9. Ava
AVA
I sat on the edge of the bed, my pulse still pounding from the fight, my muscles taut with leftover adrenaline. Every nerve in my body was alive, heightened, making me hyper-aware of everything—the cool draft from the open balcony door, the faint scent of cigarette smoke lingering in the air, and the sound of Ciaran’s approaching footsteps.
He stepped into my bedroom and my breath hitched. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, his shirt stretched across the muscles of his chest, and his blazing icy-blue eyes locked on mine.
The storm of emotions in them—relief, worry, anger, love—made my stomach flip.
He was a force, raw and unrelenting, and just looking at him made my skin heat and my heart race. Need crackled under my skin.
We hadn’t had a chance to be alone together since I got back. Right now, that was all I needed.
Lisa, bless her intuitive soul, seemed to catch on in the way only a best friend could. With a flick of her eyes between us, she stood, smoothing down her dress.
“Running interference,” she whispered to me. “Stat.”
Before Ty could follow Ciaran into my room, she grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks.
“Time for new student orientation, Tynan,” she said, her tone firm but light. “Let’s go.”
Ty didn’t budge. His piercing gaze stayed on me, sharp and unreadable, lingering in a way that made my chest tighten.
I could hear Lisa muttering something to him, but his focus didn’t waver.
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
“Hey, bubby, read the fucking room,” Lisa said, her voice carrying just enough sass to make Ty’s jaw tick. “Those two lovebirds need to reconnect. And I don’t think you want to be here to hear it. Or, you know… see it, considering her door won’t close anymore.”
“It’s okay, Mhaor,” I said, holding Ty’s gaze, hoping he’d understand.
For a single moment, his mask slipped. The pain in his eyes flitted across his face, raw and unguarded, cutting into me as sharply as a blade.
The ache in my chest deepened, guilt twisting around my ribs like a vise.
I hated hurting him. But there was no undoing the knot of feelings inside me, no untangling the threads that bound me to Ciaran.
Ty’s expression hardened again, and without a word, he turned and walked out.
“Darkmoor is actually a really cool old place.” Lisa’s voice carried as she followed him down the hall. “We even have a legit passagetomb on the grounds aligned with the winter solstice or winter grianstad if you’re up on your Irish.”
The sound of their footsteps faded, leaving me alone with Ciaran.
My heart thudded in my chest as I looked up at him.
Ciaran stood there, his chest heaving, his fists clenched at his sides, like he was trying to keep himself from unraveling. But the fury in his icy-blue eyes betrayed him. It was raw, uncontained, and aimed squarely at me.
The room felt heavier, quieter, the tension between us thick and buzzing. For a moment, neither of us spoke, the silence stretching as the weight of everything unsaid pressed down on us.
“I thought you were dead,” he growled, his voice breaking on the words, the edges rough with emotion. His hands flinched as if he ached to reach out for me.
“I know,” I whispered as I stood facing him, my throat tightening. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my choice.”
“Months, Ava. You were gone for months .” His face twisted, his voice rising, the volume a whip crack against the silence.
God, I wanted to touch him, to pull him into my arms, to feel the safety of his warmth, his strength.
But hesitation held me back.
I saw the way Ciaran looked at me as I fought off the masked man—stunned, as if he didn’t know me anymore. As if the girl he loved had been replaced by someone sharper, harder, someone he didn’t quite recognize.
Had I changed too much for him to still love me? Had Ty infiltrated my soul so deeply that the connection Ciaran and I once shared was beyond saving?
My throat tightened. What if I was no longer the Ava that Scáth loved? What if I had become someone he couldn’t love anymore?
Because despite everything—the doubts, the guilt, the fear—I still loved him.
Even if I didn’t deserve him anymore, even if we couldn’t go back to how it was.
He was my Scáth, my shadow, my everything. And in this moment, that love felt like it might tear me apart.
I took a step toward him. “I was fighting to get back to you every day, I swear.”
His eyes narrowed, disbelief flashing across his face. “Were you? ’Cause you and Ty look pretty fucking friendly now.”
The accusation hit me like a slap, and guilt lanced through me, sharp and immediate.
But then came the anger—anger that he didn’t believe me, that he didn’t understand.
But before I could yell back, something shifted in his features, something that cracked his anger wide open and laid his pain bare.
“Is he…” His voice was raw, fractured, as if the words themselves were breaking him apart. “Is he the one you want now?”
