Page 52 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

He flashed her a threatening scowl and decided not to answer her question.

“When I got here, I stumbled into the nearest room and realized feeding makes me hungrier . The more I take, the more I want. It took everything in me not to drag the nearest bystander into the alleyway outside and bleed them dry as I’d walked up those steps and put myself in—in a brothel, of all places, where everyone’s inhibitions are already low.

When it is already easy, easier than usual, to do as I please.

Take as I please.” He looked down at his hands; they were shaking slightly.

He closed them into fists. “I've never known a hunger like this, one that keeps growing. And they dare dangle their little decoy before me, and…” He cleared his throat, his nostrils flaring, his tongue flitting out to the corners of his mouth. “Fuck. It was Sea Holly in that mead, wasn’t it?”

Lilac sat absolutely still, a mouse between the paws of a cat. “Yes. I couldn’t remember the name at the time. I tried to tell you before you interrupted me.”

Garin cussed under his breath, anger flashing in his eyes.

She flushed and looked away as he shifted, not missing how he fluidly adjusted himself at the front of his trousers, so quickly she wouldn’t have noticed if she wasn’t already on the verge of looking there.

Lilac scrambled for anything to distract herself from the urge to stroke him over his pants.

“Is this the same hunger you felt at the end of Kestrel’s deal? ”

This seemed to distract him. Garin regarded her warily.

“They prepared you well, haven’t they? The feeling isn’t the same, but in a way it is worse.

It isn’t a sensation of frenzy. It is a slow burning, steady hunger that strives to outlast me.

That will wait me out until I have no choice but to give in. ”

She tried not to look as dubious as she felt. “What will help it pass?”

His eyes darkened. “I will be fine,” was all he said.

He certainly did not look fine. Garin had never looked more like a vampire. Tonight he was more like the ones they described and illustrated in her books. A handsome ghoul, slightly gaunt, the shadows under his eyes prominent, his dark brows and lashes making the red of his eyes even more striking.

Even with his biting curse from Adelaide, he’d never looked this starved or depraved .

He seemed to sense the churning fear in her. She’d forgotten it excited him. Garin gave her a lazy smile, but it wasn’t friendly. It was knowing, like a guard who was proud of himself for cornering a petty thief.

Couldn’t he smell her? Sense her in the way she did him? If there was some sort of magic tethering them, the connection Casmir had hinted at, then how could Garin not tell it was her?

He cocked his head, the motion animalistic. “Bastion coached you to ask me about our deal with Kestrel?”

She began to shake her head in protest. “He didn’t have to coach me about anything.”

“I’m done playing their games. I’m going to send your head back to them on a platter.”

“You told me you were sorry for wanting me,” she blurted.

He froze, listening.

“In the room at the inn. You said it was a dream, but you held me. Read to me.” But her words—her possible proof of identity—only seemed to anger him. “It was real, wasn’t it?” she pushed.

Jaw set, Garin rocked back onto his heels, speaking methodically.

“I am sorry it had to happen this way. That you’re caught in the middle of this.

They’ve sealed your fate by telling you far too much.

” He refused to meet her eyes as he took his time rolling his sleeves up to his forearms, revealing streaks of reddish brown across his skin she hadn’t noticed before. The woman had fought him.

Lilac blinked back tears.

“If you want this to be painless, I suggest you stay very still and shut your eyes. I can also entrance you to feel no pain. Please let me know what you prefer.”

“No,” she snarled softly, glaring at him through her blurry vision, her ears ringing. This was not how it would end.

“I understand you’re upset. Blame the warlock and vampires for ensuring your death.”

“No,” she said past the lump in her throat, hyperventilating. Myrddin had had too much faith in her. He’d sent her to her death. “Garin, it is me —your queen, and I order you out of this room.”

There was no answer at first. Just the unsteady hitch of his own breathing as he worked to steady it.

“I am trying to give you options for pain, for your demise. Not many of my victims have ever received an array of choices, so I would consider myself lucky if I were you—and above all, please try to calm your heart.” He inhaled through his mouth, his fangs dripping saliva.

“I am concentrating on not tearing into you, and your terror is making it all the more difficult.”

Staring past him into the orange blur of the fireplace, she shuddered violently when he slid his palm flat, under her hair, along the right side of her throat.

She wouldn’t die this way. Certainly not at the hands of the man who’d helped her realize there was more to life than stone towers and the imaginary monsters they kept out.

She jerked and made to stand, but Garin restrained her with a simple shift of his fingers, his hand clamping over her collarbone.

He could crush her shoulder with a twitch of his powerful fingers.

She lifted her chin to open her airway while her mind raced to think of anything only she would know—or a way to beg for her life that wouldn't make her last moments so pathetic.

“Giles told me you sit outside my room some nights,” she rasped. “That you watch me sleep but never come in.”

At this, he refocused on her. But the liquid garnet of his eyes shifted in a way that made her skin crawl. “Did he, now?”

She stayed silent.

“Did he also tell you it was out of loyalty? Chivalrous duty?”

Lilac flinched at the way he spat the words, like they were dirt in his mouth. His other hand suddenly slid over hers, which had been gripping the scalpel handle very tightly. His long fingers encircled her wrist.

“Did he make you think it was out of some valiant effort of protection, instead of the nature of what I am? Who I am—the inescapable yearning to possess my current obsession?”

She’d play his game. “Was it this same yearning that urged you to command her to marry someone else?”

Garin frowned in disbelief, thrown by her inquiry. “Not you, too. Imagine this kingdom, one of this size against France.”

She shrugged. “I think she’d put up a fair fight.”

“Do you know anything about the histories of the last war, the countless fires that decimated the Argoat? There’s been activity at our eastern border in the last week, several small camps scouting the area.

They’ll send another soon, and another, until they choose to advance.

Until there are casualties. They’re testing her.

” His face shadowed with regret. “Her parents have dealt with it swiftly, avoiding drawing attention to Lilac’s absence at the castle, but it is concerning that she’s currently without a duke or noble beneath her who can lead her country into battle.

There is much at stake, far more than I think she realizes.

She’s fortunate she has Henri alive in this circumstance, someone to guide her.

” Garin barked a laugh. “But the man has never fought a war.”

Hearing his doubtful take struck a chord of irritation in her, even if she was egging him on. “You think she cannot lead her men?”

“I know she cannot. Not without moral support within her kingdom—not with the way they’ve protested her reign in the past over her arcana lingua .”

She’d known Garin wanted to protect her, but it felt like the same skepticism she’d met at her meeting in the library. A confirmation that he also questioned her abilities. “What about a Daemon alliance?”

He glanced at her, doubtful. “Elaborate.”

“Would the Daemons help in case of a war?”

“They certainly wouldn’t side with the French, if that’s what you’re asking.

It is our unanimous want for Lilac to retain her sovereignty, as well.

However, our involvement in the current state of the kingdom would prove a hindrance to any attempt Lilac makes to rally a campaign among her mortal subjects.

To support a war any leader would first need extra bodies, resources, but most importantly the general support of her people.

After the last five years, I am not convinced the threat of France would be enough to swing their favor. ”

Lilac swallowed his answer in reluctant silence.

It might be the mead getting to her head, but the implications of her question regarding a Daemon alliance were foolishly far more profound than the tangent Garin had swung their conversation to.

But he was right. She could use his expertise and the unmatched power of the Daemons—Kestrel and his faeries, even—but it still might not mean much without the support of her people.

“Common ground, our home, is everything we stand to lose if France successfully annexes our kingdom.”