Page 75 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)
Lilac’s silence was confirmation enough. “Even if I am his thrall, that is all I am to him.”
Piper’s look of scrutiny faded to annoyance.
“Your Majesty, there is no use in lying. Even when you first wake as a vampire, you have a different sense for things. A deeper knowing. I knew I had to consume human blood without any prompting, knew I had to do it to survive. I tore into the person nearest me, an old man snoring against his cell door. He was weak, there wasn’t much to him and he didn’t fill me for long.
Shortly after leaving the Mine, I sensed you in the woods and intended to seek you out for help, but my hunger got the best of me.
Tonight, I could tell something was off the moment you bit into that apple and all the blood and dirt appeared. ”
“It was an illusion. Eating made my glamor wear off.”
“That’s why I asked you if he was here. It is why I left the Grand Hall.
He is everywhere you go, less an aroma and more an essence, a dark veil of warning for other vampires to heed.
Even when I first saw you with him, I could tell he’d wouldn’t ever let you out of his sight.
The only reason he didn’t sense me after I escaped the vestibule was because he was distracted looking for you.
” Piper stared at the ceiling. “My desire to find you was easily overwhelmed with the urge to feed. Too easily. I would’ve never hurt you had I known. ”
“None of it is your fault,” Lilac said firmly, remembering it all.
Garin was at her side within moments of the fledgling vampire finding her.
She’d assumed she hadn’t made it far enough from the grotto, and that Garin had heard their scuffle.
She didn’t know he’d followed her. For what?
To protect her? To tell her he’d changed his mind—to drag her back to the mine?
Lilac turned to Piper; her friend was tracing the patterns on the ceiling with her faraway gaze. “How do you feel now? Do you need more blood?”
“No,” said Piper quietly. “Definitely not from you. I actually haven’t felt that way, that unnameable thirst, since last drinking from you.
I was so distracted by how hungry I was, I suppose I hadn’t realized your taste.
The bad hunger pangs, the burning in my throat and gums…
None of that has resurfaced, even in the days I spent at home.
” Piper looked somewhat defeated. “Our discernment is strong. You know—sometimes too much—th e things you wish to not know. Who people truly are. Where your place is in the world. It’s how I knew I had to leave Krenn Farm and return here.
From the moment I arrived, my parents’ cottage no longer felt like home. ”
“They didn’t welcome you as they should have. They didn’t celebrate your homecoming as you deserved.”
A small smile spread upon Piper’s face. “Yes, but that’s not why I left them. I knew you needed me, Your Majesty. I had no choice but to come.”
“I do need you.” Lilac laid back, urging the tension in her shoulders to release, struggling to accept it all.
Piper’s presence. Artus’s reminder, contrived or not, of the very real threat looming over her head.
Garin’s fury and overwhelming influence, their new bond.
The absence of the heaviness she’d dreaded—strangely, even with her change of heart at the thought of marriage.
“Piper, do you think great kings have ever questioned their destiny?” Lilac whispered.
The vampire hummed. “Several have abdicated. We learned in your history lessons, of Richard II of England. Sweden’s Afonso V. Then, comes your father.”
That was fair. Lilac’s father’s decision to pass the throne down in the prime of his reign, good health and all, still baffled and irked her. “I mean in their early days at the throne. Or even before they’re officially crowned.”
Piper’s head snapped down to her. “Why? Don’t think you can back out now, in the limbo between your accession and coronation. The throne is yours, you already sit upon it and wield its power, the crown and ball are merely the end of the formalities. Don’t tell me you’re questioning your place.”
“If you suggest such a thing again, I’ll have you banished to that manor house,” Lilac replied, matching Piper’s frosty tone.
“I’m not questioning anything. It’s just…
” She shrugged, her worries seeming silly as they rose to her tongue.
“I wonder if these kings ever question their own qualifications to lead? Do you think their minds are clouded with concern over their roles as sons, friends, and new leaders of a country? Do you think they fear letting their kingdom down?”
Piper took her time digesting the question as she sank onto her pillows, too.
