6. Lorcan
LORCAN
“Because I killed her.”
The cold night air wailed through the arches of the courtyard, but my body barely registered it anymore. My pulse hammered hard enough in my neck that it drowned out the wind rustling up the ivy around the tower.
Liath stared at me, blinking. “W-what do you mean by that?”
I’d given her the worst truth about me. She was supposed to take it and run.
But she hadn’t moved.
Liath shivered, her arms coming up around herself. The hem of my shirt clung wet against her thighs. Mud streaked her calves all the way to her ankles. Her feet were pink with cold against the stone.
Fuck. I was letting her freeze.
“Let’s get you warm,” I said, turning toward the tower.
But Liath didn’t move. “Stop hiding from me.”
For a second neither of us spoke.
Lorcan, no! Her scream ripped through the back of my skull.
My shoulders locked as the cold drained out of me and a familiar rot flooded back in instead, thick and acidic, crawling up from the place where I’d buried it for almost fifteen years.
I pushed it down, clenching my jaw hard enough that pain shot into my temples. I dragged a hand across my face as I forced air into my lungs.
“Fire first,” I said. “Story after.”
Liath nodded once.
I knew she wasn’t about to let me bury this once we got back inside.
Inside the tower room, I went straight for the hearth, crouching in front of the fireplace, and started arranging the kindling with hands that needed something to do before they started shaking.
I shoved paper beneath it and struck the match. Flame bloomed gold before catching through the kindling.
I arranged some smaller logs over it, making a fuss over the way they lay, making sure they weren’t too crowded. Then I stacked larger logs beside me, ready to be added, the scrape of wood against stone sounding too loud inside this too-small room.
Liath stood too close behind me.
I adjusted a log that didn’t need adjusting. And another.
I’d never told anyone this. Not even Finn.
The fire crackled louder.
Heat slowly pushed outward into the room.
Something climbed the inside of my throat. I swallowed it back down.
The fire roared higher.
I ran out of logs to move.
I wiped soot off my palms as I stood.
Then I turned.
Liath stood right there, blanket wrapped around her, damp hair falling loose around her face, her damp nightshirt hanging over the back of a nearby chair.
She just stood there waiting.
Silence stretched between us while the flames snapped softly behind me.
I slowly took her in, trying to memorize her as she was, right now.
The way her loose strands caught in her long lashes, the damp ends curling against her collarbone.
The softness of her mouth, her small white teeth worrying her bottom lip.
The warmth in her eyes while she stood there looking at me like I was still someone gentle enough to love.
My chest tightened so hard it hurt because I knew the second I told her the truth, I would lose this version of her forever. I’d lose her.
I took in a steadying breath before I began to speak.
Ma came home from Magdalene for my eighth birthday. I’d asked Father if she could. I’d begged him until he snapped at me. But she did. She came home. Just for one day.
Father had gotten me a pony. Brown with white spots. I loved him at once. Wanted to call him Silver after that cowboy guy in those old TV shows Mervyn let me watch with him sometimes.
Ma didn’t. She didn’t want me to play with him. She didn’t want me to go to my party at all.
Ma was running.
I followed her up the tower stairs.
I was angry. So angry. It was my birthday. My pony. My party and she was ruining everything.
I pushed her.
She stumbled backward. And she just… kept falling.
Then I was leaning out the tower window.
Looking down at her.
She was reaching for me, her face twisted in horror.
Lorcan, no! she screamed as she fell. Screaming at me because of what I’d just done.
The thud hit a second later.
Father came up behind me. I didn’t hear him on the stairs. Everything sounded weird in my ears.
One second I was alone. The next he was there. Glaring at me, lips tight in a line.
“You are poison.” I heard his voice say like a dream.
His hand settled on my shoulder while we stared down at the courtyard to where she lay. Her arm out in a weird angle. I just wanted to fix her arm.
“Your mother was sick,” he said. “She jumped. Understand?”
I think I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The tower room came back around me. The fire, the heat, and Liath standing in front of me slowly came back into focus.
My hands were shaking. I fisted them into my sleep pants.
“See?” My voice sounded scraped raw. “I killed her.”
The silence afterward pressed against my skin.
And underneath it sat the truth I never said out loud.
My father covered it up for me.
Despite how terrible he was, he protected me. Still protected me. I owed him for that.
Liath stared at me for a long moment before speaking. “I don’t believe an eight-year-old boy is a killer.”
Frustration scraped through me sharp enough to sting.
I’d handed her the worst thing I’d ever done like a weapon and she still stood there looking at me with sympathy instead of fear.
