Page 226 of Disillusioned
Any flashes of horror or shame she might’ve felt went as quickly as they came. Lilac let her head fall back, pressing into him and panting in heavy ecstasy—shuddering when she fucked herself so hard, she began to pant Garin’s name.
His teasing stopped. So did his shallow breaths that came in time with the rhythm of her pleasure. The moment Lilac quieted, another wave of ecstasy hit her, with a searing pain that made her cry out, startled.
“Sorry,” he lifted his mouth to sputter drunkenly against her throat, before sinking his teeth back into her. He didn’t sound sorry at all.
The sensation was unlike anything she’d ever felt. His bite was rough, and possessive—and although she could feel the blood pumping out of her, she didn’t tire. At least, not yet, or if she did, she didn’t notice; the surging pain at her throat was countered by a steady, pulsing warmth between her thighs. Somewhere between fingers and a vibration, it was a cresting wave. The feeling built, and built at her throat and clit, until the bloodied stake clattered to the floor, and her hands snaked into his hair, pressing him closer. He groaned into her, causing her to fracture and thrash.
Lilac shut her eyes. It was not a feeling sheeverwished to relinquish. She hated him for it.
Garin jerked beneath her, and the chains securing his wrists suddenly clattered to the floor. His jaw then shifted angles, his fangs cutting deeper as she opened her eyes to him rising from the chair, cradling her.
The knot at her center not only unfurled, but caught fire.
39
GARIN
He placed Lilac down gently on the bed, sweeping the displayed bundle of tools out of the way.
Garin was reeling. The pain in his arm and thigh that had driven him to the point of delirium was finallygone, his strength instantly returned.
He was a new man. One, prisoner to an ancient hunger that had drawn out a side of him that had seemed to frighten and allure Lilac simultaneously. He could think clearly now, to his resurfacing chagrin; he could smell the dew outside, and the dried yew crackling away in the hearth. All tainted in the earthy, sweet aroma of her intoxicating bleed, but her veil had at least lifted enough for him to realize what was in front of him.
Lilac blushed and attempted to clean herself with the cloth he’d knocked aside.
And it all came barreling into him at once—the ring of the shots on the battlefield, losing himself in the gore of its aftermath. The sheer horror in Henri’s and his guards’ eyes in realizing Garin had been shot and did not collapse.
The farmhouse—the swinging bodies of Sable and Jeanare. His coven and its newfound members. Aimee and Pascal.
Maximilian’s letter.
His gut finally twisted. Garin was no man. He was a mere vampire, suddenly painfully aware of the passage of time. The way it slipped through his fingers like sand.
Garin did not want to think about the politics threatening to break them apart and burn his forest down, nor the insufferable emperor who now claimed her future. He wanted a repeat of whatever the fuck just happened. He wanted more than that. He wanted her again and again, in the way only monsters could want.
He wanted forever from a human woman who could barely afford a week. She’d be married in less than two days.
He could still taste her—not the taste of blood, but of her essence—still feel the ghost of her heartbeat hammering against his mouth in the moments he’d held her too close, kissed her too deeply; first in the grotto, and then at his farmhouse, when she’d opened upbeautifullyfor him.
It hadn’t been a feeding those times, but his body had trembled like it was. His hunger curled inside him, vicious and relentless.
And yet, after everything, she’d trusted him… even as he had carved the path that led her straight into Maximilian’s hands.
Thiswas the cost of his restraint. Of pretending to be anything other than himself. Lilac would be wed by-proxy to the Holy Roman Emperor—a gilded cage cloaked as diplomacy, meant to keep France at bay. Meant to keep her and her family breathing.
Garin had lied to her. Forged the letter from the count in hopes of facilitating a meeting with Lilac and her parents, knowing Maximilian’s offer was too good to pass up. A throne across Brittany and all of his empire in exchange for her bloodline, her autonomy. But… her own people had already turned on her once. How long until they did it again? A queen without reverence was one subject to rebellion, wasn’t she?
They do not respect her, whispered the distant voice of reason, his once-clear logic now smothered beneath thirst and guilt. How easy it had been for Lilac’s own subjects to stage a coup against those she wished to protect most. Who would they have struck next? The castle? Her?
The thought made his blood boil. He’d been too distracted at the inn and at the castle, lost in her pull. He’d nearly missed the large-scaleDaemon hunt that would’ve swept across the High Forest.He, who was supposed to guard them from those things. Now that Maximilian’s court had gotten wind of France’s movements—the quiet advances that even the Daemons hadn’t caught—the emperor wanted Lilac to travel to him, through enemy terrain.
A cold chill prickled Garin’s spine. He didn’t trust Maximilian with his own court, much less her. But he’d been the one who had condemned the one he loved to a cage because he couldn’t trust himself with her blood.
But wasn’t it already too late? She was already bleeding for him. Wet for him.
They don’t revere her like you do, another voice said then, not the voice of a well-meaning cherub on his shoulder, but something darker,olderthan the woods itself, coiled deep within. It was the thing that allowed him to reach into her mind.
It wasn’t reason. It was nothing that resembled it. This was his instinct. Hunger.