“I am not born of royal blood, Your Majesty. I have only touched a silver spoon and known a hint of privilege because of your parents bringing me here, plucking me from my farm. I was not allowed to accompany you on your journey to the town or the Le Tallec estate with Marguerite, nor attend the soirées you did. But I do know from my observations—from comforting you and watching that boy send you letter upon letter when you wished to be left alone—that by your gender and birthright, you have been subject to the pressures of not only leadership, but etiquette, kinship, education, daughterhood, and the growing pressures of marriage and creating an heir. Among other things. So, I say your fears are valid.”
“Fears? Piper, I am terrified.” Lilac closed her eyes, chest aching, eyes burning.
She scowled, chills shocking her body at the truths Piper had spoken aloud—and the others compiling at the back of her mind.
She might have been queen for less than a month, but she knew better; she was already scrutinized enough within her own kingdom, and any wavering determination might seem like hesitation or weakness.
“I am terrified of making the right decision for my kingdom and the wrong one for myself. My heart should be with my people, and with any good-hearted ruler intent on offering me his name and aid. I should be grateful.”
“Gratefulness for all he offers doesn’t mean you will come to love him.
” Her friend smiled grimly, reaching down and giving Lilac’s hand a light squeeze.
“I am in no position to advise you on alliances or marriage, but one thing is clear: Regrettably, you belong to Garin, whether you are queen of this country, or the next, or both,” Piper said, swallowing the disdain of her sire’s name.
“You belong to Garin in a different manner than I do. It is merely an issue of hierarchy for me, I am his fledgling. His subordinate. You are his .”
“I am his thrall.” The realization said aloud made her tremble beneath the duvet.
“But your place is beside him, and he will ensure it is known. The way he spoke of you, to you in that vestibule in front of Bastion. That wasn’t real.
You were playing along with him.” At the look of dread on Lilac’s face, Piper laughed unexpectedly.
“I could tell, even before being turned. I know you. You detest the idea of marrying Maximilian for this very reason. Sometimes your heart, your blood, knows before you do.”
Lilac bit her lip, willing her body to calm. Enthralling herself to Garin had indeed changed everything in the blink of an eye, including the concepts of marriage and belonging .
To whom. With whom.
Her kingdom was threatened by annexation and the only clear solution was one she detested. She’d caused this. But she’d done what she had to in order to survive, just as she had time and time again, and would continue to.
Even if Garin hadn’t ever spoken of a Blood Vow, he’d at least cared enough to research it. But that didn’t matter, Lilac decided, shoving the thought from her mind. After realizing his intentional, planned betrayal, she knew better than to let tonight’s discovery fester into hope.
She wouldn’t put it past Garin to order her all the way to the altar, command the vows from her very tongue if he had to.
He had no qualms in forcing her hand, and who knew what he was capable of—to which depths the head of the Brocéliande vampire coven would sink—in order to ensure France did not win?
And Artus was brazen enough to suggest that a marriage to Sinclair would prevent France from advancing.
She had tried to do it on her own, but to her dismay, Garin was right; the countrymen capable of forming her army and fighting for her crown might not only refuse, but revolt, again , when she amended the Daemon law in Brocéliande’s favor. Which she would do, without question.
Riou and her father’s council also held fair points—England was too much of a risk to involve, especially in the early stages of war, when her marriage alone would stop the threat without wasting the resources and blood of outlying kingdoms.
Lilac would oblige, but she’d do it on her own terms. She swallowed and wiped her tears away. She would never be backed into a corner again, not by France nor Garin. She would not make a decision that would reign over her title, body, and land in a single moment of fear.
She’d make a stunning, devoted bride. She’d have Herlinde design the most breathtaking gown that would have Marguerite and her court falling over each other.
France would watch. So would Garin.
Lilac would do it afraid, her crowned head held high.
“I am to be married this weekend,” was all she said.
Piper rolled over to face the balcony doors and yanked the covers over her head. “Then I pity the kingdom who stands between you both.”