like linen padding and soft metal, adorned at the corners in tufts of greenery and Baby’s Breath, curving tastefully upward at the ends. A short row of glinting beaded tassels dangled from the bottom to conceal most of the wearer’s cheekbones and nose.
Sheathing her dagger, Lilac scoffed, threw the mask to the floor, and turned to leave. She would find the door; find her own way home.
Myrddin grabbed her hand; his eyes were urgent. “Your Majesty,” he said with a little bow of the head and another nervous laugh that made her want to put him through the wall. “I understand how upsetting this must be for you.”
“ Upsetting ? This is humiliating, Myrddin.”
“Look, Garin is only here because of me. And Bastion. And Casmir.” At her look of utter loathing, he continued urgently.
“We were having a night at the bar when Bastion finally convinced Garin to allow us into that dungeon of a room he’d barricaded himself in—at least without him smiting us.
It was a grand old time. We got him drinking until we started playing at something with a little more… stakes.”
“You were gambling,” she figured.
“I wouldn’t call it—” he began, but under her glare ended up folding.
“It was Casmir’s suggestion that we bring out the coin.
I have somewhat of a habit, I admit it, and have run myself dry time and time again, but I couldn’t help it.
Those vampires are so competitive! And they were mixing blood and liquor—it skirts their high tolerance and inebriates them. ”
She would be sick again. “How did this lead to Garin coming here ?”
“No one enjoys having a hungry vampire around, especially as hungry as Garin seemed, so, after a few card games, I bet him that Casmir could obtain more consenting donors without the use of their vampiric influence. I told him that Casmir was more educated, from a wealthier background, and those attributes would likely help him gain the upper hand?—”
She stepped to him again. “You what ?”
“They bolted out of his room, ended up coming to The Fool's Folly! Admittedly, the older, foreign vampire was less drunk than Garin at the time of their departure, and I imagine Casmir would have helped curb Garin’s temptation to engage in any foolish, public antics. Bastion and I followed on horseback with our own tracking spell not knowing where they would end up, where we would be transported if I used my magic. Once we realized where he’d arrived, I teleported myself to you.
But something is wrong , Your Majesty,” he added pleadingly, gripping her shoulder when she turned again to leave, stopping her.
“Something is very wrong with Garin, and no one realized it until he left the inn.”
“And you brought me here to beg him to return.” Lilac was shaking.
“You don’t understand, I brought you here because I made a terrible mistake suggesting this in the first place and don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“No, apparently I’m not understanding,” she snarled. “So he’s on a rampage at a brothel because he’s drunk on liquor and blood?”
The warlock cocked his head. “Erm, something like that.”
“Garin wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t hurt anyone,” she breathed, swallowing at whatever dark thing he was implying, even as uncertainty plagued her. “Whoever jumps in bed with him is doing it of their own accord.”
She tried not to think of the past three days, the influence he’d held over her, but it was no use; the memory was imprinted in her bones, as was the way she’d allowed the fury and illness to build until she decided to leave to see him.
She’d made the decision to leave in madness. She’d never forget it .
Lilac felt as if she would never comfortably eat, sleep without setting her eyes on Garin again. As the witches and Myrddin had seemed to confirm, maybe he had gone through the same kind of torture. She’d braved Brocéliande to see him, risked rejection again.
Yet here he was. Lost in a brothel.
“He’s not himself,” Myrddin insisted, watching her thoughts churn. “Your time spent apart has somehow not eased anything for him. He’ll hurt someone if he hasn’t already. He’ll listen to you. You are the only one who can convince him to leave.”
Fear pulsed through her body with the pounding beat of the mandolin and drums. “That doesn’t make sense.
You’re a powerful warlock,” she said, the bravado from her anger already faltering at the warning in his words.
“He won’t hurt anyone,” she insisted, not knowing how much of that reassurance was for her own nerves. “You don’t know him.”
“Do you?”
There was a pop before she answered, and there was a sudden pressure on her forehead and nose.
She cried out, and her hands went to her face—the mask she’d thrown was pressed against the top half of her head, the soft silk fitted perfectly against her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose.
She swore and went to undo the tight knot at the back of her head, but the more she struggled with it, the more the string tightened on its own, squeezing her already throbbing temples.
“Ouch!” The pressure lessened when she stopped tugging, the tips of her fingers and nails stinging. “ You .”