Page 62 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Rolling his eyes, Casmir adjusted his hold on Garin; the more he struggled, the tighter the vines grew, pulling so tautly it looked as if they’d cut into his skin.

Lilac fought down the urge to break free from Bastion, knowing it was probably for the better that Garin was restrained after the events of the night.

Still, her body strained against his brother, as if defending Garin were ingrained into her reflexes. Maybe it was .

Casmir pulled a long piece of wood from his cloak and tossed it at Myrddin; the stake flew into the warlock’s hands. He adjusted the stake in his palm while the foreign vampire held Garin steady.

Wasting no time, Myrddin rammed the stake into Garin’s lower back.

Lilac gripped Bastion’s shirt and turned her face into his shoulder as he awkwardly petted her head.

She would faint. She wished to be unconscious as they watched Garin struggle for a moment, the bright hysteria in his eyes fading as he slumped forward into Casmir’s arms. His head rolled to the side as Casmir adjusted him.

Garin’s tired gaze flitted up to the flames making their way onto the balcony, then locked onto Lilac.

“Save them. Save the brothel.” His face twisted in agony. “My mother worked here. Lilac, don’t leave…”

His voice trailed off, his eyes crossing. Then, they fluttered shut.

An all-consuming mixture of fear and rage struck her as she watched him go limp. Lilac suddenly understood what drove kings to do cruel and mad things.

“If he is dead,” she heard herself bark, her jaw trembling, “ all of you are ordered to the gallows with a bounty so high on your heads, no one in all of Brittany would be able to resist searching every nook and cranny for you.”

“Relax. He’s not dead,” answered Casmir. “But we had to sedate him, just in case.”

Myrddin was shaking. “I did it. I?—”

“You stabbed him in the kidney.” Bastion gave a disbelieving laugh.

“He told me I’d have to do it as far as possible from his heart!” Myrddin jutted a finger at Casmir. “Where else should I have staked your brother, in his buttock?”

Knees trembling from the adrenaline, Lilac unslung herself from around Bastion’s shoulder as Casmir unremorsefully dragged Garin over to them. Bastion readied to receive him, but Lilac shoved him aside, her arms out.

Casmir glanced at her skeptically, then Bastion. “You’re sure?”

“Give him to me.” Her voice shook, but she’d never put more conviction behind a single sentence. “Give Garin to me, now.”

Everyone watched as Casmir gently deposited Garin’s limp form into her arms. She easily adjusted him onto her shoulder, careful not to touch the stake sticking halfway out of his back.

She hugged him close, listening, paying attention to his chest, the slow beat of his heart and shushing Bastion when he opened his mouth in alarm.

Bastion marveled at her as she supported his brother without a breath of struggle beneath his dead weight.

Casmir was also eyeing her, brows risen.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she snapped. “You knew this would happen.” Lilac’s glare shifted to Myrddin, who watched them expectantly.

“Is this what you were arguing about in the room at the inn?” asked Bastion. “Your strength?”

“Partially. That is none of your business.”

“I think most of the inn heard bits of your fight,” he retorted. “Particularly when you were slamming each other around.”

“After he’d healed me, I didn’t feel any different.

But during our conversation we discovered I could not only strain against him, but move him.

It faded by the time I got to the castle, almost as soon as we’d left him,” she admitted.

“And just now, after he’d drank from me, and I from him, I was able to shove him off me. ”

Bastion said nothing, but his hand went right to his mouth. Casmir and Myrddin stared at her, but they didn’t seem too surprised.

She failed to suppress a shudder at the memories, everything blending together into the pinnacle that was their blood exchange.

The one she was awake for—the one she’d initiated.

“I was able to stop him from feeding on me.” There was nothing more frightening than the uncertainty of his control in the moment. “That was why I did it.”

“This is nothing short of intriguing,” said Casmir, exchanging a look with Myrddin, as if her strength had been a topic of brief discussion before. “It appears you have maybe siphoned some of his strength and speed, if it occurred with both blood exchanges.”

“Maybe. Is it temporary?” she asked.

Casmir rubbed the shadow of stubble on his chin. “The bond or your gifts?”

The question caught her off guard. She had no answer.

“As for your strength and improved reflexes, I am not sure. It could fade again, the moment you two are separated. It could exist as long as he is your regnant. ”

She distantly absorbed his answer, hating the thought of being away from him again despite her fury.

