24. Liath #2
“This is her fault, isn’t it?” Her voice sharpened, each word laced with venom. “Rua’s done something to you. Got into your head, made you all fucked up over her.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” His jaw flexed, but his voice stayed even as he opened his door and held it open. “Get out of my fucking room before you embarrass yourself any further.”
Aoife’s hands curled at her side into manicured fists before her heels clacked on the floorboards as she stalked out, her voice low and seething. “This isn’t over.”
“Yeah. It is.” Lorcan pushed the door closed behind her. Then his gaze flashed to the vent with a smirk.
I ducked, climbing down off my desk as quietly as I could, unsure if he saw me peeking through.
Or perhaps he knew all along I was there.
By the time I made it down to where the party was being held, the bonfire had already been lit, the smoke causing a faint shrill noise in the back of my head like it was screaming for me to stay away.
The flame punched up into the dark and made the nearby Blackwood Lake shimmer and threw long, lurching shadows across the Lasair grounds.
I walked through the slender gravel paths between the black rosebushes, so dense they looked like walls, and broke out into the clearing.
Silver trays glittered on the surrounding tables. Somewhere behind the costumed and masked crowd stood a champagne waterfall. The whole thing had the quality of a beautiful dream.
I hung by the edge, scanning for Nuala.
Lorcan stood near Rafe and Breezy at the far edge of the firelight, dark shirt open at the collar, his piercing blue eyes set in a black feathered raven mask that covered the top half of his face, revealing his strong jaw.
The cigarette between his fingers had burned down to nothing.
He looked like something out of a myth, a medieval fairy king who’d wandered into the wrong realm.
Something in my chest pulled taut, and I tore my eyes away.
Finally, I found Nuala, wearing a simple pale-blue off-the-shoulder dress, nothing designer, but it sat well on her delicate frame, and it matched the small silver mask she wore, making her look like an ethereal nymph.
She was standing with Finn, easy to spot because he was the kind of large that rearranged your sense of scale. Broad through the shoulder, dark-haired, with easy good looks.
I noticed how close he was standing to Nuala.
My stomach flipped over a little, hoping it was genuine, hoping he wasn’t there to satisfy one of Lorcan’s twisted little machinations.
Finn nodded at me when I walked over, a single dip of his chin.
“Nu, you look savage,” I said to her.
Nuala pulled me into a hug. “You look unreal, too,” she said against my shoulder. “Genuinely, what even is that dress?”
I pulled back. “Oh. Er.” I could not make myself admit that it was Lorcan’s gift. “This old thing.”
Her brows shot up. “This old thing?” She looked at me like I’d personally offended her. “It has to be couture, right? It fits you like it was sown on ye.”
My skin prickled, because the dress did fit. It fit the way something made specifically for a body fits, every seam sitting where it should.
Somehow, Lorcan had studied me closely enough to know my measurements. The shiver moved down my arms before I could stop it.
I glanced up without meaning to.
Through the flames, Lorcan’s eyes were already on me. He hadn’t moved. The cigarette was gone, both hands in his pockets now, as he watched me through the firelight, his face giving absolutely nothing away.
I had the stupid urge to turn, to hold up my skirts as if to say, See, I wore it.
I held his look, searching those cold eyes for approval or contempt or anything. He gave me nothing.
Rafe leaned in and thumped Lorcan’s shoulder, laughing at something he’d just said.
A thud landed on my own shoulder, hard enough that I flinched and my hand flew up to the ghost bruise.
Fuck. Not again. Not here.
I tried to make it look like I was just adjusting the strap of my dress.
But Lorcan had seen.
His gaze dropped to my shoulder, and now it was lifting back to my face, slow and considering.
He turned his head to answer Rafe, his mouth moving with whatever he was saying. But his eyes never left mine.
He thumped Rafe back on the shoulder, his fingers landing flat against the dark fabric of his friend’s jacket.
Across the fire, the corner of Lorcan’s mouth lifted. Just a fraction. Not a smile. The quiet face of a man whose theory had just held.
A cold wave of realization washed over me.
He just tested me.
He had felt his shoulder get hit and watched my body answer. Then he had hit someone else and watched my body do nothing. Deargán had experimented on me, too, before he used my mirror-touch reaction to him against me.
Fuck. And now Lorcan knew.
My jaw was tight when I looked away.
“Christ on a stick.” Nuala breathed, her attention cutting past my shoulder.
Bridgit was moving through the crowd toward Elias—or trying to.
Her path kept wavering, each step a little off, her body swaying like the ground wasn’t holding still under her.
One strap of her dress had slipped and her lipstick had rubbed away at one corner of her mouth.
Her eyes were glassy and overbright, fixed on Elias with stubborn, messy determination.
“Is she okay?” I asked, though I already knew she wasn’t.
Nuala was already moving. She stepped out and caught Bridgit’s arm gently, angling her away from Elias’s orbit. “Hey, B. Come chill with us.”
I came around to Bridgit’s other side, looping my arm through hers before she could break away. “Yeah, you have to tell me where you got your dress.”
Nuala shot me a grateful look over her sister’s head.
But Bridgit’s eyes stayed on Elias across the fire, where he was standing close to another student, laughing at something she’d said, his hand at the small of her back, his eyes shamelessly aimed down her low-cut top.
“He s-said I was s-special,” Bridgit said, her bottom lip trembling.
Nuala’s expression went flat, her lips pressed hard as she shot Elias a glare. “I’ll kill the bastard,” she muttered under her breath.
Finn didn’t say anything. He simply shifted, repositioning himself between Bridgit and Elias, his broad torso sliding into her sightline, blocking him from her sight.
Bridgit had stopped straining to look past him. Her voice dropped low and loose, the words slipping over each other.
“They’re on me,” she muttered, dragging a hand over her bare arm like she was trying to brush something off. “I can’t make it stop.”
Nuala’s grip tightened on her arm.
“Every time I close my eyes, I just…” She shook her head. “And then he says things, and I don’t know if he said them or if I dreamed them or if…” Her sentence trailed off, her glassy eyes blinking slowly. “Crawling on me. I swear to God.”
Nuala looked up at Finn, then at me. She let out a slow breath. “Sorry. I’ve got to get her out of here.”
Finn’s hand settled at the small of her back. “I’ll drive you.”
Nuala blinked up at him. “Oh, you don’t have to—”
“I’m driving you,” he repeated, gentle yet final.
Nuala’s cheeks went pink. She nodded.
They walked off, Bridgit between them, and the crowd filled the gap they left like water. The fire crackled. Behind me, a group of students erupted in laughter. The champagne waterfall kept shimmering in the firelight.
And I was on my own.