Page 77 of Disillusioned
Casmir quickly waved off her apology. “Don’t. It’s the mead, and your obvious attraction to vampires. It is something you cannot help—and neither can we. Unfortunately, you reek of the Trevelyan boy.”
She… reeked of him? Lilac gripped the table and slid off him, head pounding. The thought of Garin again, him with another woman—with multiple women—undressed and covered in blood flashed through her mind again, unbidden.
“His essence, his scent covers you.” He smiled, and while his mouth might have been teasing, his eyes were kind. “And you cannot stop thinking of him, can you?”
She glanced around. No one was watching them, but she wanted to go back to the door. She was embarrassing herself. She needed air. To her surprise, Casmir gently sat up and scooted back to make more room for her on the bench.
“See?”
“I don’t understand. It’s been days since I’ve seen him.” Casmir’s words haunted her. She motioned at herself, at the rose-colored kirtle and the absent oils Yanna had washed from her hair under scalding water—recalling all the grime Isabel had scrubbed from her nails after she’d pushed herself to exhaustion, attempting to manage the kingdom through the toils ofGarin’s punishing influence before languishing like some love-burdened specter.
Yesterday, after her fainting spell, she vaguely recalled Madame Kemble suggesting a trip to the shore might fix her in time for the ball. She would love one now, if not to walk into the sea. “What do you mean, I reek of him?” She glared at Casmir, tugging her dress back onto her shoulder. “I’vebathed!”
“It does not matter, young one. Not when a vampire has claimed you. You are off-limits.”
“Claimed?” A sound of disgust escaped her lips.
“You belong to him. Or, will by the end of the night,” he said from the corner of his mouth.
“I do notbelongto anyone,” she said, but blood flooded her cheeks, her ears. “Myrddin was the one who ordered me to convince Garin to leave the brothel before he stuck this mask on me. Permanently, until I complete his task.” She scowled, unable to help herself, knowing she shouldn’t divulge any more information to the vampire than she already had.
“And yet you came to find him on your own accord. Just how do you think you were able to leave?” Just then, he looked past her. “Ah.Merci, mon amour.” Lilac turned to see him reach past her and retrieve a tankard from the tray of the masked woman who’d appeared at the table.
“My pleasure.” The woman smiled at Lilac before flouncing away.
“I left because his entrancement on me lifted the moment I’d tried to obey his orders of accepting a proposition that would save my kingdom. There were no propositions.” She purposefully didn’t mention Albrecht’s letter.
“Is that what it was?” Casmir made a little noise in the back of his throat and lifted his drink. A toast. “And you were about to romance me just now. To prove what, exactly?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I wasn’t trying to romance you. I was trying to fuck you, if it wasn’t clear.”
“You both are fitted for one another, that’s certain,” he said with a rough laugh. “Anyway, I won’t be the one to bed you tonight.” He lifted his brows in consideration. “You should get a human to please you. They aren’t upheld by vampiric law, and better he killed them than me.”
She’d been so determined to fuck Casmir, it hadn’t occurred to her whatthe consequence of her spite and lust might be—other than Garin’s jealousy, and getting back at him for entrancing her and then ending up here.
If she had somehow skirted the bounds of Garin’s entrancement, she’d still left the castle to find him, hadn’t she?
“If a vampire encroaches upon someone else’sproperty,” he explained, waving the tankard at the fearful realization dawning on her face, “then the regnant is allowed a duel. Personally, I wouldn’t balk at the opportunity to lay the lad on his arse, but then I’d never be allowed at his family’s cozy little inn again. Plus…”
Lilac followed his gaze to the staircase across the tavern, up to the balcony.
“No one in their right mind would dare challenge him tonight.” There was an edge to his tone, a concern matching Myrddin’s.
As the words sank in, he took a swig, and when he put the cup down, his lips were tainted in red. He licked them clean. “It isn’t uncommon that blood bonds go awry, especially when inadvertently formed and the first thing the regnant wants is to be rid of his thrall.”
“He did not want to be rid of me,” she snapped, willing the fearful anger rising with every heavy breath to fade. He wanted to get a rise from her. “Garin explained what thralls are, how they work and what he did to me in order to save me.” She was unsure of how much Casmir knew, and it was impossible to tell with the way he watched her with intent patience. She lowered her voice. “He and the witches both confirmed it wasn’t nearly enough to invoke a blood bond, even of the first degree.”
Casmir reached out—all of the suaveness and hunger with which he’d touched her arm just moments ago, gone—and awkwardly petted her on the shoulder. “I would agree, and he’d said the witch and Bastion had monitored his process. Yet, I do find it alarming that, what are supposed to be the mild symptoms of an incomplete blood exchange appear otherwise.”
It was hard to tell in the low light, but it looked like the curiosity with which he was eyeing her had morphed into wonder.
“Lorietta said the rules of all magic are arbitrary,” she said softly.
Casmir only shook his head in answer and took a swig from his tankard again, but Lilac’s arm shot out and grabbed the handle. In shock, he released it and watched her slam it back down onto the table.
“Tell me what you know,” she demanded.
“That’s the thing,” he said, hesitant. “I am very old in comparison to your friends, Your Majesty. Traveling became my one true joy in life after mine was ripped from me in an instant. I am four and a half centuries old, have walked and sailed every mapped corner of this world and still yearn to discover more, feel more. That is the curse of the vampire. The Church believes we are evil because we are shamelessly lustful. From my own experience, vampirism has merely made me a glutton for everything I loved as a human, and what I learned to enjoy as a Daemon. Travel. Shameless romance. Books. The Trevelyan boy has his plants, his research. His love of caring for the inn and its denizens. But in all my years visiting, I’ve never seen Garin more invested in anything like he is with you. I don’t know much ofanythingabout what is transpiring tonight. I have never seen it.”
