Page 59 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Lilac dropped to the floor, her arm shooting under the chair before Garin’s boots stopped beside her. He had pulled his trousers back up, she noted—before his hand fisted into her hair.

“Let me go,” she yelped in protest, shocked, her scalp throbbing as she rose to her feet to alleviate the immense pressure.

He spun her to face him, her nails raking against his hand. Disbelieving, Lilac snarled and thrashed, but the more she moved, the more agonizing his grip on her became.

He’d lost control.

Lilac thrived on too much pride and spite to beg for her life. Muscles burning, she stopped fighting as Garin waited her out. Hunger flashed in his eyes as he dragged her closer. “I tried to give you a fighting chance, didn’t I?”

“By sending me away? By forcing my hand in marriage to a complete stranger? To leverage me, just as my parents have?” She forced her breathing to remain even as he bent over her.

She wasn’t sure he heard her. Lilac stilled in his grasp. This was exactly where she needed to be. Where Myrddin intended for her to be.

She planted a kiss at his temple, feeling him inhale deeply against the corner of her jaw. She forced her muscles to relax, even as they ached to flee. He dipped her and cupped the back of her head, cradling her waist close.

The familiar burning then shot through her veins, mounting with the warmth of the fire behind them.

The pull at her throat and insidious sound of him gulping flooded her ears, grotesque now that he wasn’t pumping himself inside her.

Now that fear had consumed her. She stared off into the distance, letting her vision slip out of focus.

She slipped a hand up his chest as it all turned to ice, tugging him closer by his shirt.

Garin groaned against her throat. Being fed from felt so good .

She fought a shudder, listening to his slurping, noticing how easily the fear faded.

It was no wonder people came to do this here, and at The Fenfoss Inn.

If there was a way to choose her fate, let it be this. With him, by her own hand.

“You are worth the risk, Garin Trevelyan,” she whispered against his hair, finally feeling the freeing tug of darkness at the threshold of her mind .

With the last of her energy, Lilac reached up and slashed the scalpel against his collarbone. She rammed her mouth against the wound and bit down, her blunt teeth scraping through his flesh.

Liquid honey poured into her mouth, down her throat as the world shook around her. She sputtered, forcing herself to swallow, almost gagging. Then, she swallowed again. There was a ragged gasp and Garin’s anguished bellow, but it was already far off in the distance.

Lilac blinked against the harsh midday sun. When her vision adjusted, she wasn’t quite sure what she was staring at.

She spotted herself first; she was there, in the enchanted dress and leathers from Garin. To their right was their carriage, intact, although the wheel marks and debris from the crash were still visible around them, at least from what she could see.

She—Lilac in her vision—was standing, hands clenched, scrapes and bruises all over her body, before a well-dressed man. She didn’t recognize him. This man was tucking something away into his satchel as she watched before him.

Lilac tried to advance, to survey her surroundings, even flex her fingers—forgetting she had no control, no feeling of her arms and legs.

This was Garin’s memory. He turned to the right then; Adelaide was several feet away, standing beside the large chest the Guài had gifted them.

The witch exchanged a worried glance with him.

The strange magic folk were nowhere to be found.

Her vision whipped back around when she heard her own voice, clear as day. “You’re an emissary.”

An emissary?

Sickness gripped her as this emissary began to speak again, mentioning her belt and dagger. It sounded like a compliment; with her own ears ringing, she wasn’t sure.

Her voice pulled her attention. “State your business,” Lilac in the memory said.

The man began to mumble about seeing Lilac another day, but then they grew closer—Garin was walking toward them. “She asked you to state your business,” he said.

The man looked in her—in Garin’s—direction, appearing slightly alarmed.

He glanced back at Lilac. “I—I really shouldn’t say.

” He winked. “But maybe you could point me to the nearest inn. You and your troupe are welcome to join me. Maybe after you’ve taken care of this…

” He trailed off, glancing past them. Her vision then followed his gaze.

There were corpses of two men among the debris behind them.

Emrys—Myrddin, in his not-yet shed glamor, and Giles.

Although she’d known of this, seeing their bodies again was still alarming.

She tried to close her eyes, but couldn’t.

“Was there another carriage here?” asked the emissary.