It struck me like a dagger to the chest, stealing my breath.
The agony in his eyes, the vulnerability he was trying so hard to hide—it unraveled me .
I closed the distance between us, my hands reaching for him, all hesitation blown to dust.
“I love you , Scáth . ” My voice shook, but my words were certain, unyielding. “I’m yours.”
Something broke in him at my words. He pulled me to him, crushing me to him like he was afraid I’d disappear again. His lips crashed against mine with a desperation that stole my breath.
I kissed him back just as fiercely, my fingers digging into his clothes, trying to tear them off, trying to strip away every last thing left between us.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was fire and fury, a battle of need and raw emotion.
We fell onto the bed, pushing and pulling at each other as we fought to strip each other down, both of us trying to claim the other.
Our naked bodies collided, and the tension was electric, dark and all-consuming. Every nerve in my body was alive, buzzing with an intensity that made me feel like I might come apart at the seams.
The guilt, the confusion, the lingering feelings for Ty—they all slipped away and the world narrowed to just us.
This raw, electric naked connection. This dark bond.
Ciaran’s lips only left mine to kiss down my neck to my breasts. He sucked at my nipples, the need tightening inside me to almost desperation, making me claw at his back with my nails.
“I painted this town red trying to get you back,” he rasped as he ran his fingers along my soaked slit, teasing my entrance.
I let out a cry and rocked my hips to him, begging for more. I was already too far gone. I didn’t need foreplay. I needed him . Inside me. Now.
I stroked his cock, reveling in the weight of it, the thickness and heat.
“You killed Dr. Vale,” I whispered as I positioned him at my entrance.
“Yes,” he said, thrusting into me without hesitation, filling me, consuming me—taking up all the space in my heart once more.
We both groaned against each other’s mouths.
Fuck. My body and my heart felt like they were on the verge of exploding, every feeling—relief, pain, love, desperate need—hitting me all at once.
“And Liath’s father,” I said on a choke as my emotions threatened to overcome me.
He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look right into his eyes as he thrust into me again. “Yes.”
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I didn’t look away.
This man, my Scáth, had left a trail of blood and destruction in his wake for me. And yet, as wrong as it was, I couldn’t stop the surge of love that filled my chest.
This felt right. He felt right.
“And the other missing girls… you made their fathers disappear,” I said on a moan as I wrapped my legs around his waist to pull him in deeper.
“Yes,” he said again, each word punctuated with a thrust, his voice a brutal blend of pride and pain. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
I crushed my lips against his, my hands tangling in his hair as his grip on my hip tightened and he fucked me like I was his lifeline, like he couldn’t breathe without me .
“Fuck,” he growled, “I missed your tight little cunt. The way you grip me.”
“Please,” I whispered, my hips pushing back against him becoming frantic as my thighs trembled. “I’m so close.”
He held himself over me with one hand, wrapping his other around my throat, firmly but not enough to cut off my oxygen. Not enough for what I needed.
He slowed his thrusts so he could hold me on the edge. “Say my fucking name.”
“Scáth.”
“My name , Ava.”
“Ciaran.”
“Fuck, yes.” His fingers tightened, my head spinning as the edges of my vision whitened. “You are mine . Say it.”
His thrusts became more forceful, driving deeper with each movement and the pressure inside me built to near bursting.
“Yes,” I gasped, my voice strained against his grip. “I’m yours .”
My admission, my words, were my undoing.
My pussy clenched around him and wave after wave of pleasure crashed over me as I screamed.
Scáth groaned, his hips stuttering as he followed me over the edge.
I felt the warmth of his release inside me, his body shuddering between my legs.
For a long moment, we stayed in that position, both of us panting and trembling with the aftershocks of our climax.
Slowly, Scáth released his grip on my throat and pulled away. He returned with a damp cloth .
I studied the way his messy hair fell over his eyes, catching in his long dark lashes. The way his forearm muscles flexed as he tenderly cleaned me up.
God, he was so beautiful it made my chest ache.
He tossed the cloth into my wash basket and slid his body beside me before pulling me against his chest. He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, a stark contrast to his aggression before.
“I’ve missed you,” he murmured against my skin, his breath hot and damp. “Every second that he kept you from me, I ached for you.”
I turned my head, seeking his lips with mine.
The kiss was slow and deep as the memory of the moment I fell for him echoed in my mind.
“One day… in my future house… I want a strawberry patch.”
“What else do you want?”