Some ugly exhausted part of me wanted to shake her until she understood what I was trying to save her from.
Another quieter part loosened painfully in my chest because she hadn’t walked away.
“I am a killer,” I said, the words coming out colder and harder now. “You should leave. Now. I’m only going to hurt you.”
Take the warning. Please take the fucking warning.
Liath’s brows pulled together. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Before I could stop her, she dropped the blanket, leaving her naked.
The firelight caught the curve of her hip, the slope of her breasts, the dip of her waist. Every inch of her beautiful body I had been keeping my hands off since the fire was in front of me.
My breath stalled out somewhere between my lungs and my mouth.
She closed the short distance between us.
“Wait—”
But damn her, she didn’t. Her soft mouth crashed against mine, her naked skin melding against my body, hitting like a match dropped into petrol.
Everything I had been holding back since the carriage house fire tore loose at once.
I grabbed her hard enough to make her gasp and drove her backward into the stone wall beside the hearth. Her spine struck rock while my mouth tore across hers, hungry and desperate and meaner than it should have been.
My gray. My little impostor.
My teeth bared against her neck, down her breasts, teasing her nipple.
I shoved my sleep pants down just enough to free myself while Liath clawed at my back.
I thrust into her hard. My world disappeared into her hands and her body and her wet heat.
The moan she let out nearly fucking undid me.
My hand locked around her thigh, forcing her leg higher around my waist while I drove into her again and again against the wall, the feeling of her pussy tightening around me making me dizzy.
Awareness slammed into me so hard my body almost recoiled from itself.
I had her pinned against stone, my cock forcing her open, my fingers digging into her thigh hard enough to mark.
I was hurting her. Look at me, brimming with violence. A monster.
My grip loosened as I sucked in a breath, letting go of her thighs and stumbling back.
Liath surged toward me. “Don’t you fucking dare stop.”
Her teeth sank into the side of my neck hard enough to sting while both her hands gripped my arse, pulling me back into her body. She rocked hard against me herself, taking what I’d tried to pull away.
The sound that left me barely sounded human.
We crashed together without rhythm or softness left in it, like two enemies fighting to kill. Her nails raked down my chest while I gripped her hips and fucked her hard enough to bruise.
We stumbled away from the wall, tangled together before my foot caught the edge of the rug. I rolled out of instinct to take the blow, hitting the floor with my back, hard.
Liath landed on top of me, laughing once breathlessly before kissing me again and lifting her hips up and down on my cock.
Fuck. The hungry way she moved over me, bottom lip between her teeth, her moans loud and reckless. It made me fucking crazy.
I let out a growl and rolled over her; my body covered hers against the rug while the firelight flickered gold across her skin.
Mine.
I pinned both her wrists above her head, slamming into her, claiming her. Her wrists were small under my hands. Too small.
My breath stalled out hard. Fuck. I was doing it again. I was hurting her. I couldn’t fucking help myself.
Liath locked her ankles around my back before I could retreat, holding me inside her as she worked her hips against me.
“More,” she begged.
I held her down and fucked her harder, biting at the side of her neck hard enough to mark.
Liath groaned instead of recoiling, the sound pouring straight into the darkest parts of me, her breasts arching toward me, her hips bucking back.
My hand slid around her throat as I angled in deeper, slamming against her G-spot.
Liath’s eyes fluttered half-shut. “God, yes. Choke me.”
My hand tightened at her command.
Liath gasped, her pulse beating hard beneath my thumb.
“Harder,” she breathed.
I was too out of my mind to realize what I was doing, too lost in her moaning, in the feel of her tight, wet cunt.
I squeezed harder.
Firelight flickered across her face while her mouth parted beneath me, a scream caught in her throat, her back coming off the rug as she came undone.
My own climax rushed up to devour me.
Then I saw my own hand.
Really saw it.
My fingers wrapped around her throat.
Her face flushed red beneath me while I cut off her oxygen.
I’m killing her.
The room tilted around the edges. Her moans sounded muffled as if suddenly underwater.
The realization should have killed it.
Instead, my orgasm ripped through me, pleasure making my vision white. Just for a moment.
Then the sight of my hand around her throat, of me choking her, came back into sharp focus.
My hand jerked off her.
But it was too late. Far too fucking late.
Liath let out a soft sigh as her hand found my jaw. Her thumb stroked over the corner of my mouth, soft, like she was thanking me.
She was smiling.
She had no idea.
I stared down at her, unable to breathe properly.
She thought I wouldn’t hurt her. But violence was in my blood.
It was only a matter of time before I destroyed her.