Page 163 of Disillusioned
She eyed the pouch, feeling Garin scoot back to give her more room.
“Please,” he whispered.
“I shall,” she said, her rump remaining on the cot because really, she had no choice. “But at the cost of your comfort.”
“You underestimate your effect on me. Your presence is wholly torturous.”
She turned slowly to him. “Your stake and hawthorn berries are useless. They won’t protect me from a life never truly my own.” Garin was studying her, looking more wary than remorseful. Every bit lost as Lilac felt. “But that will not stop me from reveling in the fate that has befallen me.”
He gently released her hand and nodded minutely.
Permission.She should have left, should’ve retreated to her tower…but what was Garin’s permission but a wish granted?
Lilac angled her shoulders away from him and settled onto the pillow. Kemble might open the door at any moment and discover them together, but those worries felt distant when the only thing that mattered—to her dismay—was him.
He curled around her gently, hesitant in his movements, as if she were a thing that could be so easily broken. He cleared his throat when she pressed her ass into him. Garin didn’t touch her further, but brought his nose to her hair, inhaling. “I am a moth to a flame, willingly consumed. You are my every waking thought. My relentless undoing.”
She couldn’t bring herself to leave. He should’ve known that.Maybe hedid, and the offer to allow her to leave was, just as the hawthorn berries and stake, to make him feel better about everything.
The spell of deep sleep threatened to wash over her, then. Her eyes fluttered shut as she felt the blanket being pulled over her, tucked around her.
“Then become undone,” Lilac whispered into the veined forearm that curled beneath her head, tugging her body against him. “How selfish of you to crave something never fully yours.”
29
Lilac peeled herself off of Garin’s chest. The room was hot, the hearth blazing as if someone had stopped by to stoke the fire. She sat up for a moment, stretched, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, disoriented by fragments of dreams—of dark dalliances and roaring tides she could barely remember.
A towering ballroom. A shimmering soiree.
Careful not to wake him, she slid off the cot. She watched Garin nuzzle into the impression of her head on the pillow; thankfully he didn’t move when she settled the blanket back onto his shoulders. He shivered despite the warmth, the dark hair on his forehead matted in sweat again. She’d never seen him perspire this much.
Lilac tossed the bloodied cloths into the fire before picking up the pouch of berries. She opened it and dropped a pinch of them into her mouth.Bitter. She grimaced, closed the drawstring, and tucked it under her arm.
There wasn’t a guard in sight outside the door, but they only patrolled the second floor on occasion and didn’t sit watch like the sentries did on the first floor or ramparts. She marched straight up to her tower and wondered just what spell Myrddin might’ve cast to settle the castle, or if they’d needed it at all after the night of debauchery. She contemplatedfinding the warlock, updating him on Garin’s health. Maybe she could share her plans with him. His advice or magic might be helpful, in hindsight.
Ultimately, she decided against it; she wouldn’t be able to get to the guest quarters without drawing attention to herself. She couldn’t risk it.
Lilac pushed the door open to find Piper snoring on the rug in front of the fireplace with one of the duvets from the linens trunk. She nudged Piper’s shoulder and ushered her to bed. Piper startled awake and refused at first, but when Lilac insisted she wouldn’t possibly be able to go back to sleep, the vampire groggily obliged and settled into the far edge of Lilac’s mattress facing the balcony doors. Outside, the sky was cast in deep violet. The castle would be awake soon.
She padded to the chamber pot to clean herself and realized she didn’t feel any pain. The cramping was gone, her bleed slightly lighter. Stunned and pleased, she went to her armoire, plucked out a nondescript maroon dress—the last of Herlinde’s unworn garments—and changed out of her fine gown, laying it on the linens trunk to be cleaned. She slid her dagger garter onto her thigh, the pouch of berries down the front of her chemise, and slipped out the door.
Once on the second floor, she took the first right before the library, into the hall of bedrooms. The handmaidens’ quarters was the first door; she rapped on it as quietly as possible and was met by Yanna.
“What?” Yanna swept her fringe out of her eyes, blinking in the dim light of the torch around the corner. Upon realizing it was Lilac, she dipped into a startled curtsey. Isabel’s sleepy babbling could be heard from within the dark room. “It’s the queen. Go back to bed. What’s the matter, Your Majesty? Where’s your candle? Where’s Sir Albrecht—and why are you in the dark?”
“I need a favor—-a discreet favor. I need you to wake my scribe, John.”
“At this hour?”
“And Riou, the cartographer. I’ll need him.” Lilac was fully awake now, her racing thoughts muddled with the memory of Garin’s arms around her. “And the standing armorer. We haven’t had an official Master at Arms since Armand’s injury.”
It hadn’t occurred to Lilac in her youth how odd it was that the duke at the head of her father’s armies had been rendered useless, and how that issuestillhad been eclipsed by the widespread fear of her Daemon tongue.Since then, the role had changed hands several times under Armand and Henri’s orders, and would’ve remained so until Sinclair took his father’s spot.
“And how do you expect me to find him if you don’t know who he is?”
“Both Riou and John will know where to find the presiding armorer. I need all three to meet me at the library before dawn. Now is preferable.” She tapped her foot while Yanna rubbed her eyes, finally awake enough to make sense of Lilac’s ludicrous requests. “Well?”
“Where’s Sir Albrecht?”
