Page 72 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

“I’ll only need your company in the evenings. You are free to do as you wish in the day. As for travel, I prefer to do so at night.”

“Surely that cannot be.” Piper gave a doubtful scoff. “Everyone will suspect me sooner or later.”

“My staff would learn to accommodate you, just as you’ve done for me all those years. Plus, some continue to believe I’ve involved myself with vampires, anyway. There was a witch in our Grand Hall just an hour ago, and two more from Garin’s tavern who had accompanied me here earlier in the week.”

How easy it was for her to make these promises and mean them especially when it involved protecting Piper.

The public would learn of her involvement with Brocéliande soon enough.

It wouldn’t take long, not with the changes that would come with the Accords and the steps toward justice she intended to take for Brocéliande.

Her mind drifted to Garin and Bastion. Myrddin, who should be arriving at the inn any time now after teleporting Herlinde back home.

Adelaide and her new alliance with Lorietta, and what horrors Albrecht might be waking up to as they nursed him back to health for tomorrow.

Unless he was accustomed to dealing with the Daemons in his own country, they surely had to entrance him; Adelaide might have a mind-altering tonic to put in Lorietta’s soup.

They’d at least asked Myrddin remove the memory of Lilac stabbing him.

She thought of Garin, and what he might’ve woken up to. Whom he tried to strangle. He hadn’t marched up to her gate yet, to her knowledge.

As a vampire’s thrall separated from her regnant, Lilac thought she might feel lonely, even distressed returning to her tower.

But the worry she’d felt when Myrddin had teleported them outside her gates had been smothered by the shock of Piper, then Artus’s unwelcome presence.

The despair she feared and braced herself for—the knotting in her throat and ache in her abdomen—hadn’t yet made itself known.

The room was too silent. Perhaps Piper was already asleep. “I went home,” she said, just as Lilac thought she might close her eyes .

They popped open again. “To your parents’ farm?”

“Yes,” Piper answered dully. “For the first time since I’ve worked for you, yes.”

The day Piper and her parents had arrived in their foyer, Lilac was no older than six.

She’d been told the the week prior that a great surprise was on its way.

She’d been expecting a horse, or at least a pony, even if her parents had insisted she was too young to learn.

Surprised she was, when the guards opened the doors to a plain-looking couple whom Lilac had thought she’d seen before.

The woman was the cousin of one of his viscounts from Saint Malo, Henri had explained, as the couple then parted to reveal a girl with striking red hair slicked into a braid coiled neatly at the back of her head.

Piper Krenn, she had introduced herself when her own father had nudged her, as if they’d rehearsed it many times.

She then dutifully said she was seven and a half, the daughter of the man behind her, an esteemed sheep farmer—the owner of Krenn Farm, which was sandwiched northeast of their castle, between Brocéliande and Rennes.

“Did they understand what happened to you?”

“Not fully, I don’t think. I had waited for some time to pass.

It was close to a week, over three days since I’d last seen you.

The red in their eyes—our eyes—fades after that long.

I figured that out a while ago, it was how long we’d have between our feedings in the cages.

So, I waited.” She pulled the corner of the duvet over herself.

“Mother still nearly fainted at the sight of me. Father eventually let me in when I begged.” An unnameable sadness crept into Piper’s expression. “And I did beg.”

“What do you mean you begged?” They’d made their own daughter, who’d been missing for years, beg to be welcomed into her own home?

Piper shook her head, still lost in thought. “On second thought, maybe I’d entranced them, too.” A small sob escaped her throat. Her fangs had grown in again. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“What were they thinking? They didn’t rejoice at the sight of you?

” Lilac snarled, her voice wavering in incredulous anger.

She found herself lividly considering their arrest. “Were they not happy or relieved to see you?” She sat up against the pillows when Piper only sniffled.

Lilac had spent so many of the days after her fifteenth birthday moping about her own punishments, she hadn’t paid attention to what had happened to Piper.

Selfish , she was so selfish. She recalled being informed the next morning that Piper had been relieved of her duty.

“Didn’t my father send you home with a letter of some sort?

Anything explaining what had happened?” Lilac’s inquiries were probably not helping, but she needed to know.

Piper closed her eyes and exhaled, long and slow, before answering.

“He did. He had John write one for me. I traveled some way east when the vampires found me. It was that one,” she said with a soft snarl, “Bastion, and another male. I dropped my bag of belongings, scattering them on the road—including the letter, hoping someone would find it?—”

“Wait,” Lilac said, her insides curdling, hoping and praying she was misunderstanding. “What happened to the carriage? Or the—the horse? No one found them abandoned, suspicious?”

Piper met her widening eyes with a quiet smugness.

“The coachman? The guard?” Sickening heat swept over Lilac. “My parents sent you home alone on foot?”

Piper laughed, a forlorn sound. “They imprisoned you over your Daemon tongue. You, their own daughter. Do you really think anyone cared about what happened to me? Furthermore, would it have mattered?”

Lilac remained silent, her face and chest burning with the heavy heat of self-disgust.

“My parents were alarmed when I showed up at their door, anyway. I’d tried to wash off in the river before, but it was woefully hard to remove your blood from my dress and apron.

Yours, and that of the man I’d taken in the vestibule.

My maman eventually woke up, and once she was herself, offered me one of her gowns.

They tried to feed me. I denied the food they gave me, not knowing what would happen if I ate it.

We chatted a little, not much was said. They didn’t really ask questions.

Father was quiet as all else. I stayed for some time, a couple weeks.

Eventually I grew hungry, but I feared leaving in case they decided against allowing me in a second time. A few days passed before I gave up.”

“How did you eat?”

“I had some of the bread and stew they’d offered me, especially since I didn’t want to stoke their suspicions.

My maman is an impressive cook. Always has been.

” Piper picked at her nail beds, which had turned red.

Without thinking, Lilac slapped Piper’s hands off her lap; the vampire yanked them away.

Piper growled. “ God . You’ve become Marguerite.”

“I have not,” Lilac said, appalled at the comparison and rather shocked at the sound that had just escaped her friend’s throat. Her mother had prodded her many times for doing the same in her nervousness. It had been out of habit. “Sorry. I was wondering about your…bloodlust.”

“Oh.” Piper shifted a leg up, forcing her hands—fingers already healed and no longer inflamed—to her side.

“My craving for blood returned at the end of the first week. I considered venturing out at night, feeding on anyone nearby enough to fill myself without killing them. But I didn’t know if that was possible, or what my limits were since last feeding from you and from the other man.

” She made a face. “He didn’t survive, I don’t think. ”

A week seemed like a long time based on Lilac’s existing knowledge of the vampires’ physiology.

Garin had been able to go several days without blood when they’d first met, but she supposed his options were limited at the time.

And he’d been weaned off of vein blood for years.

From when he’d drained Mathis and Enzo outside Sinclair’s camp to the farmhouse, it hadn’t even been three days since he’d followed her from the inn.

Even then, he’d admitted he’d been fighting his hunger throughout their journey. She recalled the way Garin had fallen upon Renald at her request, as if he’d been parched.

I am a pawn to my desires tonight . His words at Fool’s Folly raked a chill across her skin. She could hear it—hear him. Lilac fought down a violent shudder, only noticing Piper watching her warily when the vampire addressed her.

“Are you all right?”

Lilac tucked a lock of damp hair behind her burning ears. “Did it not bother you? The hunger?”