Page 94 of Disillusioned
“It is true,” she continued, “if I hadn’t felt the undeniable urge to come and find you tonight, I would have gone on to meet the Austrian count who has requested my attention. My parents received a letter, announcing his arrival from the Holy Roman Empire tomorrow.” She savored the subtle shock that flashed across his face. “To think I might’ve been propositioned by him while you ravaged the city, striking my capital down with yet another Raid. This one, inflicted by you, and you alone. This endless hunger you feel.”
She braced for his reaction to her particularly low jab. Garin absorbed it, and if it angered him, it didn’t show. He seemed to still be processing the vital information regarding Albrecht’s letter, but his lack of response annoyed her. “But then, in your eagerness to be rid of me the other morning, I’m not sure you considered what it would mean for me to be married to someone else. If not then, it certainly should be taken into consideration now, with whatever magic has bound us?—”
“There is no bond,” he snapped, echoing her own denial when she’d spoken to Casmir.
“It doesn’t matter that you are convinced that this is so outside the realm of what is possible; you are oblivious to what’sbeenhappening. I don’t have to tell you how miserable the last three days have been.”
Garin looked to the floor.
“I don’t have to tell you how I struggled with restlessness, distracted even as I tried to carry out my daily tasks, and those you commanded of me. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. It wasn’t food I hungered for. It was not subtle. Everyone noticed. They tested me for pregnancy.” A lump had formed at her throat, and a slow and cadenced anger had seeped into his expression. She’d felt violated byeveryone, needing help, all while trying to keep them out—keep what had happened a secret. Blame laced her twisted features as she remembered how terrible it was to be away from him. The thought now made her ache, even as she was so upset with him.
His voice was hoarse. “You should have been able to do what I asked.”
“I did. And still, I suffered. And so did you.”
For once, Garin was speechless as he watched the shadows dance across her bare body. She suddenly felt very naked before him.
Lilac crossed her arms over her chest. “Simply look to the future that you have demanded of me. You might have been able to stomach the idea of sharing me with a king before ordering me away. But how does that thought farenow?” she stared him down as he digested her words one by one.
“I told you, I…” He trailed off, perhaps struck at the thought. His eyes darkened. “There will be no sharing of any kind, regardless of what happens. Your duty to your kingdom and their fealty to you remain. They are just that—duties you must fulfill in order to ensure the safety of your kingdom, at least long enough for François to realize he cannot annex you.”
“Long enough?” she said, intentionally playing into what she hoped were his deepest concerns. “So I am to play the part of someone else’s wife while you are able to take of me as you want? As shall whomever secures my hand?”
“Lilac, that is not what this is.”
“But what if Albrecht offers me his hand tomorrow?”
He watched her, expressionless. “That is likely to be the case.”
“What if he is kind?” she pushed. “What if he is a good and loving husband? A patient and protective father one day?”
He took a hesitant step toward her, his arm extending at the elbow as if he wished to stroke her face. He stopped himself. “I want you to have all the things that fulfill you. That you deserve. All the things I cannot give you, Lilac. That is what I want.”
She’d meant her inquiry to hurt him, to draw blood. His response was the last thing she expected—an echo of what he’d reassured her at the inn when they’d fought. None of his reassurances brought her peace, not then and not now.
“I am too young and inexperienced to know the things I want and require to be fulfilled as queen, Garin. As a woman, even. But I do know one thing well. I will not be cornered or coerced into giving my life or womb to anyone. Marriage sounds horrid, but if I ever do marry, I will do it on my own terms. For love, and not under your or anyone’s demands. I do not care what is at stake; if Brocéliande wants to be saved, they will standwith me, and I will work with my people to do the same. No one, not evenyouwill force my hand. Your sanguine magic will kill me before I do so.”
“Will it?” Garin was laughing. It was menacing and quiet, a warning sound her body shrank away from even as her corestillached for him. Lilac resisted the shocking urge to jump onto him again, even as he stared her down, still fully erect, bloodied, his fangs glistening. “To be freed of your torment is a gift I’d welcome with open arms.” Garin took one unsure step toward her. Then another, as if retraining his reflexes to approach her with gentleness.
“Then why not be done with it now?” Lilac mirrored his movement, backing away. The balcony door was visible from the corner of her vision. “I’ll have you know, I look forward to meeting that Austrian count tomorrow, just to tell him to get back onto his fucking horse and go to he?—”
Lilac’s heel caught onto something, causing her to lose her balance. She teetered before plopping down, the impact softened by what she expected to be cloth, or a bagged bushel of something.
She rolled on her side to push herself up, and instead of meeting cloth or rye, her hand met something else—cold and unmoving. Rigid, but soft.A hand, streaked with blood along with the body attached to it.
A pile of corpses. She’d landed on them.
Lilac opened her mouth in a stifled scream and actually yelped when two hands yanked her up from under her arms. Garin’s hands were off her the moment she was righted.
“You,” she couldn’t help but say, looking down at the mess before her.
Four bodies—two women and two men, their clothes askew in ribbons around them—laid in a tangle of limbs on the floor before the open closet. They were gray in pallor, their throats mangled, their skin torn open.
Lilac scuttled back, startling as she bumped into Garin.
“They were the original occupants of this room. I fell upon them as soon as I opened the door.” His hair was wild, his clothes half off his body. Instead of a fallen angel, Garin looked like a disgruntled demon who had accidentally stumbled out of hell and was most displeased by it.
She pivoted and retreated from his unruly stare, trying not to look at the corpses behind him.
