24. Liath
LIATH
My heart slammed once, twice, so violently it hurt.
I dropped into one of the leather chairs by the cold fireplace, arranged my legs, my hands, and my face into something soft and waiting.
The door opened and Alistair stepped into the doorway. His eyes moved over the room, catching on me.
“What are you doing here?” he said, suspicion lacing his tone. “You know this is out of bounds.”
“You weren’t at dinner,” I said, my voice jagged as I struggled to contain my breathing. I forced my mouth to soften. “I just missed you, Daddy.”
Something in his face settled. The measuring quality dissolved into satisfaction. “You always liked curling up near the fire with me, didn’t you, Rua?”
The door clicked shut behind him, closing me in here with him. Alone.
The air felt thinner, the hairs along my arms lifting like static. The smile on my face felt stapled in place and my lungs were tight, panic swirling in my guts with every second I sat still.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run.
But Rua wouldn’t scream. Rua would lower her lashes, smile sweetly, and pretend she didn’t know what the word trapped meant.
Stay, Rua. Stay, Rua. Just for ten more minutes. Then you can make your excuse and leave.
He crossed the room and poured two fingers of absinthe from the decanter on the side table. He handed one to me and sat down next to me.
“Just a finger. The good doctor says I shouldn’t excite your nervous system too much.” Mock concern lined his voice. “I’m being so good, aren’t I?”
The sharp, medicinal smell hit the back of my throat, not quite sweet and not quite bitter.
He watched me, eyes narrowed. Testing me.
I sat, spine straight, hands folded neatly on my lap, trying to angle my legs away without being obvious. Still, my knee hovered inches from his. Too close.
The smell of the alcohol, the heat of the fire, the stifling weight of his stare made my stomach pitch.
I raised the glass, trying not to let my fingers tremble. The absinthe clawed down my throat in a single, searing line.
Rua would have giggled, let her eyes flutter, sipped again. So I did. Even as he watched me, licking his lips after every sip like he was tasting me instead.
He began reminiscing. Talking about horse riding lessons. How I used to fall asleep by the fire. How I cried when he missed my birthday that one time and how he made it up to me.
“You always loved my gifts, didn’t you?”
I kept my sips small and nodded.
He leaned closer, breath sour and bitter with absinthe. “You know, you’ve grown into such a… striking young woman.”
His fingers slid behind my ear, brushing my jaw as he tucked a strand of hair back. Gently. Too gently.
I swallowed my revulsion and forced a smile. “Thank you… Daddy.”
Forcing the word made something crawl across my skin.
He shifted even closer in his seat, green liquid sloshing in his glass.
“Do you remember how you used to sit in my lap and beg for stories?” He patted his thigh. “Come here, my unlucky girl. Let me tell you a story.”
My stomach turned, a cold, greasy wave rolling through my gut. A scream clawed at the back of my throat, threatening to rise, but I swallowed it down, forcing my hands to remain soft around my glass, my face to stay soft, sweet, docile. Just like Rua would.
I couldn’t settle into his fucking lap like a dog. I couldn’t let him touch me. Wouldn’t.
But I couldn’t insult him. Couldn’t break character. One wrong move and he’d know I wasn’t Rua.
I lowered my lashes, the corners of my mouth curling in a soft smile. “I’d love to, but the doctor said I had to maintain my boundaries in case it triggered me. We don’t want to undo my healing, do we, Daddy?”
His smile froze. Then it warped like a mask tugged too tightly across bone. His jaw ticked as he looked away, smoothing down his pant leg like he was sheathing a blade. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to impede your… healing.”
The way he said healing sounded like a threat.
“I can’t wait to be fully stable, Daddy.” I smiled, set down my glass, and forced a yawn, stretching my arms above my head. “Time for bed.”
His gaze dragged across the strip of exposed skin where my sweater had ridden up, a slow crawl that felt like the stroke of a blade drawn too close to flesh.
It took everything in me not to claw at my own skin. Or seize the poker from the hearth and drive it through his eyes.
I straighten my hem as I stood, relief curling through me like the first breath after drowning. I’d survived. I’d played the game. I could go.
But his hand clamped around my wrist, holding me in place.
Fuck. A final move. One more turn in his sick little game.
I turned back to him, forcing one last saccharine smile. “Yes, Daddy?”
“Don’t take too long, pet. I’ve waited long enough already.” His thumb traced my wrist along the edge of Rua’s bracelet, making bile fill the back of my mouth.
A promise. A threat.
“And I won’t wait forever.”