Her mind was already on his form in her arms and the words he’d croaked before collapsing.

His mother had worked at The Fool's Folly. She had healed people in town and in the war, but she supposed that didn’t mean Aimee couldn’t have also served as a courtesan.

She considered the possibility void of judgment, only clutching him tighter, willing her body heat into him as if it would help. Lilac bent and swooped her arm under the crook of his legs, cradling him.

“The queen. Enthralled. Fully thralled to Garin,” Bastion was groaning, his face craning to the sky in realization.

“We’re all fucked. Fucked . When he wakes, he’s going to kill us all.

He’s going to get Myrddin, then me.” He sighed, oblivious to the ash raining down on them.

“Do you think if I stand beneath the balcony just here, then it will collapse on me?”

“I never thought I’d see the day I appreciated my immortality,” Myrddin said, side-eying Bastion. “Casmir was the one who directed me to stake him.”

“Better you than me.” Casmir dusted his hands off, which had already healed from the sores the hawthorn dust had brought.

“It’ll keep him down until you’re ready for him to wake.

Unstake him when it’s time, not a moment before, but I suggest you don’t delay it.

The longer you wait might worsen his reaction in realizing Lilac is not present.

It is only what I predict. I won’t be around to know. ”

Lilac raised a finger to stop him. “You are mistaken. I intend to be present when he wakes.”

“No,” both Casmir and Bastion said together.

Myrddin cleared his throat at the irate annoyance that had flashed across her face at the vampires’ response.

“Although I can understand your now natural urge to want to protect him, Your Majesty, it is my strong recommendation you are not around for the moment he comes to. Not when the last thing he remembers is us ambushing him with a stake. He will be safest back at the inn.”

“Indeed.” Casmir gave Myrddin a nod of agreement, and without warning, began to retreat into the alley.

Lilac quickly cleared her throat. “Casmir?”

He looked over his shoulder .

The flames hadn’t wholly reached the balcony yet, but black smoke belched from the opening and rose high, disappearing into the night. “Help them. Ensure everyone’s been evacuated. Especially the courtesans.”

“You’re asking me to help these mortals?”

“I’m not asking.”

Bastion and Myrddin snorted, but they were silenced as Casmir glared. But he pivoted and stalked past, toward the light this time and into the street beyond.

Myrddin’s face had broken into a concentrated smile that faded as soon as he caught Lilac staring him down. “Is there anything you can do to put the fire out?”

“If I were able, I would have by now.”

“What do you mean?” Lilac frowned, what little tact she’d held exhausted by the eventful night. “They said you were all-powerful.”

He blinked, as if offended by her question. “I’d need to access a body of water nearby to draw from to deposit on the fire.”

Irritation grated her. Surely he was joking. “You summoned those flames, but you can’t extinguish them?”

Myrddin’s nervous, polite disposition, which she was beginning to feel might be a facade, disappeared.

“Summoned? I cannot simply draw the elements out of thin air. Only mages can do that, and I am not one of them. Even those who practice in the School of Conjuration call items—and gods forbid, creatures—from a known place.”

“But there was a hearth there,” she argued, confused, knowing she would lose but doing it anyway.

“I did not summon those flames,” Myrddin insisted. “We thought it might be your—your lovemaking. Or your grappling.”

“Shut up, the both of you.” Bastion’s head swiveled, listening. Voices could be heard shouting in the room above now. “There’s no need. They’ve brought buckets of water up.”

“Fine.” She’d lost track of what happened when she was in the vision, witnessing her own attempted murder of the emissary. This only partially relieved the many questions overwhelming her. “Could you at least teleport us home?”

The warlock looked down his nose at her, then pointed his chin at Bastion. “Your horse is still out front, is it not? ”

He strode toward the street in the direction Casmir had gone, but Bastion moved, blocking his way. “You can’t leave. We need your help.”

“Do you? It seems your queen feels my benevolence was not enough.”

“Benevolence? You started their bet. You dumped me in that room without protection or advice,” she snarled, remembering the powerful pull against her throat and how she wouldn’t have been able to fight him off unless she’d known about the strength she’d come to acquire.

Even then, she hadn’t known for sure. “You helped Garin wipe away my memory of that emissary.”

“Here we go,” muttered Bastion.