“I want a big library with a view of the sea,” I said before I could stop myself. “It will be filled with light. The shelves will be the color of driftwood and the couches the color of sea glass. And the books will be faded from the sun with pages bent and yellowed from long days on the beach.”
My knees trembled against Ciaran’s legs and my heart pounded painfully in my chest. I felt like I was getting more drunk instead of less.
“Each room will be light and airy and have blue drapes the color of… of cornflowers. And our —my— bedroom will have a peaked ceiling and overlook the sea. There’ll be an antique writing desk beside a sunny window. And a large comfortable bed piled high with the softest pillows.”
The corners of his wet lips curled up and my veins went cold with fear .
If he laughed at me, I would die.
“Would you have a porch… where we could drink tea?” he asked.
“Yes, a large wraparound porch,” I whispered.
I didn’t tell him that there had always been a boy on my porch, too. Always in the shadows. Always just a silhouette. I didn’t let myself paint him in.
Until now.
Ciaran’s face moved dangerously close to mine.
I gripped the kitchen counter more tightly.
“What about a forest nearby so I could chase you through it?” he asked.
Goosebumps erupted along my arms.
Pine drifted in through my nostrils even through the thick fragrance of the drying herbs. Pine and salt water. Rich earth and Ciaran’s musk.
“Yes,” I said, hypnotized by his eyes. “Pines, I think.”
“Pines,” he echoed.
“And the house shouldn’t be too big,” I said, breathing a little too quickly, “so that we can always find each other without having to yell.”
“Unless I’m up on the small rooftop terrace with the telescope.”
Ciaran smiled, and for a moment, it transformed him. It softened the hard edges of his face, a rare warmth breaking through his usual cruel mask.
“But we should always go together to count the stars,” I said.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I promise to never look at the stars without you.”
Was it foolish to hope that Scáth and I could have our happily ever after? That the chaos and pain could somehow lead us here, to this fragile moment of peace ?
“I missed you too,” I whispered.
As I rested against him, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my cheek, a quiet certainty settled in my chest.
I’d made the right choice. Choosing Ciaran felt right—it felt like coming home.
But even as that love anchored me, a shadow lingered in the unspoken spaces between us.
There was so much left unsaid—things I didn’t have the courage to ask, truths he hadn’t yet offered, questions that burned on my tongue.
They hovered like ghosts, threatening the fragile foundation we were trying to build.
For now, I held on to him, praying this moment could last just a little longer.
It didn’t, though.
“Come with me,” he said softly, his voice low and coaxing, like he was trying to pull me back into something familiar, something safe. “We’ll leave tonight. Start over somewhere far away from all this.”
I wanted to melt into his words, let them sweep me away into a dream of freedom.
But I couldn’t.
“I can’t.” My voice came out barely above a whisper. “Too much has changed, Ciaran.”
He stiffened, his fingers that had been tracing my bare shoulder froze. “This is because of Ty, isn’t it?”
“It’s not about Ty,” I said, shaking my head against his chest. “ I’ve changed.”
His gaze sharpened, cutting into me like a blade, and the muscles under his jaw twitched. “What happened when Ty had you?”
Guilt coiled in my stomach, sharp and bitter, as memories clawed their way to the surface.
The heat of Ty’s body pressed against mine as he adjusted my fighting stance, his hands firm on my body, his instructions growling in my ear, igniting a power deep inside me.
The vulnerable look in his eyes when he told me about how he’d gotten the scar on his top lip, how my fingers had trembled as I traced it, and before I could think, I had leaned in and sucked it into my mouth, as if my lips could wash away the pain.
And eyes, fierce and unrelenting, locked with mine as I slid the knife into the masked man’s chest, no words, only a shared understanding intimate in a way I couldn’t explain.
I swallowed hard, my throat tight as I forced the memories back. How could I tell Ciaran any of this? How could I explain that my time with Ty hadn’t just broken me, but it’d started rebuilding me, too.
My throat tightened, and I dropped my gaze, unable to hold his.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said, the words tumbling out too fast, too shaky. “It’s over.”
“Then send him away,” Ciaran said, his voice hardening, suspicion flashing in his icy gaze. “He’ll only leave if you tell him to.”
“Ty was my best friend. Is my best friend.” I met Ciaran’s gaze, willing him to understand. “I can’t send him away. We need his help to take down the Society. ”
Ciaran’s jaw tightened, his voice low and sharp, each word clipped. “That plan is suicide, Ava.”
