Page 210 of Disillusioned
“Iknowwho I am,” Garin snarled back, his voice drenched with desperation. “I’ve spent the last two weeks in shock over the discovery of that very fact. I have never been more painfully aware of who I am, and what this curse had made me.” His claws grasped at his bare chest. “A slave to time. And my violent, dastardly heart. I have no choice but to obey.”
“You're going to be all right!” Myrddin held his hands out, backing away from him and Rupert’s still body. “You’re gravely injured, and I don’t want to hurt you. Doing so will only endanger the queen.” He lurched back and dodged a swipe of Garin’s outstretched hands.
“I’ll kill you!”
Lilac’s muscles seized against her will; she strained to move, to help, but her legs had grown impossibly heavy. “He’s been a guide to us both! He’s your patron, you’ve served him all these years at the inn. He’s your friend.”
Garin snarled and launched himself onto the warlock.
“He is my council,” Lilac thundered. “Myrddin…what is your family name?”
“Wyllt! Myrddin Ambrosius Wyllt!”
“Myrddin Abrosious Wyllt, I hereby assign you to my royal council, to aid me in…in Diplomacy and Magic.” Lilac jumped; a floating scroll materialized in a puff of smoke before her very eyes, a huge peacock’s quill suddenly in her right hand.
“Only if you mean it,” Myrddin gargled, Garin’s hands around his neck.
Lilac shakily put the nib to the parchment, with no time to read the neatly scrawled text. “He is at my behest and protection, Garin! As areyou.” She finished her signature, and the quill and scroll vanished into thin air with a puff of smoke. “I order you to unhand him!”
Garin was way past reason; his fangs gnashed at Myrddin, who stumbled back, toppling them both. They rolled. The warlock had a clumsy sort of strength of his own, punching and clawing at Garin’s face until Myrddin gasped out in pain.
Garin’s mouth was latched onto his neck.
She had to act quickly; Rupert as a vampire sounded like a nightmare, their brief tryst aside. He was aloof and privileged, he’d willingly worked for Bogandpoisoned her. But Myrddin did say in her library that there was a method to his madness. She had to believe there was reason beyond him fucking Rupert for wanting to save him so badly. Such, that he was willing to brawl Garin for it. There was no time to question it.
With all her might, she lunged for the corpse and stuck her foot onto his shoulder, yanking the arrow out of his belly. She tossed the arrow aside and pulled the remaining one from his chest, the head catching onto meat and bone before it came free from his chest cavity.
There was a yelp of pain—Garin’s entire body flashed violet before he was thrown into the air, off of the warlock, rolling several yards down the knoll.
Lilac made to run after him—she couldn’t help herself—but Yanna’s arm linked with hers, yanking her back.
“Good thinking.” Myrddin sat up, wiping his own blood from his face, staining it into his beard. The gaping wound at his throat closed before their eyes. “Keep her from him.”
“What did that scroll do?” Lilac pressed, desperate to distract herself.
“Formalities.” Myrddin waved an unconcerned hand, pulling himself to his feet. “Just some fine print binding me to you. My duty, that is. I thought I was going to have to beg.”
“Magically binding?”
“Now, I did not say that.” Myrddin wagged a finger. “Mostly, being amongst your ranks protects me from him.” He jabbed that wagging finger at Garin, stirring in the dirt.
She considered Kestrel and his deals. Surely striking one with a warlock wasn’t any better. “But what do I owe you?”
“Me? Nothing. I want nothing more than to see you to greatness. The both of you.”
She had no reason to trust him explicitly, but for now, he was the most powerful person in their vicinity. Despite all the grief he’d given the vampire, he’d never once crossed Lilac.
At least she wouldn’t be the first ruler he’d served. “Fine.”
“It is more than fine, Your Majesty. It is done as dusk.”
Garin sat halfway up, arms darting out toward his thigh, moaning. “My—” he started to cry, but he leaned over to retch. Thick, black ichor poured from his mouth.
“Don’t, Your Majesty,” Myrddin said sternly, as if reading her mind.
“But he needs me.” Lilac’s entire body turned rigid at the sound of his wails, despite the urge to drop to her knees and feed him from her throat. It was as if even the muscle and bone Garin had previously commanded strained against her every attempt to ensure his well being. “He’s hurt.”
“Not mortally,” replied Myrddin. “Not yet. We’ve got to get him inside. To the castle, away from the public.”