She watched herself step closer, and Garin’s low growl sounded loud in her ears, coming from his chest. “You seem like a fine diplomat,” she’d said. “If you’re headed for the Chateau de Trécesson, I’m afraid you’re traveling in the opposite direction.”

The emissary waved her off. “I know the emperor wanted me to depart in two days, but I insisted on giving myself extra time. I heard of a fine clothier in town, and I?—”

“ Emperor? ” Lilac, Garin, and Adelaide said in unison.

“I should not have spoken.” The emissary turned and briskly walked away, but Lilac chased him down, catching up to him despite her limp.

“I ask because I am the daughter of the royal cartographer,” she’d called, “and we were headed in that direction.”

The man slowed and turned. Her lie had impressed him. “ You are the daughter of the queen’s cartographer? What are you doing all the way out here?”

“My father sent us to town for more parchment.”

The man looked this way and that. “You’ve heard the rumors, right? About France.”

“France?” she’d said in feigned alarm. She only would’ve said it to encourage more information from the stranger. “Will they advance?”

She felt Garin’s fingers flex at their side, shocked to feel a surge of bitter rage—a wave of cresting jealousy in their body that was not her own.

“That is what we suspect.” The emissary looked both ways. The roads were empty. “And their king is not offering marriage. ”

Lilac’s reply was cold, defensive. Rightfully so. “The queen would never accept. She would not surrender.”

“Perhaps not, but she’ll then require a stronger foothold on her land to keep France at bay. Her small army would never last.” The emissary laughed, dubious.

They were moving again, and they didn’t stop until their arms were nearly touching Lilac’s. She felt Garin’s balled fist open, his hand twitching near hers.

“What does that have to do with why you’re here?” Garin snapped.

The man averted his eyes from him, keeping them fixed on Lilac. “This knowledge is sure to spark a flurry of proposals once made public. Of course, Maximilian has demanded complete secrecy, so his offer will stand first.”

Maximilian . Albrecht wasn’t the one planning on communicating with her. It was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. They were to host his emissary .

Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t sure if the sensation belonged to her or Garin, or both. Panic struck her square in the chest. Had she suffered a head injury in the crash? No one had mentioned it. Hadn’t Garin told her their blood exchange healed all?

How could she not remember any of this?

There was another sound—a loud rushing, faint thumping, but they were nowhere near the Argent.

She didn’t know what it was, but refocused on the conversation with some difficulty; it sounded like Garin had argued with him.

The emissary was replying now. As the man spoke, their arm shifted, settling on the small of Lilac’s back.

“Maximilian offers what no other ally will: a proxy marriage through myself to prevent France from annexing her country. She doesn’t have to see him, but if she wants to solidify her people’s continued protection, she’ll visit Austria to eventually bear his children, and?—”

Garin looked down at Lilac, and the rushing sound grew louder. It took a second for her to realize it was her heart. Garin, listening to her pulse.

The emissary’s eyes flitted up and looked at them—at Garin—straight into his soul. The emissary squinted. “I’m sorry. Does that rogue have fangs?”

The words were barely out of the man’s mouth before he stumbled back from Lilac. Her dagger was stuck halfway to the hilt in his chest, blood spreading rapidly over his fine clothes. Garin was shouting, his bellowed words heated, directed at her.

Lilac saw herself step back, her fists drenched in blood; she was in the middle of shouting back at him when she saw herself trail off, blinking at the ground. Their own vision shifted again, snapping onto the emissary, who had scrambled for the woods to their left of the path, screaming.

As Lilac faded into the corner of her vision, Garin was moving into the foliage, eyes trained on the emissary’s back. In several large strides, she saw Garin’s large hands dart out, his legs springing as he pounced.

She took a shuddering breath. Lilac was back in her body, coughing—but not on blood.

She stared at the ceiling, where a slow-building layer of smoke floated above Garin’s shoulders.

She was pressed into the floorboards, him above her, her hands grasping the rug beneath her, waves of stomach-churning pleasure slamming into her through Garin’s slow thrusting and the pull at her throat.

He was splayed over her naked body, his hands on either side of her head as he bent, pressed into the side of her throat, slurping her blood obscenely.

Like an animal, in the way he drank and fucked her.

Her arms went up and she dug her nails into his shoulders, and as her core began to tighten in that welcomingly familiar way, she froze.