I pushed up from the bed, from him, the sudden movement breaking the fragile moment between us. My hands shook as I snatched my top from the floor, pulling it over my head. “Don’t you believe in us? In me ?”
Ciaran climbed out of bed, reaching for me. His voice softened, losing its edge. “Of course, I do—”
I whirled on him before he could finish, my frustration bubbling over. “ Ty believes in me.”
The second the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I saw the flicker of pain in his eyes, the way his hands dropped to his sides as if I’d struck him. It was a low blow, and we both knew it.
I took a steadying breath, my voice softer now, as I finished pulling on the rest of my clothes.
“Ciaran… I thought we could run, but now I know the truth. We can’t. There’s nowhere we could go that the Society won’t find us. And even if they don’t… I can’t live with myself knowing I ran away.”
His shoulders slumped, and the anger in his gaze dimmed, replaced by something raw and aching.
“I’m just scared about losing you,” he admitted, his voice barely audible.
“I know,” I said, stepping closer, my hand brushing against his arm. “I’m scared too. But we’re stronger together. The three of us.”
He stiffened at that, his jaw clenching.
“Fine,” he said after a long pause. “He can stay for now. But only because I know he’s the only other person on this fucking planet who would protect you like I would. ”
I pulled my hair up into a messy bun on my head, watching him in the mirror.
God, only three months ago all I knew was Scáth. There had been no Ciaran… no mirror image, no twin to complicate things.
“Why did you pretend to be Ty?” I asked him.
He didn’t reply, his jaw tightening, but I saw the flicker of guilt in his eyes.
“Ciaran, please,” I whispered, my voice softer now. “We can’t have secrets from each other. Not us. They’ll tear us apart if we do.”
He turned me to face him, his fingers gently pushing a fallen strand of hair over my ear as he stared at me. His gaze traced every feature of my face as though committing me to memory. His eyes searched mine, and for a moment, I thought he might deflect again.
“Just give me a minute more,” he whispered. “I want to see you… one last time before I tell you why I lied.”
“I won’t look at you any differently,” I promised, my voice steady, though my heart was pounding.
“The truth is… I was ashamed,” Ciaran admitted, his voice low and raw, holding my gaze, though I could see the effort it took not to turn away. “Ashamed of how I’d treated you. Ashamed I had let Ty be the one to go to prison. Ashamed that I had blamed you when you were being abused by my own damn father.”
My chest tightened at his words, but I didn’t speak, letting him say what he needed to.
“I was a fucking idiot ,” he continued, his voice cracking. “To think you were complicit.”
Pain etched itself into every line of his face, and I reached up, brushing my fingertips lightly against his cheek. His gaze was raw and vulnerable, and I felt my heart break for him all over again.
“I didn’t want you to think of me as the boy who tormented you,” he said, his voice barely audible. “I wanted to be the boy who always loved you.”
My throat tightened as tears burned at the edges of my vision. “He might have loved me first,” I whispered, my voice shaking with emotion. “But I loved you first.”
His eyes widened slightly, the weight of my words sinking in. “So you remember…?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “I remember everything. You don’t have to hide anything from me anymore.”
His gaze searched mine, hesitant and unsure. “What do you remember?”
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stay strong, to sound like the survivor I had become. “I remember the professor… used to drug me with my hot chocolate. And when I was under, he abused me.”
Ciaran flinched, his eyes clouding with anger and pain, but he stayed silent, letting me continue.
“One night, I got sick. I threw up my hot chocolate. And when he tried to touch me, I fought back.”
Ciaran nodded slowly, his hand brushing against my arm in a gesture of silent support.
“I remember that night too,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Watching… when you said no. That’s when I realized…”
He trailed off, his eyes closing briefly as he grappled with the memory .
I reached for his hand, lacing my fingers through his, giving him the strength as I took strength from him.
“He forced an abortion on me. And then… and then I killed him,” I said, my voice steady but hollow. “I put oleander in his tea. And… And Ty took the blame.”
Ciaran’s gaze bored into me, searching my face as if peeling back layers. “Is that it?”
I frowned, confusion twisting through me. “What else is there?”
He let out a sigh, heavy and full of something unspoken, his shoulders dropping under the weight of it. “There’s one more thing I need to admit. Something you don’t know…”
My heart stilled, the tension in the room tightening like a noose. I froze, unable to speak, barely able to breathe.
His next words sliced through the silence like a blade.
“You didn’t kill him… I did.”