I sat at my vanity, dusting shimmer across my cheekbones, the kind that caught candlelight and made skin look almost otherworldly. My eyeliner traced sharp wings, but I softened it with silvery shadow, blending it into something ethereal.
The black gown on the bed was stiff and high-necked, as if it had been designed for a Victorian funeral rather than a living person. Nothing I would have chosen on my best day. The thought of pulling it on made my skin crawl.
Lorcan was throwing a Samhain party now that Alistair had been called away on business, thank God. Samhain, the old Celtic festival at the turn of winter, the night when the veil between the living and the dead grew thin. Ireland’s Halloween, except older and darker and nothing to do with candy.
Attending Lorcan’s party tonight felt like a trap.
The thought sat heavy as I curled my hair into flowing waves with a wand.
But I had no choice. The same day after I’d announced I wasn’t going to his stupid party, Finn had walked across the quad rousing everyone’s attention and had personally invited Nuala to come. Nuala had lit up like a child promised fireworks. And of course, she had begged me to go with her.
I kept circling the same suspicion, that this was one of Lorcan’s games. That somehow, he wanted me here, used Finn and Nuala to get me here. Which should have been reason enough to stay away.
But if Nuala showed up here alone, it would be like throwing a kitten into a wolf’s den. I couldn’t do that to her.
A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts. I crossed the room and opened it to an empty corridor. A box sat on the floor at my feet, unmarked except for a folded note tucked beneath the lid.
Wear it.
No signature.
But I knew who’d left it here for me.
I picked it up carefully, stepped out into the corridor, and looked both ways. It was empty. I carried the box back inside and set it on the bed.
I lifted the lid, and the breath went out of me.
Purple silk, so deep it was nearly violet, caught the lamplight in a slow, shifting shimmer.
I lifted the dress out carefully, turning it in my hands.
It fit at the waist and fell into a flowing skirt, elegant and exact.
Pale-purple crystals were worked into the fabric, a scattering of them, catching the light like something alive.
And at the back, draped from the shoulders, two panels of silvery purple silk fell in soft folds, barely there, like folded fairy wings.
It was exactly what I would have picked.
I stood in front of the mirror holding it against myself and couldn’t find a single thing to object to. Beneath the dress in the box, a silver mask lay nestled in the tissue paper, delicate and precise.
Unease threaded through the pleasure of it. Because how would Lorcan know what I would pick?
This dress was something I would have hunted through vintage shops for, something that belonged in my wardrobe, not Rua’s.
Rua would never wear something like this.
He couldn’t know that. He shouldn’t know that.
The low murmur of a woman’s voice drifted into my bedroom, too loud and too clear.
My gaze snapped to the high vent above my desk. Light was spilling through the ornate grate. The vent cover was gone.
I stared at the grate. When had he taken the cover off? Had he been watching me through it without me knowing?
A stupid thrill moved down my spine.
I crossed to my desk, heart thudding against my ribs, needing to know who was in there with him.
Ugh, why did I care? Just go back to getting ready.
But then she giggled, her voice low and seductive and something sharp went through me.
Before I could stop myself, I had climbed up onto the desk so I could peer through the vent. Cool air licked my cheek as I leaned closer.
“Finally, I get a look at your bedroom…” Aoife sauntered across the room, her red skintight dress flicking out from the giant slit in her thigh. Her eyes flicked over the black wood furniture, the unmade bed, the shadows in the corners. “So dark. So masculine. So… you.”
My jaw tightened as something hot and unpleasant twisted low in my stomach.
Lorcan didn’t look up from where he leaned against the desk, rolling a cigarette with deft fingers. “You can wait downstairs with the other guests who arrived early.”
“Don’t play hard to get with me, baby.” Aoife’s giant chandelier diamond earrings caught the lamplight as she took slow steps toward him, hips swaying. “We were good together, remember?”
He didn’t move. “Not good enough to make me forget what a bitch you are.”
For a moment, outrage flashed across her face, tightening her jaw and sharpening her eyes, before she forced a smile and she laughed softly. “You’re so cute when you try to be all cruel.”
She reached for his chest. But he caught her hand from the air, his gaze as cold as the lake outside. “Don’t want you. Not sure how much clearer I can be.”
Something in me loosened in a warm, shameful rush. A small, terrible satisfaction, guilt hard on its heels.
I shouldn’t care. I didn’t.
Something in Aoife’s face shifted, the sweetness dropping away as she snatched her hand away.
Lorcan strode across the room to his door, her on his heels.